Project Veritas Exposes Pfizer - Project Veritas

 

by Project Veritas

Pfizer Executive: ‘Mutate’ COVID via ‘Directed Evolution’ for Company to Continue Profiting Off of Vaccines … ‘COVID is Going to be a Cash Cow for Us’ … ‘That is Not What We Say to the Public’ … ‘People Won’t Like That’ … ‘Don’t Tell Anyone’

 

• Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations - mRNA Scientific Planner: “One of the things we're exploring is like, why don't we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create -- preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we're gonna do that though, there's a risk of like, as you could imagine -- no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses.”

• Walker: “Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them.”

• Walker: “You have to be very controlled to make sure that this virus [COVID] that you mutate doesn’t create something that just goes everywhere. Which, I suspect, is the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest. It makes no sense that this virus popped out of nowhere. It’s bullsh*t.”

• Walker: “From what I’ve heard is they [Pfizer scientists] are optimizing it [COVID mutation process], but they’re going slow because everyone is very cautious -- obviously they don’t want to accelerate it too much. I think they are also just trying to do it as an exploratory thing because you obviously don’t want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations.”

[NEW YORK – Jan. 25, 2023] Project Veritas released a new video today exposing a Pfizer executive, Jordon Trishton Walker, who claims that his company is exploring a way to “mutate” COVID via “Directed Evolution” to preempt the development of future vaccines.

Watch the Video on Project Veritas site

Walker says that Directed Evolution is different than Gain-of-Function, which is defined as “a mutation that confers new or enhanced activity on a protein.” In other words, it means that a virus such as COVID can become more potent depending on the mutation / scientific experiment performed on it.

The Pfizer executive told a Veritas journalist about his company’s plan for COVID vaccines, while acknowledging that people would not like this information if it went public.

“One of the things we [Pfizer] are exploring is like, why don't we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create -- preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we're gonna do that though, there's a risk of like, as you could imagine -- no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses,” Walker said.

“From what I’ve heard is they [Pfizer scientists] are optimizing it [COVID mutation process], but they’re going slow because everyone is very cautious -- obviously they don’t want to accelerate it too much. I think they are also just trying to do it as an exploratory thing because you obviously don’t want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations,” he said.

“Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them.”

Walker drew parallels between this current Pfizer project and what may have happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

“You have to be very controlled to make sure that this virus [COVID] that you mutate doesn’t create something that just goes everywhere. Which, I suspect, is the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest. It makes no sense that this virus popped out of nowhere. It’s bullsh*t,” he said.

“You’re not supposed to do Gain-of-Function research with viruses. Regularly not. We can do these selected structure mutations to make them more potent. There is research ongoing about that. I don’t know how that is going to work. There better not be any more outbreaks because Jesus Christ,” he said.

Walker also told the Veritas journalist that COVID has been instrumental for Pfizer’s recent business success:

Walker:Part of what they [Pfizer scientists] want to do is, to some extent, to try to figure out, you know, how there are all these new strains and variants that just pop up. So, it’s like trying to catch them before they pop up and we can develop a vaccine prophylactically, like, for new variants. So, that’s why they like, do it controlled in a lab, where they say this is a new epitope, and so if it comes out later on in the public, we already have a vaccine working.

Veritas Journalist:Oh my God. That’s perfect. Isn’t that the best business model though? Just control nature before nature even happens itself? Right?

Walker:Yeah. If it works.

Veritas Journalist:What do you mean if it works?

Walker:Because some of the times there are mutations that pop up that we are not prepared for. Like with Delta and Omicron. And things like that. Who knows? Either way, it’s going to be a cash cow. COVID is going to be a cash cow for us for a while going forward. Like obviously.

Veritas Journalist:Well, I think the whole research of the viruses and mutating it, like, would be the ultimate cash cow.

Walker:Yeah, it’d be perfect.

Walker went on to explain how Big Pharma and government officials, such as at the Food & Drug Administration [FDA], have mutual interests, and how that is not in the best interest of the American people:

Walker:[Big Pharma] is a revolving door for all government officials.

Veritas Journalist:Wow.

Walker:In any industry though. So, in the pharma industry, all the people who review our drugs -- eventually most of them will come work for pharma companies. And in the military, defense government officials eventually work for defense companies afterwards.

…

Veritas Journalist:How do you feel about that revolving door?

Walker:It’s pretty good for the industry to be honest. It’s bad for everybody else in America.

Veritas Journalist:Why is it bad for everybody else?

Walker:Because when the regulators reviewing our drugs know that once they stop regulating, they are going to work for the company, they are not going to be as hard towards the company that’s going to give them a job.

 

About Project Veritas

James O'Keefe established Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society and to engage in litigation to: protect, defend and expand human and civil rights secured by law, specifically First Amendment rights including promoting the free exchange of ideas in a digital world; combat and defeat censorship of any ideology; promote truthful reporting; and defend freedom of speech and association issues including the right to anonymity. O'Keefe serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board so that he can continue to lead and teach his fellow journalists, as well as protect and nurture the Project Veritas culture.

Project Veritas

Source: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/pfizer-executive-mutate-covid-via-directed-evolution-for-company-to-continue/

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'Results are changing quickly': Media, Big Tech take pains to bury Pfizer 'mutate' video - Greg Piper

 

by Greg Piper

FDA declines to say whether it asked Pfizer for explanation of undercover video. Tucker Carlson producer claims Google staffer "call[ed] us to kill the story." Tabloid quickly erases report with no explanation.

Undercover video that purportedly shows a Pfizer executive explaining the company's "directed evolution" plan to keep COVID-19 a "cash cow," then furiously backpedaling when Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe exposes the ruse, has drawn intense curiosity from members of Congress but intermittent Big Tech throttling and a partial media blackout.

Despite the fact that the figure identified as Jordon Walker belatedly called himself a "liar … trying to impress a person on a date," played the race card in requesting police involvement, and physically attacked O'Keefe and the film crew, a prominent tabloid inexplicably removed its article on the sting.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) demanded a congressional investigation of "vaccine manufacturers and the entire COVID vaccine approval process," while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) asked Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla to explain the company's actual or possible plans to mutate SARS-CoV-2 and any related discussions with industry peers or government officials. 

The FDA declined either to answer whether it was following up with Pfizer for an explanation of the figure's comments or give the agency's interpretation of the video, telling Just the News to contact Pfizer, which has not responded to queries going back to Thursday afternoon.

 

The figure identified as Walker claimed regulators would not closely scrutinize Pfizer's "exploratory" efforts because of the revolving door between government officials and pharmaceutical companies. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb joined Pfizer's board two months after leaving the Trump administration.

The sting victim also previewed a potential explanation from Pfizer to Congress by denying to his fraudulent date that "directed evolution" is "gain-of-function" research, the subject of ongoing inquiries from lawmakers. He speculated the initial Wuhan COVID outbreak was the result of insufficiently controlled mutations.

Search engines are giving unexpected results for the controversy. Neither Google nor privacy-focused Brave, which last year poached users upset with DuckDuckGo's pledge to bury Russian "disinformation," returned first-page results from Project Veritas itself in Just the News searches for "project veritas pfizer."

Both surface purported fact-checks of the video and the trickle of mainstream media coverage in The Hill and local media, and both included an October 2021 fact-check of an earlier Project Veritas video about Pfizer.

Newsweek's fact-check begins by aiming to discredit Project Veritas based on previous mainstream media fact-checks and then analyzes it line by line, at one point downplaying the potential problems gain-of-function research can cause.

Several Twitter users shared Google screenshots reading "results are changing quickly" and explaining that "reliable" information was still indexing. The recurring misspelling of Walker's first name in searches didn't prompt Google to suggest his correct name as it typically does with typos.

Google hid primary sources, including Walker's LinkedIn page, which Brave did return in its pre-scrubbed form as of Wednesday night, confirming Walker's role at Pfizer. 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson highlighted Google's then-blackout of the controversy on his Thursday program, saying it illustrates the power of the pharmaceutical industry. Carlson's producer Gregg Re claimed that a Google staffer who used to work for Fox "call[ed] us to kill the story."

Sen. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) told Carlson this was par for the course with Google, which, he alleged, "changed their algorithm to benefit Joe Biden" during the general election campaign, rigs results to promote Google's favored views, and has showered campaign cash on both parties to evade accountability.

Brave Software Head of Communications Catherine Corre told Just the News the old fact-check about Project Veritas showed up high in results because the source, the Poynter Institute, made an "invisible" meta tag update a few days ago, meaning the page "was labeled as 'fresh'" in Brave's search engine. It's fixing the bug, she said.

"Brave Search is an independent search engine and we do not censor results," nor does it apply blocks or rules to disfavor content other than child sexual abuse material, Corre said. "We do not prioritize so-called 'fact checkers' in any way." She didn't answer why Project Veritas itself didn't appear in first-page results, but said its rankings depend on "relevancy to the query, freshness, page popularity, etc."

Google didn't answer Re's claim about trying to kill Carlson's story but told Just the News the "changing quickly" notices have been triggered millions of times since the feature's rollout a year and half ago.

They appear automatically when "a range of sources have not yet weighed in" and they don't block results, a Google spokesperson said. The query "herschel urged woman abortion she says," referring to recent U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker, provoked the notice, for example.

"Political ideology is not a signal our systems understand" and Google does not "manually manipulate web listings" for ranking purposes, the spokesperson said.

The Daily Mail took down its report on the Project Veritas sting apparently within two hours of going live early Thursday morning, according to an archive of the page and baffled social media users. The report said it has asked Pfizer for comment.

MSN republished the Daily Mail report and removed it just as quickly. That version's metadata still shows up in Brave results as of Friday afternoon, but Just the News has not been able to find archives or caches. Google slapped the search with the same "changing quickly" label.

Human Events noted the disappearance of the Daily Mail and MSN reports in a story written by Project Veritas Press Secretary R.C. Maxwell, which said neither website responded to questions.

Carlson and social media users speculated the disappearances and broader media blackout, which includes CNN and MSNBC, were related to Pfizer's heavy advertising spending in mainstream media. The company paused its advertising on Twitter following billionaire Elon Musk's takeover, according to The Wall Street Journal, due to concerns about a pullback on content moderation.

The Daily Mail, however, has recently run other unflattering Pfizer stories. It reported Friday the FDA found a potentially higher risk of stroke in people who get Pfizer's bivalent COVID vaccine and a flu shot the same day. It also emphasized Bourla's pay package and the tripling of Pfizer's revenue since 2019, when the CEO was accosted by critical journalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Greg Piper

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/results-are-changing-quickly-media-big-tech-take-pains-bury-pfizer

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DirecTV Shuts Down Newsmax - Lloyd Billingsley

 

by Lloyd Billingsley

Congressional Republicans brand the move censorship - and call for hearings.

 

Just before midnight on Tuesday, DirecTV shut down Newsmax, a move the satellite service portrays as part of a contract dispute. Newsmax and many others don’t see it that way.

“This is a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax,” said Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy. “The most extreme liberal channels, even with tiny ratings, get fees from AT&T’s DirecTV, but Newsmax and OAN [One America News Network] need to be deplatformed.”

Last year, House Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney pressed cable and satellite providers about their decision to carry Fox News, OAN and Newsmax. The Democrats accused the conservative outlets of serving as “misinformation rumor mills and conspiracy theory hotbeds that produce content that leads to real harm.”

Fox, the most watched cable news channel in 2020,  responded that “For individual members of Congress to highlight political speech they do not like and demand cable distributors engage in viewpoint discrimination sets a terrible precedent.”  Newsxmax responded in similar fashion.

“The House Democrats’ attack on free speech and basic First Amendment rights should send chills down the spines of all Americans,” Newsmax said in a statement. “Newsmax reported fairly and accurately on allegations and claims made by both sides during the recent election contest. We did not see that same balanced coverage when CNN and MSNBC pushed for years the Russian collusion hoax, airing numerous claims and interviews with Democrat leaders that turned out to be patently false.”

The Democrats’ letter prompted DirecTV to deplatform OAN, followed by Newsmax on Tuesday. That brought a quick response Newsmax host Sebastian Gorka.

“Yeah, absolutely stunning,” Gorka said. “I mean, a more blatant example of politically-motivated censorship is hard to imagine. And this coming as we have all the revelations, thanks to Elon Musk at Twitter, of government-sponsored censorship. Is this something being done in league with the White House, with the DNC? We don’t know, but we know the facts of the case, that Newsmax was asking for fair remuneration, which is exactly the same for the top 75 channels on DirecTV, 22 of which, 22 are hardcore left-wing news channels.”

According to Gorka, DirecTV shut down Newsmax, “because Newsmax is growing in popularity, it’s growing in influence, and they want to shut down a voice that isn’t the mainstream lying media, but actually brings the facts to all of our viewers.” The shutdown of Newsmax also brought a response from Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican.

“This is censorship by companies like AT&T of conservative voices,” Scott said. “They’re trying to shut down our voices.”

As the Washington Examiner reports, Texas Republican Wesley Hunt wrote a letter telling DirecTV he was “deeply troubled by DirecTV’s decision to remove Newsmax from their lineup of channels.” According to Hunt, the deplatforming was “the latest development in the Left’s ongoing campaign to purge voices they disagree with from the public sphere” and would “cut off tens of millions of viewers who rely on Newsmax for their news and information.”

Newsmax streams live on YouTube but for supporters in Congress that’s not enough.

“So we need to hold hearings here,” Sen. Scott told reporters. “We’ve got to fight for this. The American public has to show up.”

*

Action You Can Take to Fight AT&T DirecTV’s Censorship:

1. If you’re a DirecTV customer call them toll free at 877-763-9762 and demand they bring NEWSMAX back on air or you can CANCEL!

• [When you speak to a live operator, let them know you’re aware NEWSMAX’s live stream is ending soon on other platforms, so unless you get it on DIRECTV you will have to cancel their service.]
• If you are an AT&T customer for any of their products or services, call them and demand they end their censorship of NEWSMAX or you will cancel. Call AT&T toll free at 888-855-2338

2. Call your Member of Congress or Senator at 202-224-3121 and demand they stop AT&T and DirecTV’s censorship of conservative media like NEWSMAX!

3. Go to Newsmax’s online petition and get more info at: iWantNewsmax.com

Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Yes I Con: United Fakes of America, Barack ‘Em Up: A Literary Investigation, Hollywood Party, and numerous other works.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/directv-shuts-down-newsmax/

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Terror in Jerusalem: Seven dead in shooting in synagogue in Neve Yaakov neighborhood - Elad Benari

 

by Elad Benari

Terrorist opens fire at worshipers in Ateret Avraham Synagogue in Neve Yaakov neighborhood. Terrorist neutralized by police. Ben Gvir, Netanyahu arrive at the scene.

 

Security forces and rescue forces at scene of Neve Yaakov shooting attackOlivier Fitoussi/Flash 90

At least seven people were killed and several others were injured, including one critically, in a shooting attack on the Ateret Avraham Synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem on Friday evening.

Magen David Adom paramedics evacuated five injured people to hospitals, including three who were evacuated to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and two who were evacuated to Shaare Zedek Hospital. These include a man about 30 years old in critical condition and a woman about 60 years of age in moderate condition.

Initial reports indicate that a terrorist got out of a vehicle and opened fire at people who were gathered outside the synagogue, opened fire at them, and then continued to pursue frightened worshipers who were fleeing the scene.

The terrorist eventually fled the scene in a white Toyota and was met by police officers who shot him dead.

The terrorist has been identified as Alkam Khairi, a 21-year-old resident of eastern Jerusalem.

Scene of shooting attack in Neve YaakovOlivier Fitoussi/Flash 90

The Israel Police said, “The initial investigation of the terrorist's identity suggests that he committed the terrorist attack by himself. Findings suggest that he is a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem.”

“Following the initial reports, police forces were dispatched to the scene and engaged with the terrorist while he was fleeing the scene, minutes from when the initial reports were received. By doing so, officers prevented further massacre and killing of innocent civilians,” the statement continued.

“Following a pursuit and fire exchange with the terrorist, police officers neutralized the terrorist and he was pronounced dead. 7 civilians were killed in the attack and 3 additional were injured.”

“The weapon and vehicle used by the terrorist were apprehended by police forces. Security forces are continuing activity to check for others involved in the attack,” concluded the statement.

Israel Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai said, "This is a serious and complex attack with a large number of victims. We are currently conducting searches in the area to rule out the possibility that there are more people involved who are walking around freely. The terrorist was neutralized by a police officer and a volunteer of the Israel Police, which prevented a bigger attack."

Superintendent Doron Turgeman, commander of the Jerusalem district of the Israel Police, provided an update at the scene.

"The terrorist arrived at Neve Yaakov Boulevard, opened fire, hit several people, continued in his car and drove in the general direction of Beit Hanina. The police officers at the scene received a report and began to strive for contact. They recognized the vehicle which began to fire at them, they began pursuing him. The terrorist began to flee on foot, the police chased after him and succeeded in neutralizing him."

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir arrived at the scene and was briefed by police on the situation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the scene as well.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was on a trip abroad, has cut short his trip and will return to Israel. On the way, he held an assessment of the situation with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar, Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir and other top defense officials.

At the conclusion of the assessment of the situation, the minister said, "This is a serious and sad attack against civilians on the eve of Shabbat. The defense establishment under my leadership will act strongly and uncompromisingly against terrorism and will reach all those involved in the attack."

Opposition leader Yair Lapid commented on the attack and said, “A difficult and painful Erev Shabbat. The heart breaks when seeing the difficult sights. Terror in a synagogue, a criminal terrorist, a cold-blooded killer. I send my condolences to the families who lost their dearest and wish recovery to the injured. The security forces neutralized the terrorist and will lay hands on anyone who helped him.”

“Terrorism must not be allowed to rear its head, the terrorists and their senders must be dealt with harshly,” he added.

Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman said, “A shocking massacre tonight in Jerusalem. I send condolences to the families of the murdered, strengthen the security forces operating in the field and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded. The government must exact a heavy price from the perpetrators of the attack and their senders.”

Labor chairwoman MK Merav Michaeli commented, “A difficult and cruel evening with the terrible attack in Jerusalem. The serious terrorism rears its head and murderously crushes Israeli families. My heart goes out to the victims and the families of the murdered.”

“This terrorism must be fought hard and without compromise,” she added.

Ra’am chairman MK Mansour Abbas said, "We condemn every attack in which civilians and innocents are murdered. We call on everyone to exercise restraint and cooperate in order to calm the situation."

credit: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90

credit: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90

credit: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90

credit: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90

Elad Benari

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/366570

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Father, son shot by 13-year-old at City of David in second attack in Jerusalem in 24 hours - Gadi Zaig

 

by Gadi Zaig

The shooter was shot quickly by two nearby civilians carrying licensed weapons.

 

Police and rescue personnel at the scene of a shooting attack in the City of David, in East Jerusalem, on January 28, 2023.

(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Two people were injured in a suspected terror attack at the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem in the second attack in Jerusalem in the past 24 hours.

The shooter opened fire on Ma'alot Street, near the entrance to the site. The shooter was shot quickly by two nearby civilians carrying licensed weapons and is now being held and treated in a police ambulance, Israel Police said. A police spokesperson told Army Radio that the incident was a terror attack.

The terrorist is reportedly a 13-year-old resident of east Jerusalem. The weapon he carried was seized by police shortly after he was neutralized, Maariv reported.

The teenager reportedly traveled to the area by bus, according to N12. Security footage showed the terrorist lurking behind cars before shooting at the two victims.

An IDF soldier was also lightly injured in the incident. He later sought medial treatment and his family was notified.

Police and Shin Bet forces arrived at the scene within a few minutes due to the heightened alertness of the police. Police are currently investigating the shooter's identity, and searches are underway in the area in an attempt to find out if he had any assistance, according to Maariv.

פיגוע ירי בעיר דוד | דובר מד"א זכי הלר: "גבר בן 47 וצעיר בן 23 נפצעו באורח בינוני עד קשה עם פגיעות ירי בפלג גוף עליון. הם מטופלים בבית החולים. שניהם בהכרה מלאה" pic.twitter.com/TICmwrHwG6

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) January 28, 2023

MDA paramedics have arrived onto the scene and began providing treatment to those injured.

The people injured in the incident

Those injured include a 22-year-old man and a 45-year-old man, both in serious but stable condition with injuries to their upper bodies. The two were evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, according to an MDA spokesperson. The man in his twenties is an MDA volunteer and the older man is his father.

פיגוע נוסף בבירה תוך יממה | זירת הפיגוע בעיר דוד (צילום: מד"א)@noabaranes10 pic.twitter.com/5UeNGFJuGL

— גלצ (@GLZRadio) January 28, 2023

"We quickly arrived at the scene and saw the victims. They were fully conscious and suffered gunshot wounds to their upper bodies," said MDA paramedic Fadi Dekidak. "We quickly put him in an intensive care unit and evacuated them with life-saving medical treatment to Shaare Zedek Hospital."

The US Department of Defense condemned the attack, with Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder stating: "We are in close contact with our Israeli partners and stand firmly with them in the face of this attack." 

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem welcomed the attack, saying: "The heroic action in Silwan is a confirmation of the continuation of the resistance action in all the occupied territories, and in response to the crimes of the occupation against our people in the holy places."

"The heroic action in Silwan is a confirmation of the continuation of the resistance action in all the occupied territories, and in response to the crimes of the occupation against our people in the holy places."

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem

The incident occurred the day after the terror attack at the synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood in Jerusalem.

This is a developing story.

Gadi Zaig

Source: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-729892

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Israeli army reinforces in West Bank after synagogue shooting - Reuters

 

by Reuters

The terror attacks came after an IDF raid in Jenin in which nine Palestinians were killed.

 

Israeli security forces and rescue forces at the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaakov, Jerusalem, January 27, 2023.

(photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)

Israel's military said it was boosting its forces in the West Bank a day after a Palestinian gunman shot dead seven people on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and another shooting attack in the city on Saturday wounded two people.

The attacks come towards the end of a month of growing confrontation and follow an Israeli raid in the West Bank that killed nine Palestinians, including seven gunmen, and cross-border fire between Israel and Gaza that heightened fears of a spiral in bloodshed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new cabinet, which includes hardline nationalist parties that have called for stronger action against Palestinians, was due to meet later on Saturday.

Friday's attack outside a synagogue was the deadliest in the city area since 2008. The gunman, Khairi Alqam, was a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem, according to police. He struck in an area that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 war.

Police said he had tried to flee by car but was pursued by officers and shot dead. Forty-two suspects, including members of the gunman's family, had been arrested, the police said.

Israeli security forces and rescue forces at the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaakov, Jerusalem, January 27, 2023 (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)

On Saturday, police said a 13-year-old boy from East Jerusalem opened fire and wounded two people before he was shot and wounded by passers-by.

That incident took place in the City of David near Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem that lies below the Old City walls.

The attacks underlined the potential for an escalation in violence after months of clashes in the West Bank culminating in a raid in Jenin on Thursday that killed at least nine Palestinians, the deadliest such raid in years.

"Following an IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) situational assessment, it was decided to reinforce the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Division with an additional battalion," the military said.

On Friday night far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the site of the attack, where he was greeted with a mixture of cheers and anger. "The government has to respond, God willing this is what will happen," he said.

Netanyahu urged people not to take the law into their own hands but said measures had been decided.

Condemnation

Friday's shooting, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was condemned by the White House and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who urged "utmost restraint." It came days before a planned visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel and the West Bank.

Jordan and Egypt, Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel, condemned the shooting as did the United Arab Emirates, one of several Arab states that normalized relations with Israel just over two years ago.

Lebanon's Iran-backed group Hezbollah praised the attack and a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas hailed it as "a response to the crime conducted by the occupation in Jenin and a natural response to the occupation's criminal actions."

The smaller militant group Islamic Jihad also praised the attack without claiming responsibility.

Illustrating the simmering violence, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday three Palestinians were taken to hospital after being shot by an Israeli in an incident near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Scene at synagogue

Police said the gunman in the Friday attack in Jerusalem arrived at 8:15 p.m. and opened fire with a handgun, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police.

Shimon Israel, 56, who lives nearby, said his family was starting their Shabbat dinner when they heard shooting and screaming. He opened the window and saw his neighbor running on the street to get the police.

"I told him 'Eli, don't go there. Eli don't go.' He got married only a year ago. A good neighbor, like a brother. He ran. I saw him fall there," Israel told Reuters.

"Natali, his wife, ran after him. She saw someone here and was trying to resuscitate him. The terrorist came and shot her from behind and got her too," he said.

Earlier on Friday, militants in Gaza fired rockets at Israel, causing no casualties but drawing air strikes by Israeli jets, which struck targets in the blockaded coastal strip controlled by Hamas.

Violence in the West Bank surged after a spate of lethal attacks in Israel last year. The latest season of violence began under the previous coalition government and has continued under Netanyahu's right-wing administration, which includes parties that want to expand settlements in the West Bank.

Before Friday's shooting, at least 30 Palestinians - militants and civilians - had been killed this year and the Palestinian Authority said it was suspending a security cooperation arrangement with Israel.

Reuters

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-729896

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Biden Administration's Total Disregard for Iran's Protestors, Nuclear Threat - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

What will it take for the Biden administration finally to help the young men and women of Iran who have been fighting so hard for their freedom?

• Iran's mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program's capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

• Iran is selling Russia drones and other material; is Russia "paying" for them by helping the mullahs complete their nuclear weapons undertaking?

• Just last week, the US Department of State declared Iran the "world's leading sponsor of terrorism." This is the same State Department that had allowed the mullahs to brutally crack down on and kill their own people, deliver drones and other deadly weapons to their ally Russia; freely increase their influence in Latin America, and rapidly advance their nuclear weapons program. What will it take for the Biden administration finally to help the young men and women of Iran who have been fighting so hard for their freedom?

Iran's mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program's capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon. (Image source: iStock)

Since the Biden administration assumed office, Iran's ruling mullahs have seized the opportunity to continuously advance their nuclear program, which is currently a short step away from manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Iran's mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program's capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

Zohar Palti, the former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's political-military bureau and former intelligence director in the Mossad, recently stated: "They [the Iranian leaders] are days or weeks away from enriching uranium to 90 percent, which is military-grade".

Enriching uranium at 60% is far beyond the 3.7% that is needed for a civilian nuclear energy program. Even France, Germany and the United Kingdom warned in a statement that "This step, which carries significant proliferation-related risks, has no credible civilian justification," and added that the Iranian government's latest actions are "further reducing the time Iran would take to break out toward a first nuclear weapon and... fueling distrust as to Iran's intentions....".

Concerning the danger of enriching uranium at 60%, Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), recently said:

"This is something that has consequences. It gives them an inventory of nuclear material for which it cannot be excluded... that there might be another use. We need to go. We need to verify".

One of the critical issues is that the IAEA has been having a bit of difficulty monitoring Iran's nuclear activities: the ruling mullahs have been restricting the ability of IAEA inspectors to monitor their nuclear sites. The Iranian authorities turned off two of the United Nations surveillance cameras and deactivated the cameras that helped the IAEA monitor Tehran's nuclear activity.

The violations by the Iranian regime come at a critical time: the Iranian regime is reportedly digging an underground nuclear facility in Natanz, in addition to its Fordow nuclear facility, reportedly difficult to bomb but "not impregnable."

"Fordow is already viewed as so deeply buried," David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, pointed out, "that it would be difficult to destroy via aerial attack. The new Natanz site may be even harder to destroy."

The Iranian regime most likely halted its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog so it would not have to provide any explanation for its clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites, previously identified by the IAEA at three locations in Iran.

"We have to sit down urgently if possible to see how we continue with this," Grossi warned. "Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the agency's findings at three undeclared locations in Iran."

The Iranian regime may, in fact, have begun already enriching uranium at the 90% level required for the production of a nuclear bomb. Iran is selling Russia drones and other material; is Russia "paying" for them by helping the mullahs complete their nuclear weapons undertaking?

The Biden administration has most likely been the best gift Iran could ever have hoped for. Just last week, the US Department of State declared Iran the "world's leading sponsor of terrorism." This is the same State Department that had allowed the mullahs to brutally crack down on and kill their own people, deliver drones and other deadly weapons to their ally Russia; freely increase their influence in Latin America, and rapidly advance their nuclear weapons program. What will it take for the Biden administration finally to help the young men and women of Iran who have been fighting so hard for their freedom?

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

 
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19343/iran-nuclear-threat

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'The Shame of Pakistan': Blasphemy Accusers - Nasir Saeed

 

by Nasir Saeed

Courageous Christian Woman Stands Up to Them

• "Pakistan was to review its harsh blasphemy laws. It has made them even harsher...The National Assembly has unanimously passed an amendment to the laws that widens the net and makes punishment more stringent under these laws.... The blasphemy laws are often misused in Pakistan to settle personal scores. It is also used to persecute its small minorities." [Emphasis in the original] – Daily O, January 18, 2023.

• Those who make false accusations do not care that innocent Christians may end up dead or in miserable prison conditions for years on end or be forced into hiding with their entire family, not knowing what will become of them, all the while in fear for their lives.

• Worse, some are prepared to kill under the cover of religion and become -- a hero.

• Again and again, we see the victims being treated as criminals by those in positions of authority while the perpetrators are let off scot-free and even hailed as heroes. All the while, politicians who actually have the power to change this state of affairs refuse even to discuss the matter in Parliament. When people such as M. P. Bhandara and Sherry Rehman dare to speak up, they receive the inevitable death threats. For Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, Christian Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman, these death threats were carried out.

• [H]ere we still are with nothing done to change what truly is the shame of Pakistan. The law still is as it is: innocent people continue to be accused of blasphemy and killed.

• Christians need to be grateful for the way in which [Samina Mushtaq] courageously brought the truth about blasphemy to the forefront and stirred up a national debate. We need much more of it. Lawmakers need to change the laws before more unjust killings.

Nothing has been done to change what truly is the shame of Pakistan: innocent people continue to be accused of blasphemy and killed. Pictured: A protest in Karachi, Pakistan on December 4, 2021 denouncing the lynching in the country of a Sri Lankan factory manager, who was beaten to death and set ablaze by a mob who accused him of blasphemy. (Photo by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images)

"Pakistan was to review its harsh blasphemy laws. It has made them even harsher," according to a report from this month. "The National Assembly has unanimously passed an amendment to the laws that widens the net and makes punishment more stringent under these laws... The blasphemy laws are often misused in Pakistan to settle personal scores. It is also used to persecute its small minorities." [Emphasis in the original]

Recently in Pakistan, however, an encouraging sign emerged: an interesting uproar on social media about a Christian female security officer who bravely stood up to a Muslim colleague threatening her with a false accusation of blasphemy .

Samina Mushtaq was working at her job with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in Karachi when her colleague insisted that a car be allowed to be parked within the perimeter.

When she refused on the grounds that he did not have the necessary permission, he started intimidating and threatening her, and saying that he would accuse her of committing blasphemy and kill her.

Thankfully, Mushtaq recorded the entire conversation on her smartphone and the video went viral on January 5. It is likely that her quick thinking saved her life -- and more than that, they have shone an important light on how brazenly Pakistan's blasphemy laws are misused for personal agendas, even trivial ones.

It is to the CAA's credit that they are taking action against Mushtaq's colleague and have launched an investigation into the incident. This investigation needs to be thorough, impartial and concluded promptly rather than be allowed to drag on endlessly and eventually swept under the carpet. The CAA also needs to have the courage to take any necessary action against the man in question.

Mushtaq, too, must be brave, because Muslim leaders will no doubt put pressure on their Christian counterparts to persuade her to pardon her colleague so that the matter will be dropped and that she will not file a criminal complaint against him.

Ultimately, it is up to her, but there is a bigger issue at stake than the goings-on of the CAA and its employees: the constant misuse of the blasphemy laws against innocent Christians.

As Mushtaq's case shows, this sword can be wielded at any moment, without warning, with potentially deadly consequences for the accused. It is not a laughing matter. The country's legislators need to take it seriously and bring forward serious legislation that will finally put a stop to false accusations of blasphemy.

It is not as if we haven't been here before. Sadly, we have been here many, many times and it is always the same story. A disgruntled Muslim does not get his (or her) way, so uses the blasphemy laws to take matters into his own hands and settle a petty dispute, all because he knows that he can do so with impunity.

Those who make false accusations do not care that innocent Christians may end up dead or in miserable prison conditions for years on end or be forced into hiding with their entire family, not knowing what will become of them, all the while in fear for their lives.

Worse, some are prepared to murder under the cover of religion and become -- a hero. Often such criminals escape the law because their criminal acts are not just ignored, but supported and hailed by the public and the elites, with very few if these murderers ever being brought to justice.

This is a scenario that Tabita, a Christian nurse and gospel singer, knows all too well. She had been working at the Sobhraj Maternity Hospital in Karachi for nine years when, in 2021, her colleagues tied her up and locked her in a room after accusing her of blasphemy. Police officers took her into custody and after investigating, concluded that the charges against her were baseless; simply the result of a misunderstanding between colleagues. Despite being cleared of all charges, she was still forced to go into hiding, perhaps for the rest of her life.

The same year, Christian nurses Maryam Lal and Navish Arooj were accused of blasphemy for supposedly removing an Islamic sticker from a cupboard in Faisalabad's Civil Hospital. Police registered a case against them despite it being known that the accuser had verbally abused both nurses and attacked Lal with a knife. Unsurprisingly, the accuser continues to work at the hospital and has been hailed a hero, while Lal and Arooj live in hiding.

In a similar case, three Christian nurses at the Punjab Institute of Mental Health in Lahore, were falsely accused of blasphemy. Sakina Bibi, Jessica Khurram and Treeza Eric were accused after one of the nurses shared a video of someone speaking about the Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Party in a staff WhatsApp group. Some Muslim nurses reacted by desecrating the hospital chapel, and threatening to convert it into a mosque. Peace was only restored after local Muslim and Christian leaders intervened. No action was taken against the Muslim nurses.

Again and again, we see the victims being treated as criminals by those in positions of authority while the perpetrators are let off scot-free and even hailed as heroes. All the while, politicians who actually have the power to change this state of affairs refuse even to discuss the matter in Parliament. When people such as M. P. Bhandara and Sherry Rehman dare to speak up, they receive the inevitable death threats. For Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, Christian Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman, these death threats were carried out.

Pakistan was genuinely shaken to the core by the vigilante lynching of Sri Lankan factory manager Piryantha Kumara in Sialkot over blasphemy allegations. Even Pakistan's prime minister at the time, Imran Khan, called the murder "horrific;" a "day of shame for Pakistan;" promised that he would personally oversee the investigation, and that those responsible would be "punished with full severity of the law". Yet, even though in that case six of the perpetrators were sentenced to death -- a sentence that has not yet been carried out -- here we still are with nothing done to change what truly is the shame of Pakistan. The law still is as it is: innocent people continue to be accused of blasphemy and killed.

Going back to Samina Mushtaq, thanks to her quick thinking, she is still with us and lucky to be alive. Christians need to be grateful for the way in which she courageously brought the truth about blasphemy to the forefront and stirred up a national debate. We need much more of it. Lawmakers need to change the laws before more unjust killings.

Nasir Saeed

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19336/pakistan-blasphemy-accusers

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Electric Vehicles Are an Ideologically Driven Economic Misadventure - Jerome Corsi

 

by Jerome Corsi

Evidence shows that the movement to abandon gas-powered vehicles is ideologically motivated and unsupported by rational economic calculation.

As more motorists own electric vehicles (EVs) and experience problems operating them, evidence shows that the movement to abandon gas-powered vehicles is ideologically motivated and unsupported by rational economic calculation.

In January 2023, four Wyoming state senators and two representatives introduced Senate Joint Resolution No. SJ004 to ban the sale of EVs in Wyoming by 2035. The proposed legislation stressed that “Wyoming’s vast stretches of highway, coupled with a lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, make the widespread use of electric vehicles impracticable for the state.” The proposed legislation also noted that “the batteries used in electric vehicles contain critical minerals whose domestic supply is limited and at risk of disruption.”

Moreover, the Senate Joint Resolution explained that “the critical minerals used in electric batteries are not easily recyclable or disposable, meaning that landfills in Wyoming and elsewhere will be required to develop practices to dispose of these minerals in a safe and responsible manner.” Finally, the legislation was premised on the reality that “the expansion of electric vehicle charging stations in Wyoming and throughout the country necessary to support more electric vehicles will require massive amounts of new power generation to sustain the misadventure of electric vehicles.”

Over 2 million EVs have been sold in the United States, although EVs remain less than 1 percent of all vehicles on the road. On average, EVs cost $10,108 more than a standard vehicle. At the end of 2022, entry-level EVs cost customers between $20,000 and $40,000. In 2023, ongoing inflationary price increases, supply chain constraints, deteriorating labor conditions in major manufacturing regions, and component shortages will drive up EV prices. Statistica.com predicts EV prices will jump by another 37 percent in 2023, driving the average cost of an EV up to more than $69,000 by the second half of the year.

 Image: EV charging stations by Mariordo. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Le Xie, Ph.D., a professor at Texas A&M University and a research affiliate at the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and his three academic colleagues co-authored a 2021 scientific analysis entitled “Toward carbon-neutral electricity and mobility: Is the grid infrastructure ready?” The authors concluded that one of the significant barriers to relying upon EVs to spearhead a move to decarbonize motor vehicles is that the existing electric grid infrastructure in the United States is not ready for the scale and speed of the portfolio transformation desired by the global warming community’s demand for achieving Net Zero Emissions (NZE) of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2050.

Le Xie and his colleagues noted the “increasing evidence on the impact of uncoordinated electric vehicle charging on the electric distribution grid such as transformer overloading at a modest level of EV penetration. In an article published in The Hill on July 9, 2021, Le Xie and his colleagues asked, “How many electric vehicles charging at the same time would have blown up your local substation transformer?” They answered that it would only take a few hundred EVs charging simultaneously to burn out the local substation transformer in a small Midwest town. In their academic article, Le Xie and his colleagues explained the problem as follows:

With aggressive vehicle electrification goals, there will be a lack of hosting capacity of today’s distribution networks in handling massive distributed energy resources and EVs. Economic incentives and smart scheduling could offset the peak-to-valley ratio; however, even in the most optimistic case (i.e., a flattened total load curve), the limit of the substation transformers will still likely be exceeded.

 

Jake Fogleman, a policy analyst at the Independence Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, highlights another factor limiting EV expansion. NZE enthusiasts presume EVs contribute to decarbonization primarily because battery-powered electricity emits no CO2. The problem is that the electricity needed to recharge EV batteries is generated primarily by burning hydrocarbon fuels. In an article posted on January 3, 2023, Fogleman referred to the German word Dunkelflaute, which he translated as “dark doldrums,” a term he noted describes a weather pattern of low wind and limited sunlight that makes generating electricity from renewable fuels nearly impossible. He wrote:

The event is relatively common in northern and western Europe during the winter months—hence the German name—and just last month it led to a devastating spike in [natural] gas prices in the U.K. while forcing Germany to supply nearly half its electricity needs from coal….

In a day-by-day analysis of Colorado’s generation of electricity, Fogleman noted that between December 30, 2022, and January 2, 2023, “Colorado’s wind fleet (with its roughly 4,500 MW of installed capacity) went from producing 2,000 MW of electricity down to the negatives on multiple occasions,” while solar generation, “similarly flatlined on January 2, when overcast skies arrived in the state.”

Fogleman commented that this weather scenario involving an extended period of low wind and minimal sunshine strains Colorado’s electrical grid to a point that, as the Colorado Public Utilities Commission has warned in a report published late last year, it poses a “significant threat” to future grid reliability. If the environmental benefit of electric cars depends upon the electricity being generated by renewables, states like Colorado may face an insurmountable barrier in that wind and sunlight are unreliable sources of energy in winter months.

Germany’s Welt noted that

Klaus Müller, the president of the German Federal Network Agency [the bureaucracy regulating gas and electricity], warned that the growing number of private electric car charging stations and electric-powered pumps could overload the power grid in Germany. “If very large numbers of new heat pumps and stations continue to be installed, then we’ll have to worry about overload problems and local power failures…if we do not act….”

On September 1, 2022, one week after California approved a bold plan to ban the sale of gasoline cars by 2035, California underwent a heat wave. The extreme weather that prompted environmentalists to ban gas vehicles ironically caused the California Independent System Operator, the group managing the state’s power grid, to ask EV owners not to charge their vehicles during peak hours.

Though not deterring global warming hysterics, EV customer complaints are mounting. A Tesla owner posted a video on TikTok complaining that he was stranded at a Supercharger station on Christmas Eve because the cold weather paralyzed the EV battery. A British owner of a £65,000 [$80,457] EV lamented that the vehicle spent months at a time in the repair shop “on account of innumerable electrical calamities,” and two of three roadside chargers are “broken or busy at any one time.”

Yet, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 17, 2023, Faith Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), predicted that by 2030, half of all cars sold in Europe, the U.S., and China, the three largest car markets for EVs, will be EVs. In her enthusiasm, Birol ignored the IEA’s Global EV Outlook 2022 that warned mineral constraints loom even as EV sales break records. With China now processing most EV battery metal, battery supply chains face bottlenecks and lack diversification.

 

Since 2004, Jerome R. Corsi has published 25 books on economics, history, and politics, including two #1 New York Times bestsellers. In 1972, he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University. He currently resides in New Jersey with his family. His current book, The Truth About Energy, Global Warming, and Climate Change: Exposing Climate Lies in an Age of Disinformation, was published on June 28, 2022. Dr. Corsi’s new website, DrJeromeCorsi.com, is now on the Internet in its first development phase.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/electric_vehicles_are_an_ideologically_driven_economic_misadventure.html

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Feds adapting AI used to silence ISIS to combat American dissent on vaccines, elections - Nick Givas

 

by Nick Givas

The federal government, working hand-in-hand with universities, private companies and Big Tech, is funneling millions of dollars in taxpayer money to fund an AI censorship program to be used on American citizens.

The government's campaign to fight "misinformation" has expanded to adapt military-grade artificial intelligence once used to silence the Islamic State (ISIS) to quickly identify and censor American dissent on issues like vaccine safety and election integrity, according to grant documents and cyber experts.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded several million dollars in grants recently to universities and private firms to develop tools eerily similar to those developed in 2011 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program.

DARPA said those tools were used "to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and counter them with truthful information," beginning with the Arab Spring uprisings in the the Middle East that spawned ISIS over a decade ago. 

The initial idea was to track dissidents who were interested in toppling U.S.-friendly regimes or to follow any potentially radical threats by examining political posts on Big Tech platforms. 

DARPA set four specific goals for the program:

1. "Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and (b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social media sites and communities.
3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns.
4. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations."

Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online has compiled a report detailing how this technology is being developed to manipulate the speech of Americans via the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other organizations.

"One of the most disturbing aspects of the Convergence Accelerator Track F domestic censorship projects is how similar they are to military-grade social media network censorship and monitoring tools developed by the Pentagon for the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism contexts abroad," reads the report. 

"DARPA's been funding an AI network using the science of social media mapping dating back to at least 2011-2012, during the Arab Spring abroad and during the Occupy Wall Street movement here at home," Benz told Just The News. "They then bolstered it during the time of ISIS to identify homegrown ISIS threats in 2014-2015." 

The new version of this technology, he added, is openly targeting two groups: Those wary of potential adverse effects from the COVID-19 vaccine and those skeptical of recent U.S. election results. 

"The terrifying thing is, as all of this played out, it was redirected inward during 2016 — domestic populism was treated as a foreign national security threat," Benz said.

"What you've seen is a grafting on of these concepts of mis- and disinformation that were escalated to such high intensity levels in the news over the past several years being converted into a tangible, formal government program to fund and accelerate the science of censorship," he said.

"You had this project at the National Science Foundation called the Convergence Accelerator," Benz recounted, "which was created by the Trump administration to tackle grand challenges like quantum technology. When the Biden administration came to power, they basically took this infrastructure for multidisciplinary science work to converge on a common science problem and took the problem of what people say on social media as being on the level of, say, quantum technology.

"And so they created a new track called the track F program ... and it's for 'trust and authenticity,' but what that means is, and what it's a code word for is, if trust in the government or trust in the media cannot be earned, it must be installed. And so they are funding artificial intelligence, censorship capacities, to censor people who distrust government or media."

Benz went on to describe intricate flows of taxpayer cash funding the far-flung, public-private censorship regime. The funds flow from the federal government to universities and NGOs via grant awards to develop censorship technology. The universities or nonprofits then share those tools with news media fact-checkers, who in turn assist private sector tech platforms and tool developers that continue to refine the tools' capabilities to censor online content. 

"This is really an embodiment of the whole of society censorship framework that departments like DHS talked about as being their utopian vision for censorship only a few years ago," Benz said. "We see it now truly in fruition." 

Members of the media, along with fact-checkers, also serve as arbiters of what is acceptable to post and what isn't, by selectively flagging content for said social media sites and issuing complaints against specific narratives. 

There is a push, said Benz during an appearance on "Just The News No Noise" this week, to fold the media into branches of the federal government in an effort to dissolve the Fourth Estate, in favor of an Orwellian and incestuous partnership to destroy the independence of the press. 

The advent of COVID led to "normalizing censorship in the name of public health," Benz recounted, "and then in the run to the 2020 election, all manner of political censorship was shoehorned in as being okay to be targetable using AI because of issues around mail-in ballots and early voting drop boxes and issues around January 6th.

"What's happened now is the government says, 'Okay, we've established this normative foothold in it being okay to [censor political speech], now we're going to supercharge you guys with all sorts of DARPA military grade censorship, weaponry, so that you can now take what you've achieved in the censorship space and scale it to the level of a U.S. counterinsurgency operation.'"

One academic institution involved in this tangled web is the University of Wisconsin, which​​​​​ received a $5 million grant in 2022 "for researchers to further develop" its Course Correct program, "a precision tool providing journalists with guidance against misinformation," according to a press release from the university's School of Journalism and Mass Communication." 

WiseDex, a private company receiving grants from the Convergence Accelerator Track F, openly acknowledges its mission — building AI tools to enable content moderators at social media sites to more easily regulate speech. 

In a promotional video for the company, WiseDex explains how the federal government is subsidizing these efforts to provide Big Tech platforms with "fast, comprehensive and consistent" censorship solutions.

"WiseDex helps by translating abstract policy guidelines into specific claims that are actionable," says a narrator, "for example, the misleading claim that the COVID-19 vaccine supresses a person's immune response. Each claim includes keywords associated with the claim in multiple languages ... The trust and safety team at a platform can use those keywords to automatically flag matching posts for human review. WiseDex harnesses the wisdom of crowds as well as AI techniques to select keywords for each claim and provide other information in the claim profile." 

WiseDex, in effect, compiles massive databases of banned keywords and empirical claims they then sell to platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Such banned-claims databases are then integrated "into censorship algorithms, so that 'harmful misinformation stops reaching big audiences,'" according to Benz's report.

Just the News reached out to the University of Wisconsin and WiseDex for comment, but neither had responded by press time.

The NSF is acting, in one sense, as a kind of cutout for the military, Benz explained, allowing the defense establishment to indirectly stifle domestic critics of Pentagon spending without leaving fingerprints. "Why are they targeting right-wing populists?" he asked. "Because they're the only ones challenging budgets for [defense agencies]."

He added: "These agencies know they're not supposed to be doing this. They're not normally this sloppy. But they won't ever say the words 'remove content.'" 

The NSF, with an annual budget of around $10 billion, requested an 18.7% increase in appropriations from Congress in its latest budgetary request. 

In a statement to Just the News, DARPA said: 

"That program ended in March 2017 and was successful in developing a new science of social media analysis to reduce adversaries' ability to manipulate local populations outside the U.S.

 "DARPA's role is to establish and advance science, technology, research, and development. In doing so we employ multiple measures to safeguard against the collection of personally identifiable information, in addition to following stringent guidelines for research dealing with human subjects. Given the significance of the threat posed by adversarial activities on social media platforms, we are working to make many of the technologies in development open and available to researchers in this space." 

DARPA then followed up with an additional message saying: "As a point of clarification, our response relates only to your questions about the now-complete SMISC program. We are not aware of the NSF research you referenced. If you haven’t already, please contact NSF for any questions related to its research." 

Mike Pozmantier and Douglas Maughan, who serve at NSF as Convergence Accelerator program director and office head, respectively, did not respond to requests for comment.

You can follow Nick on Twitter @NGivasDC

Nick Givas

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/ai-algorithm-used-track-terrorists-now-being-turned-us-citizens-fight

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