Jan van Eyck Saint Barbara 1437
What completely crazy times we wake up to find ourselves in. There’s a story about Hunter Biden based on tons of evidence found on an old laptop, a story that involves Joe Biden too, and his campaign doesn’t deny it, but merely says a meeting never took place because it wasn’t on his agenda. But then we switch immediately and seamlessly to “Russian disinformation” and Facebook and Twitter try to ban the story, close down accounts of the paper that published the story, as well as the White House press secretary and many others. Twitter evokes its “hacked materials” policy 1st time ever, without any evidence any hacking took place.
Tucker provides a decent overview. I know, it’s Tucker and it’s Fox, but in these crazy times you won’t see this dealt with in the New York Times or WaPo or CNN.
Hypothetically speaking: ACB
Hypothetically speaking… pic.twitter.com/7OuPgVck5g
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) October 14, 2020
What’s the biggest story, that Joe and Hunter were less than honest about Burisma, or that Big Tech tries to bury that they were/are?
• Hunter Biden Introduced Burisma Businessman to VP Dad (NYP)
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to e-mails obtained by The Post. The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month. “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the e-mail reads.
An earlier e-mail from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf. The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer. The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner. Other material extracted from the computer includes a raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who’s admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.
The customer who brought in the water-damaged MacBook Pro for repair never paid for the service or retrieved it or a hard drive on which its contents were stored, according to the shop owner, who said he tried repeatedly to contact the client. The shop owner couldn’t positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden, but said the laptop bore a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation, named after Hunter’s late brother and former Delaware attorney general. Photos of a Delaware federal court subpoena given to The Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in December, after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence. But before turning over the gear, the shop owner says he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello. Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, told The Post about the existence of the hard drive in late September and Giuliani provided The Post with a copy of it on Sunday.
But here we can’t help thinking about Julian Assange: “I will not comply with censoring reporting that may not fit the ideology of Silicon Valley. This is abominable and not the American way.”
• WH Press Secretary Locked Out Of Twitter For Sharing Hunter Biden Story (NYP)
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday was locked out of her personal Twitter account for sharing The Post’s bombshell cover story on Hunter Biden’s alleged hard drive and an email linking Joe Biden to his son’s job at a Ukrainian energy company. “Your account has been locked,” a message from the social media network informed McEnany, whose account has more than 1 million followers. “We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules,” the network said, highlighting her prior tweet with a link to The Post’s article. Without providing any evidence, Twitter said McEnany — who shared a screenshot with The Post — violated “our rules against distribution of hacked material.”
McEnany told The Post she will not comply with Twitter’s request that she delete her tweet to restore access to her account. “This is a story reported by the New York Post and Fox News with the Biden campaign notably not disputing the authenticity of the emails,” McEnany said. “I will not comply with censoring reporting that may not fit the ideology of Silicon Valley. This is abominable and not the American way.” Twitter on Wednesday blocked users from sharing The Post’s link to the story, which describes an alleged 2015 email from Burisma energy executive Vadym Pozharskyi thanking Hunter Biden for “giving an opportunity to meet your father.”
[..] Twitter said Wednesday it prevented users from tweeting or direct-messaging a link to the article because it violated a ban on distributing hacked material, the same reason it locked McEnany’s account. The alleged Hunter Biden hard drive was given to The Post by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney to Trump, after he received it from a Delaware computer repairman. The repairman says he legally accessed the content under an abandonment contract clause when Hunter Biden did not collect a damaged laptop within 90 days.Facebook, meanwhile, said it was taking unspecified steps to limit distribution of The Post’s article pending “fact-checking.”
“.. the talking point that Russia “hacked Burisma in January” and was somehow the source of the documents was seriously making the rounds on Wednesday afternoon. ”
• Media Reverts To Form In Responding To Biden/Burisma Report (RT)
The only thing more absurd than insisting Hunter Biden’s employment by Ukrainian gas company Burisma was above board is arguing that Russia is somehow behind the revelation it wasn’t. So of course that’s precisely what happened. A last-minute development before the November election is somewhat of a tradition in US politics, so much so there’s a name for it – “October surprise” – going back to 1980 or so. In 2016, it was supposed to be Donald Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, only to be overshadowed by the WikiLeaks publication of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails – which Democrats later blamed on Russia.
This time it seems to be the New York Post story, citing emails from a laptop found in a Delaware repair shop to claim that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden knew about his son Hunter’s involvement with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Hunter’s Burisma job was not exactly a secret, but the emails suggest his father – Barack Obama’s vice-president at the time – was aware of it, which Joe Biden had previously denied. The absolutely unhinged reaction of the media and political establishment to the Post story suggests it hit close to home. Facebook declared it would suppress it until it was vetted by “independent fact-checkers.” Twitter labeled the link to it “unsafe.”
Mainstream media journalists who dared mention it at all, even to criticize, got piled on as if violating a mafia code of silence. It did not take long for the same people who pushed the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory for years to do it again, claiming that the documents obtained by the Post were really from a “Russian hack.” The Biden campaign hasn’t actually challenged the authenticity of the emails and the photos – merely asserting that the meeting involving the VP and a Burisma executive referenced in an email wasn’t on any “official schedule.” No matter, the talking point that Russia “hacked Burisma in January” and was somehow the source of the documents was seriously making the rounds on Wednesday afternoon.
Mind you, this comes after the media establishment completely ignored the revelation that the FBI was using them – as in, media reports – to “corroborate” claims in the Clinton-funded Steele Dossier, which British spy Christopher Steele seeded in the press himself. It was a shocking example of circular reporting and comprehensive failure of both law enforcement and intelligence. Steele’s dossier was used to get warrants for spying on Trump’s campaign, which then continued for almost a year after the 2016 election – even as the FBI knew the dossier was bogus.
Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable. https://t.co/v55vDVVlgt
— jack (@jack) October 14, 2020
A first for ‘Hacked Materials’. And again, there is no proof that anything was hacked.
• Twitter Blocks Links To NYPost Story, Invokes ‘Hacked Materials’ Policy (RT)
Twitter has one-upped Facebook’s censorship regarding a story based on alleged emails from Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter about his Ukraine dealings, blocking all users from sharing it via tweet or direct message. Twitter users were blocked on Wednesday from sharing the New York Post story critical of the Bidens published just that morning. The decision was based on a never-before-invoked “hacked materials policy” that Twitter announced hours after Facebook had stomped on the same story. The Post cited emails that appeared to show Joe Biden – then vice president to Barack Obama – had met with Ukrainian Burisma exec Vadim Pozharskyi at the behest of his son and Burisma adviser Hunter Biden, less than a year before the current Democratic presidential candidate allegedly demanded Kiev fire its top prosecutor.
Twitter “errors” started pouring in just a few hours after Andy Stone, a Facebook executive with a long history of working for the Democratic Party, warned Facebook was “reducing [the Hunter Biden story’s] distribution” on its platform and seemingly invited Facebook’s fact-checkers to tear the story apart. While Twitter users were able to share the offending Post link for hours after Stone tagged it for destruction, what Twitter lacked in temporal primacy it made up in intensity. Users who attempted to share the story on Wednesday afternoon were informed they could not retweet the “potentially harmful” link. Unlike typical Twitter warning screens that can be clicked through, the link to the Post story was not even allowed to be posted.
The NY Post story was a minor, largely redundant report even if the docs are real.
The extreme act of censorship by tech giants to suppress it, cheered on by journalists, is a major story of historic proportions.
They always had this undemocratic power; today they used it.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 14, 2020
All together now.
• Facebook’s Democratic Comms Chief Admits To Shadowbanning NYPost Story (RT)
A former Democratic Party staffer now working for Facebook has admitted to shadowbanning a viral story allegedly exposing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s Ukrainian ties and has encouraged “fact-checkers” to shred it. As a New York Post story claiming Biden scion Hunter had introduced his father to a Ukrainian energy executive less than a year before the then-Vice-President pressured Kiev into firing the country’s top prosecutor swept across social media on Wednesday morning, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone announced the social media behemoth was “reducing [the story’s] distribution on our platform.”
The reduced distribution was only a temporary measure until “Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners” could stamp their seal of (dis)approval on the story, Stone clarified in a later tweet, apparently confirming he’d preemptively flagged the story as disinformation. Stone openly touts his history with the Democratic Party in his Twitter profile, which shows he worked with the House Majority Political Action Committee, California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and California Democrat Rep. Jerry McNerney.
Zuckerberg: “I don’t think that Facebook or internet platforms in general should be arbiters of truth”
Facebook: We’re censoring a news story as “misinformation” *before* any “third-party fact checking.” https://t.co/ythskziNcp
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) October 14, 2020
And came up with diddly-squat. Interesting that in this allegedly highly secretive operation, CNN has “more than a dozen sources”.
• Feds Chased Foreign Link To Trump’s 2016 Campaign Cash For 3 Years (CNN)
For more than three years, federal prosecutors investigated whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars Donald Trump donated to his own campaign days before he won the 2016 election, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The investigation, which both predated and outlasted special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, examined whether there was an illegal foreign campaign contribution. It represents one of the most prolonged efforts by federal investigators to understand the President’s foreign financial ties, and became a significant but hidden part of the special counsel’s pursuits.
The investigation was kept so secret that at one point investigators locked down an entire floor of a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, so Mueller’s team could fight for the Egyptian bank’s records in closed-door court proceedings following a grand jury subpoena. The probe, which closed this summer with no charges filed, has never before been described publicly. Prosecutors suspected there could be a link between the Egyptian bank and Trump’s campaign contribution, according to several of the sources, but they could never prove a connection. It’s not clear that investigators ever had concrete evidence of a relevant bank transfer from the Egyptian bank. But multiple sources said there was sufficient information to justify the subpoena and keep the criminal campaign finance investigation open after the Mueller probe ended.
CNN learned of the Egypt investigation from more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort, as well as through hints in public records, including newly released court documents and Mueller witness interview summaries, called 302s, that CNN and Buzzfeed obtained through lawsuits. In a court filing last month, the Justice Department confirmed that when the special counsel’s office shut down in 2019, Mueller transferred an ongoing foreign campaign contribution investigation to prosecutors in Washington. Some of CNN’s sources have confirmed that the case, which Mueller cryptically called a “foreign campaign contribution” probe, was in fact the Egypt investigation.
The probe was confirmed this week by a Justice Department senior official who responded to CNN’s queries: “The case was first looked at by the Special Counsel investigators who failed to bring a case, and then it was looked at by the US attorney’s office, and career prosecutors in the national security section, who also were unable to bring a case. Based upon the recommendations of both the FBI and those career prosecutors, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney, formally closed the case in July.”
And there’s still more…
• Laundry Operation: Bruce Ohr Left DOJ Shortly Before Being Sacked (sundance)
Bruce Ohr was part of the laundry operation for Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele’s dossier. Bruce’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Glenn Simpson at Fusion-GPS feeding information to Steele for the Dossier assembly. Steele then transmitted the same information back to Bruce who then received and provided it to FBI investigators giving the patina of an official intelligence product. The FBI wrote interview notes with Bruce Ohr from a series of 15 interviews. Those “302’s” were later released as part of the information showing how the operation was being handled. Despite receiving a $28,000 bonus for his efforts, Bruce Ohr was demoted twice and then seemingly remained employed in some unknown capacity within the DOJ as the months and years progressed.
Note, analysis of the Bruce Ohr 302 documents is complex because the investigative notes need to be reviewed as simply one overlay in a series of timelines and documents. That means taking the Ohr 302’s (the content as a timeline) then comparing/overlaying them to: (1) the Bruce Ohr emails with Chris Steele; (2) the text messages with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on the same dates as the Ohr interviews; (3) the text messages from SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman; (4) the content of the Comey memos; and (5) what was going on -inside the DC investigation- at the time these interviews were taking place. It’s a layered onion with markers that align at specific points and tell a much bigger story. Example below.
As Bruce Ohr is discussing the possibility of the “SIC” (Senate Intelligence Committee) traveling to the U.K. to interview Steele, you cross reference the committee Vice-Chair Mark Warner text messages (w/ Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman) and the Ohr interview substance gives you the bigger picture of the conspiracy:
Now overlay Democrat Senator Mark Warner (SIC) attempting to organize a meeting with Christopher Steele without “a paper trail”, during the height of the effort to organize the ‘soft-coup’ impeachment evidence.
Keep in mind as you review, SSCI Mark Warner attempting covert contact, for the expressed political purpose of conducting a ‘soft coup’….. the Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mark Warner, is also a member of a very specific group known as the oversight “Gang-of-Eight”; and has contact with the most sensitive and secret covert government operations. This is why the Weissmann/Mueller team needed to water-down the explosive connection between the activity of Warner and the SSCI to the overall operation. This is why Weissmann/Mueller released those text messages on Feb 9, 2018, to coordinate a cover-story for the back-channel communication.
More new docs confirm FBI used leaks to media to validate SteeleDossier@SidneyPowell1: It was an “information laundering operation” to try & destroy @realDonaldTrump & @GenFlynn while it was “the Clinton campaign that had done everything illegal”#Flynn pic.twitter.com/RJkC9YTJpQ
— Anne #StopYulin ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@CrazyCatRescuer) October 14, 2020
“..Based on their research, Doyle and Moynihan believe the Clintons owe taxes on between $400 million and $2.5 billion..”
• Judge Rules Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Complaint Can Proceed (ET)
A federal judge on Oct. 8 ruled that a whistleblower complaint against the Clinton Foundation can proceed, saying that the IRS “abused its discretion” in attempting to dismiss allegations of wrongdoing by the nonprofit organization. U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson last week found that the complaint, brought by whistleblowers Lawrence Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert, and John Moynihan. a former Drug Enforcement Agency official, “provided ‘specific credible documentation’ supporting their allegations” that the Clinton Foundation potentially evaded paying taxes on millions if not billions of dollars. The judge struck down the IRS’s request for a summary judgment.
He said that its Whistleblower Office (WBO) was wrong in denying the whistleblowers’ claims, based on an email from the agency’s Criminal Investigation (CI) office that said the complaint was closed. The record “fails to support the WBO’s conclusion that CI hadn’t proceeded with any action based on petitioners’ information. Accordingly, we deny the motion on the grounds that the WBO abused its discretion in reaching its conclusion, because not all of its factual determinations underlying that conclusion are supported by that record,” Gustafson wrote. Gustafson also said that based on evidence, he had reason to believe that the FBI was involved in an IRS investigation. He cited information contained within IRS records that had until now been kept from the public, in which Doyle and Moynihan discuss their contacts with law enforcement officials.
[..] Based on their research, Doyle and Moynihan believe the Clintons owe taxes on between $400 million and $2.5 billion; if the IRS finds that the foundation isn’t a charity, its donors might also be liable for taxes owed on their contributions. They also said that, while not looking for this specifically, they did find instances of “pay-to-play” behavior between the donors, the foundation, and Hillary Clinton’s position as secretary of state, which she held from 2009 to 2013.
Apparently there is still a Golden Dawn member in the European Parliament.
• Golden Dawn Leadership Sentenced To 13 Years In Prison (K.)
A Greek court sentenced the leadership of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party to 13 years in prison Wednesday, imposing the near-maximum penalty for running a criminal organization blamed for numerous violent hate crimes. Presiding judge Maria Lepenioti read out the sentences against party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and seven other former lawmakers. The landmark ruling follows a five-year trial of dozens of top officials, members and supporters of Golden Dawn, an organization founded as a neo-Nazi group in the 1980s that rose to become Greece’s third-largest political during a major financial crisis in the previous decade.
Eleven other former parliament members were jailed for between five and seven years for membership of a criminal organization, while a party associate was given a life sentence for the murder of Greek rap singer Pavlos Fyssas in a 2013 attack that triggered the crackdown against the party. Arrests will be carried out after the court hears final arguments for probation considerations.
That’s probably just you and Nancy, Joe.
• Covid Crisis Shows Trump Sees Older Voters As ‘Expendable’, Says Biden (G.)
Joe Biden has said Donald Trump views older voters as “expendable” and “forgettable” as the Democratic presidential candidate sought to win fresh support in the battleground state of Florida. Biden’s visit on Tuesday came a day after the president’s own trip to Florida – his first outside Washington since his Covid-19 diagnosis. Speaking to about 50 people at a socially distanced event in Broward County in South Florida, Biden said Trump had recklessly dismissed the threat that the virus had posed to their at-risk population. “To Donald Trump, you’re expendable. You’re forgettable. You’re virtually nobody. That’s how he sees seniors. That’s how he sees you,” Biden said.
He added said he was disappointed that Trump’s bout with the virus had not left him more chastened about his approach to the pandemic. “The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get,” Biden said. “Thank God we only have three weeks left to go.” A Biden win in Florida would seriously jeopardise the president’s chances of re-election, and most recent opinion polls show the Democrat ahead with key demographic groups in the state, particularly seniors. Trump won Florida in 2016 by 1.2 percentage points.
An Opinium Research and Guardian opinion poll shows Biden’s lead over Trump surging to a record 17 points. Some 57% of likely voters said they intended to vote for Biden, while just 40% say they would vote for the incumbent president. The 17-point gap is even bigger than than 57%-41% margin found by CNN earlier this month.
Published at the NIH website.
• Single Dose of 300,000 IU Vit D May Prevent, Treat COVID19 (NIH)
Abstract: There is no specific and effective medication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and avaccine is not available in recent months. Here, we hypothesize that a single large dose of vitamin D (Vit D) could be an option for trial in COVID-19. Vit D deficiency or insufficiency is very common in the general population as well as in patients with COVID-19. It has been shown that low Vit D level is associated with viral infection, and Vit D supplementation is beneficial for people infected with viruses, such as HIV and hepatitis C virus. Although COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, the morbidity and mortality of this disease are driven by coagulopathy. Clinical studies have shown that Vit D can exert anticoagulant effects. Vit D, a lipid-soluble vitamin, can be administered as a draught. Vit D supplementation is safe and has rare toxic events. In addition, the cost of Vit D is fairly low. Based on these observations, we speculate that a single dose of 300,000 IU Vit D may have a role in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.
“..the president expressed his will for all doses produced in Russia to remain within the country..”
• Putin Announces 2nd Russian Covid19 Vaccine, 3rd On The Way (RT)
President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday that Russia has registered its second domestic Covid-19 vaccine, with a third already on the way. A phase-three trial, with 40,000 volunteers, is due to begin in the near future. In August, Russia was the first country to announce the registration of a Covid-19 vaccine, which has since been taken by thousands of Muscovites, as part of its final trial phase. With a second formula registered and another around the corner, Russia will soon have a wide range of options. The name of the new vaccine is EpiVacCorona and it is being produced in Siberia by Vector, a biological research center. Located near the city of Novosibirsk, Vector is a world-class virology and biotechnology facility, and has one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of viruses, including Ebola, SARS, and smallpox.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, 60,000 doses of the vaccine are due to be released soon. She also said that 40,000 volunteers will participate in a third-phase clinical trial, including people over 65 years-old. Thus far, just 100 volunteers have taken the vaccine. Speaking to Golikova, the president expressed his will for all doses produced in Russia to remain within the country, explaining that formulas for the use of foreign nations should be made abroad. The third vaccine is being produced by the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center, in Moscow. According to Alexander Ryzhikov, the head of Vector’s zoonotic infections and influenza department, the second Russian vaccine should create immunity for at least six months, and is made in a way that people can be vaccinated multiple times. “It forms a targeted immune response, and there is no need to worry about (the) long-term effects of revaccination,” he said.
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“The reason that I was able to successfully fight the case is that I had the support of the @couragefound… I owe a debt of gratitude to Julian & #WikiLeaks for helping.”
— Lauri Love pic.twitter.com/PDN5oikOSY— Taylor Hudak (@_taylorhudak) October 14, 2020
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