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Government Corruption Media Articles

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C.I.A. Now Favors Lab Leak Theory to Explain Covid’s Origins
2025-01-25, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/us/politics/cia-covid-lab-leak.html

The C.I.A. has said for years that it did not have enough information to conclude whether the Covid pandemic emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research lab there. But the agency issued a new assessment this week, with analysts saying they now favor the lab theory. There is no new intelligence behind the agency’s shift, officials said. John Ratcliffe, the new director of the C.I.A., has long favored the lab leak hypothesis. He has said it is a critical piece of intelligence that needs to be understood and that it has consequences for U.S.-Chinese relations. The announcement of the shift came shortly after Mr. Ratcliffe told Breitbart News he no longer wanted the agency “on the sidelines” of the debate over the origins of the Covid pandemic. Mr. Ratcliffe has long said he believes that the virus most likely emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Even in the absence of hard intelligence, the lab leak hypothesis has been gaining ground inside spy agencies. But some analysts question the wisdom of shifting a position in absence of new information. Five agencies, including the National Intelligence Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed that natural exposure most likely caused the epidemic. But they said that they had only low-confidence in their assessment. Until now, two agencies, the F.B.I. and Department of Energy, thought a lab leak was more likely. But their theories are different.

Note: For years, the lab leak hypothesis was labeled as “racist,” “ thoroughly debunked," and "something out of a comic book." If intelligence agencies are just now admitting the lab leak is ‘more likely,’ does that mean they were ignoring or covering up evidence—or just waiting for the political winds to shift? Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19.


CIA operative reveals mental disorder agency 'actively seeks to hire' because it makes for better spies
2025-01-22, Daily Mail (One of the UK's Popular Newspapers)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14309891/cia-operative-mental...

A former CIA operative has revealed the agency pursues people with a certain mental disorder as it makes them the best agents. John Kiriakou, who had a 14-year career as a CIA officer, said ... 'A CIA psychiatrist told me one time that the CIA looks to hire people with sociopathic tendencies–not sociopaths because sociopaths have no consciences,' said Kiriakou, speaking to The Real News Network. A 'sociopath' is someone who lacks empathy, disregards the feelings of others and may manipulate or harm people without remorse, often for their own personal gain. 'Sociopaths are impossible to control,' said Kiriakou. 'They slip through the cracks because they have no conscience and they pass the polygraph very easily because they don't feel guilty. The CIA has admitted that spies have pathological personality features that help them with their espionage efforts, such as a sense of entitlement or a desire for power and control. While employed by the CIA, Kiriakou was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was involved in the capture of terrorist Abu Zubaydah. However, he refused to be trained in so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' Kiriakou has claimed that he never authorized or engaged in these techniques. After leaving the CIA, he appeared on ABC News where he said the CIA waterboarded detainees and labeled the action as torture. The interview led to Kiriakou being arrested in 2012 and charged with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Note: Learn more about the rise of the CIA and the dark realities of modern American torture practices in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.


70 countries have banned this pesticide. It’s still for sale in the U.S.
2025-01-22, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/01/22/paraquat-epa-pe...

The Environmental Protection Agency said last week that it needed more time to study the health impacts of paraquat, a powerful herbicide that has drawn scrutiny for its possible links to Parkinson’s disease, a move that would allow it to remain on the market. Several advocacy groups had sued the EPA over an interim registration decision it issued in 2021 ... on the grounds that it was not protective enough. In a statement, the EPA said additional data was necessary to resolve uncertainty around the risks of inhaling the herbicide. For as long as David Jilbert could remember, he wanted to be a farmer. For five years, Jilbert personally mixed, loaded and sprayed paraquat to control weeds in his vineyard. Then he began having difficulty tying his shoes and buttoning his shirts. He started to walk with a slow, shuffling gait around the winery. He was soon diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects motor functions and causes cognitive impairment, despite having no family history or genetic predisposition to the disease. He and his doctors blame paraquat. Jilbert is among the nearly 6,000 Americans who have filed lawsuits against Syngenta and Chevron, which distributed paraquat products in the United States until 1986. The suits allege that the companies failed to warn consumers about paraquat’s substantial health risks. Paraquat ... is among the most widely used pesticides in the United States.

Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America’s health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.


The US military wants to explore blood biohacks to boost warfighter performance in extreme conditions
2025-01-22, Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/darpa-exploring-how-blood-biohacks-could-help...

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the Pentagon's top research arm, wants to find out if red blood cells could be modified in novel ways to protect troops. The DARPA program, called the Red Blood Cell Factory, is looking for researchers to study the insertion of "biologically active components" or "cargoes" in red blood cells. The hope is that modified cells would enhance certain biological systems, "thus allowing recipients, such as warfighters, to operate more effectively in dangerous or extreme environments." Red blood cells could act like a truck, carrying "cargo" or special protections, to all parts of the body, since they already circulate oxygen everywhere, [said] Christopher Bettinger, a professor of biomedical engineering overseeing the program. "What if we could add in additional cargo ... inside of that disc," Bettinger said, referring to the shape of red blood cells, "that could then confer these interesting benefits?" The research could impact the way troops battle diseases that reproduce in red blood cells, such as malaria, Bettinger hypothesized. "Imagine an alternative world where we have a warfighter that has a red blood cell that's accessorized with a compound that can sort of defeat malaria," Bettinger said. In 2019, the Army released a report called "Cyborg Soldier 2050," which laid out a vision of the future where troops would benefit from neural and optical enhancements, though the report acknowledged ethical and legal concerns.

Note: Read about the Pentagon's plans to use our brains as warfare, describing how the human body is war's next domain. Learn more about biotech dangers.


Vaccine injury scheme has cost taxpayers more to run than it has paid out to victims
2025-01-14, The Telegraph (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/14/vaccine-injury-scheme-taxpayers-p...

The payment scheme for people injured by vaccines has cost taxpayers more to run than it has paid out to victims, official figures suggest, fuelling calls for “urgent reform”. The Government has spent more than £25 million since Nov 1 2021 on medically assessing thousands of claims that vaccinations have left people seriously disabled. It is more than the total £23.6 million that since that date has been paid out to 197 victims, with each claim worth £120,000. The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) was established in 1979 and pays tax-free cash to those deemed to have suffered life-changing injuries as a result of certain vaccinations – including those against Covid-19. It awards a one-off £120,000 tax-free payment to people who have been severely injured, or to the families of those who have died, as a result of a vaccination. The scheme has been heavily criticised for being too slow to assess cases. Victims also claim that the payouts are insufficient and that the threshold claimants must meet to qualify for a payout is too harsh a measure. Kate Scott, whose husband was left with permanent brain damage after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19, criticised the imbalance between the money the scheme costs to run and the sums paid out. Public hearings for the fourth module of the Covid-19 inquiry started in London on Tuesday. It will hear issues around vaccine safety from families of those who suffered side effects from Covid jabs.

Note: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a voluntary government reporting system that only captures a portion of the actual injuries. Vaccine adverse event numbers are made publicly available, and currently show 38,264 COVID Vaccine Reported Deaths and 1,658,330 COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. Our Substack dives into the complex world of COVID vaccines with nuance and uncensored investigation.


Former State Department officials concerned about the U.S. role in Israel's war in Gaza
2025-01-12, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-state-department-officials-concerned-abou...

Children on top of rubble… playing with ammunition casings. A close look reveals where they come from -- printed on the side: USA... DOD for the Department of Defence. Hala Rharrit was an American diplomat who ... worked on human rights and counterterrorism. Part of her job was to monitor Arab press and social media to document how America's role in the war was perceived in the Middle East. Daily reports Rharrit sent to senior leadership in Washington [contained] gruesome images: Hala Rharrit: "I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of ... mostly children. And that's the devastation. It's been overwhelmingly children ... I would show images of children that were starved to death. I was basically berated, 'Don't put that image in there. We don't wanna see it.'" Three months into the war ... she was told her reports were no longer needed. The U.S. has sent $18 billion in American military assistance to Israel since the war began, largely in the form of taxpayer-funded weapons. Most of the bombs come from America. Most of the technology comes from America. And all of the fighter jets, all of Israel's fixed-wing fleet - comes from America. Andrew Miller was the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs. He ... has since become the highest ranking Biden administration official to go public with his concerns about the U.S. role in the war. The State Department issued a report saying it is "reasonable to assess" that Israel may have used American weapons in violation of international law. Hala Rharrit: "Protests began erupting in the Arab world ... with people burning American flags. We worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the Arab world."

Note: A new study shows that death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza. War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world.


The Pentagon Keeps Losing Equipment and Buying Stuff It Doesn't Need
2025-01-12, Reason
https://reason.com/2025/01/12/materiel-loss/

In 2023, the Government Accountability Office revealed that a government contractor had lost 2 million spare parts for the F-35 fighter jet, together worth tens of millions of dollars, since 2018. The Department of Defense followed up on only 20,000 of those parts. Military officials don't know how many F-35 spare parts exist in total, paid for by American taxpayers but spread out at contractor warehouses around the world. The 1985 aircraft carrier scandal continued this pattern of failure to keep track of valuable materiel. After a group of smugglers was caught stealing F-14 parts to sell to Iran, the Pentagon ran an audit on the spare parts stored on aircraft carriers. Auditors found the Navy had lost track of $394 million in parts between 1984 and 1985. Not to worry! It turns out only about $7 million in parts had been stolen by the gunrunners, and the remaining $387 million were misidentified or misplaced. Perhaps the most infamous cases of waste occurred in Afghanistan, where the United States spent 20 years trying to prop up a friendly Afghan government only to have Taliban rebels sweep the capital in a lightning-quick August 2021 offensive. Although the U.S. military extracted all of its own gear, it left $7.12 billion of American-provided equipment with the doomed Afghan army; it soon fell into the Taliban's hands. Images of Taliban fighters riding around with captured vehicles became a symbol of American failure.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.


Mark Zuckerberg says Biden officials would 'scream' and 'curse' when seeking removal of [COVID] content
2025-01-10, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-bide...

On an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" released Friday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg painted a picture of Biden administration officials berating Facebook staff during requests to remove certain content from the social media platform. "Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse," Zuckerberg told ... Joe Rogan. "It just got to this point where we were like, 'No, we're not gonna, we're not gonna take down things that are true. That's ridiculous.'" In a letter last year to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to remove “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire.” Zuckerberg said Facebook, which is owned by Meta, acquiesced at times, while suggesting that different decisions would be made going forward. On Rogan's show, Zuckerberg said the administration had asked Facebook to remove from its platform a meme that showed actor Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV screen advertising a class action lawsuit for people who once took the Covid vaccine."They're like, 'No, you have to take that down,'" Zuckerberg said, adding, "We said, 'No, we're not gonna. We're not gonna take down things that are, that are true.'" Zuckerberg ... also announced that his platforms — Facebook and Instagram — would relax rules related to political content.

Note: Read a former senior NPR editor's nuanced take on how challenging official narratives became so politicized that "politics were blotting out the curiosity and independence that should have been guiding our work." Opportunities for award winning journalism were lost on controversial issues like COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and more. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and Big Tech.


Sednaya Prison and the CIA
2025-01-07, The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/torture-prisons-syria-war/

Even before 9/11, as the US hunted for terrorists, the CIA launched “extraordinary rendition”—an ingenious scheme to interrogate “high-value” suspects outside the country and thus avoid US laws on torture. The first suspects were taken to Egypt as early as in the mid-1990s and the program continued until 2007. How many did the CIA render? A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report noted that exact numbers can’t be known. But according to a ... Washington Post article, “thousands were arrested and held with US assistance in countries known for brutal treatment of prisoners.” In 2004, former CIA agent Robert Baer [said] that “conceptually, the practice is a rendition to torture. If you wanted a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear, Egypt.” Survivors [of Syria's Sednaya military prison] tell horrific tales: they were sodomized with swords, suspended in shackles from cages, beaten with iron rods, kept naked in freezing cells the size of coffins, forced to kill cellmates and starved. Some say their genitals were subject to electric shocks. Besides Syria, the CIA dispatched suspects to Egypt, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Poland, Thailand and Romania. The Senate report stated that “the CIA provided millions of dollars in cash payments to foreign government officials to host secret CIA detention sites.”

Note: Most of the Senate Torture Report remains classified. Read the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture." Learn more about US torture programs in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.


Why the police ignored the rape gangs
2025-01-07, UnHerd
https://unherd.com/2025/01/why-the-police-ignored-the-rape-gangs/

The statistics behind the rape gang scandal — let’s banish the wholly inadequate word “grooming” — are staggering. For over 25 years, networks of men, predominantly from Pakistani Muslim backgrounds, abused young white girls from Yeovil to London to Glasgow. Why did British police services turn a blind eye to the gang rape of tens of thousands of young girls? The answer, in the end, is simple. Racism, for police services from Chester to Penzance, remains the original sin. Institutional reticence over race goes beyond the police themselves: even the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s (IOPC) review of the rape gang scandal tiptoed around the heritage and religion of offenders. Yet given the scale of the rape gang scandal, is it now unreasonable to ask if any babies were chucked out with the bathwater? I think they were. With ... many incentives to toe the line, no wonder more free-thinking coppers stayed away, with the remainder grimly susceptible to groupthink. We used to call it “having the CD Rom inserted” — whereby a reasonably competent copper would morph into a pound-shop commissar to achieve the next rank. The next time you watch a press conference with a senior officer, play “bullshit bingo” with the language they use, usually involving words like community, proportionality and diversity. Meanwhile, away from the TV cameras, thousands of young girls were raped, abused and treated like chattel in their own hometowns.

Note: Read more about the organized pedophile gangs that operated with impunity for decades in the UK. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.


Timeline of grooming cases and investigations in recent years
2025-01-06, The Independent (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/alexis-jay-rotherham-suella-braverman-r...

Five men are given lengthy jail terms [in 2010] after they are found guilty of grooming teenage girls in Rotherham for sex. The same year, police finally act on sexual grooming in Rochdale – going back years – with a series of arrests. Police and child protection agencies in Rotherham had extensive knowledge of these activities for a decade, yet a string of offences went unprosecuted. [In 2014], Professor Alexis Jay publishes her devastating report on child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. The report describes how more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited by gangs of mainly Asian males in the South Yorkshire town. It is scathing about a culture among police and council officials which ignored the industrial scale of abuse, instead treating the victims as troublesome teenagers. A gang of men who embarked on a “campaign of rape and other sexual abuse” against vulnerable teenage girls in Huddersfield were given lengthy jail sentences [in 2018]. The pattern of large-scale exploitation of mainly white girls by groups of men of mainly Pakistani heritage uncovered by West Yorkshire Police in Huddersfield mirrors what has happened in a number of other towns including Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford. Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins apologises [in 2020] to the children abused “in plain sight” by the grooming gangs his officers failed to bring to justice.

Note: Read more about the organized pedophile gangs that operated with impunity for decades in the UK. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on sexual abuse scandals.


Video Surfaces of Syria’s New Justice Minister Overseeing Executions of Women in 2015
2025-01-06, ScheerPost
https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/06/video-surfaces-of-syrias-new-justice-minist...

Videos have surfaced online of Syria’s new justice minister, Shadi al-Waisi, overseeing the execution of two women in 2015 over charges of adultery and prostitution. Al-Waisi is part of the new Syrian government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which took power after ousting former President Bashar al-Assad on December 8. In one video, al-Waisi is seen reading a ruling that the woman was found guilty of “corruption and prostitution” and sentencing her to death. In the other video, al-Waisi appears to be carrying a gun and tells a woman to sit down as she’s pleading for her life. Once she moves down, another armed man shoots her in the head. At the time, al-Waisi was working as a “judge” enforcing Sharia law in areas of Syria’s northwest Idlib province that were under the control of the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that merged with other Islamist groups in 2017 to form HTS. HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, who has been going by his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa, have tried to present themselves as moderates since taking over Syria despite their al-Qaeda past. An HTS official speaking to Verify-Sy downplayed the video, insisting the group has “moved beyond” such practices. The US supported the HTS takeover of Syria even though the group still being listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. US officials also seem to be buying the rebranding campaign despite HTS’s brutal history.

Note: Watch former CIA director John Brennan suggest that the Syrian rebels we previously supported now pose more of a threat to Syrians and American interests. As recently as 2016, Syrian militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting with Syrian militias armed by the CIA. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.


The Observer view on calls for a national inquiry into child sexual abuse
2025-01-04, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/04/the-observer-view-on-ca...

A decade ago, with the publication of an independent inquiry, Britain confronted the horror of the sexual abuse of children that had taken place in Rotherham over 16 years by organised gangs of men, mostly of Pakistani origin. The 2014 report conservatively estimated that 1,400 children – some as young as 11, many in the care of the state – were raped, abducted and sexually abused in Rotherham by groups of men. There have been many other reviews and inquiries in other towns and cities where children have been subjected to similar abuse by organised groups of men, including in Rochdale, Oxford, Telford and Bristol. Child victims of sexual abuse were not only routinely ignored by those whose job it was to protect them – including social workers and the police – but how young girls were viewed by child protection authorities as complicit in their own rape and abuse, as if it were something they could consent to. A further 2015 review into Rotherham led by Louise Casey was also clear that these abusers could hide behind their race to perpetrate their abuse: she uncovered what she called an “archaic culture of sexism, bullying and discomfort around race”, with councillors and staff fearing being labelled racist if they mentioned the ethnicity of perpetrators. In suppressing an issue that should have been dealt with openly and properly, this was a factor in enabling the abuse to go on. As a society, we have a terrible track record of tackling child sexual abuse.

Note: Read more about the organized pedophile gangs that operated with impunity for decades in the UK. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on sexual abuse scandals.


How Big Companies and the Courts Killed Net Neutrality
2025-01-03, Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/fcc-net-neutrality

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ... threw out the Federal Communication Commission’s Net Neutrality rules, rejecting the agency’s authority to protect broadband consumers and handing phone and cable companies a major victory. The FCC moved in April 2024 to restore Net Neutrality and the essential consumer protections that rest under Title II of the Communications Act, which had been gutted under the first Trump administration. This was an all-too-rare example in Washington of a government agency doing what it’s supposed to do: Listening to the public and taking their side against the powerful companies that for far too long have captured ... D.C. And the phone and cable industry did what they always do when the FCC does anything good: They sued to overturn the rules. The court ruled against the FCC and deemed internet access to be an “information service” largely free from FCC oversight. This court’s warped decision scraps the common-sense rules the FCC restored in April. The result is that throughout most of the country, the most essential communications service of this century will be operating without any real government oversight, with no one to step in when companies rip you off or slow down your service. This ruling is far out of step with the views of the American public, who overwhelmingly support real Net Neutrality. They’re tired of paying too much, and they hate being spied on.

Note: Read about the communities building their own internet networks in the face of net neutrality rollbacks. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and Big Tech.


Ohio Puts Police Bodycam Footage Behind a Paywall
2025-01-03, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/03/police-body-camera-footage-ohio/

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law on Thursday changes to the state’s public records statute that allow law enforcement agencies to charge hundreds of dollars for body camera footage. Though such videos are central to watchdog reporting and police oversight, Ohio opted to join a handful of states that have made it easier for cops to put a steep price tag on transparency. Over the past decade, more law enforcement agencies have deployed body cameras. At the same time, law enforcement agencies and police unions have begun complaining about the time and expense of turning these videos over to the public when requested. State and local law enforcement agencies can now charge steep fees for reviewing and redacting videos — up to $75 per hour of footage produced and a maximum of $750 per video. Police can require that the fees be paid in advance. Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, was alarmed that the bill was passed and signed with “zero legislative debate.” “Ohioans deserve government transparency, especially regarding policing. Instead, crucial records will now be sequestered behind a paywall few can afford,” Daniels said. “Advocates, news media, and victims of police actions are right to be concerned how these unnecessary changes will impact their safety and insight into how police operate in and around the state.”

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption.


Matthew Livelsberger Alleged Manifesto: Read Full Email Sent to Retired Soldier
2025-01-03, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/matthew-livelsberger-alleged-manifesto-read-full-ema...

Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret and the main suspect in the Cybertruck attack in Las Vegas, reportedly sent a manifesto-like email to retired U.S. Army intelligence officer Sam Shoemate just days before a car bomb exploded in front of Trump International Hotel. Shoemate revealed the email on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast, describing its contents as allegations of advanced drone technology, a cover-up of a 2019 airstrike in Afghanistan, and claims of being under U.S. government surveillance. Livelsberger allegedly [detailed] concerns about advanced drones using "GDIC propulsion systems," which he described as anti-gravity technology. Livelsberger claimed that the U.S. and China developed and deployed the drones. He alleged that China launched them from submarines along the U.S. East Coast, calling them "the most dangerous threat to national security" because of their stealth, ability to evade detection and unlimited payload capacity. Livelsberger also referenced his involvement in a 2019 U.S. airstrike in Nimruz Province, Afghanistan. He claimed the operation, which targeted drug facilities, caused civilian casualties, including women and children, and was covered up by U.S. authorities. The allegations align with a 2019 U.N. report criticizing the strikes as unlawful. Livelsberger said the incident pushed him to speak out. Additionally, he accused the FBI and Homeland Security of monitoring and tracking him, describing efforts to avoid being detained.

Note: Watch this episode of the The Shawn Ryan Show. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs and military corruption.


U.S. Military Service Is the Strongest Predictor of Carrying Out Extremist Violence
2025-01-02, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/02/military-veterans-extremism-attack-new-or...

The two men who carried out apparent terror attacks on New Year’s Day — killing 15 people by plowing a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans, and detonating a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas — both had U.S. military backgrounds, according to the Pentagon. From 1990 to 2010, about seven persons per year with U.S. military backgrounds committed extremist crimes. Since 2011, that number has jumped to almost 45 per year. Military service is also the single strongest individual predictor of becoming a “mass casualty offender,” far outpacing mental health issues, according to a ... study of extremist mass casualty violence. From 1990 through 2023, 730 individuals with U.S. military backgrounds committed criminal acts that were motivated by their political, economic, social, or religious goals. From 1990 to 2022, successful violent plots that included perpetrators with a connection to the U.S. military resulted in 314 deaths and 1,978 injuries — a significant number of which came from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. [Matthew] Livelsberger’s weaponized Tesla Cybertruck was rented from Turo, the vehicle-sharing service that was also used in the New Orleans attack. [Shamsud-Din] Jabbar reportedly used the Turo app. Both Livelsberger and Jabbar spent time at the military base formerly known as Fort Bragg and now called Fort Liberty, a massive Army garrison in North Carolina.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on terrorism and military corruption.


I Audited the Afghan Reconstruction. It Was Doomed From the Start.
2025-01-02, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/opinion/afghanistan-audit-reconstruction-u...

As the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction since 2012, my staff and I have audited and investigated U.S. programs and spending to rebuild Afghanistan. We have detailed a long list of systemic problems. One general told us that he faced a challenge: How to spend the remaining $1 billion from his annual budget in just over a month? Returning the money was not an option. Another official we spoke to said he refused to cancel a multimillion-dollar building project that field commanders did not want, because the funding had to be spent. The building was never used. The entire system became a self-licking ice cream cone: More money was always being spent to justify previous spending. Important information for measuring the success of initiatives was — at times deliberately — hidden from Congress and the American public. Since 2021 the United States has funneled $3.3 billion to Afghanistan through public international organizations, mainly United Nations offices, for humanitarian purposes. Some of this money helps the Afghan people, and some goes to the Taliban. Between the American withdrawal in August 2021 and this past May, U.S.-funded partners paid at least $10.9 million in taxes and fees to Taliban authorities. In July, we reported that two out of five State Department bureaus were unable to show that their contractors working in Afghanistan in 2022 had been vetted sufficiently to ensure their work was not benefiting terrorist organizations.

Note: The US was involved in human rights abuses including torture in Afghanistan. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.


Military vs. zombies: CONPLAN-8888 details how the US plans to defeat the undead
2025-01-01, Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/military-vs-zombies-us-conplan-8888

If zombies attack, the US military has a plan. Really. Upon authorization from the president or the defense secretary, US Strategic Command would begin preparations for safeguarding the civilian population, protecting vital infrastructure, and eradicating the zombie menace. And all without violating the rights of threatened humans and possibly the zombies themselves. "This plan was not actually designed as a joke," says CONPLAN 8888-11 (or "Counter Zombie Dominance"), issued on April 30, 2011, by USSTRATCOM, whose normal responsibilities include overseeing America's strategic nuclear weapons, global strike capabilities, and missile defense. It originated as a scenario to train junior officers in the Department of Defense's Joint Operation Planning and Execution System, through which the US military devises contingency plans. Instructors discovered that a zombie-apocalypse scenario was a better teaching tool than using fictional scenarios about Tunisia or Nigeria as was customary at the time, which also risked being misunderstood by the public as real scenarios. One potential hurdle to deploying the US military is lawfare. Laws such as the Insurrection and the Posse Comitatus Acts strictly limit the deployment of the US military in domestic affairs. Though martial law would almost certainly be declared in the event of a mass zombie plague, deployment against undead who were formerly living US citizens could raise questions of Constitutional rights.

Note: Read about the US military's fake town to train its soldiers for warfare, where actors are often recent refugees, having fled one real-world conflict only to enter another, simulated one. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.


Former CIA officer claims agency tried to downplay 'anomalous health incidents'
2024-12-30, ABC News (Oregon Affiliate)
https://katu.com/news/nation-world/former-cia-officer-claims-agency-tried-to-...

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer claimed in an interview released Monday the agency has tried to downplay "anomalous health incidents" endured by government officials. The whistleblower, going by the pseudonym "Alice," told former CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge she was attacked by an "energy weapon" in 2021, prior to her medically retiring from the agency. She said that while serving in Africa, she heard a "weird noise" in her home one night before then experiencing what felt like "the reverb from a speaker." "I think that there are probably multiple weapons, I think there are weapons that can be fit in backpacks, ones that can be fit in the trunks of cars, ones that can be planted at a position with line of sight to people from across the street," she said. Alice told Herridge she experienced an "anomalous health incident (AHI)", alleging she has since suffered vertigo, cognitive difficulties and ear and head pressure. AHIs, not officially recognized by the medical community, were first reported by federal employees serving overseas in 2016. Alice claimed the CIA has continually "gaslight[ed]" her and other former officers, seeking to make them "question" their AHIs. She told Herridge she watches the agency continue to "deny people's humanity and their injuries." Herridge reported that multiple sources told her CIA Director William Burns privately said in 2021 he believed Russia was behind some of the attacks.

Note: Learn more about non-lethal weapons in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.


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