Tag Archive for: Jen Psaki

‘Incitement Of Violence’: Ocasio-Cortez Calls For Regulating Conservative News

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for regulating Fox News and other news organizations in a Sunday interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki.

Psaki asked Ocasio-Cortez for her thoughts on Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million minutes before a defamation trial was set to begin.

“We have very real issues with what is permissible on air and we saw that with January 6th and we saw that in the lead up to January 6th. And how we navigate questions not just of freedom of speech but also accountability for incitement of violence. These are, this is the line that we have to really explore through law as well,” Ocasio-Cortez replied.

“Do you think media organizations or social media platforms should be accountable for the role, for being platforms for incitement?,” Psaki interjected. Ocasio-Cortez responded by singling out Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson.

“I believe that when it comes to broadcast television like Fox News, these are subject to federal law, federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t. And when you look at what Tucker Carlson and what some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence, very clearly incitement of violence,” she said.

Psaki is the former White House Press Secretary for the Biden administration. She interviewed Ocasio-Cortez on her MSNBC Show, “Inside with Jen Psaki,” that debuted in March.

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: MSNBC’s Psaki warns of the ‘danger’ of the freedom of speech

Psaki’s reflexive and unthinking authoritarianism reflects the stance of the Left in general these days. Leftists are determined to silence and crush all dissent and allow only their perspective to be heard in the public square.

Learn more about this effort in The Sumter Gambit: How the Left Is Trying to Foment A Civil War.

“Psaki Urges MSNBC Viewers To ‘Think Of The Danger’ Posed By Free Speech,” by Harold Hutchison, Daily Caller, February 9, 2023:

“If you were running a local political campaign and you’re running ads on television, and you say something inaccurate about your opponent, guess what happens? The ad is pulled down,” Psaki said. “These platforms live by a different set of rules, and people consume more information from them than any other source of media. Think of the danger of that.”

The House Oversight Committee held a hearing Wednesday on Twitter’s censorship practices, focusing on the company’s actions towards an Oct. 14, 2020 report by the New York Post on the contents of a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden. Twitter locked multiple accounts, including the Post’s and the personal account of then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany for sharing the story, citing its “hacked materials” policy.

“As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, they’re allowing hate speech, racism. Also, let’s not forget inaccurate information about vaccines and how they can save your lives. They run rampant on these platforms,” Psaki said.

During the hearing, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina described side effects from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine while questioning former Twitter executives about the censorship of alleged “misinformation” about COVID-19.

Among those who were “shadow-banned” by Twitter was Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy, who said that lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic harmed children. Dr. Andrew Bostom, a former academic at Brown University, was suspended for five months for alleged “medical misinformation.”

“What these Republicans are doing, essentially, just to break down past all of this crazy word salad of yesterday, they are defending the pushing of inaccurate, dangerous information on the platforms that most people receive information from,” Psaki continued. “That is racist, dangerous, prompted January 6th, is prompting people not to get vaccinated. That’s what they’re defending.”…

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: No, Jen Psaki, Trump Didn’t Start The DHS ‘Truth Ministry.’ That’s Literal Disinformation

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has spread disinformation repeatedly from the podium while speaking about the Disinformation Governance Board, claiming its “work” was present under the Trump administration.

Psaki’s go-to defense of the establishment of the board under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a continuation “of disinformation-related work that began under the prior administration.” One of the key bodies countering disinformation founded under former President Donald Trump, the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF), was renamed by the Biden administration when he came into office the Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation (MDM) and was modified to focus on domestic rather than foreign threats, two Trump DHS officials told the Daily Caller.

“The CFITF was focused on foreign influence – particularly as it related to elections. The current MDM description from DHS takes the word ‘foreign’ out of the title. It’s clear that MDM, as it’s currently defined, is also looking at domestic communication,” Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the DHS, told the Daily Caller.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was created in 2018 under Trump to counter cybersecurity threats. In May of 2018, “a Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF) was established within CISA’s predecessor agency,” according to CISA’s website, and was tasked with “helping the American people understand the risks from” MDM.

CFITF was modified by the Biden administration in 2021 to officially change its name to MDM, and its “mission evolved to reflect the changing information environment,” according to its website.

The Biden-era DHS, its assistant press secretary and the CFITF did not respond to several requests from the Daily Caller to say why the name change was necessary, and what the new “mission” of the MDM is.

The MDM is now “charged with building national resilience to MDM and foreign influence activities,” the website reads. It also mentions that MDM campaigns are waged by both “foreign and domestic threat actors.”

A “Disinformation Stops With You” resource listed on the website states disinformation can be spread by “foreign states, scammers and extremist groups.” An election MDM resource states “Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state-sponsored elements, as well as domestic extremist groups,” are the primary culprits of spreading MDM.

President Joe Biden stated May 4 the “MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history.”

“When it comes to disinformation, it’s clear that DHS, under President Biden, is making this a core responsibility – to include in the domestic context. They are also politicizing the issue as they have established a Disinformation Governance Board in the Secretary’s office. They have taken control of combating foreign influence away from operating components, where decisions were largely made from career civil servants, and moved that power to the Secretary’s office. On top of that, they have appointed a highly controversial and partisan individual to head that board” Nina Jankowicz, Wolf continued.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Disinformation Governance Board, which he first mentioned April 27 in a Senate hearing, wants to “develop guidelines, standards, guardrails to ensure that the work that has been ongoing for nearly 10 years does not infringe on people’s free speech rights, rights of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties.” He echoed Psaki in saying that the “work” was being done under Trump, and claimed that the board will focus on foreign surveillance, not domestic.

A DHS spokesperson told the Daily Caller “the Disinformation Governance Board is an internal working group that was established with the explicit goal of ensuring … Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy,” noting that the group has no “operational authority or capability” and that Psaki has said the DHS has worked to address disinformation “for years and throughout multiple administrations.”

Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for the DHS under Trump, Lora Ries, told the Daily Caller that the Biden administration’s DHS focuses on “content” rather than harmful “foreign adversaries,” and that Trump would have never started a Disinformation Governance Board.

Former Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told the Daily Caller that the board “is an entirely new creation of their own making,” called it the “Ministry of Truth,” and said there is “no way” the Democrats will operate the board “well.” “It is one of the most philosophically alarming things produced by this administration,” he added.

“The Biden Administration has changed the focus from foreign adversaries seeking to harm American cybersecurity and infrastructure to focus on content. This paved the way for this Disinformation Governance Board that will surely be weaponized against Americans. The government should not be the arbiter of truth or ‘misinformation.’ We Americans have learned the hard way that ‘misinformation’ is often just information the left doesn’t like,” Ries said.

“Instead of focusing on foreign terror threats and securing the homeland, particularly the border to prevent such threats from entering the U.S., the Biden Administration appears more interested in using the national security state to target concerned parents at school board meetings and Americans rightly skeptical about government’s own coronavirus disinformation. This administration prioritizes the wrong things. Secretary Mayorkas, like the Biden Administration, has turned inward – away from foreign threats and against Americans, in particular political opponents, who they label as ‘extremists,’” she concluded.

The newly appointed leader of the Disinformation Governance Board, Jankowicz, who will be in charge of determining what disinformation is, has been criticized for spreading disinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop. She also supported the Steele Dossier, which Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA officer, said was possibly “part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot.”

Mayorkas and Psaki have defended Jankowicz, calling her an “expert” in disinformation.

Republican senators have questioned Mayorkas, exposing that he did not know about Jankowicz’s TikTok videos, nor about her Hunter Biden claims before she was appointed.

Wolf concluded by calling on the DHS “to provide the American people transparency as to what the Board is and was planning to do, and why the Department chose to put on an overtly partisan individual in charge who could easily be accused of spreading disinformation herself prior to her government service.”

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

Associate Editor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

White House worried that Iran could obtain sufficient fissile material for a nuclear bomb in weeks

Imagine where we would be if Biden’s handlers had spent the last fifteen months trying to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, instead of bending over backwards to appease the mullahs.

Corrected (Official) White House worried Iran could develop nuclear weapon in weeks

Reuters, April 26, 2022:

The White House is worried Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in weeks, press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted earlier in the day the country has accelerated its nuclear program.

“Yes it definitely worries us,” Psaki said.

The White House clarified on Wednesday that although Psaki responded to a question about nuclear weapons, she was referring to the breakout time, which is the time it would take to obtain sufficient fissile material for one nuclear bomb, and was not referring to the production of an actual nuclear weapon.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Bridge Collapses In Pittsburgh Before Biden Is Set To Visit To Talk About Infrastructure

A bridge in Pittsburgh collapsed Friday morning hours before President Joe Biden is set to visit the city to give remarks about infrastructure.

Pittsburgh Public Safety confirmed the bridge collapse, tweeting a photo of the snow-covered structure and warning residents of “a strong smell of natural gas in the area.”

The president heads to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Friday to visit Carnegie Mellon University’s Mill 19, a research and development hub incorporated into the bipartisan infrastructure plan passed in 2021. 

Biden will then give remarks “on strengthening the nation’s supply chains, revitalizing American manufacturing, creating good-paying, union jobs, and building a better America, including through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” at Mill 19, according to the White House schedule.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that Biden was made aware of the bridge collapse. “Our team is in touch with state and local officials on the ground as they continue to gather information about the cause of the collapse,” she said.

“@Potus is grateful to the first responders who rushed to assist the drivers who were on the bridge at the time. The President will proceed with trip planned for today and will stay in touch with officials on the ground about additional assistance we can provide,” Psaki added.

Pennsylvania has 3,353 bridges in poor condition, the second-highest in the country, according to ABC News. Pittsburgh Public Safety added in a tweet that there will be a news conference about the bridge’s collapse.

COLUMN BY

SHELBY TALCOTT

Senior White House correspondent. Follow Shelby on Twitter.

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Psaki claims Texas synagogue jihadi was checked ‘multiple times’ before being admitted to the U.S.

If Psaki isn’t lying outright, which is possible, this makes the Biden administration look even worse, in that they didn’t find anything on this dedicated and hardened jihad terrorist.

Jen Psaki says British synagogue terrorist was checked against US government databases ‘multiple times’ before he entered the country as House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy demands answers

by Elizabeth Elkind and Jennifer Smith, DailyMail.com, January 18, 2022

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the British national who was able to fly to the United States despite having a criminal history and hold four people hostage at a Texas synagogue was checked ‘multiple times’ before he entered the country.

‘Our understanding, and obviously we’re still looking into this, is that he was checked against US government databases multiple times prior to entering the country,’ Psaki said on Tuesday.

A short while earlier, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy released a blistering statement demanding answers from President Joe Biden’s White House and raising alarms over ‘what national security concerns remain.’

In addition to condemning the attack, he and other national Republican figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been grilling the administration over its handling of the incident.

There is growing outrage and demand for answers as to how the British terrorist gunman who took four hostages at a synagogue in Colleyville on Saturday was even able to enter the US on a tourist visa when he was known to intelligence agencies in the UK.

Malik Faisal Akram, 44, flew to New York City from the UK on January 22, despite being known to MI5 and having a criminal record.

She explained that the government did not have any ‘derogatory information’ on Akram when he entered the country.

‘We’re certainly looking back, as I referenced, at what occurred to learn every possible lesson we can to prevent attacks like this in the future,’ Psaki said.

She directed further questions to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DailyMail.com has reached out to DHS for more information on whether Akram was ever on a US watchlist.

‘Over the past 48 hours, President Biden’s Justice Department has gone from denying the clear and religious, anti-Semitic implications of this attack to now backtracking to what we all already knew to be true. Now as more information becomes available, it only raises more questions,’ McCarthy said in a statement first sent to DailyMail.com….

Akram’s family say he had a criminal history but somehow, he was able to get an ESTA tourist visa – which are supposed to be off-limits to foreigners who have broken the law….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Question Isn’t if Biden Will Fund the Taliban, The Question is How Will He Fund the Taliban

The question isn’t if Biden will fund the Taliban, the question is how will he fund the Taliban.

There’s a split on that with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan suggesting that US aid may go directly to the Taliban. (Whether it goes directly or indirectly, the Taliban will still unquestionably cash in.)

Sullivan also would not rule out giving the Taliban aid in the future. He said that the US will continue to provide humanitarian assistance “directly” to the Afghan people, which, he said, would not flow through the Taliban but through international institutions like the World Health Organization and other nongovernmental organizations.

But, going forward, aid to Afghanistan through the Taliban directly will be conditioned upon the Taliban’s behavior, including whether the remaining Americans are able to safely evacuate.

“That will be about the Taliban’s actions. It will be about whether they follow through on their commitments, their commitments to safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies, their commitment to not allow Afghanistan to be a base from which terrorists can attack the United States or any other country, their commitments with respect to upholding their international obligations. It’s going to be up to them. And we will wait and see by their actions how we end up responding in terms of the economic and development assistance,” he said.

Then it was Jen Psaki’s turn to insist that Sullivan hadn’t said what he had said.

Q    And then on — on the future aid to the Taliban that Jake Sullivan was talking about this morning.

MS. PSAKI:  Yeah.

Q    He said, when it comes to economic and development assistance, the relationship with the Taliban will be about Taliban actions.  Should we understand that to mean that economic and development assistance could translate to taxpayer money eventually going to the Taliban at some point?  I know that’s different from the humanitarian aid we’ve been talking about — the World Food Programme and things like that — but these specific references that Sullivan made this morning.

MS. PSAKI:  Well, I would — I would just go back to kind of the earlier question on this.  There’s an enormous amount of money they have at the federal — in the Federal Reserve — I shouldn’t say “they” — the government of Afghanistan has in the Federal Reserve, which they don’t have access to right now.  That’s actually their money that’s being held there.  So that’s one of the questions here.

There are also sanctions that are in place on a number of leaders.  Obviously, that prevents them from doing business in various parts of the world.  I think that’s really what Jake Sullivan was referring to.

That’s not what Sullivan was referring to since he mentioned “economic and development assistance”.

But few in the media bother calling out Psaki on her constant stream of lies.

Psaki calls the money in the Federal Reserve, “their money”. As I reported in, “Biden Tried to Send Pallets of Cash to the Taliban as Kabul Fell”, that’s not really accurate.

Ahmady estimates that $7 billion of DAB’s assets are being held by the Federal Reserve which includes the gold, the bills and bonds, $300 million in cash, and another $2.4 billion in World Bank funds for aiding developing countries.

A whole lot of money came from us in the first place.

The question is whether Biden is bargaining with the Taliban using the money we already had been giving to Afghanistan or whether he’s playing with new taxpayer monies.

As I wrote…

The Taliban were hoping to get their hands on Afghanistan’s money, but much of it is in the United States. The most tangible part of Afghanistan’s assets, $1.3 billion in gold, is sitting in downtown Manhattan, a little bit south of Ground Zero, in the vaults of the Federal Reserve. If there were any justice, that money would be used to compensate the police officers, firefighters, and workers who died on that day or later on from ailments related to 9/11.

COLUMN BY

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

White House Says Woke Generals Will NOT Be Asked to Resign in the Wake of the Kabul Bombings

WATCH: Biden’s Benghazi.

My latest in PJ Media:

In any sane and patriotic American administration, the generals who enforced diversity and wokeness upon the U.S. military all summer instead of planning the details of a safe and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan would have already been fired and be facing trials for dereliction of duty and worse. But this is the Biden administration, and that means that Milley and company will probably just have to find space on their already crowded uniforms for a few more ribbons and medals.

On Friday, Al Jazeera English correspondent Kimberly Halkett asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

“Does [the president] believe he was given bad advice? And will he ask for any resignations of his generals given the high cost of American and Afghan lives?”

Psaki’s response was unequivocal:

“No to both of those questions. I think that what the president looks at the events of yesterday as is a tragedy and one that was felt viscerally by the leaders of the military as well. Losing members of your men and women working for you from the service branches is devastating. It is a reflection on all of them and the people on the ground that they are continuing to implement this mission even under difficult and risky circumstances.”

So the White House is now on record: Old Joe Biden was not given bad advice. It was a terrific idea for the U.S. to abandon Bagram Air Base in the dark of night, without informing our Afghan allies. This made the commercial airport in Kabul the only option for getting Americans out of the country and set the stage for the bombings Thursday. Also setting the stage was the fact that Biden’s handlers decided to heed another bit of good advice, and didn’t prioritize getting Americans out, preferring instead to bring 30,000 Afghans to the U.S., vetted only by woke officials who fervently believe that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Terrific idea! Most of them will likely vote Democratic, and that’s what matters, right? The advice was all good!

And so no generals will be held responsible for the wrongheadedness and mismanagement that led to the murder of thirteen Americans on Thursday. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will not be asked to resign even though he admitted that he saw none of this coming, saying on August 18: “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”

There is more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Big Tech is Censoring Americans Using United Nations Law

The UN and Big Tech are running a secret “No Fly List” for the internet.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki warned that her administration was “flagging problematic posts for Facebook” and urged, “you shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others.”

Psaki was not just advocating a theoretical approach, but discussing the shared infrastructure built by Big Tech monopolies, the United Nations and assorted governments for doing just that.

In his PJ Media article, Tyler O’Neil dug into the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) which is funded by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and currently chaired by Twitter. Its advisory committee members include the United Nations, the European Union, and the British, French, and Canadian governments as well as the National Security Council in the U.S.

GIFCT had been set up by the industry in response to pressure from governments to remove Jihadist propaganda, but its Hash Sharing Consortium, a secret database of terrorism content to be immediately removed when its 13 dot com companies come across it, is secret, and so there’s no way for anyone to know if they’ve been targeted and no appeal from the secret list.

The creation of a secret “No Fly List” for the internet by the biggest monopolies which control over 80% of social media content and much of the self-created video content on the internet would be troubling enough, but by 2019, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon had joined the Christchurch Call which advocates not just banning terrorist material, but fighting its root causes by strengthening “inclusiveness” and fighting “violent extremism”.

To that end, the Dynamic Matrix of Extremisms and Terrorism (DMET) was deployed which goes through 4 different levels beginning with “partisanship” and ending with terrorism. DMET defines the initial levels of violent extremism as using “dehumanizing language” which can be described as nearly any criticism of a group.

Big Tech has built its own matrix. And we’re all in it.

As O’Neil documented the resulting “matrix” is a dangerous and bizarre list which classifies Sinn Fein and the Scottish National Party, alongside NARAL and “Anti-Vaxxers” as partisans on the first level of DMET. It’s unclear what a top anti-abortion group, the ruling leftist party of Scotland, the political face for the IRA, and opponents of vaccination have in common, but out of such confusingly disparate material, Big Tech has built its censorship matrix.

At the second level, alongside Neo-Nazi groups like Combat 18, the Bundy Family (a family, not an organization) and the Animal Liberation Front, which actually is a terrorist organization, is Jihad Watch.

The respected counterterrorism blog by historian and researcher Robert Spencer and his associates (I have been among them) has been an invaluable resource for chronicling Islamic terrorism and colonialism and represents the opposite of violent extremism.

As Robert Spencer wrote on Jihad Watch, “This is pure libel. We have never advocated or approved of any violence or any illegal activity of any kind.”

The DMET is just a more sophisticated pseudoscientific database of the kind that the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose materials have contributed to it, has deployed over the years.

One such database listed my blog, Sultan Knish, as a hate group, alongside a brand of gun oil, and a bar sign in Pennsylvania. These databases may have a Kafkaesque absurdity, but the consequences to lives, livelihoods, and careers are all too real with my blog showing up on the Color of Change list pressuring Big Tech monopolies to cut off funding and access to my site, as well as Jihad Watch, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and many other conservative groups.

Big Tech companies have begun building their own databases in coordination with governments. And these secret databases determine who has access to the public square of the internet, who can earn a living, and who ends up being deplatformed and unpersoned.

“If we are ‘extremist,’ so is the U.S. Constitution, for we are trying to defend the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law,” Robert Spencer wrote. But DMET, GFICT, and other interfaces between governments and tech monopolies aren’t using the Constitution. They’re censoring based on United Nations law.

When Facebook’s Oversight Board issued its verdict on censoring President Trump, it did not list a single item of United States law, including the First Amendment, but cited the Rabat Plan of Action, and articles of the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

GFICT’s DMET matrix cites the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court to declare that preventing “dehumanization” is an  “imperative under international law”. Like Facebook’s decision to censor the former president, there’s no mention of the Constitution, but international law is repeatedly cited. Most disturbingly, a GFICT attempt to define terrorism collates a variety of definitions including attacks “against social cohesion” which the UN itself has noted is used to censor speech and political opponents as well as efforts to suppress Mohammed cartoons.

Tier 4 of the Content Taxonomy for what gets censored by Big Tech includes only one example targeting a group: “fear of Muslims is rational” thereby essentially banning most counterrorism, advocacy against unlimited immigration as well the Trump political campaign.

While Americans slept, Big Tech adopted UN standards to eliminate the Constitution.

Big Tech monopolies are no longer just enforcing local laws, moderating content in America or in the European Union based on the different standards in each country, instead all speech on the major platforms is being policed in line with the United Nations and its “international law”.

No black helicopters or blue helmets were needed. United Nations law came to the United States through the Big Tech monopolies that we turned over our speech and economy too.

Facebook now censors a former president in line with UN regulations. And censors all of us too.

GFICT is another example of UN regulations controlling our speech. We’re all drones living in the UN’s “Matrix” now as companies more powerful than governments impose international law.

Big Tech’s censorship matrix targets Robert Spencer and critics of Islam because censorship of dissenting religious views has been a longtime project of Islamic groups within the UN.

“They have all the power, and they mean to shut down dissent, and that means our days here are numbered,” Robert Spencer wrote. How long will it be until Did Muhammad Exist? Did An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins, the newly revised and expanded version of Spencer’s classic work, is censored the way that Amazon, which dominates the ebook market, suppressed Ryan T. Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.

Libertarians and some establishment conservatives keep protesting that private companies have the right to censor whom they please. But the UN is the opposite of a private company.

When massive monopolies act in concert with governments and multinational alliances, like the EU and the UN, to eliminate free speech in line with UN international law, that’s not private action. If we don’t have the courage to confront the ‘matrix’ of big governments and Big Tech, of Google and the UN, or Amazon and the EU, we will lose our rights, our identity, and our nation.

COLUMN BY

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Delusional: U.S. military will no longer target Taliban – even though they just murdered 3 American contractors

Last week we shared the story about the Taliban claiming responsibility for the terrorist attack that killed three American contractors. The Americans, working as contractors for the North Carolina-based Praetorian Standards Inc., were shot and killed, and another was wounded by a member of the Afghan security forces — actually a Taliban infiltrator. And we thought combat operations were ended.

Now, what do you think the Obama administration had to say about the “aggression conducted by armed insurgents?”

Naturally, as reported by CNS News, “State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki declined on Friday to directly say whether the murder of three U.S. civilians at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Thursday—which the Taliban claimed responsibility for–was an act of terrorism.”

“Obviously any attack that kills contractors, that kills individuals who are working there in harm’s way, is horrific and a tragedy but I’m not going to put new labels on it today. She also said: “We see a difference between Taliban and ISIL.”

Hey, I know the difference: one group is regional to Afghanistan and Pakistan and mostly speaks Pashtun; the other is global and speaks a variety of languages. However, they are both Islamic terrorists, savage and barbaric in their actions, something seemingly lost on Jen Psaki.

And for the Islamapologists who refute the idea that this current conflagration has anything to do with religion — well, some beg to differ, namely, the enemy.

“As reported by the Washington Post, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that the killer was Ihsanullah bin Mullah Rahmatulla, who had infiltrated Afghan security forces. “He managed yesterday evening to attain his goal and opened fire with his rifle on a group of American occupiers,” Mujahid said, as quoted in the Post. The attacker was then killed. “The martyr was able to successfully defend his religion … and the glory of his country, and by giving himself away as a sacrifice, he cast a number of the occupying disbelievers into the abyss of hell,” said the Taliban spokesman, according to the Post.”

“At last Friday’s State Department press briefing, CNS News asked: “The Taliban has taken credit for murdering three American civilian contractors at the Kabul airport yesterday. Were those murders an act of terrorism?”

“Well, one, I think the Department of Defense has spoken to this a bit so I’d point you to their comments,” said Psaki. “There was a shooting at the North Kabul International Airport Complex yesterday. We’ve seen reports that the Taliban have claimed responsibility. There’s an investigation going on into this incident. Obviously, any attack that kills contractors, that kills individuals who are working there in harm’s way, is horrific and a tragedy but I’m not going to put new labels on it today.”

“AP Reporter Matt Lee later returned to the question asking Psaki: “I’m just not sure why you wouldn’t just say of course it’s a terrorist attack.” “It’s an act of terror when American citizens are, individuals, are killed, like contractors, absolutely,” Psaki said. Later, Lee asked her: “Is there anything that has been uncovered in this investigation into what happened at the Kabul Airport to suggest that it was not in fact a terrorist attack?” “I was not suggesting that,” said Psaki, “but I think we have a responsibility as the U.S. government to let processes see themselves out and that’s what we’re doing.”

Ok, what processes? This is why we have an administration that is simply incapable of defending the American people against the Islamic terrorist threat. They’ve sought to reduce this enemy into some complex wire diagram when the entire time you have a simplistic linear equation.

Here are two examples:

“A reported asked Psaki, “It was an Afghan policeman who did this, obviously working for the Taliban. Are you concerned that this may happen time and time again?” Psaki responded, “I am not going to address your question.”

“Psaki continued, explaining that President Obama had made a determination not to target “belligerents” in Afghanistan because they were members of the Taliban. She said: “Also, back when we made our decision about our combat role in Afghanistan the president talked about how U.S. forces would continue to target the remnants of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, but the U.S. military forces will no longer target belligerents solely because they are members of the Taliban.”

So I want you all to understand what this means. Our troops remaining in Afghanistan will not be “targeting” any member of the Taliban. In other words, our men and women will be sitting duck targets who will allow the proliferation of the “armed insurgents.”

What mentality possesses the Obama administration that it can stand and issue such clearly delusional statements? I cannot understand any possible logic in a policy that says we’re not going to fight the enemy who is fighting us?

And recognize this is why President Obama and his ilk see no problem with the release of five senior Taliban leaders – it’s just no big deal. So why are we leaving a residual force in Afghanistan? Why are we exposing our troops to a policy of abject failure, one that refuses to recognize the enemy’s existence, or its intent?

This inane game of redefining the enemy in order to fit your politically-driven ideology does not lend itself to success or victory — and certainly will lead to more deaths of our American troops, and in this case, security contractors.

If I’m al-Qaida — well, just say you’re Taliban and that’s your “get out of jail free card.” Who in the Congress, House or Senate Armed Services Committees has held a hearing to ascertain the viability of such a strategy as Obama is offering in Afghanistan? The Congress has oversight and if anything there should be a hearing requiring the Department of Defense and CENTCOM to explain this strategy.

Jen Psaki’s revelation should be disturbing for every American — unless you’re just a cheerleader for this current administration. This disclosure will not bode well for our residual force left in Afghanistan. Not only has Obama released and reconstituted the enemy and its leadership — he is providing them safe passage and the ability to once again reestablish sanctuary. After all, it was the Taliban who invited al-Qaida into Afghanistan and provided them comfort and aid in the first place.

And we have a president who is also providing the enemy aid and comfort, as well as material support by way of returning their leadership — a violation of U.S. code.

But oh well. The Patriots won.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com. The featured image is of a Taliban fighter.

American Jewish Baby Killed by Hamas Terrorist in Jerusalem

Baby-Killed-NY-Jerusalem

Insert is photo of three month old Chaya Zisel Braun. Photo courtesy NBC Channel 4 New York.

Three month old Chaya Zisel Braun was run down and killed at the Silwan Light Rail Station in Jerusalem by a Hamas terrorist, 21 year-old Abdel Rahman  Al-Shalodi. Eight other persons were injured in the crowd he ploughed into on the station platform. Ha’aretz reported:

According to witnesses, Al-Shalodi drove the car 14 meters on the tracks itself, hitting disembarking passengers and continuing on along the length of the track. He stopped after hitting a pole a few hundred meters down and then attempted to flee on foot, when he was shot, arrested, and hospitalized.

[…]

An eyewitness reported seeing the car hit the mother and baby and continue plowing through the crowd. “The stroller was shattered and the mother was screaming.

[…]

The stroller flew into the air and the baby was found 10 meters away from the stroller.”

Hamas issued a statement calling Al-Shaludi’s murder of Chaya Zisel an “act of heroism”.

Al-Shaludi  had served  time  in an Israeli prison on terrorist-related charges.  Chaya Zisel  parents and visiting grandparents from America, the Halperins, grieved for their loss. Shimon Halperin and his wife had just arrived in Israel on their first visit after their birth of their granddaughter to see Chaya Zisel. Instead they were rushed  to Hadassah Hospital  on Mount Scopus   Chaya  succumbed to her injuries and  was laid to rest  at a Jerusalem cemetery  at midnight, Wednesday, October 22nd.  Al -Shaludi’s  mother,  did not acknowledging her son’s murderous action.   The Times of Israel  reported 42 year old Inas Sharif  saying “I feel [Chaya’s mother’s pain, I am a mother after all. I don’t wish for any mother in the world to lose her child.”

 Biased media  obfuscated what occurred on Wednesday  at the Silwan Light Rail stop in Jerusalem located at the bottom of Ammunition Hill.

What passes for the leadership of the Palestinian Authority (PA)  stoked the violence that broke out during the recent Sukkoth holiday.  The AP had an initial headline, “ Israeli Police shoot man in East Jerusalem”  and only after complaints about it being misleading changed it to read,  “Palestinian Kills Baby at Jerusalem Station. “ The  U.S. consulate in Jerusalem issued statement hours after the event  calling it a “traffic incident”.  When the news caught up  at Foggy Bottom  they called it an act of terrorism, but with the usual proviso of  “all parties remaining calm.”  Jen Psaki  State Department Press Spokesperson made  the following statement:

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem. We express our deepest condolences to the family of the baby, reportedly an American citizen, who was killed in this despicable attack, and extend our prayers for a full recovery to those injured. We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.

Jerusalem Mayor  Nir Barkat said:

We must restore peace to Jerusalem – as I said for months, the situation in Jerusalem is intolerable and we must be acting unequivocally against the violence taking place in the city,

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu put the blame squarely on the PA leadership. He said:

This is how Abu Mazen’s  partners in government act, the same Abu Mazen who – only a few days ago – incited  a terrorist attack in Jerusalem.

Khaled Abu Toameh  squarely put the blame for the eruption of violence in Jerusalem  on PA President Abbas in a Gatestone Institute article, today, “Abbas’s Responsibility for Murder.” Toameh wrote:

To understand what drives a young Palestinian to carry out such a deadly attack, one need look at the statements of Palestinian Authority leaders during the past few weeks.

The anti-Israel campaign of incitement reached its peak with Abbas’s speech at the UN a few weeks ago, when he accused Israel of waging a “war of genocide” in the Gaza Strip. Abbas made no reference to Hamas’s crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.

Whatever his motives, it is clear that the man who carried out the most recent attack, was influenced by the messages that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership have been sending their people.

Toameh drew attention  to the record of incitement  perpetrated by Abbas and  his cohorts like chief negotiator Saeb Erekat .  They concocted  the hate that led to Wednesday ‘s vehicular homicide by  al-Shalodi.  There was  Abbas’ UN General Assembly speech in September accusing Israel of waging  a “war of Genocide” in the 50-day war against  terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.  This from a man who ordered Palestinian security to cooperate with Israel  during the rocket and terror tunnel conflict fomented by his partner in the unity government, Hamas.   Abbas used the Sukkoth visits to the Kotel to inflame Palestinian. That  resulted in Israeli police cordoning off the Al Aqsa Mosque preventing Palestinians from raining rocks and Molotov cocktails on  the festival crowd of observant Jews below.  Abbas railed about Jewish desecration of Islamic  holy places. Abbas said:

We must prevent them from entering the Noble Sanctuary by all means. This is our Al-Aqsa. Al-Aqsa is a red line: Israel must be aware that the ongoing raids and attacks on Al-Aqsa will cause a volcanic explosion in the area that will reach Israel. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Palestine, and without it, there will be no state.

The flash point for al-Shalodi’s  terrorist act was reports that Jewish  “settlers” were buying buildings in the Silwan  section in Jerusalem.   The National , published in the UAE had  a  report that vaulted  to world coverage  when it popped up on Yahoo News, “By hook or by crook, settlers rack up gains in East Jerusalem.” The report looks suspiciously like hate filled PA agit-propaganda , tantamount to throwing oil on the fire of the “silent Intifada”.

By fair means or foul, Jewish settlers are notching up property gains in the heart of Arab east Jerusalem through a series of shady deals involving front men or straw companies.

The process by which such properties are acquired is shrouded in mystery, with the new Jewish occupants often moving in under the cover of darkness to avoid confrontation with residents.

The latest controversial acquisitions took place in Silwan, a densely populated Palestinian neighborhood on a steep hillside flanking the southern walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

In the past three weeks, hardline settlers have moved into 35 apartments there, sparking anger and consternation among Palestinians who vehemently oppose such moves as a hostile attempt to Judaise Silwan.

Some were allegedly acquired fraudulently, and others legally.

Jewish groups buying up property in the heart of Arab neighborhoods is an explosive political issue because it touches on the future of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as capital of a future state.

The reality is that Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal and undivided capital. East Jerusalem was formally annexed  by the Knesset on June 28, 1967, reunified following the Six Day War.. Earlier this month we posted on the Iconoclast:

The President and State Department condemned  Netanyahu’s announcement of 2,610 apartments in Givat Hamatos completing the Jewish areas of the municipality and separation from Bethlehem.   The Administration said the move would “poison relations” among Israel’s allies.  Nir Barkat , Mayor of Jerusalem,  took exception to the Administration’s criticism of the building program noting that it was anti-discriminatory and had been approved over two years ago.  Nearly half of those apartments were allocated for Arabs. There were death threats against Arab property brokers for sales of apartments to Jews in the Silwan section of Jerusalem, that prior to the War for Independence had been occupied by Jews.

Wednesday’s vehicular homicide of three month old Chaya Zisel Braun was perpetrated by Hamas terrorist al-Shaludi  with  PA President Abbas, as  an accomplice after the fact for inciting the terrorist act.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. Photos courtesy of NER.

Kobani on the brink of falling — Could Baghdad Airport be next?

Yesterday, we posted commentary on Jonathan Schanzer‘s, Politico Magazine piece, “Time to kick Turkey Out of NATO?”  We noted what was behind Erdogan’s refusal to commit forces to lift the ISIS siege of the beleaguered Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani.  We concluded:

Erdogan clearly wants the Syrian Kurds decimated so that they will not have virtual autonomy in the country’s northeast.

We note Schanzer’s conclusion in his Politico article:

The crisis in Kobani once again brings the challenge of Turkey into sharp relief. Despite the best efforts of Washington and other coalition members to bring Turkey along, it now appears clear: Turkey under the AKP is a lost cause. It is simply not a partner for NATO. Nor is it a partner in the fight against the Islamic State.

Marie Herf, one of the two Department of State spokespersons, held forth at yesterday’s Daily Press Briefing packed with US and foreign journalists. She spoke about the meetings in Ankara with US Coalition military chief Gen. James Allen and Amb. Brett McGurk to be followed by a Pentagon military planning team  next week to discuss what assistance the Turkish NATO ‘ally’ might render in the fight against ISIS. The impression left, given questions by journalists at the Daily Press Briefing, is that  Turkey will do nothing  to aid the Syrian Kurds in Kobani, while the US  conducts periodic air assaults that have yet to blunt the ISIS forces surrounding  the city.  Her  colleague, Jen Psaki was engaged in a HuffPost cocktail hour discussion with Washington journalists about the dilemma of the stubborn, but apparently valiant Kurdish PYG defense of the shrinking perimeter inside Kobani against ISIS. The YPG is affiliated with the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) that the Turks, EU and US have designated as terrorists. Turkish President Erdogan considers the PKK and hence the YPG to be ‘worse than ISIS’.

Violent protests by Kurds have erupted in the predominately Kurdish southeastern provinces of Turkey and in major cities. These  have taken the lives of over 36 protesters. The Daily Beast reported:

For three nights now Kurdish protestors, riot police and Turkish ultranationalists have battled each other in dozens of towns across the southeast as well as in Istanbul and the capital Ankara. More than 30 have died so far in the violence and more than 1000 people have been arrested, according to Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala. And for the first time in years soldiers are on the streets of the Kurdish towns of Diyarbakır, Mardin, Van and Batman, where curfews have been imposed.

The lockdowns have not stopped the protests. Armed with Molotov cocktails, furious Kurds have been firebombing schools, government buildings and political party offices.

In Diyarbakır, a PKK stronghold, protestors defied orders to remain indoors. “Some people stay at home and just make noise in protest,” a resident reported via email. “But others are going out. The city is crazy. Helicopters are hovering overhead the whole time. There are no cars or taxis but there are tanks.” Then she added: “There is a beautiful moon and the smoke of tear gas.”

Turkish forces were caught by a Voice of America cameraman firing on Syrian Kurdish protesters from the border town of Qamishli. Watch here:

My European source on Turkey commented that Erdogan’s suppression of Kurds in Turkey reflects his fear about the growing importance of Kurdish irredentism. He pointed out in our conversation  that Kurds now account for 25 percent of Turkey’s population and are likely to increase in influence during Erdogan’s term as President.  Erdogan has reached out to PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned on an Island in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul, requesting him to issue a letter to his followers to remain calm.  That clearly didn’t resonate with angry Kurds in Turkey. Kurdish protests and even street battles with ISIS supporters have occurred in Europe. Rallies in protest of Turkey’s inaction on Kobani have occurred in Canada and in Washington.

ISIS is reported to control half of Kobani, despite the limited air assault by the US-led coalition.  According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rghts, the YPG was taking a toll on ISIS attackers in fierce urban street fighting. Kurdish resistance leaders inside Kobani were tweeting that they were running out of ammunition.  The National Posreported this comment from a Turkish Kurdish member of the Ankara Parliament:

“Islamists open automatic fire while Kurds are careful to fire single shots,” Faysal Sariyildiz, a Kurdish lawmaker in Turkey’s parliament who’s been monitoring the battle, said in an interview. “They are careful with ammunition since they don’t have logistics supplies like Islamic State.”

The fear of possible genocide by ISIS jihadists against Kurds trapped in Kobani was expressed by UN Special Envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, a veteran Swedish-Italian diplomat.  Mistura according to the BBC “urged Turkey to allow volunteers to cross into Syria to defend Kobani, and warned that as many as 700 people, mainly elderly civilians, were still trapped in the town.  He gave this chilling comment about a possible massacre in Kobani  at a news conference, ‘You remember Srebrenica,’ Staffan de Mistura said, referring to the Bosnian town where Serb forces slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995. ‘We never forgot and we probably never forgave ourselves for that.’

Without ammunition the Kurds have their backs to wall, Kobani is doomed to fall.  Would the Peshmerga in Iraq supply that?  Are their stocks available from the US National Security stockpile in Haifa, Israel? Israel, we are told has sold off its stocks of captured Soviet era weapons and ammunition. Although it could manufacture such  ammunition, it is unlikely to do so.

The USAF has  probably  has available far more effective Special Operations aircraft with which to conduct a aerial campaign to stave off the ISIS forces ringing Kobani. The USAF Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Air Field in North West Florida has squadrons of the heavily armed  Lockheed C-130A Spectre gunships  and the Pilatus U-28 intelligence aircraft. Both have been used to great effect in Afghanistan. Watch this video of a C-30 Spectre Gunship in action. Then we have a number of  Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt Warthog National Guard units that are very effective tank killers. Watch this video of an A-10 Warthog in action. The Spectres are capable of staying over the target area in support of fighting in urban areas with massive firepower . They can take out troops, vehicles like the armored Humvees and tanks stolen from the fleeing Iraq national forces.  They are more effective than the F-18A Hornets, F-16s and the Eurofiighter Tornados and drones currently utilized by the US-led coalition.  Clearly there is no evidence that this Administration plans to use those USAF Special Operations aircraft.

US Embassy Helicopter Rescue Fall of Saigon April 1975

US Embassy Helicopter Rescue Fall of Saigon April 1975

Besides, we have an even more pressing problem, defense of a 300 man US Marine contingent at the Baghdad International Airport now within range of stolen US artillery captured by ISIS. ISIS has conquered virtually all of Anbar Province. Provincial leaders have said that only US combat troops can prevent a complete takeover by ISIS. That puts the ISIS blitzkrieg on Baghdad’s doorstep. Should the runways and control tower at Baghdad airport  be shelled or mortared the only way that those Marines might be evacuated is by  helicopters and not the Apache attack ones we have dispatched. But then ISIS also has MANPADS capable of shooting down both civilian and military aircrafts and those Apaches.  Baghdad airport’s possible fall to ISIS forces raises the question of how the thousands of American contractors, diplomatic staff, and US military advisors will get out to safety from Baghdad’s Green Zone?  That daunting prospect conjures up something eerily familiar to those of us who are Vietnam era vets. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 with images of American Huey helicopters plucking off clamoring US diplomats and Vietnamese from the roof of the US Embassy.

Kobani’s likely fall to ISIS in the face of Turkish inaction despite US limited air attacks will be a momentary disaster awaiting the debacle of what might occur at Baghdad International Airport.

Besides, we have an even more pressing problem, defense of a 300 man US Marine contingent at the Baghdad International Airport now within range of stolen US artillery captured by ISIS.  Should the runways and control tower be shelled or mortared the only way that those Marines might be evacuated is by Apache helicopters we have dispatched. But then ISIS also has MANPADS capable of shooting down both civilian and military aircrafts and those Apaches.  Baghdad airport’s possible fall to ISIS forces raises the question of how the thousands of American contractors, diplomatic staff, and US military advisors will get out to safety from Baghdad’s Green Zone? That daunting prospect conjures up something eerily familiar to those of us who are Vietnam era vets. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 with images of American Huey helicopters plucking off clamoring US diplomats and Vietnamese from the roof of the US Embassy.

Kobani’s likely fall to ISIS in the face of Turkish inaction despite US limited air attacks will be a momentary disaster awaiting the debacle of what might occur at Baghdad  International Airport.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured photo is of smoke from a U.S. coalition air strike in Kobani as seen from Suruc, Turkey taken on 10-10-2014. Source: AP/Leftaris, Pitarakis.