Many antiwar Americans were thrilled when Kennedy announced last spring that he’d be running against Joe Biden in this year’s primaries and that he’d hired former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich to be his campaign manager. But Kucinich quit in the middle of October.
US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Gaza. In recent days, the US stands globally isolated in its support of Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians, voting against a UN General Assembly resolution for a Gaza ceasefire backed by 153 countries with 89% of the world population, and opposed by just the US and 9 small countries with less than 1% of the world population.
In the Reporters Without Borders (RWB) annual report on journalists killed in the course of their work in 2023, the deaths of two Russian journalists killed in the area of the special military operation were simply erased from the count, as if their deaths did not count. But after all, this is hardly surprising coming from an organisation that in 2022 was already calling for censorship of the Russian media on the pretext of protecting freedom of speech.
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52% of RWB’s funding comes from governments, including the French Development Agency, the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the UK Foreign Office, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the European Commission, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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But if we look at the non-governmental players, RWB’s Russophobic bias can be fully explained. Its partners include the Open Society foundations of George Soros, who has never hidden the fact that he wants to see Russia collapse, and who supports colour revolutions around the world in order to install pro-Western governments in key countries such as Ukraine.
The Ford Foundation is also a donor to Reporters Without Borders. This foundation is literally infiltrated by the CIA (one of its former presidents is none other than the architect of what later became the CIA, and he hired American intelligence agents to work for the foundation)!
And to top it all off, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is one of RWB’s supporters. The NED is an American organisation funded by the US Congress, which has taken on some of the tasks previously carried out by the CIA! Don’t waste any more time, we’ve got the trifecta!
State Department officials, according to a Facebook employee speaking with The Washington Post, told the company all future monthly meetings to discuss content takedowns were “canceled pending further guidance.” The reported cancellation means government officials and trust and safety representatives at Facebook will no longer meet to discuss brewing political misinformation or foreign influence operations. It’s unclear whether other agencies have taken similar measures following the ruling or if Google or Twitter have canceled meetings. The State Department, Meta, and Google did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment. Twitter sent us a 💩 . …
Judge compares Biden’s admin’s meeting with tech companies to Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’
The Justice Department appealed Trump-appointed federal Judge Terry A. Doughty’s preliminary injunction hours after it landed, according to court documents filed Wednesday evening. Doughty’s preliminary injunction bars numerous government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from contacting or asking social media companies about posts he said are protected by the First Amendment. The ruling does offer some exceptions for government communications with tech firms intended to warn them of national security threats, criminal activity, and voter suppression. Government officials maintain their content recommendations to social networks were merely suggestions, not legal demands. Doughty said numerous uncovered communications show Biden administration officials wielded threats of increased regulations or a stripping of Section 230 immunity protections to get its way.
When tech companies and State Department officials meet, “they talk about foreign influence, they compare notes. It gives them the opportunity to ask questions about foreign influence they are seeing,” this person said. “State will share Russian narratives, things they are seeing in state media in Russia about U.S. topics. They will ask whether Facebook is seeing things from known entities, such as the Chinese Communist Party or the Internet Research Agency,” the Russian entity thought responsible for much of the interference in the 2016 election. …
“The really tough question is when does the government cross the line from responding to speech — which it can and should do — to coercing platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech?” Kosseff said. “The judge here believes that line was crossed, and he certainly cited some persuasive examples,” such as administration officials suggesting antitrust actions against tech firms or changes to their liability protections while criticizing their content moderation efforts.
“Fiery but mostly peaceful protest” – CNN /s (Wikipedia)
An editor at Radio New Zealand has been suspended and is under investigation for the time-honored practices of providing balanced and factual reporting, writes Tony Kevin.
By recognizing that the question of NATO enlargement is at the center of this war, we understand why U.S. weaponry will not end this war. Only diplomatic efforts can do that.
Dissident commentary about Ukraine that was still published in major Western news media in 2014 is entirely gone now because these publications have transformed themselves into outlets for ironclad war propaganda.
“Between its use of spying drones, rampant facial recognition technology, and other invasive policing tactics, we’ve seen time and time again that the NYPD cannot police itself,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “As it looks to deploy new apps to officer and civilian phones, the Department needs to be transparent about its plan for these technologies and how they will store and protect New Yorkers’ data — ensuring that this rollout complies with the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act. To truly uphold New Yorkers’ privacy and safety, any technology adopted by the NYPD must be subject to public scrutiny and review,” she said in a statement.
Everyone is going to hate this column. Musk worshipers are going to hate it because I’m going to blaspheme against Elon Musk. Musk demonizers are going to hate it because I am not going to blaspheme against him enough. Everyone else is going to hate it because they’re sick to the gills of hearing about Musk, and Musk’s destruction of Twitter, or his salvation of Twitter, and censorship, and “hate speech,” and all that stuff.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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