Today we struggle with the results of one of the most successful psychological operations of all time... the exponential growth of the privatized surveillance state. From ICE to targeted pricing to Zionist blacklisting to predictive policing, CISPA has truly lived up to what so many warned us about lo those 13+ years ago. If only we had listened to the Snowden Truthers back then.
Direct Support
from RT
US President Donald Trump and Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, held a lengthy phone conversation on Wednesday, marking the first known direct contact between the two leaders since the US military captured President Nicolas Maduro.
The call, described by both sides as positive and productive, follows weeks of tension after the January 3 raid that killed at least 80 people, including members of the Venezuelan military, Maduro’s Cuban security staff, and civilians.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things, and I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters, praising Rodriguez as a “terrific person.”
In a separate Truth Social post, Trump stated that “tremendous progress” was being made and specifically mentioned “Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security” as topics discussed.
“This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will soon be great and prosperous again, perhaps more so than ever before!” he added.
Rodriguez characterized the talk as “long, productive and courteous” and said they discussed a bilateral agenda aimed at benefiting both countries. The dialogue represents a shift in tone, after Rodriguez initially declared defiantly that no “foreign agent” would control Venezuela or turn it into a “colony.”...
read more here
from Daily Sabah
Bedouin families in a West Bank village are dismantling sheep pens and loading their belongings onto trucks as escalating settler violence forces them from their homes in the Israeli-occupied territory.
While attacks by Israeli settlers affect communities across the West Bank, the semi-nomadic Bedouins are among the territory's most vulnerable, saying they suffer from forced displacement due in large part to a lack of law enforcement.
"What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers' continuous and repeated attacks, day and night, for the past two years," Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin in the village of Ras Ein al-Auja, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, Israeli outposts have steadily expanded, with more than 500,000 settlers now living in the territory, which is also home to 3 million Palestinians...
read more here
from PressTV
A female ringleader, involved in recent US- and Israel-backed riots in Iran, has confessed to personally reaching out to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking the support of the Tel Aviv regime for the destabilizing operations.
The unnamed suspect, reportedly fluent in seven languages, made the admission on Wednesday during a visit by Iran's Judiciary Chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Eje’i, to a Tehran detention center holding individuals involved in rioting and sabotage.
According to the authorities, the woman acknowledged coordinating with administrators of pro-Pahlavi social media networks during the recent unrest and directly contacting pro-Israel circles following the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. She confirmed that her efforts included sending a direct message to Netanyahu himself.
Two other rioters confessed that they targeted a police station in a deliberate effort to undermine the Islamic Republic and create turmoil in the country.
Also among the detainees is a man who admitted to firing a single-barreled shotgun at law enforcement personnel and civilians from his apartment in southern Tehran.
Another individual admitted to deliberately ramming four police officers with his car.
Three additional saboteurs confessed to dropping concrete blocks on the heads of law enforcement personnel and civilians. Their ringleader, a woman, openly acknowledged that they were fully aware of enemies’ anti-Iran agenda and that their coordinated plot aimed to tear the nation apart...
read more here
from PressTV
Iran’s defense minister says the United States and Israel orchestrated riots inside Iran, directing the flow of weapons and cash to fuel violence and destabilization amid a broader plan to fragment the country.
Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh said on Thursday that Iran has “precise intelligence” showing the United States, the Israeli regime, and some of their allied countries set up joint coordination centers to shape a future for "separatists" and terrorists.
He said those meetings went as far as planning for each “separated region” to draft its own constitution, while foreign sponsors directed weapons smuggling and provided financial and logistical support.
Nasirzadeh said Iranian intelligence has full oversight of these plans, including joint sessions held in one of the countries in the region with the aim of designing "unrest" inside Iran.
According to him, US spy services and several Western countries presented “their own specific programs to increase budgets” for destabilization during those meetings.
He said even the “rates” for destruction and killing inside Iran were set.
“For killing each person, 500 million tomans (roughly 3,300 USD). For burning each car, 200 million tomans (roughly 1,300 USD). For setting police stations on fire, 80 million tomans (roughly 530 USD). And for any disruptive action, 15 million tomans (roughly 100 USD),” he said.
Nasirzadeh stressed that assigning 500 million tomans per killing shows the clear objective was “manufacturing deaths.”...
read more here
from France 24
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he had held a “long call” with Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, the first known contact between the two leaders since the ouster of Nicolás Maduro.
“We just had a great conversation today, and she’s a terrific person,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
He later said on social media that he and Rodriguez had discussed “many topics”, including oil, minerals, trade and national security.
“We are making tremendous progress,” Trump said.
After Maduro’s capture in a deadly US special forces operation on January 3, Trump said he was content to let his former deputy Rodriguez take over — as long as she granted the United States access to Venezuelan oil.
He has suggested the United States could maintain oversight of the Caribbean country for years.
Rodriguez has been walking a diplomatic tightrope, seeking to meet Trump’s demands without alienating Maduro loyalists, who control Venezuela’s security forces and feared paramilitaries.
Writing on Telegram, she described her call with the US leader as “productive and courteous” and characterised by “mutual respect”.
The 56-year-old added that she and Trump, 79, had discussed a “bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our people, as well as outstanding issues in relations between our governments”.
Earlier, at her first press conference as interim president, Rodriguez said Venezuela was entering a “new political era” marked by greater tolerance for “ideological and political diversity”...
read more here
by Scott Creighton
So it appears the Washington Post reporter who had her home invaded by the corrupt FBI was somehow engaged in a 'leaker' (Trumpism) who had shared classified information on Venezuela.
'... Speaking to reporters in the afternoon, President Trump made an apparent reference to the case, saying the government had caught “a very bad leaker” of information related to Venezuela. He suggested that similar investigations were underway, saying: “There could be some others, and we’ll let you know about that. We’re hot on their trail.”
In a message to staff, Matt Murray, the executive editor of The Post, said neither Ms. Natanson nor the paper was a focus of the investigation.
“Nonetheless, this extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” he wrote.' NYT
Here is a video of that news conference in which he starts off talking about the 'leaker' (Trumpism)
Whatever it was that the whistleblower planned on disclosing, it was bad enough in the eyes of the Deep State to get them to kick in a door belonging to an employee of Jeff Bezos, a well known Trump (and fascism) supporter.
from the Guardian (H/T T)
The FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter early on Wednesday in what the newspaper called a “highly unusual and aggressive” move by law enforcement, and press freedom groups condemned as a “tremendous intrusion” by the Trump administration.
Agents descended on the Virginia home of Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.
An email sent on Wednesday afternoon to Post staff from the executive editor, Matt Murray, obtained by the Guardian, said agents turned up “unannounced”, searched her home and seized electronic devices.
“This extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” the email said.
“The Washington Post has a long history of zealous support for robust press freedoms. The entire institution stands by those freedoms and our work.”
“It’s a clear and appalling sign that this administration will set no limits on its acts of aggression against an independent press,” Marty Baron, the Post’s former executive editor, told the Guardian.
Murray said neither the newspaper nor Natanson were told they were the target of a justice department investigation.
Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said in a post on X that the raid was conducted by the justice department and FBI at the request of the Pentagon.
The warrant, she said, was executed “at the home of a Washington Post journalist who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor. The leaker is currently behind bars.”...
... “Searches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalized here.”
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said it was “an alarming escalation in the Trump administration’s multipronged war on press freedom” and called the warrant “outrageous”.
“The administration may now be in possession of volumes of journalist communications having nothing to do with any pending investigation and, if investigators are able to access them, we have zero faith that they will respect journalist-source confidentiality,” he said.
Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation program director at PEN America, said: “A government action this rare and aggressive signals a growing assault on independent reporting and undermines the First Amendment...
read more here
(if the translation is accurate and I have no reason to think it isn't, Vladamir Putin says the obvious part out loud, that Russia cannot intervene when an internal coup with the Venezuelan military and certain political figures kidnapped Maduro and handed him over to the Americans. It is obvious. All the weapons and training the Russians helped Venezuela with were NOT USED to defend the country. In that circumstance, what is Russia expected to do? Invade?)
from Poutin TV (H/T AuntBB and her Tall Grey)