International
Julian Assange breaks silence, slams Mike Pompeo for wanting to assassinate him
From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
The WikiLeaks founder told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that ‘the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and assassinate me within the Ecuadorian embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues.’
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is standing by his assertion that the U.S. Deep State sought to assassinate him while he was detained.
🇪🇺JULIAN ASSANGE: THE CIA TARGETED MY WIFE AND SON
"By March 2017, WikiLeaks had exposed the CIA's infiltration of French political parties; its spying on French and German leaders.
CIA director Pompeo launched a campaign of retribution.
It is now a matter of public record… https://t.co/0GB83xT1JO pic.twitter.com/CEezku6ZKI
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 1, 2024
Assange, 53, was in Strasbourg, France today making his first public appearance after being released in June from London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he had been confined for five years.
Speaking to representatives of 46 countries at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Australian journalist reiterated that Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s CIA director, planned on killing him.
“It is now a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction, the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and assassinate me within the Ecuadorian embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks, and the planting of false information,” Assange said.
“My wife and my infant son were also targeted,” he continued. “A CIA asset was permanently assigned to track my wife, and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my 6-month-old son’s nappy. This is the testimony of more than 30 current and former U.S intelligence officials speaking to the U.S. press, which has been additionally corroborated by records seized in a prosecution brought against some of the CIA agents involved.”
After founding WikiLeaks in the mid 2000s, Assange came under intense scrutiny from Western governments after he helped expose war crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. He sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in the U.K. beginning in 2012.
In total, Assange spent 14 years of his life as a political prisoner until he struck a plea deal this summer with the U.S. government, which had charged him with 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act. He says that he chose to make the deal as the likelihood he would ever receive justice was nearly impossible.
“The CIA’s targeting of myself, my family, and my associates through aggressive, extrajudicial, and extraterritorial means provides a rare insight into how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression,” Assange said Tuesday. “I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism.”
Reports of the CIA’s plan to take Assange out surfaced in 2021, when Yahoo News revealed that intelligence agents had stated that Pompeo had been looking into possible methods of assassinating Assange following his release of “Vault 7” in 2017, which the agency described as “the largest data loss in CIA history.”
Last year, an uncomfortable Pompeo told libertarian journalist John Stossel that it “would have been illegal” for him to draw up plans to kill Assange, who he said is simply “trying to save his tuchus.”
In November 2023, Tucker Carlson announced on X that he had visited Assange at Belmarsh. A photo he posted to the platform showed Carlson walking with Assange’s wife Stella, who was at the event in Strasbourg today.
Visiting Julian Assange at Belmarsh Prison this morning pic.twitter.com/5XR51QTZgy
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 2, 2023
Among other notable moments in WikiLeaks history is its releasing of emails from high-ranking American political actors, including longtime Clinton associate John Podesta. Podesta’s bizarrely worded emails about “President Obama,” “hot dogs,” and “cheese pizza” are believed by some to be coded messages about Washington elites engaging in pedophilia and human trafficking. Other Podesta emails indicate he had an extensive plan to liberalize core teachings of the Catholic Church under the auspices of a “Catholic Spring.”
In August 2016, Assange implied that one of his sources was slain Democratic Party staffer Seth Rich, who was found dead on the streets of Washington, D.C. in 2016 at 4:20 a.m. after being shot in the back. Some contend that the 27-year-old Rich, who was a Bernie Sanders supporter, was murdered for leaking emails about how the party rigged the presidential primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. Rich’s family – perhaps under pressure from clandestine forces to remain quiet – have stated that such accusations are untrue.
Assange and his supporters have repeatedly maintained he has done nothing wrong, stating that he is a journalist and that the public has a right to know what their corrupt leaders are doing. Governments have maintained that the data he published is top secret and that his actions did and does endanger lives.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Congressional investigation into authors of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ intensifies
From LifeSiteNews
By Dr. Michael Nevradakis of The Defender
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, authors of ‘The Disinformation Dozen,’ faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), authors of the “Disinformation Dozen,” faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Nov. 7 subpoenaed CCDH as part of an ongoing congressional investigation, launched in August 2023, into the nonprofit’s censorship-related activities.
The subpoena requests all communications and documents “between or among CCDH, the Executive Branch, or third parties, including social media companies, relating to the identification of groups, accounts, channels, or posts for moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation.”
The subpoena also requests all records, notes, and other “documents of interactions between or among CCDH and the Executive Branch referring or relating to ‘killing’ or taking adverse action against Elon Musk’s X social media platform (formerly Twitter).”
CCDH previously included Kennedy on its “Disinformation Dozen” list, published in March 2021, of the 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers.”
Leaked CCDH documents released last month by investigative journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi revealed that CCDH sought to “kill” Twitter and launch “black ops” against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
CCDH included Kennedy, founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), on its list of “The Disinformation Dozen” when he was still chairman of CHD.
“Black ops” are defined as a “secret mission or campaign carried out by a military, governmental or other organization, typically one in which the organization conceals or denies its involvement.”
A subsequent report by Taibbi and Thacker showed that CCDH employed tactics it initially developed to help U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the U.S. Democratic Party, to target Musk, Kennedy and others.
CCDH used ‘explicit military terminology’ to target speech
Thacker told The Defender the leaked documents “definitely spurred” Jordan’s subpoena.
Sayer Ji, the founder of GreenMedInfo, was also listed among “The Disinformation Dozen.” He said the leaked documents were “chilling” and that CCDH’s efforts were part of “the largest coordinated foreign influence operation targeting American speech since 1776.”
Ji told The Defender:
The leaked documents confirm what we experienced firsthand: CCDH wasn’t just targeting 12 individuals – we were test cases for deploying military-grade psychological operations against civilians at scale.
Just as the British Crown once used seditious libel laws to silence colonial dissent, CCDH’s operation expanded to silence hundreds of millions globally, from doctors sharing clinical observations to parents discussing vaccine injuries.
Ohio physician Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, also on “The Disinformation Dozen” list, told The Defender, “The exposure of the manipulation that went on behind the scenes to silence us is what we suspected, and now we know … We have the sad last laugh against their attacks. They are the ones with blood on their hands.”
Ji said CCDH’s internal communications reveal not just bias, “but explicit military terminology – ‘black ops,’ ‘target acquisition,’ ‘strategic deployment’ – coordinated between Five Eyes networks and dark money interests to target constitutionally protected speech.”
Writing on GreenMedInfo, Ji said, “CCDH’s ‘black ops’ approach includes coordinated media smears, economic isolation, and digital censorship.” Ji said CCDH’s activities represent “a new level of institutionalized power directed at civilian targets, often bypassing constitutional safeguards.”
Thacker said Jordan’s investigation should expand to include CCDH’s “black ops.”
“I don’t want to speculate on what CCDH was doing with ‘black ops’ against Kennedy,” Thacker said. “I think that should be explored by a congressional committee, with CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed put under oath,” Thacker said.
CCDH facing multiple lawsuits, possible Trump administration investigation
Jordan’s subpoena is the latest in a series of legal challenges for CCDH. According to GreenMedInfo, the organization faces several lawsuits and government investigations.
Following last month’s CCDH document leak, the Trump campaign said an investigation into CCDH “will be at the top of the list.”
The campaign also filed a complaint against the Harris campaign with the Federal Election Commission, “for making and accepting illegal foreign national contributions” – namely, from the U.K. Labour Party.
This followed the release of evidence indicating that the Biden administration coordinated with the U.K. Foreign Office as part of what GreenMedInfo described “as a systematic censorship regime involving CCDH and affiliated organizations.”
A lawsuit Musk filed against CCDH in July 2023 for allegedly illegally obtaining data and using it in a “scare campaign” to deter advertisers from X will likely proceed on appeal. A federal court initially dismissed the lawsuit in March.
Discovery in the Missouri v. Biden free speech lawsuit may also “shed further light and legal scrutiny on the critical role that CCDH played in allegedly suppressing and violating the civil liberties of U.S. citizens,” according to GreenMedInfo.
CCDH, others flee X in protest
Earlier this week, CCDH deleted its account on X, the platform it wanted to “kill.”
Writing on Substack, Ji said CCDH’s departure from X, during the same week Trump nominated Kennedy to lead HHS, represents a “seismic shift” and marks “a watershed moment, signaling the unraveling of entrenched systems of control and the rise of a new era for health freedom and open discourse.”
Several other left-leaning organizations and individuals, including The Guardian and journalist Don Lemon, also said they will stop using X, after Trump tapped Musk to lead a federal agency tasked with increasing government efficiency.
According to NBC News, many ordinary users are also fleeing X, citing “bots, partisan advertisements and harassment, which they all felt reached a tipping point when Donald Trump was elected president last week with Musk’s support.”
But according to Adweek, X’s former top advertisers, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment, resumed ad spending on the platform this year, but at “much lower rates” than before.
“Elon Musk’s ties with Donald Trump might spur some advertisers to think spending on X is good for business,” Adweek reported.
Thacker said CCDH’s deletion of its X account was “aligned” with the departure of “other organizations and ‘journalists’ aligned with the Democratic Party.” He said it appears to have been a “coordinated protest.”
Ji said organizations like CCDH view X “as an existential threat.” He added:
Having experienced both Twitter 1.0’s AI-driven censorship system and X’s more open environment, I understand exactly why CCDH sees X as an existential threat. X represents what Twitter 1.0’s embedded censorship infrastructure was designed to prevent: a truly free digital public square.
Under Musk’s commitment to free speech, their tactical advantage disappeared. They’re not leaving because X is toxic. They’re leaving because they can’t control it.
Online censorship ‘may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny’
According to GreenMedInfo, CCDH’s departure from X “appears to reflect an internal recognition that their operational model – characterized by critics as a US-U.K. intelligence ‘cut-out’ facilitating unconstitutional suppression of civil liberties – may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny.”
In recent months, several mainstream media outlets have corrected stories that relied upon CCDH reports claiming “The Disinformation Dozen” was responsible for up to two-thirds of vaccine-related “misinformation” online.
According to Thacker, this reflects an increasing awareness by such outlets that readers are turning their backs on such reporting.
“The outlets that promoted CCDH propaganda are being investigated by their own readers, who are fleeing in droves. Readers are voting against this type of propaganda by refusing to subscribe to these media outlets,” Thacker said.
Yet, “many outlets continue to host these demonstrably false narratives without correction,” Ji said.
According to Ji, these false narratives resulted in medical professionals fearing the loss of their licenses for expressing non-establishment views, self-censorship among scientists “to avoid career destruction,” suppression of “critical public health discussions” and the labeling of millions of posts as “misinformation.”
“This isn’t just about suppressing speech. It’s about establishing a new form of digital control that echoes the colonial-era suppression our founders fought against,” Ji said.
“CCDH has polluted political discourse by pretending there is some absolute definition of the term ‘misinformation’ and that they hold the dictionary,” Thacker said. “That’s nonsense. They spread hate and misinformation to attack perceived political enemies of the Democratic Party.”
Ji called upon Congress to investigate “The full scope of those silenced beyond the ‘Disinformation Dozen,’” the “systematic suppression of scientific debate,” “media organizations’ role in amplifying foreign influence operations” and “dark money funding networks” supporting such organizations.
Thacker said Congress should examine possible CCDH violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “We need to also look at how much foreign money they took in and whether we as a nation are comfortable with foreign influence trying to alter the law and political discussions.”
“The fight isn’t just about correcting past wrongs or personal vindication. It’s about preserving fundamental rights to free speech and scientific inquiry in the digital age,” Ji said. “If we don’t address this systematic abuse of power, we risk surrendering the very freedoms our founders fought to establish.”
This article was originally published by The Defender – Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
International
Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy Outline Sweeping Plan to Cut Federal Regulations And Staffing
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy published an op-ed Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal that revealed their huge plans for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Civil service protections won’t shield federal workers from mass layoffs, according to the op-ed. Musk and Ramaswamy outlined a sweeping plan to cut federal regulations and staffing, marking the most detailed glimpse yet into Trump’s downsizing strategy.
The pair, acting as “outside volunteers,” pledged to collaborate with Trump’s transition team to assemble a “lean team of small-government crusaders.” This team, they said, would work closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget to implement their vision.
The initiative focuses on three core objectives: cutting regulations, reducing administrative overhead, and achieving cost savings. Legal experts and advanced technology will help identify regulations that overstep congressional authority. These rules would be presented to Trump, who could halt enforcement and begin the repeal process through executive action.
BREAKING: Donald Trump has officially announced Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy will lead Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) pic.twitter.com/9WNn5FojN1
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 13, 2024
“A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions,” the op-ed revealed.
Musk and Ramaswamy acknowledged the impact of their plan and said displaced workers should be treated with dignity, proposing incentives like early retirement packages and severance pay to ease their transition into private-sector roles. Despite common assumptions, civil service protections won’t prevent these layoffs, they contended, as long as the terminations are framed as reductions in force rather than targeting specific employees.
Musk and Ramaswamy also advocated for relocating federal agencies out of Washington, D.C., and encouraging voluntary resignations from remote workers unwilling to return to the office full-time. “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they said.
Ramaswamy said Tuesday that federal employees must return to the office full-time. He noted on X, previously known as Twitter, that unions are hastily revising agreements to prevent job losses, claiming the prospect of a five-day office schedule has left some “in tears.”
Trump announced that Musk and Ramaswamy will co-lead a newly created DOGE during his second term. The duo will work with the White House Office of Management and Budget to streamline federal agencies, reduce wasteful spending, and eliminate excessive regulations.
-
Brownstone Institute2 days ago
The Most Devastating Report So Far
-
Business2 days ago
Carbon tax bureaucracy costs taxpayers $800 million
-
ESG1 day ago
Can’t afford Rent? Groceries for your kids? Trudeau says suck it up and pay the tax!
-
Daily Caller1 day ago
Los Angeles Passes ‘Sanctuary City’ Ordinance In Wake Of Trump’s Deportation Plan
-
John Stossel1 day ago
Green Energy Needs Minerals, Yet America Blocks New Mines
-
COVID-192 days ago
Dr. McCullough praises RFK Jr., urges him to pull COVID shots from the market
-
Alberta1 day ago
Province considering new Red Deer River reservoir east of Red Deer
-
MAiD2 days ago
Over 40% of people euthanized in Ontario lived in poorest parts of the province: government data