US Congress Probing 13 Banks For January 6 ‘Collusion’
Republicans in the House of Representatives have sent letters to 13 financial institutions they suspect of colluding with the FBI and the Treasury Department to spy on Americans without a warrant in relation to the 2021 Capitol riot.
Supporters of then-President Donald Trump had stormed the legislature just as Republican lawmakers were starting to register objections to certifying the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden. Democrats labeled the unrest as an “insurrection” and sought to arrest over 1,000 people involved in any way.
Some of these people were apparently targeted by financial institutions working with the FBI and Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), according to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by the Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee remain concerned about how and to what extent federal law enforcement and financial institutions continue to spy on Americans by weaponizing backdoor information sharing and casting sprawling classes of transactions, purchase behavior, and protected political or religious expression as potentially ‘suspicious’ or indicative of ‘extremism’,” said a letter from Jordan, which the Daily Mail obtained exclusively on Thursday.
READ MORE: Apple and Google more dangerous than governments – Telegram founder
Jordan has pointed to evidence that the FBI and FinCEN instructed banks to look for purchases of Bibles or search terms such as “Trump”or “MAGA,” the acronym for the 45th president’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
Congress was already investigating Bank of America, Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank and Truist. Thursday’s letter was sent to Charles Schwab, HSBC, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, PayPal, Santander, Standard Chartered and Western Union. That makes 13 banks or financial institutions potentially involved in the dragnet.
Bank of America alone sent data on 211 individuals to the FBI and FinCen by January 17, 2021. However, its Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) was sent after the federal agencies asked banks to look for “extremist” purchases. Four of the 211 were tagged for a follow-up and visited by FBI agents. None of them ended up being charged with anything.
READ MORE: Trump pledges to release Capitol rioters
“This kind of warrantless financial surveillance raises serious concerns about the federal government’s respect for Americans’ privacy and fundamental civil liberties,” Jordan wrote in a separate letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, also obtained by the Daily Mail.
Since 2021, the FBI has targeted “radical-traditionalist Catholics” as well as parents who spoke up at school board meetings – on issues such as mask mandates or critical race theory – as potential domestic terrorists. Both programs were officially denounced after being revealed by whistleblowers.
For 15 Years Alex Jones Covered The US/Russia War
Palestinian Rescuers Find Signs of Organ Harvesting in Khan Yunis Mass Graves – Reports
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Palestinian rescue teams that were recovering the bodies of civilians from mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, said they found evidence suggesting organ harvesting by Israeli forces, media reported on Friday.
At least 392 bodies have been retrieved from three mass graves at the hospital in Khan Yunis, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the city earlier in April, and 165 bodies remain unidentified, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The assembly of key pieces for Gaza’s temporary pier started offshore, with plans to initiate maritime humanitarian aid delivery by early May, a senior military official said during an on-background press briefing call.
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) April 25, 2024
Meanwhile, nearly a third of the children in northern Gaza… pic.twitter.com/tvzWD8C46b
Paramedics and rescuers were cited as saying that some bodies had been found with their hands tied and their abdomens cut, raising suspicions of organ theft.
Dozens of bodies have also been uncovered in mass graves after Israeli forces left Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City and Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the report said.
For 15 Years Alex Jones Covered The US/Russia War
NASA Director Bill Nelson Says FAR Side of Moon is ‘Always Dark’
America’s useless, corrupt-to-the-core Congress is back at it again making collective fools of themselves about science and space.
The latest deranged, well-past-his-prime dinosaur to say something utterly stupid on the public stage is NASA Director Bill Nelson, who in speaking with Congress the other day discussed plans by the United States government to build a base on the south pole of the moon because there is supposedly water there.
China has prioritized setting up a base on the back side of the moon, but Nelson has no idea why because he believes that the far side of the moon is “always dark,” never seeing any sunlight – watch the cringe-fest below:
The U.S plans to build its first(?) base on the south pole of the moon, because water. China has prioritized the backside of the moon, NASA Director Bill Nelson has no idea why. pic.twitter.com/y2pqSIVDmI
— James (@JamesIsSteezy) April 19, 2024
Nelson, by the way, is the top dog at NASA, meaning he is supposed to represent the best that America has to offer in terms of expertise about the known universe. How did this guy come to occupy his post, we wonder?
“Unbelievable,” tweeted Phil Parker (@PhillipTParker) about this embarrassing display of stupidity by Nelson. “The moon orbits the Earth. And the ‘back side’ is certainly not dark. It receives sunlight with every revolution around our world.”
Don’t wanna be an American idiot
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) did something similar around the time of the second Great American Eclipse when she incorrectly told a room full of students during a ceremony that the moon is “made up mostly of gases.”
Lee, by the way, is a former member of the Science Committee, as well as a former Ranking Member of the Space and Aeronautics Committee, meaning she, too, should know at least the basics about space.
Lee received heavy backlash on social media – and rightfully so – for spreading fake science that is so easily debunked, not to mention so widely known and understood even by youngsters with a rudimentary understanding of the universe.
“Obviously I misspoke and meant to say the sun, but as usual, Republicans are focused on stupid things instead of stuff that really matters,” Lee fumed on X in response to all the backlash, turning the criticism into partisan banter (as usual).
Truth be told, Rep. Lee, many Republicans are just as dumb as you are. Pretty much the entire U.S. Congress is a pack of utter morons who are beholden to special interests, mainly Israel, rather than the people they supposedly represent.
“I believe this sort of thing is put out to disable a person’s critical faculties,” one of our regular readers wrote about these public displays of stupidity.
“When only falsehoods are shown in media and education then the mind caves in and experiences a break down. It just doesn’t know what to believe. It then accepts what it is told, and uncritically.”
Another wrote jokingly that Lee is “mostly full of hot air and gasses” herself, which would explain why she said what she said.
Someone else, referencing Nelson’s fake science, joked that perhaps China wants to build a base on the back side of the moon because the Chinese “are massive Pink Floyd fans.”
“All these guys do is lie,” wrote another about the U.S. government as a whole, which no longer in any way represents the will of We the People.
The entire U.S. Congress needs to be drained, dredged and replaced with people who have integrity and who knows basic, common-sense facts about the universe, would you not agree? Learn more at Stupid.news.
For 15 Years Alex Jones Covered The US/Russia War
Poland Ready to Help Ukraine Round up Military-Aged Men
Poland says it is ready and willing to help Ukraine with its crisis-level manpower and recruitment problems, as it could be poised to round up Ukrainian military-aged males and return them to their home country. Government officials are now strongly signaling just such a controversial plan.
Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz issued the words Wednesday, largely in response to Ukraine’s new law and policy requiring men between 18 and 59 living abroad to get or renew their passport only at offices inside Ukraine. It is designed to prevent them from leaving in the country and thus avoid military service.
“Poland has suggested in the past helping Ukraine so that those who are subject to military service go back to their country to fulfill their civic obligation, Kosiniak-Kamysz told Polsat News television,” according to Reuters.
“I think many Poles are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in hotels and cafes, and they hear how much effort we have to make to help Ukraine,” he said, but without specifying what precise steps Warsaw is set to take.
According to more of the Polish defense minister’s words:
“The Ukrainian authorities are doing everything to provide new soldiers to the front, because the needs are huge,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
The Polish official said that Warsaw had previously offered to help Kiev track down those who dodge their “civic duty,” but noted that “the form of assistance depends on the Ukrainian side.”
Of course, we should note that such a policy of helping get young Ukrainian men ‘off the streets’ is highly convenient from a Polish perspective, given the historic anti-Ukrainian sentiment among the Polish population. Simply put, the two nationalities tend to hate each other, and Warsaw will now cast its policies pressuring Ukrainians to leave as somehow noble.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote earlier this week on X that he had “ordered measures to restore fair attitudes toward men of conscription age in Ukraine and abroad.” Kuleba complained, “How it looks now: A man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state.”
Russian media has estimated that almost one million Ukrainians have been given temporary sanctuary in Poland, and that a significant but unknown portion of these are likely eligible for conscription.
As the West agree to send billions more to Ukraine, mass mobilisation gets underway as officers staged a mass raid in a cafe in Uzhgorod.
— Dean O’Brien (@DeanoBeano1) April 24, 2024
Eyewitnesses filmed mobilisation and police officers leading men out of the cafe who will no doubt be heading to the front shortly. pic.twitter.com/K2o1InhbTa
Despite Biden’s $60 billion for Ukraine’s defense having finally been signed into law by the president, the reality remainsthat Ukraine is fundamentally suffering a severe crisis of manpower. This essentially means that even as US weapons and equipment arrive, there are fewer and fewer troops experienced enough to actually man and operate them.
For 15 Years Alex Jones Covered The US/Russia War
President With Crackhead Son Frees 5 Crack Dealers, Ditches Promise to Release All Pot Criminals
President Biden has granted clemency to five crack dealers, ordering their early release for dealing the drug in recognition of Second Chance Month.
Yes, this guy…
In honor of the new government crack pipe program, here’s Joe & Hunter on crack pic.twitter.com/VWCBw9svai
— obedient worker (@lmazzeiphotos) February 9, 2022
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has made zero progress on a campaign promise to release “everyone” in prison for marijuana offenses, the NY Post reports.
“America is a Nation founded on the promise of second chances. During Second Chance Month, we reaffirm our commitment to rehabilitation and reentry for people returning to their communities post incarceration,” whoever writes Biden’s statements said on Wednesday.
“We also recommit to building a criminal justice system that lives up to those ideals and ensures that everyone receives equal justice under law. That is why today I am announcing steps I am taking to make this promise a reality.”
Biden, who wrote or cosponsored some of the nation’s harshest federal drug laws in the 1980s and ’90s, said that he chose to issue commutations to the five crack offenders because they would have been given more lenient sentences today — continuing a long-running effort dating to the Obama administration to identify and retroactively reduce such sentences.
It’s unclear why Biden chose to free none of the estimated 2,700 federal marijuana-dealing inmates, as he promised to do at a Democratic primary debate in 2019. -NY Post
Biden has defended his broken promise to free all marijuana offenses, citing his 2022 mass pardon for people convicted of simple marijuana possession (none of whom were actually in prison), counts. Cannabis advocates call bullshit, however, saying that they understood “everyone” to mean incarcerated dealers as well.
Biden also pardoned 11 people who have already completed their prison sentences, allowing them to vote and own guns again.
“I am using my clemency power to pardon 11 individuals and commute the sentences of 5 individuals who were convicted of non-violent drug offenses,” said Biden’s writer. “Many of these individuals received disproportionately longer sentences than they would have under current law, policy, and practice. The pardon recipients have demonstrated their commitment to improving their lives and positively transforming their communities. The commutation recipients have shown that they are deserving of forgiveness and the chance at building a brighter future for themselves beyond prison walls.”
For 15 Years Alex Jones Covered The US/Russia War
This Is Why Everyone Needs To Prepare For The Day When Devastating Cyberattacks Take U.S. Power Grids Down
What would you do if the power grid where you live went down and there was no electricity for an extended period of time? You might want to think about that, because experts are warning that it is just a matter of time before cyberattacks successfully cripple our power grids. In fact, foreign hackers are working hard to infiltrate critical infrastructure as you read this article. As you will see below, we are extremely vulnerable, and the Russians and the Chinese have both developed highly advanced cyberwarfare capabilities. When the U.S. ends up fighting a war with Russia or China (or both simultaneously), devastating cyberattacks on our power grids will be conducted. When your community is suddenly plunged into darkness, what is your plan?
The United States and Canada are not covered by a single power grid.
Rather, there are multiple grids that collectively provide the electricity that all of us need. The following explanation comes from Wikipedia…
The electrical power grid that powers Northern America is not a single grid, but is instead divided into multiple wide area synchronous grids.[1] The Eastern Interconnection and the Western Interconnection are the largest. Three other regions include the Texas Interconnection, the Quebec Interconnection, and the Alaska Interconnection. Each region delivers power at a nominal 60 Hz frequency. The regions are not usually directly connected or synchronized to each other, but there exist some HVDC interconnectors. The Eastern and Western grids are connected via seven links that allow 1.32 GW to flow between them. A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that increasing these interconnections would save energy costs.[2]
Bloomberg is reporting that “US power grids are facing heightened risks of cyber and physical attacks as the election nears”, and one expert is warning that there is “a 100 percent chance” that critical infrastructure will eventually be breached at some point…
“I think there’s a 100 percent chance that organizations in the critical infrastructure space at some point will experience some short of breach,” said Stephanie Benoit Kurtz, lead cybersecurity faculty at the College of Business and Information Technology at the University of Phoenix. “No longer are the days when organizations can say, ‘We’ll never be breached.’ It’s not if, it’s when.”
Sadly, I believe that she is quite correct.
We should have never exposed our power grids to the Internet, and now we are incredibly vulnerable.
During a recent congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly admitted that Chinese hackers have been targeting our power grids…
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday that China’s hackers are targeting American critical infrastructure, including water treatment plants, pipelines and the power grid, to be able to “wreak havoc” in the U.S. if Beijing ever decides to do so.
Testifying before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Wray also warned that there has been too little public attention on the threat that he says China’s efforts pose to national security.
“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if and when China decides the time has come to strike,” Wray told lawmakers.
This is a very real threat.
The moment that China invades Taiwan, the U.S. and China will be at war.
And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has warned that ““if Beijing feared that a major conflict with the United States were imminent, it almost certainly would consider undertaking aggressive cyber operations against U.S. homeland critical infrastructure and military assets worldwide.”
Most Americans don’t realize that the groundwork for such cyber operations is already being laid. For example, last August Chinese hackers specifically targeted the Texas power grid…
The report says that, in August, hackers attempted to access the computer systems used by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, or the PUC, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operate the state’s power grid. Most of Texas is on its own power grid, separate from the grids used by most of the country.
If you think that our systems are secure, you are just being delusional.
The truth is that we are extremely vulnerable, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation admits that the number of weak spots is growing with each passing day…
U.S. power grids are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks, with the number of susceptible points in electrical networks increasing by about 60 per day, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) said in a webcast on Thursday.
The grids’ virtual and physical weak spots, or points in software or hardware that are susceptible to cyber criminals, grew to a range of 23,000 to 24,000 last year from 21,000 to 22,000 by the end of 2022, executives with the energy regulator said.
“It’s very hard to keep pace with addressing all those vulnerabilities,” said Manny Cancel, senior vice president of NERC.
But foreign entities wouldn’t even need to gain access through a weak spot if there are already back doors in place.
According to one analysis, “about 90 percent of software used to manage the U.S. power grid is linked to Russian and Chinese developers”…
Orlando based Fortress Information Security explained that any “kid” with internet can contribute their “block” that then can be developed into software used in America’s critical infrastructure. A “block”, one of these code components, can risk the whole structure– our energy grid.
“A Chinese agent or a Russian agent can install backdoors into one of these components. And then unbeknownst to a software manufacturer, you grab this component, which has been tampered with and poisoned by Russian or Chinese actor and now they put that component into their software, and it ends up in our electrical grid or, or an oil rig,” said Alex Santos, CEO of Fortress Information Security.
The company analyzed nearly 8,000 of these open-source components. 13 percent had contributions from Russia and China. Fortress found about 90 percent of software used to manage the U.S. power grid is linked to Russian and Chinese developers—something that can make it three times as likely to contain critical vulnerabilities.
How in the world did we allow that to happen?
Are we really that incompetent?
I was floored when I first read that.
I had no idea that we were so vulnerable.
Of course it isn’t just our power infrastructure that is being targeted. According to Politico, Europe has been “inundated” with cyberattacks since Russia invaded Ukraine…
Thousands of cyberattacks have inundated Europe’s energy grid since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a top industry leader is calling for help as officials and researchers fret that not nearly enough is being done.
“The crooks are becoming better by the day, so we need to become better by the day,” Leonhard Birnbaum, the chief executive of E.ON, one of Europe’s largest utilities, said in an interview. “I’m worried now and I will be even more worried in the future.”
We have never seen this sort of warfare before.
So most people greatly underestimate the threat.
But someday the power in your area could suddenly go out without any warning whatsoever.
Temporary interruptions are not a problem, but if the power is out for an extended period of time our entire way of life will start rapidly shutting down…
When power stops, life grinds to a halt. Lights go out. Sewage treatment stops. Clean water stops. Electric cars, buses and trolleys stop. Elevators stop, trapping older and disabled people. For many, home heating, refrigeration, cooking and clothes washing stops, along with medical devices such as oxygen generators.
For many years, I have been warning my readers that conflict with Russia and conflict with China would be coming.
Now both of them are actively hacking into power infrastructure in the United States and Europe.
I hope you have a plan, because it is just a matter of time before cyberattacks start causing widespread chaos all over the globe.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.