Published on Jan 15, 2019
HUNGARY OFFICIAL: “SOROS PULLS THE STRINGS IN BRUSSELS”
MEP demands an explanation
Hungary Journal – JANUARY 14, 2019
Fidesz believes George Soros’s people “are pulling the strings of the European Commission’s leading politicians” and demands an explanation, Fidesz MEP Tamas Deutsch said at a press conference on an unrelated topic in Budapest on Saturday.
Deutsch noted that daily Magyar Idok learned that U.S. billionaire Soros had met for talks with the EU leaders on at least 20 occasions. Soros held talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, Frans Timmermans, Emmanuel Macron and Dimitris Avramopoulos, he added.
Deutsch said it was “absurd” that a person claiming to be a philanthropist who represents the official viewpoint of not a single country can meet with EU leaders more frequently than the prime minister or head of state of any EU member state.
Fidesz will ask for explanations, in writing, on the subject matter of all of these meetings, he added.
Microsoft Partners With Neocon-Backed ‘Fact Checker’ Seeking To ‘Wage War On Independent Media’
by Chris Menahan
Microsoft has partnered with a shoddy Neocon-backed “fact checker” called NewsGuard which rates websites’ “credibility” in-browser and NewsGuard’s CEO says their goal is to have their software on all smartphones and computers by default.
From MintPressNews:
How a NeoCon-Backed “Fact Checker” Plans to Wage War on Independent Media
As Newsguard’s project advances, it will soon become almost impossible to avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any technological device sold in the United States.
by Whitney Webb
January 09th, 2019Soon after the social media “purge” of independent media sites and pages this past October, a top neoconservative insider — Jamie Fly — was caught stating that the mass deletion of anti-establishment and anti-war pages on Facebook and Twitter was “just the beginning” of a concerted effort by the U.S. government and powerful corporations to silence online dissent within the United States and beyond.
While a few, relatively uneventful months in the online news sphere have come and gone since Fly made this ominous warning, it appears that the neoconservatives and other standard bearers of the military-industrial complex and the U.S. oligarchy are now poised to let loose their latest digital offensive against independent media outlets that seek to expose wrongdoing in both the private and public sectors.
As MintPress News Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh recently wrote, MintPress was informed that it was under review by an organization called Newsguard Technologies, which described itself to MintPress as simply a “news rating agency” and asked Muhawesh to comment on a series of allegations, several of which were blatantly untrue. However, further examination of this organization reveals that it is funded by and deeply connected to the U.S. government, neo-conservatives, and powerful monied interests, all of whom have been working overtime since the 2016 election to silence dissent to American forever-wars and corporate-led oligarchy.
More troubling still, Newsguard — by virtue of its deep connections to government and Silicon Valley — is lobbying to have its rankings of news sites installed by default on computers in U.S. public libraries, schools, and universities as well as on all smartphones and computers sold in the United States.
In other words, as Newsguard’s project advances, it will soon become almost impossible to avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any technological device sold in the United States. Worse still, if its efforts to quash dissenting voices in the U.S. are successful, Newsguard promises that its next move will be to take its system global.
Red light, green light . . .
Newsguard has received considerable attention in the mainstream media of late, having been the subject of a slew of articles in the Washington Post, the Hill, the Boston Globe, Politico, Bloomberg, Wired, and many others just over the past few months. Those articles portray Newsguard as using “old-school journalism” to fight “fake news” through its reliance on nine criteria allegedly intended to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to online news.
Newsguard separates sites it deems worthy and sites it considers unreliable by using a color-coded rating — green, yellow, or red — and more detailed “nutrition labels” regarding a site’s credibility or lack thereof. Rankings are created by Newsguard’s team of “trained analysts.” The color-coding system may remind some readers of the color-coded terror threat-level warning system that was created after 9/11, making it worth noting that Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security who oversaw the implementation of that system under George W. Bush, is on Newsguard’s advisory board.
As Newsguard releases a new rating of a site, that rating automatically spreads to all computers that have installed its news ranking browser plug-in. That plug-in is currently available for free for the most commonly used internet browsers. NewsGuard directly markets the browser plug-in to libraries, schools and internet users in general.
According to its website, Newsguard has rated more than 2,000 news and information sites. However, it plans to take its ranking efforts much farther by eventually reviewing “the 7,500 most-read news and information websites in the U.S.—about 98 percent of news and information people read and share online” in the United States in English.
[…]
According to local media, Newsguard “now works with library systems representing public libraries across the country, and is also partnering with middle schools, high schools, universities, and educational organizations to support their news literacy efforts,” suggesting that these Newsguard services targeting libraries and schools are soon to become a compulsory component of the American library and education system, despite Newsguard’s glaring conflicts of interest with massive multinational corporations and powerful government power-brokers.
Notably, Newsguard has a powerful partner that has allowed it to start finding its way into public library and school computers throughout the country. As part of its new “Defending Democracy” initiative, Microsoft announced last August that it would be partnering with Newsguard to actively market the company’s ranking app and other services to libraries and schools throughout the country. Microsoft’s press release regarding the partnership states that Newsguard “will empower voters by providing them with high-quality information about the integrity and transparency of online news sites.”
Since then, Microsoft has now added the Newsguard app as a built-in feature of Microsoft Edge, its browser for iOS and Android mobile devices, and is unlikely to stop there. Indeed, as a recent report in favor of Microsoft’s partnership with Newsguard noted, “we could hope that this new partnership will allow Microsoft to add NewsGuard to Edge on Windows 10 [operating system for computers] as well.”
Newsguard, for its part, seems confident that its app will soon be added by default to all mobile devices. On its website, the organization notes that “NewsGuard will be available on mobile devices when the digital platforms such as social media sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add our ratings and Nutrition Labels directly.” This shows that Newsguard isn’t expecting its rating systems to be offered as a downloadable application for mobile devices but something that social media sites like Facebook, search engines like Google, and mobile device operating systems that are dominated by Apple and Google will “directly” integrate into nearly every smartphone and tablet sold in the United States.
A Boston Globe article on Newsguard from this past October makes this plan even more clear. The Globe wrote at the time:
Microsoft has already agreed to make NewsGuard a built-in feature in future products, and [Newsguard co-CEO] Brill said he’s in talks with other online titans. The goal is to have NewsGuard running by default on our computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news.”
This eventuality is made all the more likely given the fact that, in addition to Microsoft, Newsguard is also closely connected to Google, as Google has been a partner of the Publicis Groupe since 2014, when the two massive companies joined Condé Nast to create a new marketing service called La Maison that is “focused on producing engaging content for marketers in the luxury space.” Given Google’s power in the digital sphere as the dominant search engine, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, and the owner of YouTube, its partnership with Publicis means that Newsguard’s rating system will soon see itself being promoted by yet another of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.Furthermore, there is an effort underway to integrate Newsguard into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, as Newsguard was launched, co-CEO Brill stated that he planned to sell the company’s ratings of news sites to Facebook and Twitter. Last March, Brill told CNN that “We’re asking them [Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google] to pay a fraction of what they pay their P.R. people and their lobbyists to talk about the problem.”
[…]
Notably, Newsguard has a powerful partner that has allowed it to start finding its way into public library and school computers throughout the country. As part of its new “Defending Democracy” initiative, Microsoft announced last August that it would be partnering with Newsguard to actively market the company’s ranking app and other services to libraries and schools throughout the country. Microsoft’s press release regarding the partnership states that Newsguard “will empower voters by providing them with high-quality information about the integrity and transparency of online news sites.”
Since then, Microsoft has now added the Newsguard app as a built-in feature of Microsoft Edge, its browser for iOS and Android mobile devices, and is unlikely to stop there. Indeed, as a recent report in favor of Microsoft’s partnership with Newsguard noted, “we could hope that this new partnership will allow Microsoft to add NewsGuard to Edge on Windows 10 [operating system for computers] as well.”
Newsguard, for its part, seems confident that its app will soon be added by default to all mobile devices. On its website, the organization notes that “NewsGuard will be available on mobile devices when the digital platforms such as social media sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add our ratings and Nutrition Labels directly.” This shows that Newsguard isn’t expecting its rating systems to be offered as a downloadable application for mobile devices but something that social media sites like Facebook, search engines like Google, and mobile device operating systems that are dominated by Apple and Google will “directly” integrate into nearly every smartphone and tablet sold in the United States.
A Boston Globe article on Newsguard from this past October makes this plan even more clear. The Globe wrote at the time:
Microsoft has already agreed to make NewsGuard a built-in feature in future products, and [Newsguard co-CEO] Brill said he’s in talks with other online titans. The goal is to have NewsGuard running by default on our computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news.”
This eventuality is made all the more likely given the fact that, in addition to Microsoft, Newsguard is also closely connected to Google, as Google has been a partner of the Publicis Groupe since 2014, when the two massive companies joined Conde Nast to create a new marketing service called La Maison that is “focused on producing engaging content for marketers in the luxury space.” Given Google’s power in the digital sphere as the dominant search engine, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, and the owner of YouTube, its partnership with Publicis means that Newsguard’s rating system will soon see itself being promoted by yet another of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.Furthermore, there is an effort underway to integrate Newsguard into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, as Newsguard was launched, co-CEO Brill stated that he planned to sell the company’s ratings of news sites to Facebook and Twitter. Last March, Brill told CNN that “We’re asking them [Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google] to pay a fraction of what they pay their P.R. people and their lobbyists to talk about the problem.”
[…]
Financial censorship
Another Newsguard service shows that this organization is also seeking to harm independent media financially by targeting online revenue. Through a service called “Brandguard,” which it describes as a “brand safety tool aimed at helping advertisers keep their brands off of unreliable news and information sites while giving them the assurance they need to support thousands of Green-rated [i.e., Newsguard-approved] news and information sites, big and small.”
At the time the service was announced last November, Newsguard co-CEO Brill stated that the company was “in discussions with the ad tech firms, leading agencies, and major advertisers” eager to adopt a blacklist of news sites deemed “unreliable” by Newsguard. This is unsurprising given the leading role of the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising and PR firms, has in funding Newsguard. As a consequence, it seems likely that many, if not all, of Publicis’ client companies will choose to adopt this blacklist to help crush many of the news sites that are unafraid to hold them accountable.
It is also important to note here that Google’s connection to Publicis and thus Newsguard could spell trouble for independent news pages that rely on Google Adsense for some or all of their ad-based revenue. Google Adsense has long been targeting sites like MintPress by demonetizing articles for information or photographs it deemed controversial, including demonetizing one article for including a photo showing U.S. soldiers involved in torturing Iraqi detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
Since then, Google — a U.S. military contractor — has repeatedly tried to shutter ad access to MintPress articles that involve reporting that is critical of U.S. empire and military expansion. One article that has been repeatedly flagged by Google details how many African-Americans have questioned whether the Women’s March has aided or harmed the advancement of African-Americans in the United States. Google has repeatedly claimed that the article, which was written by African-American author and former Washington Post bureau chief Jon Jeter, contains “dangerous content.”
Given Google’s already established practice of targeting factual reporting it deemed controversial through Adsense, Brandguard will likely offer the tech giant just the excuse it needs to cut off sites like MintPress, and other pages equally critical of empire, altogether.
Read their full report.
This has been a dream of the establishment for over a decade.
One of these NewsGuard “journalists” contacted yours truly with a review of Information Liberation that was so shoddy I didn’t even bother to respond as almost everything he said was wrong and his reading comprehension was terrible.
I figured it’s a waste of time to respond as I would be doing the reporter’s job for him by correcting him and I would only be improving his shoddy work.
It’s blatantly obvious their goal is not to create an honest assessment of any of our websites but instead to compile whatever slander they can throw together to suit their pre-ordained narrative.
JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer has also written an excellent article exposing NewsGuard titled, “Steven Brill’s NewsGuard and the ‘fact-checking’ scam.”
Just look at the guys behind this:
Would you trust those men to walk your dog?
The reason no one ever bothered implementing any scheme like this is because it’s so obviously a fraud and an affront to people’s intelligence that it is more likely to have the opposite effect — negative rated sites are going to be viewed as more credible as evidenced by the fact they’re being slandered by these establishment hacks.
Child Abuse? 10-Year-old Boy Dressed in ‘Drag’ Photographed With Nude Adult Male ‘Drag Queen’
by Cristina Laila January 14, 2019
Last week, a 10-year-old boy dressed in drag was photographed with a naked adult male ‘drag queen.’
A 10-year-old Canadian boy, Nemis Quinn Mélançon-Golden who goes by the stage name ‘Queen Lactatia’ was featured in an appalling piece in Huck Magazine titled, ‘Queen Lactatia: What Life is Like as a Child Drag Queen.’
The child was photographed in several different dresses and wigs with a full face of dramatic makeup on — one photograph didn’t make Huck Magazine, but it made its way to Instagram.
The photographer, Jonathan Frederick Turton, posted a photograph of Nemis, a prepubescent boy, posing with a nude adult male drag queen named ‘Violet Chachki’ to his Instagram account.
Violet Chachki is a male ‘drag queen’ and winner of Season 7 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
The Instagram post has since been deleted, however, the child is seen dressed in drag standing next to Violet Chachki, an adult male with a tiny piece of cloth covering his genitals. (screenshot below)
In a follow up Instagram post, the photographer complained that Instagram took down his shocking photograph of a child posing with a naked man.
“He’s just a kid playing,” says Queen Lactatia’s mother as she defends her decision to allow her 10-year-old son to wear dresses, makeup and wigs. However, in her interview with Huck Magazine, she also admits “drag is an adult arena.”
“Drag is an adult arena and that’s where people question our judgement,” concedes Jessica. “So we have to censor things. He knows there are adult aspects of drag that he’s not allowed to apply to his show.”
“We would never try to overtly sexualise our child. But if he wears something that makes him feel beautiful, what right do I have to stop him wearing that dress because it might cause people to think things they shouldn’t be thinking? It’s a circular problem.”
Little boys dressed in drag is becoming a disturbing trend.
Last month, the mainstream media received a huge backlash for promoting an 11-year-old “drag kid” as the ‘future of America.’
11-year-old Desmond Napoles, who goes by the stage name, “Desmond is Amazing,” is a prepubescent boy who performs drag and participates in various LGBT rallies.
“Desmond is Amazing,” was also dancing at “3 Dollar Bill,” a queer nightclub in Brooklyn, New York — people were throwing dollar bills at the child as he performed on stage.
Desmond posted the photos to his Instagram page where he has over 100,000 followers.
Desmond dressed up as Gwen Stefani and performed “I’m Just a Girl,” as people gave him dollar bills:
In all of these cases, the mothers happily push the drag lifestyle onto their sons at an early age and accuse critics who say the children are being exploited and sexualized of being ‘perverts.’
Migrants Beat Driver, Incinerate Truck in France
By Dan Lyman
A tractor-trailer was reduced to ashes and its driver badly beaten by a gang of 50 migrants who had set a fiery ambush on a French motorway near Calais, according to reports.
The Bulgarian trucker had attempted to ram through a blockade of flaming pallets erected by migrants on the ring road near Calais, a port hub for many trucks and passenger vehicles traveling to and from the UK.
The driver was taken to hospital after being assaulted by the migrants while he was trying to escape the truck, La Voix Du Nord reports.
Some social media users shared images of the charred truck and its cargo, which were totally destroyed.
“A first (for me at least). Lorry stopped by migrant barricade on #Calais motorway, set alight last night,” wrote Channel 4 New reporter Paraic O’Brien.
Migrants attempting to commandeer or stowaway inside trucks bound for the UK have become regular occurrences in the Calais region with videos of brazen hijackings and attacks sometimes caught on video.
Police were unable to locate suspects involved in the most recent incident as all had reportedly fled the scene when authorities arrived.
South Africa created 100 ‘blacks only’ doctor positions… but failed to fill them
A South African province attempted to create 100 new positions in a doctor training program that would be reserved for black candidates only. The quota, which was not met due to recruiting problems, has been criticized as racist.
The KwaZulu-Natal health department decided that it would expand its doctor training program in 2019, from 314 to 414. An internal memo leaked to local media revealed, however, that only black doctors would be eligible for the 100 additional slots.
The department remained unapologetic about the policy, tellingTimesLIVE: “South Africa, including KwaZulu-Natal, remains an unequal society with limited opportunities for self-development for those who were historically oppressed.”
Spokesperson Ncumisa Mafunda added that the measure was designed to “address these imbalances of the past.”
Difficulties with recruiting, however, hindered the department’s ability to meet its new quota.
“After difficulties were experienced in recruiting black African candidates for these posts, a deviation was sought from the accounting officer and, out of a total of 77 registrar posts, 21 posts will be offered to non-Black Africans,” Mafunda said.
A spokesperson for Democratic Alliance – the leading opposition party to the ruling African National Congress – argued that any policy was “an aberration of our constitutional values and is racist.”
“Any form or attempt to redress the injustices of the past must ensure that we remain committed to what our constitution says… There must be no exclusion, especially based on the colour of our skin.”
The failed quota was not well received on Twitter, with many calling it openly racist and counter-intuitive.
“Let me understand – one should practice racism in order to eradicate racism? Sounds logical,” one sarcastic Twitter user wrote.
Racial tensions in South Africa have been growing as a result of proposed legislation that would seize land, without compensation, from white farmers. The proposal has been billed as necessary to help correct years of racial inequality in the country as a result of apartheid.
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Tom Fitton: No evidence Trump is Russia agent
Published on Jan 14, 2019
Twitter erupts after NYT reveals FBI probe into Trump-Russia links that lead… nowhere
Russiagate disciples are squealing with joy after the New York Times wrote about the FBI apparently probing if Trump was secretly working for the Russians. In fact, the article states there is no evidence to support the theory.
In what appears to be a last-ditch Russiagate Hail Mary, the New York Times breathlessly reported on Friday – of course, citing people ‘familiar with the investigation’ – that the FBI began looking into whether the president was a covert Kremlin agent, after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. According to the Times, “agents and senior FBI officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign,” but were reluctant to launch a formal probe into the matter. This all changed, the Times tells us, after Comey got the boot.
The investigation was quickly handed over to special counsel Robert Mueller, who continues to lead a probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and collusion with Trump’s presidential campaign.
According to the Times, counterintelligence investigators “had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security.” Agents were also tasked with determining whether Trump “knowingly work[ed] for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”
The decision to secretly investigate the president for possibly threatening national security triggered a “vigorous debate” within the Justice Department. The FBI, however, apparently felt vindicated after Trump remarked that Comey’s firing had helped relieve Russia-related political pressure.
Among Russiagate’s devout faithful, the report was treated as an earth-shattering revelation that reinforced their core dogma – i.e., that Donald Trump is a Kremlin agent installed in the White House by Vladimir Putin to destroy democracy.
Unfortunately, even the Times begrudgingly admitted – albeit buried in the ninth paragraph – that “no evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.”
Indeed, Twitter was swamped with indignant comments accusing the paper of cooking up a massive nothingburger. One observant netizen pointed out that in October 2016, the New York Times even ran a headline that stated unequivocally: “Investigating Donald Trump, the FBI sees no clear links to Russia.”
Trump himself took to Twitter to mock the report.
“Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!” he wrote.
The White House said in a statement that the notion that Trump was in bed with Russia makes little sense, given the administration’s hardline policies directed at Moscow.
“Unlike President Obama, who let Russia and other foreign adversaries push America around, President Trump has actually been tough on Russia.”
The report also raises questions about whether Comey was being entirely truthful when he testified to Congress in December that Trump wasn’t among the “four Americans” targeted by the FBI counterintelligence probe into Russian meddling.
As one political pundit observed, the Times’ story raises more questions about the FBI than it does about Trump and his still unproven ties to Russia.
“Is NYT story about Trump, or about FBI malfeasance?” Fox News contributor Byron York asked in a tweet.
Police employ tear gas & water cannons as Yellow Vest protests enter 9th week (VIDEO)
Yellow Vest demonstrators returned to the streets of Paris and other French cities on Saturday, and some were met by police with tear gas and water cannons as the authorities pledged zero tolerance to violence.
More than 32,000 people took part in the protests in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, and other cities, according to Interior Ministry data.
Around 8,000 demonstrators, both locals and those coming from other parts of the country, were rallying in the French capital. Some 5,000 riot police with special equipment and armored vehicles oversaw the protests.
Clashes eventually erupted at the iconic Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe, with police using tear gas and water cannons to calm the angry crowds. Hundreds of people were arrested during the standoff, with most of them put in custody, the law enforcers said.
“We’ve come to Paris to make ourselves heard, and we wanted to see for ourselves at least once what’s going on here,” a man, who travelled to Paris from western France to attend the protest, told AFP.
Around 1,000 demonstrators also made their way to the hippodrome and caused a delay of races in the horseracing town of Chantilly, north of Paris.
In Nimes, police deployed tear gas against protesters after a tense standoff in the downtown.
17 people were also arrested during clashes in Bourges in central France, where the local authorities said that 5,000 were rallying.
The French government earlier vowed zero tolerance for violence at the protests, with 80,000 security personnel deployed across France on the weekend.
The Yellow Vest movement, which took its name from the high-visibility jackets worn by the demonstrators, kicked off in November over a government-proposed hike in fuel taxes. As the weekend protests saw more people participating and started turning violent, the government dropped the planned increase.
But the demonstrations continued as the movement morphed into wider discontent with President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-business agenda, a decline in living standards, and growing inequality.
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