The social media giant Facebook has banned 23 noteworthy Italian populist pages with 2.5 million followers just two weeks ahead of the highly anticipated European elections.
The vast majority of the 23 pages that were banned supported Italy’s currently governing coalition made up right and left wing populist parties La Lega (The League) and the 5-Star Movement (MS5), Italy’s La Stampa reports.
Facebooks cited ‘hate speech’ and ‘divisive content’ regarding vaccines, immigrants, and Jewish people as justification for the drastic move.
Apparently, the tech giant’s decision to ban these pages was informed by a report which was created by a leftist NGO by the name of Avaaz, which claims to focus on environmental campaigns and what they regard as ‘human rights’.
A spokesperson from Facebook commented, saying, “We thank Avaaz for sharing its research so we could investigate…We are committed to protecting the integrity of the EU elections and around the world. We have removed a series of false and duplicate accounts that violated our policies on the subject of authenticity, as well as several pages for violation of the policy on changing the name.”
“We have also taken action against some pages that have repeatedly spread misinformation. We will take further measures if we find other violations,” the spokesperson added.
In Avaaz’s report, which was presented to Facebook earlier this month, the NGO claimed that it had discovered 14 Italian networks operating on social media platform which included 104 pages, 6 groups, with a reach of more than 18.2 million individual users.
Of these networks, actions taken by Facebook this week targeted 23 of its pages – totaling nearly 2.45 million individual users and 2.44 million interactions over the past three months.
On top of this, Facebook has also apparently ‘weakened’ pages that it has arbitrarily deemed to be spreading content containing ‘fake news’ – presumably limiting their visibility to Facebook users.
Facebook asserts that its primary motivation for banning these pages was that the page creators had initially chosen page themes which didn’t cite any involvement with political parties or movements, but which had later switched the themes.
Included among the banned pages are ‘Lega Salvini Premier Santa Teresa of Riva’, ‘We want the 5-Star Movement in government’, which had 129,000 followers and nearly 700,000 interactions in just three months, ‘Lega Salvini Sulmona’ — which had 307,000 followers – ‘We Are 5 Stars’, as well as ‘Beppe Grillo for President’.
Facebook’s most recent efforts in Italy to influence this May’s European elections are only the tip of the iceberg, according to Italian media.
Earlier this month, Facebook opened up a ‘war room’ in Dublin, Ireland with 40 teams of full-time engineers, researchers, threat specialists, scientists, and experts for each country who devote their efforts to the European electoral campaign, according to the Italian La Repubblica.
Apparently, there are 500 individuals working on the elections, with the help of 21 so-called ‘fact checkers’, working in 14 different languages.
US transgender powerlifter Mary Gregory was stripped of records she set last month at a national competition after a doping test revealed that the athlete “was actually a male in the process of becoming a transgender female.”
Gregory broke four women’s world records during the competition in the squat, bench press and deadlift disciplines as well as total record in her weight class.
Following the event, Gregory thanked the US Powerlifting Federation for allowing her to take part in the competition as a female lifter.
However, the federation didn’t share enthusiasm over Gregory’s record-breaking performance after the obligatory doping control proved that the athlete should have performed in men’s category.
“The lifter exceeded the current female world records in this lifter’s age and weight category. This automatically calls for drug testing protocol which takes place at the end of every event. The drug testing coordinator for this event performed the drug test at which time it was revealed that this female lifter was actually a male in the process of becoming a transgender female,”the federation said in a statement.
“Our rules, and the basis of separating genders for competition, are based on physiological classification rather than identification. On the basis of all information presented to the Board of Directors for this particular case, the conclusion made, is that the correct physiological classification is male.”
The US powerlifting governing body annulled Gregory’s records admitting that the athlete should not have competed against women.
“Since the lifter’s gender classification for the purpose of our rules is not consistent with female, no female records will be broken by these lifts,” the statement reads.
Former Vice President Joe Biden denied Monday that his son Hunter Biden asked him for a favor in Ukraine while serving on the energy board of a Ukrainian energy company.
“We never once discussed it when he was there,” Biden told the Associated Press.“There’s not a single bit of evidence that’s been shown in any reporting that’s been done that he ever talked about it with me or asked any government official for a favor.”
When he was vice president, Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine if officials did not fire the country’s top prosecutor, who was pursuing a corruption investigation of an energy company while his son Hunter was serving on the board.
The connection was revealed in author Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book Secret Empires,and the reporting was confirmed in the New York Times.
Hunter Biden was paid as much as $50,000 per month while serving on the board, as his father led the Obama administration’s policy with Ukraine.
Biden’s “not a single bit of evidence” defense echoes former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s repeated assertion that there was no evidence of improper paybacks after she approved the Uranium One deal — despite receiving $145 million in pledges and donations for the Clinton Foundation.
Biden’s Ukraine connection made recent headlines after President Donald Trump’s personal attorney suggested he would travel to Ukraine to investigate the issue before ultimately deciding against it.
Biden criticized Giuliani for even considering the idea.
“I can’t remember any lawyer representing the president, conferring with the president, deciding to go overseas, where a government relies on U.S. largesse to try to get them to do something that everybody knows never happened,” Biden said during an interview with WMUR.
In the same interview, he also pointed to the reporting surrounding the conflict of interest.
“All the reports indicated that not a single, solitary thing was inappropriate about what my son did. He never talked to me. He never talked to anybody in the administration,” Biden said.
In his interview with the Associated Press, Biden defended his son’s role on the board.
“I have great confidence in my son,” he said. “He’s a man of great integrity.”
In just another day for the dumpster fire that is Buzzfeed “News,” activist “journalist” Joe Bernstein wrote up an article targeting a 14-year old girl who makes YouTube videos for the crime of having right-wing political views.
The article, titled “YouTube’s Newest Far-Right, Foul-Mouthed, Red-Pilling Star Is A 14-Year-Old Girl,” desribes a YouTuber going by the name “Soph,” who makes videos with social commentary about current events and culture, often filled with vulgar language one wouldn’t expect to come from a 14-year old girl.
Bernstein quickly makes his reason for publishing the article clear, seeming to make a call for her removal from the platform in his sub-title, writing: “‘Soph’ has nearly a million followers on the giant video platform. The site’s executives only have themselves to blame.”
The majority of his article is targeting one video in particular, where the YouTube star wears an Islamic chador and makes a joking apology for comments she made about Islam.
WATCH BELOW (WARNING, VULGAR LANGUAGE):
In the video, Soph uses absurdist comedy in her commentary about Islam, where she does touch on a lot of issues prevalent in radical Islam.
Starting off the video, she declares that she has “become a devout follower of the Prophet Muhammad,” describing it as mostly being a “f*** ton of fun,” despite having to be raped by her 40-year old husband.
She also discusses Muslim rape gangs, which are a very real thing in the Islamic world.
For doing this, Bernstein believes that YouTube should shut her down.
He claims that the platform is exploiting children by allowing them to have right-wing views on the platform, writing:
“Users — and more importantly to YouTube, advertisers — have over the past year started to hold the platform accountable for enabling the exploitation of children and exposing them to disturbing content. But this video reveals an entirely different way the platform is harming kids: by letting them express extreme views in front of the entire world. This is what indoctrination looks like when it’s reflected back by the indoctrinated.”
Since the release of the article, Soph appears to have begun facing targeting from YouTube, being temporarily blocked from uploading on the platform.
Along with trying to get her shut down, Bernstein called her father to try to get comment for the story, something Sophia Levin, the former New Yorker journalist who was fired after lying about an ICE agent being a Nazi did as well.
The targeting of Soph is almost certainly due to her massive reach online.
She has amassed a massive audience of over 800,000 subscribers on YouTube, along with bringing in over $1,400 a month from monthly donors on Patreon.
Her popularity can likely be credited to a growing resentment for the “social justice warrior” culture among young people growing up in the Internet age. With free access to information, many young people in Generation Z, or what Soph would call “Zoomers,” are finding themselves latching onto more conservative viewpoints in rebellion to the status quo of the previous Millennial generation.
This seems to be a clear attack on Soph for her beliefs, as they have in the past written glowing articles defending young kids who hold left-leaning views.
Just three days before Bernstein’s article, Buzzfeed wrote up an article defending an 11-year old “drag queen” who was reported to child protective services. That same child was spotted dancing on stage at an adult gay club while throngs of adult men showered him with money.
Bernstein, who has long targeted those holding anti-social justice warrior views, by evidence of his similar targeting of former Adult Swim star Sam Hyde, was also exposed by journalist Nick Monroe for holding his own extremist views.
In a Tweet, Bernstein once said “KILL a straight white man on your way to work tomorrow”.
So this is the left in 2019. Targeting 14-year old girl for holding opinions they don’t like.
The FBI has reportedly found the remains of a child on Alabama property purportedly owned by Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, which authorities say was being used as a makeshift terrorist training camp.
Sinclair Media revealed Friday that Siraj Ibh Wahhaj owned a property near Tuskegee, Alabama, found to contain what an FBI search warrant described as a “makeshift military-style obstacle course” and a dead child “believed to belong to Wahhaj,” prompting a child kidnapping charge following the dismissal of the child abuse charges in the New Mexico case. Police reportedly believe the terrorist training camp was designed for children’s use, not the adults in the compound.
Last year, authorities found a similar compound in rural New Mexico. That land, too, was allegedly being used to train child terrorists. The remains of a dead boy, Wahhaj’s son Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, were found on that property. The group apparently attempted an exorcism of the boy to treat a neurological disease.
According to prosecutors, the Amelia, New Mexico compound where 11 children were rescued from squalor last week was being used to train the children to become school shooters.
“The father of a missing Georgia boy was training children at a New Mexico compound to commit school shootings, prosecutors said in court documents obtained Wednesday,”according to Associated Press. “The documents say Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was conducting weapons training with assault rifles at the compound near the Colorado border where 11 hungry children were found in filthy conditions.”
Ibn Wahhaj is the father of Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj who went missing from Jonesboro, GA in December. The police believe that they have found the remains of the boy on the compound, but he has yet to be positively identified.
Ibn Wahhaj is described as a “Muslim extremist.”
Wahhaj’s father, Saraj Wahhaj, is a Brooklyn Imam known for his radical anti-Semitism, and for being an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
While House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler spearheads the campaign against Attorney General William Barr, he opposed the same charges against former Attorney General Eric Holder back in 2012. One America’s Pearson Sharp explains how Nadler’s long-standing feud with President Trump could be playing a part in his agenda against the attorney general.
A world renowned psychologist and scientist in the field of transgenderism, pedophilia, and sexual orientation had his Twitter account briefly suspended by the tech giant Sunday after sharing his latest scientific findings.
“Ray Blanchardserved on the gender dysphoria working group and chaired the paraphilia working group for DSM V. He is a world expert in the field. Twitter has just suspended his account for a thread setting out his findings from A lifetime of research. Unreal,” Helen Joyce of The Economist said, attaching a photo of the suspended account.
DSM V is the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by doctors and psychiatrists in diagnosing mental illnesses.
Apparently, Blanchard’s scientific findings did not mesh with Twitter’s terms of service. The microblogging giant flagged him for violating its rules against “hateful conduct.” In six Tweets, Blanchard laid out his beliefs based on his research:
My beliefs include the following 6 elements:
(1) Transsexualism and milder forms of gender dysphoria are types of mental disorder, which may leave the individual with average or even above-average functioning in unrelated areas of life.
(2) Sex change surgery is still the best treatment for carefully screened, adult patients, whose gender dysphoria has proven resistant to other forms of treatment.
(3) Sex change surgery should not be considered for any patient until that patient has reached the age of 21 years and has lived for at least two years in the desired gender role.
(4) Gender dysphoria is not a sexual orientation, but it is virtually always preceded or accompanied by an atypical sexual orientation – in males, either homosexuality (sexual arousal by members of one’s own biological sex) . . . or autogynephilia (sexual arousal at the thought or image of oneself as a female).
(5) There are two main types of gender dysphoria in males, one associated with homosexuality and one associated with autogynephilia. Traditionally, the great bulk of female-to-male transsexuals has been homosexual in erotic object choice.
(6) The sex of a postoperative transsexual should be analogous to a legal fiction. This legal fiction would apply to some things (e.g., sex designation on a driver’s license) but not to others (entering a sports competition as one’s adopted sex).
After significant backlash, Twitter reinstated Blanchard’s account.
“Twitter has unlocked my account and graciously apologized for their error. My sincere thanks to the people who expressed their concern during the past 24 hours,” he said Sunday night.
Twitter has become known for its censorship of conservative ideas, including that transgenderism is a mental illness, which, as proven by Blanchard, is not so much a political idea as a scientific one.
A former NXIVM member testified Monday in the trial of cult leader Keith Raniere that the sex cult illegally raised money for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The New York Post reports:“Bronfman funneled thousands of dollars into Clinton’s campaign coffers — far in excess of legal limits to contributions — to “curry favor” with the powerhouse political family, according to Mark Vicente, a documentary filmmaker and former member of the Nxivm group that is accused of keeping women as sex slaves.
“Clare Bronfman approached other people and said she would like to make a campaign contribution but she couldn’t make it above a certain amount,” Vicente testified in Brooklyn federal court Monday.
NXIVM whistleblower Frank Parlato appeared exclusively on The Campaign Show with Patrick Howley on Patriots Soapbox (Sunday nights, 6-PM Eastern) to discuss Keith Raniere’s trial, which begins Tuesday.
Raniere’s sex slaves are poised to testify against him, as prosecutors prepare to submit evidence that NXIVM illegally bundled money for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Parlato made it clear that Clinton was happy to accept the money. (COURT DOCS Confirm Prosecutors Attempting To Introduce Clinton Evidence).
Parlato described how NXIVM imported teenage girls from Mexico, how the cult viewed Chuck Schumer as a “friendly” Democrat ally, and many other bombshells. WATCH.
Democrat senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand’s family ties to the NXIVM sex cult are coming to light, raising serious questions about her relationship with the cult that she once denied knowing about.
Gillibrand’s father and stepmother, who are second cousins, were both heavily involved in the cult in the period shortly before they got married, according to eyewitness accounts from ex-NXIVM employees who spoke on the record to Big League Politics, and according to court documents proving that Gillibrand’s father Doug Rutnik was employed by NXIVM.
Gillibrand’s father served as a broker between NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere — whose initials were branded on his female sex slaves — and then-New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer to resolve Raniere’s financial problems with the state, according to ex-employee whistleblower Joseph O’Hara, whose revelations are printed below.
Gillibrand’s stepmother Gwenn Belcourt got “hooked” on the cult as did Bill Clinton’s close friend Richard Mays, according to the whistleblower. Nancy Salzman, the NXIVM president, acted as a personal “guru” for Gillibrand’s stepmother.
Ex-cult employee Frank Parlato — who exposed the fact that Raniere was branding women — is working with Big League Politics to uncover the deep longstanding links between Gillibrand, the Clintons, and NXIVM.
“The very first time I ever met Gillibrand she was at an event for Hillary Clinton in the Hall of Springs in the State Park. This was in 2006. I was at a table with a Russian friend and Mike Roohan and his wife. I was on the Democratic committee at the time and was given two comp tickets. Gillibrand came up to me introduced herself and said she was running against John Sweeney. This was before all the stories of his drunken behavior came out. He was still congressman kickass at that time. I promised my support and wished her well. i than commented to Mike that with her baby voice and demeanor that she was a lightweight. Boy was I wrong. But the kicker was when the mixing was over and Clinton went to speak. Gillibrand sat with one of the front tables. Yeah the three front VIP tables were all brought by NXIVM and she was sitting with Nancy Salzman. You can quote me on that,” said witness John Tighe in a statement provided to Big League Politics.
Nancy Salzman has pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy while her daughter Lauren Salzman admitted to enslaving a woman, stating in court, “I knowingly and intentionally harbored Jane Doe 4, a woman whose identity is known to me, in a room in the home in the Northern District of New York” and “threatened to deport Jane Doe 4 back to Mexico if she did not complete labor requested by myself and others.”
JOSEPH O’HARA TELLS BIG LEAGUE POLITICS HIS NXIVM STORY
Joseph O’Hara was living in Saratoga Springs at the time, and a woman he met socially called him up out of the blue and asked for him to meet with the leaders of NXIVM.
“I agreed to meet with them. We met the very next day. We had coffee and that’s when I was introduced to Nancy Salzman, the president of NXIVM, and she described to me the various problems they were having,” O’Hara said, referring to lawsuits, public relations issues, and governmental issues stemming from trying to get a building permit for a NXIVM center.
“I said give me a day or two,” O’Hara said. “After I thought about it, I wrote back to them and said I don’t think there’s anything I can do personally but I can play centerfielder and pull in people you need. I think you need a bigger law firm on this. Yes I can get you a PR firm that can come in and help you. That’s what I proposed to them, that I would be a middle man.”
“They hired me in October of 2003 and I worked for them for 15 months. At the end of 2004 a variety of issues had come up and I resigned.”
O’Hara, whose official title was “consultant,” said he “met primarily with Keith” Raniere and with bookeeper Cathy Russell and legal liaison Kristin Keefe. O’Hara remembers Raniere vividly.
“I thought he was a little strange. He was an odd fellow. Before I met him I had been told a lot about him. I guess when I met him I was a little underwhelmed,” O’Hara said, referring to a tall tale about how Raniere supposedly tied a record in the hundred-yard dash. Raniere held volleyball games with the women in his cult, but O’Hara did not attend.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s Father Doug Rutnik Acted As A Broker Between NXIVM and then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
“I had known Doug Rutnik for a number of years. He was one of the people I thought of immediately for a couple of the problems that he (Raniere) had,” O’Hara said, including the fact that Raniere agreed to pay a certain amount of money to New York State stemming from the bankruptcy of his previous venture Consumer’s Buyline. “Keith never made the payments. I think it was around 45 or 50 thousand dollars.”
“I contacted Doug, and explained to him the situation. Doug could be the broker between Keith and the attorney general” O’Hara said. The attorney general was then Eliot Spitzer.
“Doug and I, Nancy and Keith had lunch at a little club. Keith came in and looked like a young middle-aged business exec. Doug said let’s check this out a little further,” O’Hara remembers. NXIVM was trying to get a license for a school.
The meeting occurred at the Fort Orange Club in Albany in 2004, according to O’Hara.
O’Hara hired a third party attorney in Albany to take a 5-day executive course at NXIVM, and the attorney expressed concerns about the group potentially not paying taxes and “living off the grid.”
Doug Rutnik’s Second Cousin, Gillibrand’s Future Stepmother, Got Very Involved
“Doug said I know somebody else I could send in. It’s his cousin Gwenn Belcourt. She comes back with rave reviews and Doug gets hired. Keith comes up with the money and pays off the attorney general.”
Thus, Gillibrand’s father acted as the broker between NXIVM and attorney general Eliot Spitzer after Gillibrand’s future stepmother Gwenn Belcourt gave NXIVM her full seal of approval.
“Doug was the one, I don’t know who he talked to, but he was the one who got the okay for…NXIVM sent Doug the check, and it was expressly to resolve the issue over Consumers Buyline. And then the issue went away.”
“Gwenn and I met. Doug said let’s have Gwenn go in and take a week-long course. She went in and she wrote up a report and was extremely positive. No issues with the schooling. No issues with the curriculum” at the NXIVM Center, O’Hara recalled.
“He told me this is my second cousin Gwenn. She was engaged at the time. She was a lawyer, someone Doug trusted.”
“Things were happening, one right after the other. Gwenn comes in, she writes the report, and Doug is doing work for them.”
“Meanwhile Gwenn does her thing and she starts taking more classes on her own. We paid for the one class she took…at some point Doug says, this is getting a little weird with Gwenn. He said she broke off her engagement because Nancy told her she needed to re-think her life. Nancy Salzman became Gwenn’s personal guru. She wanted to bring Gwenn in as full-time in-house counsel.”
“I know that she was taking a lot of classes at NXIVM,” O’Hara said of Gwenn Belcourt.
“NXIVM initiates a lawsuit against me and Doug, and Gwenn is still involved in NXIVM at that point. Doug goes in like a rescue mission. He finally convinces her what’s going on there and she leaves NXIVM. The next thing I know all of a sudden he said Gwenn and I are dating now. Shortly after that they’re engaged.”
“For several years, I saw them after they were married,” O’Hara said, noting that the couple was no longer in the cult.
Clinton Friend Richard Mays and Gillibrand’s Stepmother Gwenn Belcourt Both Got “Hooked” on the Cult
“I had done work down in Arkansas, I had met Richard (Mays) down there. He had great connections with Governor Clinton. His lieutenant governor Tucker became governor. I was trying to get in to make a presentation to the governor. Richard got me the meeting. He got me the meeting with Jim Guy Tucker,” O’Hara said.
“One of the other problems Keith had, he had an unpaid bill in Arkansas and he wanted to get an exoneration in Arkansas so he brought Richard Mays in and he got involved. Richard Mays started taking classes and got his daughter taking classes” at NXIVM.
“There were people who got hooked on it. Richard Mays was one. Gwenn Belcourt was another,” O’Hara said.
“I Had Created This Monster”
O’Hara said that he uncovered Raniere evading taxes and illegally obtaining private investigator information on his enemies, which led him to quit. NXIVM then waged lawfare against him.
“They destroyed me. I had created this monster. They didn’t know how to get political consultants. They didn’t know how to hire former senator D’Amato, they didn’t know how to hire Richard Mays out of Arkansas, best friends with the Clintons. They had all these people now in their arsenal and they destroyed me in short order,” O’Hara said.
Raniere once admitted in a videotape pulled from the Internet, “I am just a demon.”
PROOF RUTNIK WORKED FOR NXIVM
Former NXIVM employee Frank Parlato provided Big League Politics with copies of the court documents in NXIM’s suit against Rutnik, which prove Rutnik’s employment by the group. (READ THE FULL DOCUMENTS HERE).
“I worked as the publicist,” Frank Parlato told Big League Politics. “We ran into a major disagreement and we split. At the time I worked for them I thought they were a little peculiar but it wasn’t until the end that I realized they were a downright evil group.”
“There are women on the record who are now adults who have accused Raniere of statutory rape and there are some very suspicious incidents where Mexican girls came under the perimeters of Raniere’s control and left under suspicious circumstances. They came from Chihuahua Mexico. I reported this to the authorities,” Parlato said.
“Her father Doug Rutnik came to work as a consultant for NXIVM…he was fired, they sued him, and he had to pay them $100,000,” Parlato said, referring Gillibrand’s father.
Parlato is the NXIVM whistleblower who blew the lid off the case, including the revelation that NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s cult was branding women with his initials.
“Her father’s wife, her stepmother, was also a member of NXIVM…Doug got her into the cult, Gillibrand’s father got Gillibrand’s future stepmother into the cult. Doug left the cult because he was sued. Clare Bronfman after her father was sued donated money to Gillibrand. Gillibrand accepted it.”
“One is inclined to call her a liar,” Parlato says of Gillibrand.
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