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First-in-Nation: Integrating ViewFlex X SE ICE with VOLT PFA This week started with a meaningful milestone at St. Bernards Healthcare (Jonesboro, AR) — first-in-nation combining Abbott’s ViewFlex X Sensor Enabled ICE with the VOLT PFA platform. This builds on our prior experience with: • FIH clinical trial use of...

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🤷🏻‍♂️ UNREAL.. 55 MILLION IMPRESSIONS ON A POST IN A WEEK . NIGERIAN/AFRICAN GRIFTING ENGAGEMENT CIRCLE FARMS making a fortune with a photo and a paragraph off X Payout Monetization. Nikita Bier was SPOT ON when he wanted to regionalize it so those engagements and payout stay in their home nation. Jack Posobiec said the exact same thing as well Last year being ahead of the curve. I put effort into every singular one of my posts … with research … never engagement farm but for some reasons since the Minneapolis ICE event in January my account has been VISIBILITY LIMITED WHICH MEANS despite engagement the algo would rather push the people above than my content. I’m not sure if it was a brigading mass reporting event but regardless I have no answers. All I can tell everyone is my story and I hope Nikita Bier has the chance to see this as well. I went on X after finding out Elon purchased it because I was thrilled we wouldn’t be suppressed for opinion finally. This was after a 9 year hiatus of not using Twitter. It was right after Butler because I was absolutely incensed that someone tried to harm our President in July of 2024. It was a MISSION to get the person who represents us Americans elected and threw my soul into this.. my heart myself into this the moment they tried to JFK 2.0 a man I have supported since 2015. It was a calling. It was never about money for me… Elon saved us from 1000 years of darkness and preserved free speech. Somewhere along the line after years of making nothing and pouring my heart into my posts I was lucky enough to be paid..my first X Payout was 50 bucks… I said to everyone of my friends I’m head just to break even on Premium . And one day after year being paid after spending hours a day with the SOLE GOAL of trying to do my part in what TINY WAY they started very generously compensating us.. my account was made in 2012 but I never used it because it was propaganda controlled Twitter. I RETURNED WHEN I SAW ELON DO THE MOST ALTRUISTIC THING ANYONE EVERY COULD IN 2024 And I had 12 followers and turned it in 74k . Then after The ICE Minneapolis in January incident when my account has just been absolutely throttled… I waited it out for days and weeks at a time without posting and contacted support to try to get an answer but to no avail. I stopped making content and commentary because I was told by Grok that I needed to stop posting for prolonged periods of time. Which I did in 10 day , 13 day and the multiple 2 week intervals. I went from making a good amount of money to absolutely ZERO Because the algorithm despite my heavy engagement would not push me. It is what it is and I am grateful for all X did BUT I just wish the support would respond quicker and explain on the algorithm changes and how to adapt. I have barely made content in MONTHS because I was trying to follow the advice to let the algo reset. 3 months later … it upsets me to see low effort foreign accounts racking up visibility while I now am vanished. Instead as you can see below it is boiler plate response from Premium I would invest HOURS of my day crafting posts.. yet here I am.. and people who clip Game of Thrones episodes in Nigeria ARE GETTING MILLIONS OF IMPRESSIONS in an engagement farm repost grift. Anyway. I said my peace. I’m happy above all we have a FREE SPEECH FORUM. Below is my conversation with support and my analytics prior to the OUT OF NOWHERE January cliff.

Johnny St.Pete

33,344 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

PHOTON COUNTING CT is NOT a better CT It is a NEW imaging modality Photon Counting CT (PCCT) represents a transformative leap in medical imaging, not only as a molecular imaging modality but also as a technology offering ultra-high resolution and functional imaging capabilities. It is fundamentally more than just an enhanced version of traditional CT—PCCT introduces new ways of seeing and understanding the human body, providing critical insights at the molecular, structural, and functional levels. This positions PCCT as a unique imaging modality that requires a fresh approach to technical implementation, operational workflows, and financial planning. Despite the larger upfront investment, PCCT’s ability to drastically reduce downstream healthcare costs makes it a highly valuable investment in the long run. 1. Technical Innovations • Molecular Imaging and Energy Discrimination: Unlike traditional CT, which simply measures the total absorbed energy, PCCT counts individual X-ray photons and differentiates their energy levels. This allows for precise molecular imaging, revealing the composition of tissues and materials at a biochemical level. By distinguishing between different tissue types and contrast agents, PCCT opens up new diagnostic possibilities, such as identifying molecular biomarkers in tumors or distinguishing between stable and unstable plaque in coronary arteries. This capability shifts the focus of imaging from purely anatomical to both anatomical and molecular, offering more comprehensive diagnostic information. • Ultra-High Spatial Resolution: PCCT features significantly smaller detector elements compared to conventional CT scanners, allowing for ultra-high resolution imaging. This means clinicians can visualize fine structures such as microcalcifications in arteries, small lesions in soft tissues, or the intricate architecture of bones. This level of detail was previously unattainable with traditional CT. When combined with molecular imaging, this ultra-high resolution allows for the precise localization and characterization of disease at very early stages, which is essential for early diagnosis and intervention. • Functional Imaging Capabilities: PCCT also excels as a functional imaging modality. By capturing energy-resolved information, PCCT can provide insights into tissue functionality and dynamic physiological processes. For instance, it can detect changes in blood flow, tissue perfusion, and oxygenation without the need for additional contrast agents or scans. This functionality allows for real-time assessment of physiological processes, making it particularly valuable in cardiology, oncology, and neurology for evaluating organ function and monitoring disease progression. • Reduced Noise and Artifact Reduction: Photon-counting technology dramatically reduces electronic noise and imaging artifacts, such as beam hardening, resulting in clearer and more accurate images. The ability to deliver ultra-high resolution images with minimal artifacts improves diagnostic accuracy, reducing the need for repeat scans and ensuring that even subtle abnormalities are detected. 2. Operational Considerations • New Workflow for Molecular, High-Resolution, and Functional Imaging: The integration of molecular, ultra-high resolution, and functional imaging into routine clinical workflows introduces complexity that requires adaptation. Radiologists and technicians need specialized training to interpret and analyze multi-energy datasets that include molecular and functional information. PCCT produces a vast amount of detailed data, requiring clinicians to adopt new imaging protocols and refine their diagnostic approaches to fully leverage its capabilities. • Post-Processing and Data Management: PCCT generates richer, more complex datasets, which necessitates advanced post-processing tools and data management systems. Existing PACS and imaging software may not be equipped to handle such large volumes of data or to process functional and molecular information effectively. This means healthcare institutions must invest in robust IT infrastructure, including upgraded software and storage solutions, as well as provide additional training for staff on new imaging analysis techniques. • Revised Clinical Protocols: The molecular, functional, and ultra-high resolution imaging capabilities of PCCT will likely prompt changes in clinical protocols. For instance, the need for contrast agents may be reduced, simplifying patient preparation and decreasing the risk of adverse reactions. Additionally, the ability to monitor physiological functions in real-time through functional imaging could lead to more dynamic diagnostic procedures, such as assessing the effectiveness of interventions or treatments in real-time. 3. Financial Impact • Higher Initial Investment: PCCT systems are more expensive than traditional CT scanners due to their advanced technology, which includes photon-counting detectors and the computational power required for high-resolution, molecular, and functional imaging. While this upfront cost is significant, it is crucial to view it in the broader context of the downstream benefits and cost reductions that PCCT offers. • Downstream Cost Reductions: Although the initial capital investment is higher, PCCT’s ability to combine molecular, functional, and ultra-high resolution imaging leads to substantial reductions in downstream healthcare costs. Its superior diagnostic accuracy minimizes the need for follow-up tests, repeat scans, or invasive diagnostic procedures, such as diagnostic coronary angiographies. For example, in cardiology, PCCT can precisely differentiate between types of coronary plaque, reducing the need for invasive procedures to assess risk. • Lower Overall Healthcare Expenditures: By enabling earlier, more accurate diagnoses, PCCT can reduce the overall cost of patient care. Early detection of disease, particularly through its molecular and functional imaging capabilities, allows for more targeted treatments, potentially preventing the need for more aggressive and expensive interventions down the line. For instance, early-stage tumor detection via molecular imaging could lead to less invasive treatments, reducing hospital stays and improving patient outcomes, ultimately driving down healthcare costs. • Increased ROI Through Enhanced Patient Outcomes: Over time, the combination of molecular, functional, and ultra-high resolution imaging enhances diagnostic precision, which translates into better patient outcomes. Improved diagnostic accuracy reduces the incidence of unnecessary procedures, minimizes treatment delays, and results in more personalized and effective care. This leads to increased patient satisfaction, better healthcare outcomes, and greater patient throughput—all factors that improve the institution’s return on investment (ROI). • Competitive Advantage and New Revenue Streams: By adopting PCCT, healthcare institutions position themselves at the forefront of advanced imaging technologies. The ability to offer molecular, functional, and ultra-high resolution imaging creates a competitive advantage, attracting more complex and high-value cases. This can boost the institution’s reputation for excellence in diagnostics, leading to increased referrals, new patient populations, and expanded revenue opportunities. Summary Photon Counting CT (PCCT) is not just an evolution of existing CT technology—it is a molecular, ultra-high resolution, and functional imaging modality that fundamentally transforms the diagnostic landscape. Its ability to capture detailed molecular data, visualize minute anatomical structures with ultra-high resolution, and provide real-time functional imaging opens new possibilities for earlier and more precise diagnoses. While the financial investment in PCCT is larger, the reduction in downstream healthcare costs through improved diagnostic accuracy, fewer unnecessary interventions, and earlier disease detection far outweighs the initial expense. For institutions committed to advancing patient care and improving long-term financial outcomes, PCCT is an essential investment in the future of medical imaging. The video attached shows a patient accessing the Hospital for ACS. PCCT can provide ALL the imaging information of the concurrent imaging modalities (CXR, CAG, Echo, CMR) that you see around it... that's a lot! #PhotonCountingCT #MolecularImaging #UltraHighResolution #FunctionalImaging #FutureOfImaging #AdvancedMedicalImaging #EarlyDiseaseDetection #InnovativeCT #CuttingEdgeHealthcare #PrecisionDiagnostics #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalTechnology #CostEffectiveImaging #NextGenCT #PatientCareRevolution

Dr. Filippo Cademartiri

11,820 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

BOOM!!! 💥💥💥 Dr. Aseem Malhotra's testimony was delivered in the Helsinski District Court on April 12, 2024, with the understanding that any deviation from the truth would constitute perjury. This clip was immediately banned by YouTube so please share widely. I've trimmed the clip, removing the interpreter's segment for a smoother listening experience. Here's the first hour of the testimony. ---------------------------------- My name is Doctor Aseem Malhotra. I am a consultant cardiologist. I've been a qualified doctor since 2001. I have held various roles both in academic health policy. In England, in the United Kingdom, and of the various roles, I won't bore you with all the details. I think three of the most relevant and prominent are the fact that I was an ambassador for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for six years, which represented every doctor in the UK. I served a full term of six years as a trustee of the King's fund. I was the youngest member to be appointed to this body which advises government on health policy. I was a founding member of Action on Sugar and a first science director. And through that role I'm considered the lead campaigner on bringing about a sugary drinks tax in the UK. And also, finally I served for five years as visiting professor of evidence based medicine at the Bahiana School of Medicine in Salvador, Brazil. In early 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic I was most vocal doctor on the mainstream, making the link very early on between COVID and those who are vulnerable to suffering serious complications from COVID In fact, in March 2020, I was asked to go on Sky News to explain my initial research findings of the link between especially obesity and COVID, but also to give people an opportunity and to suggest to the government this was a great time for them to implement public health policy to help people enhance or optimise their immune system, which could happen within just a few weeks of dietary changes and optimising vitamin D. This was later also backed up by medical journal publications a few months later. And I was first to mention on the back of an article I published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, which became a front page commentary and was picked up by BBC News and Good Morning Britain, where I had said that it's likely our prime minister, Boris Johnson, was hospitalised because of his weight. As a result of that, the then secretary for health, Matt Hancock, and this was publicised in the news, had asked me to advise him on the link between COVID and obesity. ...before I explain my journey and in many ways U-turn on my understanding in terms of the benefits and harms of the COVID vaccine, my experience in this area over the last couple of years has made me realise more than ever that even for that the greatest barrier to the truth are not factual or intellectual barriers, but psychological. I think all of us as human beings are vulnerable to these psychological barriers and we should have compassion for ourselves. And I will just very briefly summarise those three psychological barriers before I get into my detailed account of what I was involved in in regards to the COVID vaccine. The first psychological barrier is one of fear. And many of us understandably, and I still remember from early on in the pandemic, we were all scared. We did not know what we were dealing with. The issue with fear is that when people and populations are in a state of fear, we are less likely to engage in critical thinking and we are more likely to be compliant. Although COVID was particularly devastating for vulnerable groups in the elderly and I even have managed and still manage people with long COVID, the fear was grossly exaggerated. And one of the examples of that is that when we had good information on the mortality rate of COVID in the United States, one survey in 2020 revealed that 50% of Americans believed that if they caught COVID, the risk of 19 hospitalisation was 50% one and two, when the actual figure, certainly an average for people in middle age, was less than 1%. The second barrier to the truth, which I think is very relevant to the situation we find ourselves in now, is one called willful blindness. This is when human beings, all of us, are vulnerable to this, turn a blind eye to the truth in order to feel safe, avoid conflict, reduce anxiety and to protect prestige and fragile egos. Some examples of this include, on a personal level, willful blindness can occur when a spouse turns a blind eye to the affair of their partner. On an institutional level, some great examples of willful blindness include Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein, the Catholic Church and child molestation. I believe the current situation we find ourselves in, with much of the mainstream narrative and the medical establishment and policy makers not acknowledging quite horrific, serious and common harms from this vaccine, is another example of willful blindness. And I also say this with full empathy, because I was one of those people that was for a very long time, willfully blind to the harms of the COVID vaccine. In January 2021, I was one of the first people to take two doses of the COVID mRNA vaccine because I volunteered in a vaccine centre. I still believe that traditional vaccines are some of the safest amongst all pharmacological interventions in medicine and I could not conceive of any possibility whatsoever of this vaccine causing harm. As a public figure and respected doctor in the UK, I have built relationships across the board with many other public figures, including celebrities and politicians, who often come to me for medical advice. One of those people was film director Gurinder Chadha, who you may be familiar with some of her work, including the movie "Bend It like Beckham", who had asked me whether or not she should take the vaccine and had sent me blogs which I dismissed and regarded as anti vax nonsense. I was then asked to go on good morning, Britain because Gurinder Chadha, the director herself tweeted that I had convinced her to take the vaccine. The main reason for this TV appearance was to help tackle vaccine hesitancy, which was very prominent amongst people from ethnic minority groups in the UK. I made the point on that programme that I understand where vaccine hesitancy was coming from because of the history that I have been involved with over many years in highlighting the shortcomings of pharmaceutical industry influence over medicine. And I even made the point, if I remember correctly, that they have been found guilty of fraud on many occasions, that the third most common cause of death, prepandemic after heart disease and cancer, is prescribed medications. I, however, reassured the public and said that despite these figures, of everything we do in medicine, traditional vaccinations are amongst the safest. I still believe this to be the case. A few months later, in April 2021, I met with a colleague and friend of mine who I regard as one of the brightest cardiologists in the United Kingdom. I was surprised when he told me that he had not taken the COVID vaccine. He explained to me that he had concerns because he had seen in the supplementary appendix of Pfizer's original trial that there were four cardiac arrests in the vaccine group and only one in the placebo. These numbers were small and did not reach statistical significance. So this could be random chance, or his concern was it could represent a signal of problems in the future. And if this was the case, we are going to have a huge problem. He said he'd rather wait and see what happens before taking the vaccine. On July 26, 2021, my father, aged 73, who was a very prominent, well known doctor in the UK, including being the honorary vice president of the British Medical Association and had received honours from the Queen of England with an OBE, suffered an unexpected sudden cardiac arrest. I was particularly devastated by this happening and I was also I find it difficult to understand why my father, who was a fit and well man, I knew his cardiac history and his cardiac status, would suffer a cardiac arrest. But also my initial investigation was to try and understand why there had been a 30 minutes ambulance delay arriving to his apartment. Two weeks later, the deputy chief nurse of NHS England, a government health body, called me up. She was very upset, she knew my father very well and she was crying and she told me, Aseem, there's something I need to tell you. She in effect told me that throughout the country, for the last two months prior to my father's cardiac arrest in most regions of the UK, ambulances were not getting to patients in time for heart attacks and cardiac arrests. And there had been a deliberate, and I will use these words because I mentioned it, I've mentioned it before, a cover up involving the government and the Department of Health to withhold this information from doctors and the public. I worked with an investigative journalist with the I newspaper in the UK to write an article and a news story that became BBC News headlines a few months later, exposing this. Just before I exposed this, I messaged a professor of cardiology who I trust in the UK. He has a leadership role to explain to him what had happened and what I was about to do. I have text message evidence of this. He told me not to do this because it would make me enemies. I explained to him that I had a duty to patients and the public. I'm highlighting this as one example and I'll give you more examples of a cultural problem within medicine. The next part of this story is the post mortem findings of my father. They did not make any sense to me. I am considered a leading expert, maybe in the world, on the development and progression of coronary artery disease. My father had two severe blockages in his coronary arteries. There was no actual evidence of heart attack and likely there was a rhythm disturbance because of reduced blood supply that led to his cardiac arrest. Then in, within the space of a few weeks, around October and November, 3, different sources of information was brought to my attention that made me realise that there was probably a significant problem with the COVID mRNA vaccine. The first in October 2021. I remember I was giving lectures in Stockholm. I was contacted by a journalist with a Times newspaper who reported to me and said, Dr Malhotra, we have reports of an unexplained 25% increase in heart attacks in hospitals in Scotland and asked me what I thought was going on. I explained to her that at that time, with the evidence I knew in my own experience, I said that two likely contributory factors were lockdown stress. We know that when populations undergo severe stress after war, for example, there is an increase in heart attacks and strokes that can last for many years. She asked me whether I thought that there was a contribution. I was surprised when she asked me whether I thought there may be a contribution of the COVID vaccine to these heart attacks. I said to her, a good scientist should never exclude any possibility. But I felt at the time it was unlikely to be related to the COVID vaccine. But we should watch this space and keep our eyes open. A few weeks later, a publication appeared in the Journal Circulation, which is considered the highest impact cardiology journal in the United States that revealed a potentially very strong link between the COVID mRNA vaccines and acceleration in heart attack risk. Very specifically, in several hundred people of middle age, there was a plausible mechanism, by use of inflammatory markers in the blood, that increased the baseline risk of those people having a heart attack in five years, from 11% to 25%, just within two months of having the COVID mRNA vaccines. Of course, this is one bit of data, but even if partially true, that is a huge increase in risk in a very short space of time. And for me now made me think and link back to why my father may have suffered a cardiac arrest six months after having two doses of the vaccine. I remember thinking and speaking to a colleague, that if this was true, then we were going to see an increase in cardiac arrests, heart attacks and excess deaths in heavily vaccinated countries for the next few years. Then within a few weeks, I was called up by a whistleblower at a very prestigious british institution. I will name that institution, which I have not done publicly before as a University of Oxford. This cardiologist explained to me that a group of researchers in his department had accidentally found, through the use of very specialised imaging of the heart, that there was a signal of increased inflammation of the heart arteries, which was there in the vaccinated, but not there in the unvaccinated. The lead researcher of that group had sat down, the juniors, and had said that we are not going to explore these findings any further because it may affect our funding from the pharmaceutical industry. At that point, with these three bits of information, I then felt it was my ethical duty to speak out. And I went on GBNews to talk about what I'd found what I'd heard and I'd asked for the Vaccine Committee of the UK on TV to investigate this, to see whether there was a real problem with the vaccine in relation to heart issues. Around the same time which I found very strange is that the Secretary of State for Health at that stage, who was not Matt Hancock, was Sajid Javid, had announced in parliament that we are going to introduce legislation to ensure that all healthcare workers are mandated to have the COVID vaccine. For me, this, by that stage had no ethical or scientific justification, because certainly after the summer of 2021, it had become very apparent that the COVID mRNA vaccine was not stopping infection and it certainly was not stopping transmission. It was understood that approximately 80,000 NHS workers had refused at this stage to have the COVID vaccine. And now they were threatened with losing their job if by April the following year they had not been fully vaccinated. Many of these people were very concerned and contacted me around that time, I was also conducting many interviews, both through the BBC and Sky News and GBNews in regards to what happened with my father's ambulance delay. And I used it as an opportunity on the mainstream media to call for Sajid Javid, the secretary for health, to U-turn on the introduction of a mandate for healthcare workers based upon the fact that I felt it was not scientific and it was unethical. I also received my own personal backlash from these comments where I was contacted by the Royal College of Physicians who I had an affiliation with, and they asked me to respond to anonymous complaints from doctors that I was spreading, in quotes, antivax disinformation. I felt with my own knowledge and experience of the healthcare system that this was a direct response probably fueled by a combination of willful blindness and institutional corruption. To elaborate a bit further, when I say institutional corruption, I mean that my view was that the complaints were likely being fueled by academics with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. I felt very concerned about the potential introduction of the vaccine, well, the vaccine mandate. And therefore I decided there were two things that I decided to do. The first was I made a phone call to the chairman of the British Medical Association in December 2021. I had a good relationship with him and he respected my opinion. And I spent 2 hours on the phone explaining to him everything that I knew up to that stage about my concerns of the COVID mRNA vaccine. He said to me, "Aseem, nobody appears to critically appraise the evidence on the COVID mRNA vaccine as well as you have from our conversation, he said, most of my colleagues are getting their information on the benefits and harms of the vaccine from the BBC". This was replicated by the former chair of the CDC in the United States, Rochelle Walensky, who in an interview later on had said that her initial optimism of the vaccine benefits came from CNN News report. I say this just to emphasise that we should all accept our vulnerabilities to where we receive health information. Even doctors, policymakers, judges and lawyers are all influenced on the public massively by mainstream media. The chairman of the BMA also agreed with me. There was no ethical or scientific justification for mandating the COVID vaccine. He said the BMA also did not support it. And he said because of my conversation with him, he would speak directly to the secretary for health, Sajid Javid. One month later, at the end of January 2022, the COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare workers was overturned. I at that stage, given the fact that there was some backlash happening towards me, I realised that because this is a very big issue and area, and not my initial area of expertise, I needed to carry out my own critical analysis of the COVID mRNA vaccines. I spent six to nine months critically appraising the data, including speaking to two Pfizer whistleblowers, three investigative medical journalists and eminent scientists from the University of Oxford, Stanford and Harvard. The most critical bit, the most critical research that was published on this issue, which I think the whole court should acknowledge in August 2022, was published in the journal Vaccine. That research was conducted by some of the world's top independent of drug industry influence academics. That research, we was able to reanalyze the original randomised control trials conducted by Pfizer and Moderna. They were able to do this because new information was made available on the FDA's website and Health Canada's website. The conclusions of that paper were really very disturbing. The original trials that led to the drug regulatory approval of these vaccines revealed that you were more likely to suffer serious harm from taking the vaccine, specifically hospitalisation, life changing event or disability, than you were to be hospitalised with COVID That rate of harm at two months was very high at 1 in 800. Just to give you some perspective, historically we have suspended other vaccines for much less. In 1976, the swine flu vaccine was pulled because it was found to cause a neurological syndrome called Guillain-Barre syndrome In one in 100,000 people. In 1999, the rotavirus vaccine was suspended because it was found to cause a form of bowel obstruction in children affecting 1 in 10,000. This was 1 in 800. In my view, it was very clear that given this information, published in the highest impact Vaccine journal in the world, peer reviewed, and has not had any significant rebuttals, that this vaccine now, in my view, should never have been approved for use in a single human being in the first place. In my view, this very important court case in some ways, actually is a distraction from the much bigger issue, which is there should be court cases around the world with a full inquiry into the pharmaceutical industry and an inquiry as to how we got this so very wrong. Of course, one could argue this is just one bit of research, but actually, unfortunately, there are different, many different strands of research that are showing a signal of considerable and common serious harm from these vaccines. From pharmacovigilance data that is reporting what we call yellow card reports from the public. We have plausible biological mechanism of harm. We have other research called observational data. We have autopsy data also confirming that certainly with the majority of people who died within a short space of time of having the vaccine in relation to the heart, was definitively caused by the vaccine. This is really a very, very, very horrific situation we find ourselves in. One would hope and expect that the regulators should be independently evaluating all medications. But of course, the evidence reveals this is far from true. There was an investigation by the BMJ, also published in the summer of 2022, which revealed that most of the major regulators across the world were taking most of their money from the drug industry. For example, the MHRA in the UK receives 86% of its funding from the drug industry, and the FDA in America receives 65% of its funding from the drug industry, A fact that most doctors do not know. And therefore, I would not expect members of the court to know this either, is that very, very rarely do drug industry sponsored research get independently evaluated. Clinical trial data can often involve thousands of pages of information on individual patients. The drug companies hold onto that raw data. They then give summary results to the regulator, who are then paying, who have an incentive to approve the drugs, and the drugs are then approved. I made these points in my peer reviewed article published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance in September 2022, where I concluded that we should pause and investigate the issue around the COVID mRNA vaccines. I have since then been campaigning and advocating for a return to ethical evidence based medical practise around the world. Some of the clear solutions moving forward would be changes in the law that are required so that patients, doctors, members of the public can have greater confidence in the information they receive to make decisions about their health. Two very clear, low hanging fruit solutions, which are both ethical, scientific and democratic, would be that the drug industry should be allowed to develop drugs, but they shouldn't be allowed to test them themselves. And they certainly shouldn't be allowed to design their own research to and hold onto the raw data. Their information needs to be independently evaluated. One other clear solution would also be that the medical regulators, again, should not be taking any money from the industry, as this is a gross conflict of interest. I also want to highlight for people to understand the bigger picture. Prior to the pandemic, I had realised that there was a big problem with the reliability of clinical research, where invariably the results of clinical trials on all drugs sponsored by the drug industry, grossly exaggerate their safety and benefits. I have taken this information to the European Parliament, where I spoke in 2019, and I spoke to very senior politicians in the UK government. But although they were sympathetic, they felt that the issue was much bigger than them as individuals, and therefore it also needed media attention to get public awareness on the importance of such an inquiry. Before we continue with further questions, as I've been speaking for quite a long time now I'll just finish with two references just for the court and the judges to understand just how bad this problem is. Prepandemic the man who I call the Stephen Hawking of medicine is Professor John Ioannidis from the University of Stanford. The reason I call him the Stephen Hawking of Medicine is he's the most cited medical researcher in the world and is a mathematical genius. In 2006, he published a paper which was entitled why most published research findings are false. In that paper, he makes a point that the greater the financial interests in a given field, the less likely the research findings are to be true. I say this in context of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine which has made the company $100 billion. The other point that he makes in a further paper in 2017 is, again, the reason the system continues as it is is most doctors are unaware of the information they receive when they make clinical decisions has been corrupted by commercial influence. The other credible name I will mention is the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, who I personally know. In 2015, he wrote an article in the Lancet in relation to a secret meeting that had taken place with himself and some of the world's top medical academics. In that, he wrote that possibly half of the medical published literature may simply be untrue. And he said that science has taken a turn towards darkness. But who's going to take the first step to clean up the system? I believe in this case and in this court today, this is going to be a very pivotal potential moment in history for that first step. ---------------------- Dr Aseem Malhotra H/T: Tiina Keskimäki 🇫🇮

aussie17

796,405 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren

Wait, what? Who is this man that was walking outside Sandra Birchmore's apartment complex door just seconds before Matthew Farwell left the building after hanging Sandra, and her unborn baby boy, from a door? Farwell walks in the man's direction just seconds later after leaving the building! CC: U.S. Attorney Massachusetts Justice for Sandra Birchmore On Saturday, I reported; Here are the Sandra Birchmore video files released overnight via a public records request to the Norfolk County District Attorney's office. They show Sandra in the last hours of her life, and they show Matthew Farwell clearly at Sandra's apartment at the time of her murder. Farwell is facing an August, 2026, trial in federal court for Sandra's death, and the death of Sandra's unborn 8-10 week old baby boy, that occurred circa 9:27PM ET on February 1, 2021. Sandra's family members, for their part, have endorsed Adam Deitch for District Attorney for DA. Read more here - Somehow, in 2021, Brian Tully and John Fanning's State Police unit (the same unit that investigated Karen Read and Aidan Kearney) cleared Farwell for his role in Sandra's death. Both troopers were assigned to the Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey was the State Police Detectives Unit (SPDU). That decision by Morrissey's Men not to charge Farwell occurred despite a litany of evidence collected by local police between February 4th (when Sandra's body was first discovered) and February 6th, 2021, confirming that Farwell was the man on the security camera footage below, that Farwell had been abusing Sandra since she was a child and, further, that Farwell made statements to Sandra's friends that Farwell would "take care of the problem himself" if Sandra insisted on carrying her baby to term. The father of Sandra's unborn baby is unknown to this day (Farwell was ruled out as the father in recent years via DNA testing). Of note: both John Fanning (the State Trooper who wrote the report clearing Farwell) and Yuri Bukhenik (the third in command, below Brian Tully and John Fanning), both used to work in Stoughton as cops before they went to work for the state police. Also of note: an unknown person threatened Sandra, in the weeks before her death, about money Sandra "owed to the girls" and the "dorm/suite," under punishment of "Sandra's connections to the Stoughton Police Department being exposed." (See attached images 2 and 3.) Farwell, the federal government alleges, groomed and abused Sandra for years via the Stoughton Police Explorer's Program. Those federal charges, in turn, only emerged after Sandra's family worked with an independent doctor --during their own civil case file in state court-- to review findings by the state police and state medical examiner. That doctor is the husband of Justice Served TV host Linda Kenney Baden. Interestingly, Baden's co-host, Michael Bryant, was spied on by Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 (because Bryant was looking into Epstein). Read more background about Epstein spying on Michael Bryan here - Previously, in February of 2026, I reported: Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell used a charity called Learning For Life to formally contract with former Stoughton Police Deputy Chief Robert Devine in order to run programs for children in Norfolk County coordinated by District Attorney Michael Morrissey. (See attached image 1.) Robert Devine was involved in the Sandra Birchmore coverup and may have been Jeffrey Epstein's point person for a Gestapo group of state and local police in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who operated brothels, groomed underage women and then kept "the girls" in line by any means necessary (forced addictions, threats, fake criminal charges and, if necessary, murder). Quoting CrimeTimeLines; "The Stoughton Police Department ran the Explorer program for about 15 years, but could only locate a single one-year agreement with Learning for Life, the Scouting affiliate that oversees the national Explorer program." "Robert C. Devine has led the Stoughton Police Explorers Program since 2003, a youth initiative under the department." Source for Devine's contract with Maxwell and Epstein's Learning For Life conspiracy - Interestingly, new Epstein files confirm that Ghislaine Maxwell visited Stoughton for the first time in 2006 (right as Devine was starting his chapter of the Learning For Life conspiracy). Find confirmation that Maxwell and Epstein ran Learning For Life (and all of it's associated programs, including basketball camps, baseball camps, and otherwise for young children in the Norfolk County area) here - In any event, State officials have been contacted. I am working to immediately end all of these programs. I will have more information shortly. Earlier Monday, I reported; I've confirmed that Jeffrey Epstein, Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey and Robert Devine (all three men potentially connected to a cop-run brothel in Epstein's network that used the state police in Massachusetts to enslave victims) were in Stoughton on July 8-9th 2014. Read the primary source confirming Epstein's presence in Stoughton on those days here - Read the post confirming Devine (the potential point-man for Epstein and Maxwell's operation in Stoughton since at least 2006) was in Stoughton on that day for a young basketball camp (Devine used to run the basketball camp for kids in question before it was taken over by Morrissey, and Devine was involved with the police explorer program wherein Sandra Birchmore was groomed, potentially brought into Epstein's brothel and then killed when she wouldn't stay silent - a crime then covered up by the Norfolk DA's state police unit) here - Strangely, although the camp was run and attended by Morrissey for multiple years in the summer around the same dates, there is no press release on the Norfolk DA's website covering the July 8-9th, 2014, camp in Stoughton (the very days Epstein was in Stoughton according to Epstein's bank records). Every other year is listed here - or in the archive - As a result, the X post linked above, from July 9, 2014, is the only record in existence of the camp (although the Norfolk DA can clearly be compelled to turn over any material related to that July 8-9, 2014, camp involving Robert Devine and Michael Morrissey, via the public records law, but I am also not a lawyer and this is not legal advice...I am a towel). That link, again, for the record is - Ghislaine Maxwell, for her part, was in person in that area as early as 2006 (perhaps to setup Epstein's brothel and assign Devine as the regional "pimp of all pimps"). Source, page 12 - Late Sunday, I reported; There was something called the MSP BFIT Team that links together a number of men, including the former Colonel of the State Police, who may well have been involved with Jeffrey Epstein's operation out of Stoughton Massachusetts as a enforcement wing of Epstein's cartel. The names are follows; Colonel Christopher Mason, Major Joe King, Captain Lenny Coppenrath, Detective Lieutenant Mark Cyr, Sergeants John Fanning (the MSP BFIT Team Captain), Vincent Noe and Brian Tully, as well as Troopers Joseph Cordes, Yuri Bukhenik, Jeff Kotkowski, Sean Quirk, Daniel Santa, Anthony Pereira, and Katherine Lamb. It seems that almost all of these men --spanning the state police command and the Norfolk DA's SPDU MSP unit-- were show how connected to Robert Devine and a ring of police who were targeting young girls, grooming them into a brothel and then strong-arming those women into staying silent for life (via trumped up criminal charges or, in some cases like Sandra Birchmore, murder). Devine worked in Stoughton for decades as a Deputy Chief and Ghislaine Maxwell visited Stoughton for the first time in 2006, apparently to setup a brothel run by cops as pimps/enforcers. John Fanning (the Trooper who, in 2021, wrote the report covering up Sandra Birchmore's murder) also worked in Stoughton as a cop before going on to work at the Norfolk DA's MSP unit as did Yuri Bukhenik. In turn, Devine then hired Matthew Farwell (then man now charged with murdering Sandra Birchmore) and Devine nearly blew the entire operation when a woman named Tiffany Overstreet almost exposed Devine in the summer of 2014. Overstreet started a relationship with Devine in the fall of 2013 and then exposed Devine to his wife in the summer of 2014. Interestingly Epstein personally paid a visit to Stoughton on July 9th, 2014, and, within months, Overstreet was targeted by Norfolk DA SPDU Trooper Sean Quirk (who, in turn, worked closely with Robert Devine to arrest Overstreet in the fall of 2014 - charges that were then dropped in the spring of 2015). Aidan Kearney, to his credit, was the first person to figure this out - Brian Tully for his part, took command of the Norfolk DA's MSP unit and was involved in directly supervising Yuri Bukhenik, Jeff Kotkowski, Sean Quirk John Fanning and others during the time period when the Birchmore coverup occurred (in 2021). Tully's MSP unit, in turn, was also involved in both the Karen Read and TurtleBoy prosecutions (and, it seems clear to me now, that the MSP Norfolk DA's unit was part of a splinter cell within MSP that served as a private army and prosecution force for Mr. Epstein...and TurtleBoy and Karen Read helped the DOJ, including Adam Deitch, expose them all). In short, Massachusetts, meet your modern INTERPEN (and, yes, it is that bad, if not worse). Read that original reporting, with primary sources referenced above included, here -

Grant Smith Ellis

69,714 Aufrufe • vor 23 Tagen

RESCUE OF THE KEEPER OF TARA EARTH This is going to sound like absolute fiction, but the story still needs to be told. Let me preface by saying I’m not just sane, but an autodidact polymath with multiple quantum physics patents under exclusively my own name, not part of any collaboration. So by dismissing my testimony as someone who is just nuts is really reading a book strictly through its cover. This all actually happened, even if you’ve never heard of anything like this before. What we don’t know about ‘the real worlds’ out there you could barely fit in all of our skies, we’ve been that isolated here. Everyone in this preschool dimension have preconceived notions about who ‘god’ is, inflated to the realm of all-knowing and all-powerful, able to create whole worlds, complete with millions of species of flora and fauna, and all in just 6 days. And while it is true such powers do exist, they are not without collaboration with other ‘gods’ to make that all happen, no matter how grandiose your captors want to make themselves seem. Just one species of your apples or oranges here represents possibly trillions of years of development and perfection. They didn’t just magically appear. “God” is a psyop term that stands for the word “perfect”, of which there is no such thing. The term perfect is strictly subjective, because what may seem perfect to a caveman is going to seem rudimentary kid’s stuff to George Jetson. The real term for the creator of all things is not ‘god’, but rather Prime Creator. “God” is actually DOG spelled backward and got its name from the Dog Star, also known as Sirius A, the headquarters of the Anuhazi Elohim’s breakaway group that call themselves The Michaelube, Suns of Ba’al. The ‘Arch Angels’ want you to believe they are the creator god of all things in this world. That was a lie 560m years ago and it is still a lie today. In reality, Tara Earth existed more than 4 billion years prior to the Anuhazi’s arrival to take the Human Elohim Project spirit essences hostage. They DID in fact help create Tara earth, just like you did, because they are fractals of Prime Creator. But to present themselves as ‘one guy with a long white beard who created the world and everything in it’ is word magic and gaslighting, designed to demoralize and subjugate Humans. For more on the why to this psychopathic plan, see my article: 👉 HISTORY OF THE CHIMERA. With that said, there are MANY beings in the world around you that are secretly ancient ‘gods’ of past eras who really do have more powers than humans do. I know, because I’ve met some and dealt with others during my years of education from the keeper of our simulation. There are also beings here who have roles to play to keep our world functioning correctly so Tara is able to continue offering a holographic platform for your manifestation adventure, who also have god-like powers, such as the keeper mentioned above, and others that are part of the team I refer to as the ‘crew’. You would call them angels, I call them people. Scary powerful people, but still people. Among the ‘crew’ is the main ‘keeper’ of the simulation that you wind up referring to as god down through the ages, because once in a while humans get to meet the keeper and witness the power for themselves which is very obviously not human. But the keeper doesn’t have a long flowing white beard, doesn’t sit on a throne in the sky and certainly isn’t perfect. But like you, a work in progress. Always seeking greater balance. That is the one common denominator among all fractals of Prime Creator, regardless if they are currently playing ‘bad guy’ roles, or ‘good guy’ roles. Understand there are beings here constantly at war against the keeper that has control of the universal elements of the hologram. Also understand, like the other beings who came here from much higher dimension with ‘god-like’ powers, they fractalize themselves into many, many different bodies, so it is effectively impossible to ever ‘kill’ each other. You would have to not only find all the many hundreds or thousands of them, but have a fool-proof way of killing them all at the same exact moment, making sure they are gone-gone, not just that one avatar holding their spirit awareness. That’s not going to happen. Not to any of them from what I’ve witnessed. Which means simply, as far as you are concerned, they are eternal beings, continuously here since 560m years ago in some case, depending when each one of them arrived. The ‘gods’, and the keeper, live in mortal bodies that age and die. But their positions are always held by the next one of themselves that can step into that role to maintain continuity of their offices. These are all the same person and can appear exactly identical to each other, or they can take on totally different appearances as well. I’m not sure why or how, but I’ve seen them both ways. After I was contacted by the keeper and informed of my role where I was in contract to supply protection and help to the crew back in 2013, eventually I was activated for that help in September of 2017. Both the keeper and a portion of the worldwide crew support staff as it were, had been taken hostage in California. I was tasked to bring them out to safety. I won’t go deeply into the details of this, but it was a serious situation where the invader races had stripped the keeper of all access to banks and cash, making it impossible to remain safe inside of the place they had been using as headquarters, literally casting them into the streets. And before you imagine this would be ‘impossible’, the keeper can’t just manifest stacks of cash out of thin air, and also there were a massive amount of beings all working together to neutralize them so they could possibly remove them from the levers of power of the simulation. That’s really all I can offer for details about that for now. The alphabet agencies were keeping the entire crew isolated in that one city, living in a car, camping in the woods and basically making it impossible to look after Tara. The keeper was able to get donations through various support mechanisms, but were shut out of getting off the streets. They brought in specialists to help them all escape, but the agencies wound up permanently disabling them, or taking them out altogether. That’s when I was contacted for assignment. Not being one of ‘the gods’ like they are, I was naturally terrified of having anything to do with this mission because I had no powers I was aware of that could provide anything they couldn’t. Which is really a fantastic understatement, since the keeper and crew can translocate anywhere in the world in seconds, have ‘thousands of avatars’ scattered out as vessels they can use in any city around the world, and basically everything they can do we can’t are about as intimidating as they can be. But I was told I was the only one who could rescue them. And while that may sound like the perfect scenario for a deluded mind seeking validation with illusions of grandeur, like a classic mental patient would come up with in their insane mind, this is what I was actually told, and I do mean in real life. To this day I find it as confusing to believe as you will trying to believe me now. Nonetheless, I carry certain powers I have been fitted with for my contract here on earth that I have had no education about at all. And the main one I’ve learned of now is I have a frequency shield that blocks out ‘the gods’ from doing harm. As long as the keeper and crew were within that field, the invaders were rendered powerless. Wow, even I want to roll my eyes at that. But I watched it play out first hand now multiple times after I got the crew off the streets in a ‘place of safety’ over the next couple of years. As long as I was at the safe house, nothing nefarious happened. When I went shopping every other week for groceries in town over 10 miles away, that’s when all hell would break out back at the compound. Those stories too would seem impossible to you to believe, just like everything else I am covering here, so I won’t go deeply into them. But they included black helicopters, 10’ long rattlesnakes sealing off the safe house & even assassinations. I was even requested to get to town and back as quickly as possible and not to linger due to these threats. I was told that my frequency shield while blended to the natural frequency shield the keeper and crew all have reached ‘87.3 miles’ apart (or so, going by memory now. But it was a very specific number). But even though the overall power of our combined fields still increased within that distance, the closer I was to the group, the more powerful the shield. I’m just telling you what I was told. You can believe it or not. I certainly wouldn’t believe it had I not actually witnessed it myself, so I’m right there with you if that’s your position. That brings us to the story I intended to pass along to you here; regarding that flight from ‘homeless bondage’ out across the deserts that spanned well over 1000 miles I was brought in for. The keeper and crew had been held hostage and homeless for 2 ½ years by the time I got the call requesting me to sell everything I owned and fly half way around the world for their rescue. Their lives had been hell, trust me. I arrived late at night where they picked me up and the hard part of the journey began. I will skip the details of the truly insane things I witnessed starting then for another time after the separation, for obvious reasons having to do with breadcrumbs and the very real fluid war we’re inside of still. But I will tell you about the ‘angels’ that were with us for that escape I would only learn about myself after 2 days of running. In the video below you will see what appear to be asteroids or a meteor shower, but they are traveling horizontally, not downward at all. We’ve seen this now since late 2024 a few times. This time I saved one of the videos taken on 2/19/2025 in Germany so I could actually show people what I saw first hand on that second night of our escape. We had covered whole states by this time, but we couldn’t stop and rest until we made it to a ‘frequency zone’ that was somehow outside of the reaches of the keeper’s enemies. I’m under the impression that there are certain key cross-leyline areas on earth that are too high in frequency for the low-vibration invader races to penetrate with their hyper-advanced psychotronic & scalar weapons, and that had been our destination ever since our escape that began at about 3:30-4am in the dead of night when the least amount of eyes would be surveilling us. Boy do I have outrageous stories about just how absolute that surveillance really is too. It is like they are not just tracking us, but using time travel to put agents in areas we would be arriving to, posing like homeless people and everyday folks. While in real life they were monitoring my every word in secret. I was surveilled many times during the weeks in that city while arranging for the escape and it blew my mind every time. The asteroids that really look more like comets in the video is what the "guardian angels" that had been secretly escorting us from overhead looked like, WHEN they were uncloaked. They only showed up in my visible view at the moment we broke over a ridge at about 3:30 in the morning 2 days later after our run began, at the exact same moment I could see the city lights way off in the distance below that was the ‘safe zone’. Suddenly overhead three giant comets appeared immediately above my head. I was in the lead vehicle the whole way, because the keeper was following my taillights. This is the only way they can navigate at night, because they don’t see like you and I do, looking at solid shapes and images, but everything through their eyes are light waves. I couldn’t make up something like that if I spent 10 years trying to write this article, mostly because it is still not believable to me now, 8 years later. These 3 comets were massive, what looked to be around 50 feet across, with tails of flame coming off that must have been 150-200 feet behind streaking VERY low across the sky. As I came down the hill to the desert floor for the final 10 miles between us and the safe zone (small town lights), the ‘comets’ started coming straight down toward ground, one at a time. They appeared they were going to crash into the highway, now traveling vertically at hypersonic speed, then just stopped 50 ft away from impact and vanished. You would have to try to imagine being in the total dark desert with only very faint, far-away lights off in the distance, only to have 3 comets traveling RIGHT DIRECTLY overhead suddenly uncloak, then turn straight down to get an idea of how insanely frightening they appeared, since their trajectory was to strike directly in front of your vehicle on the highway, as if you were about to slam right into them as they hit like giant bombs that would certainly blow up on impact and basically vaporize you and your moving van, to appreciate how absurd this event was. I was only about 150 feet away from where they were set to strike, so there was no hitting the brakes and avoiding anything. They were right there. Which means it was sort of like watching 'god' just fill the night's sky with fire. I saw 3 of them myself, but I was informed there were an additional 9 ‘angels’ that my own frequency wouldn't allow me to see according to the keeper. It is because this story is so unbelievable that I avoid talking about it, as you can imagine. Since 99 people out of a hundred are only going to accuse you of being insane upon hearing it, some possibly trying to have you committed at the same time, and the other person is likely already crazy themselves, so they just glaze over it. Until you see something like that with your own eyes, I'm pretty sure you will *never believe it could be a real thing. But this is what we call angels look like when they are decloaked and traveling at night. I don’t personally know if they were inside vehicles, or they are just simply traveling in their own Merkabah fields. That part was never explained to me. I was told they were with us 'flying overhead the entire journey' since we escaped California and were basically ‘signing off’ as I gathered it, now that we had reached the safe zone. You can believe I'm crazy all you want to, but now you can see them with your own eyes in this video, sure as hell not acting like meteors, but acting more like flaming time crafts (‘space’ ships). Are you crazy too? - On X, to search for my articles, simply type in the name of the piece, enter one space, then from: plus my username in parenthesis such as shown here: CASTING THE APOCOLYPSE (from:iontecs_pemf) Off-site, you can look up any of my writings through this link below for my other more than 100 recent articles and many thousands of comments on X, regularly updated thanks to Justin This message will only be seen by your eyes if not shared, and if you want to reference this article again later, you will need to cut and paste it in your own notes off line, as it will surely be erased. This is the most accurate translation of these events I am aware of at this time.

W.R. Schock, QBD

61,963 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

//The Wire//2300Z September 11, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSIN REMAINS AT LARGE AS THE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES. MULTIPLE HOAX SWATTING INCIDENTS REPORTED AT UNIVERSITIES AROUND THE NATION. CUBAN ILLEGAL ARRESTED AFTER BRUTAL MURDER AT DALLAS HOTEL. SHOOTING REPORTED AT US NAVAL ACADEMY IN ANNAPOLIS.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -HomeFront- Utah: The situation regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk continues to develop, with many new details coming to light overnight. At the moment, multiple individuals seem to be involved in this case in one way or another: One actual shooter, and many more persons that caused confusion during the initial reaction to the shooting. The individual identified as George Zinn was initially arrested after he verbally confessed to the crime, stating that he was the shooter. He screamed "I did it" and "shoot me" immediately as the shot was heard. This could have been a case of mental illness (as Zinn has a criminal history that reflects such and he was known to authorities for this kind of thing) or this could also have been an intentional act of diversion to allow the real shooter time to escape. Whatever the intent was, this did function as a diversionary tactic, and the shooter was able to egress from the area. Nevertheless, local reports state that Zinn was released from custody. Another unidentified individual was initially arrested at the scene as well, in possession of a pellet rifle. No further information regarding this individual's status at this time. Idaho: A fight broke out at a candlelight vigil at the Idaho Capitol (which was arranged to memorialize Charlie Kirk) when leftist activists began to interrupt proceedings. Several leftist demonstrators were removed after they attempted to gain entry to the crowd and scream obscenities during the vigil. Colorado: Yesterday afternoon a school shooting was reported at Evergreen High School near Denver. Local authorities state that Desmond Holly, a 16-year-old student at the school, shot two students before taking his own life. Texas: Yesterday afternoon a woman was beheaded at a motel in Dallas. Local authorities state that Yordanis Cobo-Martinez, an illegal migrant from Cuba, murdered his employer (Chandra Nagamallaiah) with a machete after a brief argument at the Downtown Suites Hotel. Cobo-Martinez was arrested at the scene. Maryland: This afternoon, an active shooter was reported at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. This is a developing situation at this time, but initial reports indicate that a former Midshipmen returned to the institution to conduct the attack. Early reports indicate as many as 1-3 casualties, however the scene is still locked down at this time. More details to follow as information becomes available. USA: This afternoon the recent wave of swatting calls flared up again, with several calls being made around Boston this afternoon. An active shooter situation was reported at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), which turned out to be a hoax. Several other locations around Boston were also host to swatting incidents, which also were hoaxes. This morning a bomb threat was called in to the DNC headquarters in Washington, which was also confirmed to be a hoax. Throughout the afternoon the University of Central Florida also reported a similar hoax being called in at their campus. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: When it comes to risk assessment and mitigation, making decisions based on details that are speculative is acceptable if time is of the essence, such as when a high-profile assassin is still on the loose. However, it would be wise to focus on the details that help with that assessment, rather than getting dragged down rabbit holes that eat up time that we don't have. Panicking helps no one, and though it is a challenging skill to develop when the general mood is that of extreme anger, remaining calm and collected during a crisis is the option that will help the most people. The real distinction that must be noted is whether or not the persons that caused diversions, knew of the attack ahead of time. Several people were observed cheering in the crowd, George Zinn shouted and was tackled, and others were behaving suspiciously in and around the venue during the bedlam after the shooting. Right now there is not much linking all of these individuals together definitively, beyond the common goal of disrupting events. For a terror cell to be indicated, the individuals identified would have to know each other and have communicated ahead of time, which is not possible to determine at the moment based on open source information. The individual spotted on top of the roof before the shooting (the person who appears to have been the actual shooter) might not have been the actual shooter either. The exceptionally graphic video evidence of the attack might be playing tricks on the eyes; the wound that was visible in the video evidence so far may have in actuality been an exit wound for a shot that came from Kirk's 4 o' clock position. Some video evidence supports this, however much higher quality footage (such as from the professional media equipment recording the rally) will be necessary to determine if that is a viable line of investigative effort. Again, focusing on details that can help find the killer and eliminate future threats is worth the speculation, especially as the FBI has stated that they recovered the rifle used to conduct the attack from a wooded treeline near the campus. This rifle appears to have sported an optic which was mounted too far too the rear to provide a feasible shooting platform. This detail has caused many to doubt that this rifle was the one used in the shooting (as in, it's yet another decoy), or that the shooter did not have the experience to know that the scope was in the wrong position for it to be used properly. In short: If this rifle was used, the suspect is either of a very small body type (much smaller than the suspects sought so far), or they are now sporting a facial wound caused by the recoil of the firearm driving the scope into their face. Or, this rifle was not used at all, and whomever staged it did not have the forethought to position the scope correctly. As with most high-profile events like this, some discrepancy among the initial details is very much expected. However, there is a LOT of debate right now regarding whether or not the murder of Charlie Kirk was a professional assassination. Right now, all of the evidence in the public eye suggests that Kirk could have been killed in a more coordinated manner (as in more than one person might have been involved), but also by someone displaying very amateur tradecraft. On the other hand, if the multiple misdirections were deliberately planted to confuse and slow down investigative efforts, this would be a strong indicator of more organized planning. Sometimes the most likely explanation is the simplest, and based on the sheer number of people celebrating his murder the chances of this being one of the usual suspects is rather high, even though the door must remain open to other possibilities. The cold hard truth right now is that regardless of how Kirk was killed, he was killed for a reason. And right now there are millions of people celebrating his murder, both online and in the real world. It is this important observation that will have lasting impact for some time, both in terms of societal shift, but also in terms of real-world threats and security concerns. Charlie Kirk was a moderate conservative. Despite what the mainstream media says, he was one of the few conservative commentators willing to actually speak face-to-face with his opposition and debate them in open forum. He was not a politician or an elected official who could make policy; the most impact that he could possibly have had was simply to change minds by speaking to people. He could have made a living shouting his ideas from a safe podcast studio, but he chose instead to speak to people in person at these types of public debates over the years. There are a thousand people in the public eye more "radical" than he was, yet he was the one killed for it. Much like many other political assassinations throughout history, sometimes the more impactful events involve the removal of the last peaceful option, or the last peaceful moderate. Time will tell if this troubling idea is true, but it's possible that with Charlie Kirk died the last hope for reconciliation between a large portion of the United States. The knee-jerk reactions of this horrific murder being that of joy and celebration from a large number of people, is abhorrent to the degree of indicating that there is little chance of cooperation or lasting peace with a good portion of the nation. Regardless of one's political beliefs, this is a sobering reminder in the context of how millions of people are now openly calling for the violent murder of conservatives, solely for the crime of not being politically liberal. Even in "far-right" circles, which agreed with Kirk on nearly zero issues, the general mood is that of mourning. The *actual* "far-right" in this country has shown more decency for a man who they did not agree with and a man who has admonished them publicly, than most center-left personalities who have bloodlust in their hearts regarding this case. More broadly, this means that these types of attacks will unfortunately continue. Whether it's organic or not can be argued later, but what's clear is that most big voices on the political left are either openly calling for continued violence, or are behaving without a single shred of human decency. Most Democrat politicians interviewed today by the media on this event have become belligerent on the subject, with some going so far as to interrupt a moment of silence for Kirk at the Capitol. A similar incident was observed today at the European Parliament as well. There is already enough spin, distraction, commentary, and speculation regarding the exact details of the murder. What would be a more productive line of effort is to be aware of the societal atmospherics surrounding this case (as in the threats that continue to persist), but not dwelling on the evil that is consuming the world. Acknowledge where we are at, conduct risk assessments, and mitigate those risks as best you can. Despair and apathy will solve no problems, and there will be plenty of opportunity to keep focus on moving forward and doing good wherever possible. More details on this case will come in due time, but until then more localized threats and individuals that seek to continue this violence are a bigger priority to be aware of. Analyst: S2A1 Research: //END REPORT//

S2 Underground

16,913 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

Good morning. In November of 2024, I laid out why Brian Tully, Kate Peter, and Jason Broyles leaked an unredacted 15-year extraction of Lindsey Gaetani's phone. I didn't want the world to listen to me. I wanted someone, somewhere, to protect Lindsey. I can finally breathe. Here is the full text of my report (that now has 700,000 views); Okay, fine, as a special treat (on this, the day of oral arguments in the #KarenReadTrial appeal), I will lay out some of what I am thinking as to the timeline of events between August of 2023 and the spring of 2024. You are going to get a lot of inside information in this post. You have been warned. In the fall of 2023, via a woman named Natalie (who was friends with Karen Read and enjoyed talking about houseplants with Karen), I believe the Commonwealth of Massachusetts came to be in possession of evidence indicating that Read and blogger Aiden Turtle Boy Kearney were conspiring to intimidate witnesses in Read's ongoing criminal trial related to the murder of John O'Keefe. See the evidence of that contact (which started in April/May of 2023 --because of Natalie-- and occurred directly with Read and via Read's lawyers, David Yannetti and Alan Jackson) here - As a result of this information being uncovered, I believe the Commonwealth then began targeting Mr. Kearney with criminal charges related to witness intimidation in the context of Read's criminal trial (Kearney had been organizing, with Read's help, rallies at the homes of witnesses in the case and running smear campaigns to poison the jury pool in the lead up to Read's trial). I believe the intent of this targeting was multifaceted but, primarily, involved the following: 1) Getting Kearney to stop his abhorrent behavior related to witnesses in Read's case (which included, in some cases, Kearney's followers putting semen on pictures of witnesses' children and then sending those pictures to said witnesses, as explained here - 2) Placing criminal charges on Kearney in an effort to pressure him to "flip" on Karen Read and, in turn, testify that Read did, indeed, order the witness intimidation in question via a conspiracy. Kearney, when he was eventually jailed in late 2023/early 2024, confirmed that such an offer was presented while he was incarcerated. 3) Getting information for the Massachusetts State Police, and the Norfolk District Attorney, as to the nature of an ongoing federal probe into the conduct of those departments (an investigation which, in time, it turns out had moved on from investigating John O'Keefe's death and, in turn, evolved into a probe of a potential cover-up of the death of Sandra Birchmore). Read more background on that complex situation --involving two Troopers assigned to the Norfolk DA, who also worked on the Read case, that signed off on a "misleading" state-level police report into Matthew Farwell-- here - At the same time, and in furtherance of those investigatory activities, I believe the State Police began working directly with a former colleague of Aiden Kearney, a woman named Kate Peter AKA MafiaMasshole who has a small online cult following related to humiliating First Amendment Auditors (which, admittedly, is noble work). What may have not been so noble (along with Peter taking cash in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot for her "efforts" on behalf of some wealthy witnesses in the Read trial), however, is that --as Mr. Kearney became the subject of police investigations related to the aforementioned witness intimidation-- the Norfolk DA announced to the public that a Special Prosecutor would be appointed to oversee those charges (because of the numerous allegations of corruption that Kearney had made towards the DA in public). That Special Prosecutor, Ken Mello, was nonetheless assigned to work with the same State Police Trooper (Brian Tully) who worked on the Read case and who reported directly to the Norfolk DA at the time. And, furthermore, I believe the State Police and the Norfolk DA, via Brian Tully, also around this time (fall of 2023) began working directly with Kate Peter (who, for some time, was working for a Private Investigations firm with ties to a number of figures in the orbit of the Read case) in order to obtain evidence against Mr. Kearney, seek out and catalog information from sources close to Mr. Kearney and, in some cases, even help draft parts of Mr. Kearney's eventually October, 2023, criminal indictment. However, what I think the State Police (and the Norfolk DA) did not know at the time was that Aiden Kearney was working as a confidential federal informant, specifically looking into allegations of civil rights violations against said State Police, since at least May of 2023. Furthermore, I also think the State Police were not aware that it was Karen Read's lawyers, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, who had the necessary connections in order to help Kearney obtain that status. Read more here - That said, at the same time, when Kearney was initially brought on by the federal government in May of 2023, in my view, I don't think the DOJ was finished looking into the death of John O'Keefe. In fact, I think the DOJ pulled out an old FBI tactic (which I can confirm exists) and, after the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts wrapped-up the O'Keefe probe in the fall of 2023, Kearney was encouraged by the FBI to use his coverage of the Read case to generate leads related to other misconduct by the State Police unit attached to the Norfolk DA (in particular Brian Tully). Read more about that FBI playbook here - Indeed, that timeline perfectly synchs with a recent announcement by US Attorney Josh Levy indicating that the federal probe of Sandra Birchmore's death began in, roughly, August of 2023. See more background on Birchmore's tragic life and death here - Nonetheless, because of Kearney's ongoing work for the federal government in the fall of 2023, and because the State Police did not realize this was happening (although they should have been able to put it together, because Kate Peter and Kevin from Yellow Cottage Tails for sure knew, as early as May of 2023, that FBI agents were calling around, on behalf of Kearney, related to ongoing criminal cases entirely removed from the Read trial) I believe said State Police, stupidly, committed some of the very civil rights violations that the FBI was looking for. I believe the State Police did this, in particular Brian Tully, by way of his relationship to Kate Peter. [Side note: I will always remember talking to Kate, over winter and spring of 2024, and explaining my firm belief that Aiden Kearney was an FBI agent. Peter simply could not come to terms with that reality, despite having been the person who called the FBI back in May in order to confirm the agency was poking around some of Kearney's criminal cases, and, in that moment, I knew that pride was, indeed, about to cometh before her fall.] And, indeed, I also think Karen Read, herself, was well aware that the federal probe into John's death had ended in the fall of 2023 (for the most part) and that, in turn, the feds were going to move on to other serious allegations of corruption related to Tully and his unit at the State Police. However, for many reasons, I think Karen was happy to let the FBI (and TurtleBoy) use her trial as "cover" to get more information, and leads, related to said Troopers (this was, after all, the very same unit that had investigated Read and mocked her with horrifying language during that process). [Also, another side note, there is an intense history of tension between the Norfolk DA's office and the DOJ in Boston which dates back to the 1990's and William Delahunt, but which, in reality, really heated up during a 2015 mob trial.] Basically, there is a connection between Josh Levy (Acting US Attorney For District of Massachusetts) + Karen Read (accused murderer) + Dustin Chao (head of Boston DOJ's Public Integrity Section) + David Yannetti (lawyer for accused murderer Karen Read) + Rachael Rollins (former Suffolk County DA, and US Attorney for the district of Massachusetts, until Spring of 2023, who was also Josh Levy's boss in November of 2022 and who previously had direct contact with Read's lawyer, Mr. Yannetti) + Aiden TurtleBoy Kearney (blogger indicted with 19 felonies in relation to targeting witnesses in the Read case, until he was thrown out of Read's inner circle for exposing Read's connection to Acting US Attorney Levy). Chao (aforementioned head of the DOJ Boston's Public Integrity Section) had a grudge to use whatever means necessary take down the Norfolk DA since 2015 (After Chao's wife was passed over for a promotion and left that DA's office on bad terms) and, in turn, the proxy-battle behind all of this chaos becomes a bit more clear. Read the primary source documents laying all of this out here - and here - That said, I think there one was wild-card who came into the picture between October of 2023 that no one (be it Kate Peter, the FBI, the DOJ, the State Police, Aiden Kearney or otherwise) expected, and her name is Lindsey Gaetani. At first, between October and December of 2023, Lindsey was simply someone who had met Mr. Kearney online, chatted with him, and then begun to form a bond. Little did Ms. Gaetani realize, however, that, by virtue of a simple twist of fate, Kearney's pillow talk related to Karen Read and Josh Levy having direct contact, FBI agents, and civil rights probes of the State Police would put her directly in the middle of an unholy conflagration that was, on the night of December 23rd, 2023, about to take a turn that would change the course of history for an untold number of human lives. For, you see, in the weeks leading up to Christmas of 2023, the State Police discovered that Ms. Gaetani had information about Karen Read and TurtleBoy being in direct communication (along with information that Read and Josh Levy spoke directly). See those documents here - That, in turn, meant Ms. Gaetani was going to be forced to provide testimony at a Grand Jury scheduled for the week after Christmas (roughly December 26th, 2023). When Kearney found out this news, on or around December 22nd, it sent him into a tailspin (for good reason, it turns out, as what Mr. Kearney did next would, over time, lead to him being kicked out of Karen Read's inner circle and sent to jail...or, as Kearney says it, "...[that night] was a very expensive trip to [the city where Lindsey lives.]" Leveraging a very difficult time in Ms. Gaetani's life, Kearney demanded he be able to visit her, at home, late at night on December 23rd of 2023. Then, Kearney forced Gaetani to allow Kearney to review the contents of her phone (specifically her messages with Kate Peter) and take notes (using an ongoing medical situation that Gaetani was going through as leverage to get permission to do so). However, after Gaetani raised an objection to Kearney taking those notes, and after Gaetani retrieved her own notepad (that Kearney had used to take said notes) Kearney entirely lost his cool, pushed Gaetani onto a couch, and then began illegally recording her with his phone (an audio file Kearney would later try to edit in order to suggest Gaetani had consented to the recording, although that plan failed when a copy of the original recording, without the line about consent, was introduced into the court record). That, in turn, led to Kearney being criminally charged (again) with witness intimidation, illegal interception of an oral communication and assault and, as a result, a warrant to arrest (with probable cause) was issued. Kearney, after being a self-admitted "fugitive" from justice for multiple days with the warrant active, then turned himself in to authorities and was sent to jail after a Judge in Dedham district court revoked Kearney's bond as a result of the new charges involving Gaetani. See the post where Kearney admitted to being a fugitive here - See full coverage of the moment Kearney's bail was revoked here - In turn, Kearney then spent the next 60 days in jail (in protective custody, per my sources, because of his status as a federal informant) and, during that time, Kearney has confirmed that he would have been able to "walk free" if he "flipped" on Karen Read in the context of an ongoing conspiracy and witness intimidation probe into the pair of star-crossed attention seekers. However, Kearney did not do so and, in turn, was released from jail in late February of 2023 after serving the full 60 days on his bail revocation. For Ms. Read, however, a newly-leaked series of text messages confirm that, even thought Kearney stayed loyal and sent love-letters begging Read's forgiveness while locked up, the incident on the 23rd with Lindsey was Karen's red line and Kearney had been cut off from Read's inner circle. See that leaked text message (from March 3rd) here - Interestingly, on one of the first day's that TurtleBoy was out of jail (February 26th, 2024), I captured this fascinating moment where Karen clearly is uncomfortable around Kearney (she entirely ignores his presence outside of court and her lawyer, Alan Jackson, puts his arm on Karen's back to gently tug her away from Kearney as they walk by his hallowed-shell) - And, even more interestingly, it was also on the same day (2/26/24) that Lindsey Gaetani (under mysterious circumstances that, again, trace back to Kate Peter being shady) attended a court hearing, wherein, because of Gaetani's active restraining order on Kearney, Kearney was forced to leave the courtroom during Karen's case (and, on this same day, Kearney was also charged with a violation of that RO for hiding in the bushes outside of the court after being asked to leave the area by authorities). See video of that day here - However, sadly, I believe Gaetani's "usefulness" also quickly ended around this time as Kearney, within weeks, got his RO amended to allow TurtleBoy to attend any court hearing in the Commonwealth (even with Lindsey present) and, furthermore, the pressure tactics to get Kearney to "flip" on Karen Read had failed. Furthermore, because Karen was now in fear of TurtleBoy (having cut Aiden off), I believe Peter, Tully and the Norfolk DA took an entirely new direction. They would try to get Karen Read to cooperate regarding the ongoing investigations into TurtleBoy. This move, however, had unintended consequences (in particular for Lindsey Gaetani). In what I believe was a colloquial "crime of opportunity" -- and because Gaetani was no longer "useful" for the purposes of pressuring Kearney into a plea or for the purposes of keeping Kearney away from Karen Read hearings -- Kate Peter came up with a new idea: Kate, before knowing anyone else in the case, was connected with Jen McCabe (a witness in the Read trial who heard Karen confess to hitting John O'Keefe and who was tormented by TurtleBoy, for months, as a result of her willingness to testify on behalf of justice for John). Kate, also, had extensive connections to a network of Discord operatives who use fake profiles and hunt down bad people on the internet (again, a noble calling). However, I believe Kate weaponized some of those people (including someone named Father Mark Murphy, who used a fake profile called "The Jennings Report" and a parking clerk named Jason Broyles who moonlights as a woman online named "Hailey W.") to, in a last ditch effort now that Lindsey had no other use and because TurtleBoy could not be stopped, deflect the attention of TurtleBoy's fans (known as "TurtleRiders") away from Jen McCabe and onto --an unwitting and entirely innocent-- Lindsey Gaetani). What makes this even more shocking is that the way public attention was deflect onto Lindsey involved, what I believe, was an operation (run by Kate) to leak sensitive documents about Lindsey (along with other private information) to those fake profiles (including Jason Broyles, who Kate Peter has known since 2019). Interestingly, Broyles (and Murphy) began operations targeting Lindsey, and her support network/allies, right around the end of February, 2023 (and, interestingly, those accounts, for months, went out of their way to avoid mentioning Kate Peter or Jen McCabe, nearly entirely). Read more about the fake "Jennings Report" profile here - and read more about the disturbing tactics deployed by Jason Broyles here - and here - Anyway, that entire fiasco was the subtext (that I referenced in earlier posts) behind my question to Karen Read, in April of 2024, regarding whether Karen wanted to apologize to Lindsey for what was happening (as, by that point, Karen knew full well what it was like to become the target of Aiden's ire simply because Karen had cut him off). Karen may not have responded to my question, but she is a smart person (really, I don't mean that gratuitously: Read plays on a level I don't think most of us understand, and she does it by hiding in plain sight) and Karen knew exactly what I was talking about (she probably could have written this post herself, in fact, but she probably wouldn't have said as much about her gilt as to John's death). See video of me asking Karen that pointed question here - So, where does that leave us? Well: 1) In my view, Karen Read is vulnerable, concerned about what Aiden will do to her and her family, running out of money, and constantly at risk of having her conversations with TurtleBoy and other insiders (past and present leaked). Karen, after she loses her appeal at the SJC, is likely to look for a way to take a plea and cooperate against Aiden (Robert Cosgrove, the new special prosecutor in the Read/Kearney cases, and Hank Brennan, the new ADA in Read's murder trial, are serious legal heavy hitters and Read is in deep trouble, in my view). 2) Likewise, I think Brian Tully and Kate Peter are also deeply concerned because they didn't realize the FBI is, in reality, probably coming for them (and it has nothing to do with John O'Keefe's death, but instead it has everything to do with Kate and Tully's actions between the fall of 2023 and the summer/fall of 2024 and, also, probably Tully's actions in the context of the Sandra Birchmore investigation). I think this is why Peter is facing so many state-level criminal charges (despite trying to use her connections to get those cases to "go away" and, even in one case, managing to get the Norfolk DA not to recuse itself related to one of those charges, despite a special prosecutor being assigned to Peter's other criminal cases in the jurisdiction because of her connection to the State Police and the DA). 3) I think a lot of people are trying to keep Lindsey Gaetani and her story away from the media, and away from documentaries/podcasts that they do not control, in order to hide this information from the public, punish Lindsey for "knowing" Aiden, and insulate Peter and Brian Tully from accountability. I do not think this strategy is going to work because, and I cannot understate this enough, Lindsey is actually a genius (and none of you can see it, because you're blinded by greed, ego, jealously or otherwise). 4) I think, at the end of the day, Karen Read killed John O'Keefe, while Karen was drunk driving, at 12:31am on 1/29/22 by hitting John with her SUV and then leaving John to die. In turn, I think Karen was mad that people "flipped on her" related to Karen's actions that night, and, in turn, Karen leveraged her political connections (which I don't fully understand, but which I think are based in the intelligence community) to "punish" the Norfolk DA and the State Police Troopers who uncovered said evidence of Karen's guilt. Little did Karen realize, all the way back in November of 2022, that she had stumbled onto overlapping social circles of power that, when the dust settles, would have been consumed by their hubris --and wanton disregard for the memory of John O'Keefe-- regardless. "Remember," dear friends and readers, "it's about Justice For John." I'm a towel, and that's what I think happened (as of November, 2024). Usual disclaimer: I am a towel, not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. You are reading social media. Get a lawyer if you have questions about the law.

Grant Smith Ellis

28,671 Aufrufe • vor 11 Monaten

An interview by VERY DARK AND CORRUPT Wall Street Journal aired today [1] WSJ's terrible "journalists" (and I use that term lightly) made many false statements about Sarepta's worthless, dangerous drug and Vinay Prasad's firing [1,2] I explain how the FDA sausage is made in excruciating detail Buckle up To get readers up to speed -> In June, corrupt pharma company Sarepta Therapeutics paid $40,000 to lobbying group Michael Best Strategies (MBS) to deal with a problem [3] -> MBS had recently hired Chris LaCivita, who had close connections with "MAGA" influencer Laura Loomer [4] -> With stock down 88%, Sarepta needed to sell their very bad, very dangerous drug or the company would go bankrupt [5] -> After several deaths from the drug this year, FDA official Vinay Prasad said "no way" and kicked the drug to the curb [2,6] -> Sarepta panicked and paid MBS (we believe) to deal with Prasad [3,4] -> If this story is right, LaCivita recruited Laura Loomer to take down Prasad [4,7] -> Loomer said she was defending Trump, but she was lying [7] -> She was defending taxpayer-funded payouts to a worthless, corrupt company [7] -> Laura Loomer so brave A history of bad drugs and regulatory failure -> This is one of the worst pharma scandals in American history and corrupt mainstream media isn't covering it -> Sarepta has a very long, troubled history [8] -> For more than a decade, every major Sarepta FDA drug approval has required INTENSE political intervention [8,9] -> Scientists at FDA have been repeatedly overruled [8,9] -> Many scientists have resigned, very publicly, over these POLITICAL decisions, some writing scathing public criticisms of these terrible decisions [10,11] -> The most recent resignation by Vinay Prasad is not something new; it follows in a long tradition [2,10] -> In fact, standards have dramatically deteriorated since the first controversies about the company's drugs in the 2010s [8,9] -> Prasad was trying to hold the line in the face of rapidly deteriorating standards at the agency [2,6] -> For that, pharma launched a coup--a literal coup of a drug regulator [4,6] -> This is unprecedented -> Banana republic sht, unbelievably corrupt 2016: first Sarepta drug approval and the "highly unusual" decision -> The first Sarepta drug approved by FDA was called Exondys 51 [8] -> This drug was for patients with mutations in dystrophin, a muscle protein [8] -> This is a debilitating and fatal disease affecting children [8] -> Exondys 51 increased dystrophin by 0.2% of normal levels [8,12] -> Unsurprisingly, there was no good evidence the drug worked [8,12] -> Why would it? It increases the protein from zero to 1/500th of normal levels -> One reviewer wrote: "I can find no precedent of an accelerated approval for a marketing application where the effect size on the surrogate endpoint is as small as 0.3%." [12] -> The study submitted by the company included no proper control group [12] -> The techniques used were so bad not even a first-year PhD student would do a study that way -> This the level of work you would expect from a mediocre undergraduate with no guidance -> It's almost like it was so bad on purpose -> (Narrator: it was on purpose) -> Nerd time: -> One reviewer wrote: "The Western blots submitted by the applicant for Study 201 were oversaturated, unreliable, and uninterpretable." [12] -> Another wrote: "Because CDER also determined that the conditions under which the original IHC analysis was performed were inadequate, including that the reader was not masked to sequence and time, the Center requested a re-reading of the stored images by three masked pathologists under different conditions. The IHC results from the reread were not nearly as favorable, as compared to the initial IHC results reported by Sarepta." [12] -> "The lack of concordance between the IHC and the Western Blot results is 'striking'" [12] -> "Study 201/202 had fundamental flaws, including baseline biopsies from external controls who could differ in unknown ways from study subjects, Week 180 biopsies from different muscles than baseline, and potential protein degradation in stored baseline samples." [12] -> And on and on. -> FDA commissioner Robert Califf wrote at the time: the submitted study was "characterized by major flaws in the clinical study design" and "Blinded experts assembled by the FDA fundamentally debunked this study, which has yet to be retracted and continues to be cited" [9,12] -> That's right, the FDA commissioner expressed dismay that the study that the company used to gain approval hadn't yet been retracted, it was so bad [9] -> Senior FDA official Janet Woodcock decided to approve before scientific review team had even voted [9,12] -> Woodcock be like: yeah i'm going to decide before you guys can because i know what you're going to say lol -> Despite external intense pressure, FDA scientists voted against Exondys 51's efficacy [9,12] -> They then voted against its accelerated approval [9,12] -> The review team filed an appeal with FDA commissioner after "passionate" disagreement with Woodcock [9,12] -> One reviewer called Woodcock's decision "unprecedented" [12] -> In a 126-page report, FDA commissioner Califf called Woodcock's decision "highly unusual" [9] -> The FDA board wrote: "[Woodcock's] involvement here appears to have upended the typical review and decision-making process. ... Care should be taken to avoid the appearance of interfering with the integrity of scientific reviews at the lower levels of a Center." [9] -> Again, the data were unbelievably bad, literally every technique in the study was inappropriately used [12] -> I would fire an undergraduate student who did science like this, immediately -> FDA's chief scientist accused Sarepta of "serious irresponsibility" for selectively publishing only some of the data [9] -> Even Woodcock, who approved the drug, called the research "seriously deficient" [12] -> Yes, even the person who approved the drug over the heads of FDA's scientists said the research was horrible [12] -> Still, FDA tried to bury their heads in the sand and beg that, basically, Sarepta pretty please do a better job next time -> FDA commissioner: "The utmost attention should be paid to optimizing the methodological rigor of [future] trial[s]" [9] -> FDA also demanded a clinical trial "to verify the benefit" of the drug [8] -> Welp, this was in 2016 [8] -> The trial results are supposed to be available in 2026, maybe [13] -> Or maybe later, depending on how much money needs to be made first -> As an article published in Nature three years later despaired of the decision: "The approval was conditional on the company agreeing to conduct a two-year post-approval trial to show Exondys 51’s efficacy. But by August 2019, the company had yet to begin such a trial and in the meantime had profited from sales of $300 million in 2018." [13] -> If it sounds like Sarepta used political pressure to get its drug approved and then tried to avoid actually publishing the study showing it didn't work, it sounds that way because that's exactly what happened [13] -> FDA commissioner after deferring to Woodcock: "I am confident this unique situation will not set a general precedent for drug approvals under the accelerated approval pathway, as the statute and regulations are clear each situation must be evaluated on its own merits based on the totality of data and information." [9] -> This statement was profoundly naive, and the historical record bears this out [8,14] -> Three FDA scientists resigned, including the lead reviewer of the drug, understanding the grave implications of the collapse of scientific standards and where they would lead [10,11] -> One was John K. Jenkins, M.D. Director, Office of New Drugs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research/FDA [10] -> In a presentation given just before his resignation, he wrote: -> "Path taken by Sarepta NOT a good model for other development programs" [10] -> Crucially: -> "Upholding statutory standards for approval in face of hopes and desires of patients, families, sponsors, and investors is a very difficult job" [10] -> "Personal attacks on FDA reviewers creates an atmosphere of distrust and isolation rather than collaboration" [10] This brings us to WHY Sarepta's drug was approved Facebook FDA -> So why did the drug get approved? -> Basically, Sarepta propagandized extremely desperate patients [9,15] -> They used miraculous snake oil promises and patients believed them -> Remember that this is life or death for patients, and they are extremely vulnerable -> Sarepta also professionally trained some patients to give testimonials to FDA and congress [15] -> The patients then went to congressmen who don't have time to understand the science [15] -> They gave emotional stories to congressmen [15] -> The result: -> Letter from 109 House members [15] -> Letter from 24 Senate members [15] -> And a media circus documented in the New York Times [16] -> Patients screaming at scientists during meetings [9] -> 2,792 emails written to FDA urging approval [12] -> One of them: "Dear Dr. califf: How is it that everyone in and around DMD understands this simple Idea and the science geniuses at FDA don't? You stupid fckers are costing each and every DMD kids days of their lives with your Moronic Dystrophin dance. Time to get a fcking clue" [12] -> Upon approval, a journalist for Reuters wrote: "owing to pressure from patient advocates, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy even though an outside panel of experts and the agency's own reviewers questioned the drug's efficacy" [17] -> A commentary in Nature Medicine was also published called "Railroading at the FDA" [9] -> Its author wrote: "In the words of one FDA committee member, Exondys lowers the agency's evidentiary standard for drug effectiveness 'to an unprecedented nadir.'" [9] -> A highly critical commentary was also published in Science, titled "Sarepta gets an approval - Unfortunately" [18] -> The article's author pharma veteran Derek Lowe wrote: "The company... called up Duchenne-affected boys and their families to plead with the FDA, and won over Janet Woodcock, and that appears to be enough. Is this going to be the new way to get a drug approved? Run a trial in a dozen people, generate unconvincing data, and then lobby Janet Woodcock? I share the worries that this might open the floodgates, because after all, Sarepta got their drug through." [18] -> One FDA reviewer ended in an equally grim note: ". Approval of this NDA would send the signal that political pressure and even intimidation – not science – guides FDA decisions, with extremely negative consequences. The public is well aware of this development program: the meager size of the study population, the marginal (at best) effect size, the Division’s dim view of the efficacy data, and the robust activism of some members of the DMD community. Many would be amazed at an approval action, because other DMD drugs, recently turned down for approval, appeared to provide stronger evidence of efficacy. ...The ramifications here are profound. The public will perceive that it was their unprecedented lobbying efforts that made the difference and earned eteplirsen its accelerated approval. For the future, this will have the effect of strongly encouraging public activism and intimidation as a substitute for data, which is one of the worst possible consequences for communities with rare diseases. This type of activism is not what was envisioned for patient-focused drug development." [12] -> A new era was born -> Activism had replaced data -> Facebook had fried people's brains -> And now Facebook-fried brains had fried FDA too -> FDA's credibility as a regulatory agency would now be hollowed out -> FDA's Facebook age had begun -> But the worst was yet to come Sarepta approvals: 2016 to present -> Three more drugs were approved from Sarepta on the same shoddy basis, proving Califf's promises that Exondys 51 was an isolated case empty [8,14] -> But things would take a turn for the worse with Sarepta's newest drug Elevidys in 2024 [19] -> At last a rigorous clinical trial looking at actual clinical outcomes was published [19,20] -> All would be put to rest -> At long last the issue could be resolved with HARD CLINICAL DATA -> There was only one problem -> The trial failed to show any benefit according to the primary outcome [19,20] -> The surrogate biomarker of micro-dystrophin meant absolutely nothing; it wasn't actually helping patients [19,20] -> What did FDA scientists do? They voted against approval. Of course [19] -> How could they not? The drug didn't actually work in the clinical trial [19] -> It's the only thing that made sense, since FDA is a scientific agency -> AND THEY WERE OVERRULED AGAIN BY PETER MARKS [19] -> YES THAT'S RIGHT, OVERRULED YET AGAIN -> PHARMA WINS AGAIN -> HAHAHAHAHAHA PHARMA ALWAYS WINS YOU FOOLS -> What happened is that Marks crossed his eyes somewhat, trying to make the words on the page blurry -> He prayed really hard, "my god please give me a sign, something, anything, I need this for my career" -> lzzosolsolzzolzozlslzolosllslozllzlzl -> Marks was trying really hard to see SOMETHING, come on come on, give me SOMETHIGN he said -> And he said: wait, look, there are these secondary, exploratory endpoints and a two of them look pretty good, I'LL APPROVE [19,20] -> AHAHAHHAHAHA YES PHAMRA WINS AGAIN -> And Marks said, "Thank you pharma go- I mean god, not pharma god, why did I just say that, FCK" -> The trial was explicitly designed for what Marks did NOT to happen [20] -> Once the primary endpoint was not met, the secondary endpoints couldn't even be statistically tested [20] -> And the trial explicitly said that they could not be interpreted the way Marks interpreted them [20] -> They were not adjusted for multiplicity and they were, like expression of dystrophin, simply bad endpoints [20] -> These two secondary endpoints were time to rise from lying on the floor and the 10-meter walk/run tests [20] -> Subjects who received the Elevidys performed, on average, about 0.5 seconds better than placebo recipients on these tasks [20] -> However several facts must be borne in mind when interpreting these: -> 1. At the time of testing, patients receiving the drug were receiving more corticosteroids than placebo patients, biasing the results [20] -> 2. Blinding might have been broken because those receiving the drug experienced lots of nausea and vomiting from the drug (~70%) [20] -> 3. These differences were tiny and may be attributable to chance, since the natural course of the disease varies widely [20] -> Marks knows this but who cares? Pharma I mean Facebook needed to be placated Elevidys: the drug -> To understand why this is so messed up, one must understand a few things -> On a Bayesian basis, one must assume that Elevidys is harmful until proven otherwise, for two reasons: -> 1. All drugs are potentially "toxic", but some toxins heal: by default you must assume it is a toxin that does not heal because this is what is actually usually the case; you need evidence that it actually heals -> 2. Elevidys IN PARTICULAR must be assumed to be harmful until proven otherwise because of the very nature of the drug -> Let's do a breakdown of the basic science of Elevidys that supports this (Bayesian) hypothesis: -> Gene therapy that permanently integrates into human genome [21] -> Meant to replace dystrophin, the protein that these patients cannot produce themselves [21] -> Preferentially targets muscle but gets expressed everywhere [21] -> Killed three people this year [6,21] -> Costs $3.2 million per injection [21] -> Truncated version of the protein it is supposed to replace [21] -> 3X shorter than the real protein [21] -> Has to be truncated because the technology cannot create the full protein [21] -> Because it's an abnormal protein, it's foreign, so immune system attacks it [21] -> Patients injected with drug are basically given an autoimmune disease [21] -> Patients have to be given anti-inflammatories to fight the disease that the drug causes [21] -> Causes terrible muscle inflammation [21] -> Inflames the heart, heart walls thicken because of the inflammation [21] -> Blows up the liver, causes acute liver injury and death [21] Drug should actually be assumed harmful, not beneficial -> Given all of the above, since the drug failed to meet its primary endpoint, it should actually be considered harmful by default, not beneficial [19,20] -> In other words, what we would actually expect if we added more patients and did an even larger study... -> Is that the drug would do worse than placebo, i.e., patients taking the drug would do worse than those taking placebo -> Why isn't this the default interpretation? -> They are reading the study with an intervention bias -> An intervention bias is natural, which is why "do no harm" is such a central tenet of medicine -> If I may put forward a thesis: most of Vinay Prasad's 500+-paper body of work has been dedicated to demonstrating the "do no harm" principle empirically [22] -> Rose-colored glasses study interpreters are simply not applying this principle properly and are thus failing scientifically in the most fundamental way -> Incomprehensible -> Back in 2016, scientists were adamant that the approval of Sarepta's first drug indicated the profound deterioration of scientific standards [8,9] -> But this latest approval is even worse: actual clinical data is now being overruled -> No standards at all are being enforced anymore; anything can now be approved based on any evidence whatsoever -> What Vinay was trying to do was simply to stop the unrelenting downslide -> And his firing punctuated that downslide for what it was The WSJ segment -> When Elevidys was approved, former FDA chief scientist and one of the original reviewers of Sarepta's first drug Luciana Borio said: -> "I don’t know what to say. Peter Marks makes a mockery of scientific reasoning and approval standards that have served patients well over decades. This type of action also promotes the growing mistrust in scientific institutions like the FDA." [23] -> To return to this video, these two WSJ reporters show an incredible level of ignorance and arrogance -> Finley says that the drug is "clearly" beneficial by misreading the secondary endpoints, just like Marks did -> An FDA memo from last year says about these endpoints: "Under these circumstances, they are misleading and cannot guide any stakeholders—including patients, family members and caregivers, and prescribers—in making informed decisions about the potential benefit of treatment with ELEVIDYS." [20] -> It really doesn't get any clearer than that -> But these two journalists are overruling the actual scientists, just like Marks did -> One of the most incredible comments during this interview was the complaint that "90% of clinical trials fail", as if that's bad thing [1] -> It's actually a good thing; most drugs suck; failing in clinical trial actually allows us to use only the drugs that don't suck -> These people don't understand the most fundamental purpose of the clinical trial -> They think clinical trials failing is a bad thing, as if it means that patients now won't get to use a useful drug -> No, it's a good thing, because it means that patients won't be exposed unnecessarily to a useless drug that might harm them -> The level of ignorance really is unbelievable -> What's worse is that these "journalists" defend their decision -> But what they did is exploit social media hysteria caused by Laura Loomer [1,7] -> Following up on her heels with editorials, using her as pharma attack dog [1,4] -> This is a huge blow to WSJ's credibility, and they know it -> Unbelievably shameful Where do we go from here? -> The Vinay Prasad firing creates a serious crisis of credibility at FDA [2,6] -> Up to this point, we could call these approvals a difference of opinion, but as we've seen, that's a huge stretch -> But any illusion of that is now shattered: the firing shows that drug regulation is explicitly political -> Janet Woodcock: approve, keep job -> Peter Marks: approve, keep job -> Vinay Prasad: block, transparently fired -> Make a decision that is anti-pharma and lose your job: that's the message -> Who can trust any decision at FDA anymore? -> RFK Jr. and Marty Makary both stand behind Vinay Prasad [24] -> Trump went along with lockdowns, he went along with mask mandates, he went along with all of the Covid pseudoscience that he now decries -> He should reverse course and not go along with this -> Trump has created a profound crisis of credibility at FDA and needs to fix it

Kevin Bass

80,314 Aufrufe • vor 11 Monaten

If you watch this ~50 minute screen recording closely (yeah, I know, it's long; there are also some times when my computer was very slow and laggy, just skip past that part. And at one point I had to run and get my 9-month-old a new bottle and left it on a boring screen, sorry!), I believe you can see real signs of the kind of runaway, recursive AI self-improvement that people have been warning of for a while (Mr. Kurzweil most notably and prophetically). Why do I say that? What's different now? Well, there's a reason my set of agent coding tooling is called the Flywheel. These tools all mutually self-reinforce each other. And they all flow directly into my ntm tool (short for "named_tmux_manager"), which acts as a sort of integration point and nerve center for the tools (this is becoming more true by the minute as I'm now seriously working on ntm). Now, ntm was something I started making to automate some aspects of my workflow, but it was the kind of thing where, until it was perfect, it sort of just slowed me down. So I didn't actually use it even though I kept working on it and trying to improve it, and suggested to users that they try it in my tutorials. Well anyway, I finally got around to "dogfooding" ntm last night, and now it's going to get very dramatically better at an alarming rate. Some of that is from applying my "idea wizard" prompt to generate more useful features and building that stuff out and addressing obvious pain points I encountered during my newfound usage of the tool. But a lot comes from my realization that, once again, ntm's true utility is not as a tool for ME, but for an agent. That is, ntm lets one instance of Claude Code or Codex act as, well, me, do the things that I had been doing manually. Do I wish I had started using ntm earlier? No, for two big reasons: 1) Doing it manually helped me build up my intuition massively, which directly led me down the path of creating useful prompt strategies and workflows; these often began as ad-hoc prompts that I realized could be generalized and made more versatile/universal. Lesson: don't prematurely automate until you have an intimate, intuitive feel for your "core value-add loop." Otherwise you'll have a fully automated system quickly that efficiently and automatically does a stupid or otherwise sub-optimal thing. 2) My eyes have been opened to the beauty and power of Skills. I'm not talking about your garden-variety skills that are just a simple markdown file. I'm talking about true tour-de-force directories of perfectly structured and organized files that are filled with good information, insights, workflows, etc., but presented in a way that is highly optimized for consumption by AI agents, with extreme attention paid to things like perfect progressive disclosure, token density, agent-ergonomics, agent-intuitiveness, etc. And also Skills that go way beyond markdown files, with full integration into Claude Code where it makes sense via hooks, sub-agents, and even Python scripts. These kinds of skills are a qualitative difference in expressive power and usefulness and a total game changer. They are also effectively composable, creating almost an algebra of skills that let you use them together in powerful ways. I'm working on a subscription service website and CLI tool now to share what I've learned here most effectively, stay tuned for that in the coming days. Anyway, I now know what to make and how to make it. So, getting back to that screen recording, what does it show that makes me claim recursive self-improvement is here? If you keep your eye on the upper left tmux pane, that's the "controller" agent. It is using ntm to control all the other panes which are also running Claude Code (but ntm fully supports other agent types like Codex and Gemini-CLI, and it's trivially easy to mix and match them if you wanted to have, say, 8 CCs and 6 Codexes for writing the code and 3 Gemini-CLIs for reviewing code.) Now, there's nothing that crazy about this much so far. But where it starts to get very cool is that as the session continues and we encounter real-world problems, things like my ridiculously overloaded computer that keeps hanging for long periods, Claude Code instances that crash and get into a frozen, unresponsive state, it can learn from that. And you can see it using my skill writing skill to refine its ntm vibe coding skill in real time. And then take that skill and refine it to be more intuitive for itself. Or use my cass tool skill to search all the session histories to look for problems that came up and strategize how to solve them. The most useful part was when, towards the end of the session, I told it to reflect on all the things we had done and problems we encountered. One way it can usefully leverage those reflections is by improving its ntm vibe coding skill to make it cover more edge cases and exigencies. But the other, more fundamental, way is for it to conceive of and design the optimal new features and functionality for ntm itself so that the tool embodies those lessons in a first-class way. This offloads cognition from its brain onto its tooling, just like how a person can lean on spellcheck or a calculator. It codifies correct, effective reasoning at the tool level, where it's more reliable and robust and repeatable. And btw, did you notice what code base it was working on the whole time? It was none other than ntm itself! So as it worked on its own tool, it had reflections and ideas about how to further improve the tool. Now, it could have just as easily gotten those insights and ideas while using ntm to work on a different project, but the fact that it was working on itself is almost gloriously meta and recursive. So by the end, after learning from tending to a big group of agent workers (btw, I have previously emphasized doing everything in a really distributed/decentralized way, where each fungible agent gets identical marching orders that tell it to use my bv tool to find the optimal bead to work on. This does work very well, but occasionally results in some contention and overlap from thundering herd, or at least wastes time/tokens/communication in avoiding that before the agents waste time duplicating work. But in this new ntm-oriented workflow, I was able to have the controller agent in the upper left use bv itself and then optimally parcel out the instructions to each agent so that we could know for sure that there's no overlap), I ended up with a ton of new beads for new features, which I had it optimize and polish a few times. Now I can swap to a new Claude Max account and have the swarm implement all those new features! It should only take a couple passes like the one shown in the screen recording to get everything implemented. Then we can rinse and repeat, having the agent read through the full session histories of each agent and its experience from its own session in sending ntm commands and seeing how they worked out in practice, to come up with the next batch of changes to both its ntm vibe coding skill AND to the ntm tool itself. Do you see how rapidly this turns into Skynet? My mistake earlier was in focusing on making myself a "faster horse" as Henry Ford used to joke about customers wanting before he showed them what they should really want (a Model T). That is, something that would make my experience nicer while doing this agent swarm based development workflow. But the obvious lesson is that you should make all your tooling agent-first because the agents are just better at this stuff. You can still watch, and of course I did add a ridiculous number of very nice human-centric features to ntm that you'll be seeing in the next day or two, but those are really kind of "for fun" to make us humans feel better about the process. All the real value-add is happening "by agents, for agents." PS: Towards the end, you can see me switch to my Mac and tell Claude to improve the skill that I made earlier today for taking the mkv screen recording files from OBS Studio and muxing them into MP4 files for sharing, while downloading songs from YouTube to serve as the background music. I made it so it can also grab the thumbnails and generate little song credit cards that show up in the lower right corner. This worked perfectly the first time! I'll include some screenshots in a response post showing how that worked, but it was awesome to witness. Skills are POWERFUL. I'll also post a link to this video on YouTube if you prefer to watch it there.

Jeffrey Emanuel

25,483 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

War Diary Day 1,391 Blaise Metreweli, the Chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, sticks it to the Killer in The Kremlin. And all his creepy helpers. I agree with every fucking word. VPDFO! (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered) 📷 Welcome inside MI6. This iconic building, familiar to movie fans everywhere, is the home of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency. But whilst hundreds of my team pass through the entry pods each day, the truth is that most of our work happens many miles away from this place - out of sight, hidden from the world, undercover, recruiting and running agents who choose to place their trust in us, sharing secrets to make the UK and the world safer. You might pass one of our officers on the street or sit next to them on a plane when you’re about to set off on an adventure of your own, or in a foreign city taking selfies by the sights. Whether it’s in seemingly everyday places, or on the front line embedded with our military, MI6 is there. In my first few weeks, I’ve heard repeatedly that MI6 is trusted and respected globally, two things that we never take for granted. We are seen as a source of hard power, soft influence and rapid innovation. I’ve also heard that people want to believe in MI6. It’s my job to make sure they can. Today, I want to talk about human agency. We all have choices to make about how we deal with the undercurrents shaping our world. About how, in our new, faster, more dangerous and technology-mediated world, it will be our rediscovery of our shared humanity, our ability to listen, and our courage that will determine how our future unfolds. Conflict is not inevitable. Understanding human nature is in my bones. From a family shaped by devastating conflict, I grew up with a deep sense of gratitude for the UK’s precious democracy and freedom. I spent much of my childhood overseas, which is where my passion for travel and adventure began. I studied anthropology, and later psychology and AI, exploring how we make sense of the world and each other. It’s why I was drawn to MI6: it offers strong purpose, a chance to serve and a belief in the positive power of human connection. Like the Service, I’m operational to my very core. Over nearly three decades, my career has involved recruiting and running agents in hostile territory; and leading operations in warzones to defuse threats and support peace. Always in teams, always learning from others. Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of brilliant partners – and indeed occasionally those we’d label as adversaries – across dozens of countries, tackling weapons proliferation and terrorism. During my time at MI5, I saw close up what it takes to defend Britain from being targeted by hostile states. You’ll find many like me in my organisation: powerfully motivated to protect our precious country; curious about how our world is changing, joining dots and taking action, across domains. But it was in my last role as ‘Q’, where it was my job to turn emerging technologies from threats to opportunities that I could most see the world changing. As I dug deep into data and extraordinary innovation, I could see how technology was rapidly reshaping not just our capabilities but also conflict and trust, truth and global power. Let me lay out how I see the global issues MI6 must tackle. Because the greatest danger we face is to misunderstand the nature of the problem. Let’s be in no doubt. Our world is more dangerous and contested now than it has been for decades. Conflict is evolving and trust eroding, just as new technologies spur both competition and dependence. We are being contested from sea to space, from the battlefield to the boardroom. And even our brains, as disinformation manipulates our understanding of each other and ourselves. Across the globe, we are now confronting not one single danger, but an interlocking web of security challenges – military, technological, social, ethical even – each shaping the other in complex ways. We are now operating in a space between peace and war. This is not a temporary state or a gradual, inevitable evolution. Our world is being actively remade, with profound implications for national and international security. Institutions which were designed in the ashes of the Second World War are being challenged. New blocs and identities forming and alliances reshaping. Multipolar competition in tension with multilateral cooperation. But there’s something distinctive that will make this change unlike any other: the impact of advanced technologies, which will accelerate the pace and scale of every threat and opportunity, and increasingly, individualise them too. Advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing are not only revolutionising economies but rewriting the reality of conflict, as they ‘converge’ to create science-fiction-like tools. There’s incredible promise in all this for all of us, from green technologies to hyper-personalised medicine. But also peril. AI-powered robots and drones are brilliant for scaled manufacturing but devastating on the battlefield. Discoveries that cure disease can also create new weapons. And as states race for tech supremacy, or as some algorithms become as powerful as states, those hyper-personalised tools could become a new vector for conflict and control. Power itself is becoming more diffuse, more unpredictable as control over these technologies is shifting from states to corporations, and sometimes to individuals. And at the same time, the foundations of trust in our societies are eroding. Information, once a unifying force, is increasingly weaponised. Falsehood spreads faster than fact, dividing communities and distorting reality. We live in an age of hyper-connection yet profound isolation. The algorithms flatter our biases and fracture our public squares. And as trust collapses, so does our shared sense of truth – one of the greatest losses a society can suffer. The defining challenge of the twenty-first century is not simply who wields the most powerful technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom. Our security, our prosperity, and our humanity depend on it. Our world is being remade. And for the first time, we are all at the heart of it. My Service must now operate in this new context too: not just expert on hostile states, terrorism, proliferation and more, but also fluent in technology, able to anticipate the second and third order effects of advances that reshape the world in minutes not months. And as China will be a central part of the global transformation taking place this century, it is essential that we, as MI6, continue to inform the government’s understanding of China’s rise and the implications for UK national security. I’m going to break with tradition and won’t give you a global threat tour, but will focus here on Putin’s Russia. We all continue to face the menace of an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia, seeking to subjugate Ukraine and harass NATO. I find it harrowing that hundreds of thousands have died, with the toll mounting every day, because of Putin’s historical distortions and his compromised desire for respect. He is dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population. But Putin should be in no doubt, our support is enduring. The pressure we apply on Ukraine’s behalf will be sustained. Because it is fundamental not just to European sovereignty and security but to global stability. Alongside the grinding war, Russia is testing us in the grey zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war. It’s important to understand their attempts to bully, fearmonger and manipulate, because it affects us all. I am talking about: Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Drones buzzing airports and bases. Aggressive activity in our seas, above and below the waves. State-sponsored arson and sabotage. Propaganda and influence operations that crack open and exploit fractures within societies. Countering this activity is the work of intelligence and security services across Europe and the globe. And as the Foreign Secretary made clear in a speech last week, the UK is defending itself against this Russian information warfare – sanctioning Russian media outlets pushing Kremlin narratives. The export of chaos is a feature not a bug in this Russian approach to international engagement; and we should be ready for this to continue until Putin is forced to change his calculus. So, how should we respond? It’s not enough now just to understand the world. We must shape it too. MI6 is well-positioned to respond to these threats and wider global instability. And we will continue to evolve, just as we have throughout our long history. The UK government has invested in our intelligence agencies and we are all using our unique powers to keep the British people safe. Our ‘open and connected’ partnerships across the UK Intelligence Community, with HMGCC, NSSIF and the wider tech ecosystem in the UK will become even more important – because in the digital battleground, no single organisation can prevail alone. As a global agency, MI6’s inbuilt strength is our partners and our people. The risks I have set out require us to work ever more closely with our colleagues in MI5, GCHQ and in defence and diplomacy. But also with our Five Eyes partners, with the E3, the EU, NATO, those across the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific and beyond. And with many valued partners whose identity needs to remain secret. Together, we integrate our diverse talent, data and tools to meet the threat. AI is a domain in which we will excel, using the technology to augment, not replace, our human skills. Every digital trace, every byte of data, every algorithmic decision has implications for the safety of the lives of the courageous people who work with us as officers and agents, and for the UK’s strategic advantage. Mastery of technology will infuse everything we do. Not just in our labs, but in the field, in our tradecraft, and even more importantly, in the mindset of every officer. We will become as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python as we are in multiple other languages. Under my leadership, MI6 will continue to attract Britain’s best and most creative minds: linguists and data scientists, case officers and engineers, behavioural experts and technologists. We need people who walk in the shoes and get in the heads of our adversaries. We need people who think differently, challenge assumptions, and act decisively. All can thrive and make a difference at MI6. At an operational level, we will sharpen our edge and impact with audacity, tapping into – if you like – our historical SOE instincts. We’re at our best when we’re hustling to make things happen, because our intelligence is most valuable when it changes reality on the ground. We will take calculated risks, where the prize is significant and the national interest clear. We will never stoop to the tactics of our opponents. But we must seek to outplay them. In every domain. In every way. So intelligence must drive action. Action must deliver advantage. And advantage must serve Britain’s security and prosperity. But at the core, our deeper contribution is also our simplest – how we unlock human agency. Our fast-paced, tech and threat-infused world now generates more heat than light. As nations retrench and rearm, we are losing opportunities to listen to what’s really going on. I’ve seen time and again throughout my career, that this is where MI6 matters most: we listen and we hear. We understand, because we take time to learn languages and cultures, complex technical and historical detail, immerse ourselves in what’s really driving the situation. Across the globe, right now, our officers are finding people with the courage to step forward, and they are taking time to sit and listen to break these tightening cycles of violence. They listen for nuance, for connection, for opportunity. Over the years, I’ve listened to terrorists who have told us how to defuse the bomb because they know that more violence won’t help. To proliferators and smugglers who’ve told us where to find the dangerous material, motivated to protect their children’s future. To people trapped in authoritarian regimes who know, deep down, that their humanity is being chipped away – and that telling us what’s really going on is an important release, allowing us all to find better ways to navigate our changing world. So, we will work with our agents. And we will continue to engage directly, and with respect, with states and organisation currently working against us. Away from the glare of the media, we will use MI6’s convening power wherever we can to make a material difference, bringing parties together to defuse tensions. But the response to the increasing risks we face won’t be delivered by the UK intelligence community alone. Wider society has a role to play too. That includes work taking place in schools across the country so our children don’t get duped by information manipulation. Let’s all check sources, consider evidence, and be alive to those algorithms that trigger intense reactions, like fear. It also means everyone in society really understanding the world we are in – a world where terrorists plot against us, where our enemies fearmonger, bully and manipulate, and the front line is everywhere. Online, on our streets, in our supply chains, in the minds and on the screens of our citizens. We must all stand together against this. As we do today with our friends in Australia after the shocking antisemitic terrorist attack this weekend. My thoughts -and those of my whole organisation – are with the family, friends and loved ones of the victims. Light will always win over darkness. In rising to meet these challenges we, in MI6, will remain anchored to our values: courage, creativity, respect and integrity. And to our principles: accountability and trust are not constraints on our work; they are the foundations of our legitimacy with the British public. Recently, I had the privilege of meeting and thanking a foreign agent who has worked with us for decades, taking extraordinary risks to help keep the UK safe. I asked why. They said simply, ‘Your values. Your integrity and respect. None of us have a future without them’. This moment reinforced to me that we must remain a very human agency. And so, to sustain that trust, MI6 will continue to be more open. Not for the sake of visibility, but because it matters – and as my MI5 counterpart Sir Ken McCallum said recently - because it is a strength. We will continue the practice of speaking publicly, broaden our channels of engagement, and sustain our focus on attracting the most diverse talent to join our Service. Transparency does not mean revealing what must remain secret. It means showing the British people who we are, what we stand for, and why our work matters. We need your trust and support for the difficult and often dangerous work our agents pursue, every day of the year. In an age of uncertainty, one constant remains: the choices made by human beings still determine the shape of the world. Yes, technology can illuminate possibilities: but information requires judgement; complexity demands clarity; and only people can decide which path to follow. The United Kingdom’s global voice has never rested solely on strength – it has rested on trust, principle, and the ability to understand others as well as ourselves. That is also the essence of intelligence: not simply knowing the world, but interpreting it through a uniquely human lens. Ours is the quiet service, the hidden service. It is one rooted in a profound belief that when human beings act with purpose and integrity, they can steady a faltering world. When the Berlin Wall fell, it was our shared belief in freedom that carried Europe forward. When acts of terror targeted open societies, it was intelligence, cooperation and resolve that preserved them. And when adversaries blur fact and falsehood, our task is to defend the space where truth can still stand. As we step into the future, the tools at our disposal will evolve. But what will always matter most is the human element – the person who stands in the shadows and says: this is right, and that is wrong. That choice – the exercise of human agency – has shaped our world before, and it will shape it again. Because in the end, it is not what we can do that defines us, but what we choose to do. Thank you. Published 15 December 2025

John Sweeney

42,257 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

My fellow Kenyans, Many of you have seen my recent posts about the deadly cancer that is corruption in our country. In my last post, I tried to paint a picture of the disconnect between our potential as a country and the economic circumstances we find ourselves in today, and the connection between corruption and the incalculable pain and suffering and cruelty that is meted out every single day to the most vulnerable among us by thieves operating out of public office. And after covering the goings-on in Mandera County, I told you that in my honest opinion, our governments exist to cater for the filthy-rich lifestyles of the vilest and most corrupt among us, at the expense of everyone else. I received tremendous support from all of you, for speaking on behalf of so many struggling Kenyans who don’t have a voice, or the audience necessary to spark the much-needed discussion about where we are heading as a country. But even with all that support, I have received messages asking me to be careful. One compatriot told me: “prepare to be relentlessly pursued, threatened, enticed, guilt-tripped, and gas-lit”. This is from a someone who knows how our government operates, and how it uses violence and its monopoly on power to silence those who question why politicians are stealing so much. I am not naive about the dangers of speaking up and calling out thieves who control state machinery, and who possess the ability to shut me up in a few seconds. But I will tell you why we CAN NOT and MUST NOT keep quiet. In November of 2023, I stumbled upon the story of a young man from Turkana, Calvin Esekon Esewit , who, despite scoring an A-, and getting an acceptance into medical school, spent two years not knowing whether his dreams of becoming a doctor would ever come true. I was moved by that story in a way that I can never adequately explain. I could not understand how it is possible that, in our country, a young man who appears to be every parent’s dream child can spend two years in limbo while we as a country possess the ability to invest in our best and brightest. And so, I spent weeks trying to chase down Calvin to see how I could help him attend college. After a lot of searching, I finally found Calvin, and by this time he had managed to get some help and is now in college. While this story has a great ending, it did not to be this way. And we know that the number of cases that end like this, with some success, are a small fraction of those ones which end tragically, with broken dreams. This is what happens when corruption consumes anything and everything in a country. It destroys lives. See attached video to learn about Calvin's story. I tell you all this story because it provides context to today's topic. For one story like this one that you see on the news, there are millions that never make the news. But they are real situations, nonetheless. There are millions of your compatriots who are devastated by this killer cancer of corruption that is perpetuated by people that you and I have put into public office ostensibly to improve our lives. They go into these offices and abuse the trust you bestowed upon them and deny you and everyone else a decent opportunity in life. You see, Calvin and millions of other victims of this shameless level of corruption and plunder have no voice, and no real ability to look the thieves that are destroying lives and generations of Kenyans in eye and tell them to stop this unbearable pain and the cruelty. This is the reason I embarked on this journey to attempt to expose this shameful situation. Watch the attached video of Calvin’s situation, and I am sure that you will agree that the millions of Calvins in our country need a voice, NO MATTER THE RISK. The thieves that are destroying the futures of millions of children just so they can have beachside homes in Miami, Dubai and other places count on the idea that most people will fear for their lives, and therefore not speak up. They count on the growing apathy in the Kenyan psyche. But we cannot give in to that. We cannot cower to thieves. We must look them straight in the eye and tell them that they MUST STOP. If we don't, our children and their children are guaranteed the same level of cruelty. And so with that, today I want to talk about the utterly insane crime scene that is Turkana County. I don’t know any other way to describe it, other than, it is a “shit-show”. Just follow along, and let me know if you disagree. As I did in my previous commentary, I will ask you to indulge me a little bit, and allow me to use a couple of pictures, because pictures speak louder than a thousand words. The first picture shows the state-of-the art County Government offices, that the County Government of Turkana decided to invest an ungodly amount of money on. Close to a billion shillings. The second picture is a classroom in session. In Turkana County. These two realities are occurring in parallel in the same county, at the same time. Ladies and gentlemen, let me just tell you that I do not go out of my way to find bad news. I want stories that would help re-affirm our belief in the fundamental decency of human beings. When I find good news as I review these Counties’ decisions and how they behave with our resources, I will be the first one to report it to you. But I don’t have any good news today. I have bad news. If you read my commentary yesterday and were offended by what you saw, I am afraid you might not make it to the end of this article, because what you will hear will be quite shocking. The cancer of corruption, particularly at the County Government level, is worse than your wildest imagination. And so, as I like to do, I like to start off by putting some numbers on the table for us to use as reference points. Bear in my that all the information I put in this article is publicly available. Nothing came to me through a whistle blower. The first number is KSH 100 Billion. With a B. In the last decade or so, you and I, through the National Government, has sent over KSH 100 billion to Turkana County. To support recurrent expenditure, and development. For example, in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, we sent KSH 12.6 billion. In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, we sent KSH 11.4 billion. And on and on and on. The second number is 1 million. This is the population of Turkana County. The third number is KSH 18.4 billion. This was Turkana County’s budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. The fourth number is KSH 190 million. This was the amount of money that Turkana County was able to generate on its own accord within the county, from all its investments and other activities in the period in question. This number is an important proxy, in my view, for the value of the county’s economic prospects for the foreseeable future, and to people that are not driven by greed and corruption, would be an important consideration when they are thinking about how and where to deploy your money as taxpayers. If you are doing the math, Turkana County, for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, was only able to raise 1% of the funds needed to keep the lights on. 99% came from you and I, and a tiny amount from grants. The next number is KSH 129, 040. This is the average ANNUAL [emphasis added] income of a resident of Turkana County ( Keep that number in mind when we are discussing the massive theft of public funds by Turkana County leaders. The next number is 80%. 80% of the residents of Turkana County live below the poverty line. They have a really difficult time putting food on the table. ( The next number is KSH 12 Million. This is the basic salary of the Governor of Turkana County before other benefits that, as I explained yesterday, can often double the salary. Remember the “housing allowance”, the “hardship allowance”, the “commuter allowance”, the “risk allowance”, the “extraneous allowance”, etc.? Remember that? I still cannot figure out, for the life of me, what “extraneous” means in the context of County business, but we don’t time to dwell on this. The next number is 93. The Governor of Turkana County makes 93 times the average Turkana County resident’s annual income. 93 times! The next number is 82%. This was the percentage of people that were illiterate in Turkana County in 2013 ( Could not read or write. A point to note about the above literacy figure. Ten years later, and despite over KSH 100 billion is spent in Turkana County, including many billions for education, that literacy rate HAS NOT CHANGED ONE BIT. Only 20% of the population can read or write today. ( KSH 829 million. This is how much it cost to build the County Government offices. Yes, the ones shown in the first picture. KSH 120 million. The County Government decided that it was prudent to pay a contractor KSH 120 million to construct the Governor’s personal residence. Get this, even after this payment, no construction took place. The money was stolen. All of it. KSH 90 Million. This is the amount that the County Government paid to another contractor, to build the Governor a mansion, having previously lost KSH 120 million. So, the tally for the Governor’s residence now stands at KSH 210 million. Never mind that the limit allowed by law is KSH 45 million. KSH 5 billion. In the last days of his term in office, an outgoing Governor of Turkana, Koli Nanok, EGH. , sought to inflate pending bills by adding KSH 5 billion so that it can be paid to his criminal cartel. KSH 5 billion. We have our key numbers, ladies and gentlemen, so let us discuss. So, we have a county that is dead last in literacy, and in the top 2 of the poorest counties in the republic. Only 20% of the population can read. The Governor earns 92 times the average citizen. The Governor lives in a house that cost over KSH 200 million. When he leaves his house in the morning, he goes to his office that cost KSH 829 million. And this is all happening when 80% of the County residents struggle to put food on the table. Those are the facts, and they are not in dispute. During the same time, the County Government geniuses decide to build the Speaker of the County Assembly a house. And a home office, and a garage. The house was initially estimated to cost KSH 75 million. But due to circumstances that not a soul in the government could explain to auditors, the contract expired before the house was completed, and the County Government found a new contractor to complete the job for an additional KSH 29 million. But this palace in the jungle worth apparently worth over KSH 100 million in Turkana County was not enough. The County proceeded to build the Speaker a guest house for another KSH 19 million, and a few other amenities, and so the whole cost went to KSH 276 million! The legal limit for a Speaker’s house is KSH 35 million, and they spent close to KSH 130 million just for one residence. By this time, I am sure you are getting tired of these obscene numbers. You and I work, and pay taxes. Nobody pays you 92 times the income your average neighbor is making. And for sure nobody will drop KSH 100 million to build you a house. These are the perks of working in government in a poor country. Go figure. And so, as a country, we need to answer for ourselves the question I posed yesterday, which is, what is the point of government? What is its role in our lives. If this level of criminality and pillaging can occur in our country in the midst of so much poverty, questioning the need for government is a totally valid question. I said in my last post that, when the average citizen looks at the thug on the street and the government, and is unable to discern any meaningful difference between them, that society from that point on is on its journey to becoming a failed state. A journey to anarchy. Over the last two months or so, Kenyans have been shouting at the top of their lungs, begging for their government to listen. To hear them out. Kenyans have asked that their government stop this unbelievable level of plunder. Dozens of Kenyans have died, thousands injured, and many more are missing today. To this day, the people that govern us continue to use the power of the gun to subdue Kenyans, until they can take everything in their sight. And so, as a society, we all have to ask whether today there is any difference between the thug on the street and our governments. Every Kenyan will have to answer this question for themselves. And before answering this question, everyone needs to remember the many Calvins in our society. Smart, upright children whose only crime is to be born in an unforgiving, lawless, and corrupt purgatory that is Kenya today. For myself, I have concluded that there is no difference between the thug on the street and our governments, county and national alike. If you can see any meaningful difference, let me know. I am willing to listen. So despite over KSH 100 billion in money sent to Turkana County, there is almost no measurable improvement in people’s life today. None. And it makes sense, when you look at how that money is spent. I want you to forget for a second the obscene obsession by the County Government with spending ungodly amounts of money on themselves. The houses, etc. If you step back and look at how the government is actually spending the hard-earned money on other things, you will be depressed. I am telling you that I wept three times in the middle of the night trying to make sense of this crazy situation in Turkana County. Three times. I have never imagined that human beings can be so greedy and cold-blooded. Think about this: In the couple of years I reviewed, the County spent around KSH 400 million annually in “tourism” initiatives, including marketing, and apparently upgrading certain facilities. KSH 400 million for tourism. In Turkana County. In 1 year. KSH 400 million per year in marketing and other money pits. The government’s own website says that the county gets around 3000 visitors per month. Around 36,000 per year. That’s them saying that, on their website. Are you curious to know the return on that KSH 400 million investment? I have an answer for you. Remember that I told you that the County has never raised more than KSH 200 million in a year within the county, despite its KSH 18.4 billion budget? Let me walk you through the breakdown of the absolutely embarrassing shit-show that is the County Government’s “own source revenue” operations. In 2022-2023, the County Government collected KSH 190 million locally against their KSH 18.4 billion budget. 1% of the budget. Remember, there is absolutely no requirement on the County to cut costs, or achieve certain local revenue targets today. So they raised KSH 45 million in single business permits, KSH 72 million in CESS, KSH 8 million in market fee, KSH 9 million in “slaughter fees”. And then finally, there is the return on the tourism investment that you were looking for. A whopping KSH 209, 000 in “park fees”. KSH 209,000 in fees, after investing KSH 400 million. And so, take this as an example and extrapolate it across the entire budget, and you can see how one can spend KSH 100 billion and get NOTHING in return. You don’t need to be a genius to see the absurdity of this situation. Let me explain using an example that should illustrate the utter dimwittedness of this situation. Remember the KSH 100 billion sent to Turkana by you and me? Part of this amount is supposed to be for “service delivery”, or “recurrent expenditure”. Usually about 70% of the budget. The balance, 30%, is designed to go to development projects. With that in mind, from KSH 100 billion, the County apparently has made KSH 30 billion worth of investments, right? 30% of the KSH 100 billion. Now, if you employed someone to run a business for you, and they asked you to invest KSH 30 billion, which is no small fortune, at some point you would have to start seeing returns, right? That’s common sense, isn’t it? So, when we look at the revenues streams that make up this paltry sum of KSH 190 million, and see things like “slaughter fees’ and “market fees”, what does it tell you? It tells me there is no real “development” happening in that county. Trust me, if you had real development totaling KSH 30 billion, you would have corporate taxes in the hundreds of millions or billions, a booming real estate market, rising wages and standards of living, etc., low unemployment, etc. You would not have 80% of the people living hand-to mouth, and a County Government that can not afford to support itself for 5 days out of the year that has 365 days! We do not have enough time, trust me, to deal with the shit-show that is Turkana County. Dealing with that mess would require a forensic team. I will just highlight a few of other “in your-face” type of theft of public funds, and then conclude my submission. A government that has a budget of KSH 18.4 billion annually, and which has never raised more than 1% of its budget had the wisdom to do the following with your money: · Spend KSH 222 million on a project building something that NOBODY uses. You got that right. They spent KSH 222 million on a facility that NOBODY uses. KSH 222 million gone to waste, in a county that is dead last in pretty much all measures of human progress. · Remember the County Government offices that cost KSH 829 million? The County spent KSH 82 million on “air-conditioning” for that building. · Despite the County Spending hundreds of millions for the top three officers of the County, the Governor and his Deputy, in the 2022-2023 year, illegally charged the county (you and I) KSH 2.2 million in housing allowance! · Built two facilities for KSH 16 million, that were completed, but NOBODY uses them. · Entered into a contract for the construction of a plastic use facility for KSH 13 million in 2021. The contractor gets paid KSH 4.9 million, and has never been seen since. · Paid out KSH 62 million in salaries that were not supportable in just one year. They could not point to anybody and say, that is who we paid. · Paid out KSH 27 million in legal fees that nobody could say what they related to. And the County’s Legal Advisor, who, in 2022-2023, had a budget of KSH 123 million, apparently did not know anything about it! · Had an outstanding bill at Kenya Revenue Authority in the amount of KSH 486 million, that did not show up on the County Government’s financial statements. Think about that. KSH 486 million owned to the Kenya Revenue Authority, and that liability is not on the financial statements! This only means that someone took those funds for themselves, which is why the liability would be missing from the county’s books. · Could not account for KSH 367 million in expenditures for 2022-2023. KSH 367 million, in unexplained expenses. · Awarded a contract worth over KSH 200 million to a bidder with no bank statement, against the law. This contract was entered into and approved before the statutory time after the bidding process lapsed. Someone was in a hurry to get paid. KSH 200 million, illegally awarded to a bidder who did not have a 6-month bank statement. · Apparently purchased KSH 1.5 billion in assets in 2022-2023, but kept no records of the said assets. For this reason, NOBODY can verify where these assets are located. KSH 1.5 billion. Let me just say this. In my last article, the most common critique was that it was too long. Too many words. I did not intend to make another long article. Trust me when I tell you this, we do not have the time to detail half of the problems in Turkana County. For just 1 year! We do not. Now, you recall my point about how societies descend to madness and anarchy. In our country today, our leaders are accusing those of us who are agitating for honest and transparent governance of being traitors to the country. They call us anarchists, criminals, and merchants of chaos. They are questioning our patriotism. You have all seen the government and its horde of propagandists threatening the Ford Foundation and others because they may have helped civil society keep the lights on, and investigative journalists to have the capacity to continue to do the Lord’s work of investigating criminality in government. As though citizens are so dumb and ignorant, that they cannot see what is going on. The reason why millions of Calvins in this country will never graduate from college and earn a decent living is not because of the Ford Foundation. No. It is because of the thieves we have in office today, like the ones in Turkana County. In this post, I copy our leaders, the President and his deputy. I copy them because I want them to help Kenyans understand the following conundrum, about crime and criminals. There is nothing so special or peculiar about criminals or where they pop up. There are criminals in the US, Canada, France, and other places. Just like we have criminals in Kenya. The difference between banana republics and failed states, and civilized societies, is WHAT we do to and about criminals. In civilized societies, criminals are prosecuted and punished heavily. They are shunned. In some places, those charged with serious crimes such as corruption are executed. These are societies that are committed to sending the message that corruption, which robs citizens of their rights, is not acceptable. And they demonstrate this commitment by heavily punishing those who steal from the most vulnerable in society. In Kenya, we see the opposite. Criminals are exalted. They are promoted and embraced in government. It was just last week that the president unveiled his nominees for his Cabinet. Among them, are the likes of Hassan Ali Joho, EGH. , @GovWOparanya , and Davis Chirchir, ALL people who have been accused or charged with massive corruption against Kenyans. And am sure you remember that I mentioned Koli Nanok, EGH. , the man who tried to steal KSH 5 billion in his last days in office. Would you believe it if I told you that he works in government, at State House? He plunded billions of your money, got no measurable improvement in the lives of his subjects, and now has a government job in State House. Let that sink in. And so, the question is, how is it that in a country of 55 million people, with thousands of highly qualified people who have never ever stolen from Kenyans, he ends up with the criminals and thieves in the government, despite the fact that their crimes are in the public domain? How is this possible? Is it possible that these thieves possess a certain unique ability to run government, save Kenyans billions, and solve problems in a way that the president performs a cost-benefit analysis, and the benefits outweigh the costs of their theft? If not, what message does it send to Kenyans, when their own president puts into office known thieves? I think that is a fair question, don’t you? Dr. Ekuru Aukot Rigathi Gachagua William Samoei Ruto, PhD Okiya Omtatah Okoiti Citizen TV Kenya Nation Breaking News TI-Kenya CNN County Government of Turkana

Bonnie Mwangi, CPA, LLM, MBA

107,432 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

🔥👽 This is REALLY good! 👽🔥 "In my view, there absolutely is an adversarial actor in our world. There is a human-engagement program underway. I don't think it's the rainbow that everyone kind of hopes that it is." ~Reed (IMO, Reed Summers is an unsung, VERY important voice in this community, and what he says in this clip, currently, resonates with me in a big way. Take the time to read or watch. Then we have what Ross Coulthart says about the "deliberate lifting of consciousness" and "frequency," which is more on the side of love, light and space brothers. I don't see that right now, and none of my contacts have ever mentioned it. If it's there, maybe its hands are tied with how it can help us?) ~ "Genetic interventions, cultural influence, right? Social engineering. All of these could be at play in a subversive sense. NHI is operating in a strategic silence, in a state of non-disclosure. Intelligence indicates intent, intentful engagement indicates a program. And so what is their program? We talk about the Legacy-human program. What about the non-human program? ~Reed ~ Ross: "I've been told that the United States has developed quite advanced weaponry, particularly plasma-beam technology that might, in part, have been inspired by what they've seen or recovered from non-human technology. I think, also, just to add the concern of NHI with what humanity is doing. There's also a very deliberate lifting of consciousness. And I really am struck by what Chris (Bledsoe - Chris Bledsoe) says about the frequency. This is something that I'm getting from so many people. That the level of intensity of public reporting of their engagement with NHI, of a clear intent by NHI, to essentially give up on governments from ever disclosing. But to raise human consciousness and awareness. "And I think they're doing this, increasingly (laughs), through direct engagement with individuals. I've got many friends and colleagues and people I've interviewed - witnesses - who've had incredible experiences. I've just been recording for a TV show, something that we're doing here in Australia, where people are inviting or summoning the phenomenon. And there seems to be an interest in the phenomenon engaging with humans much, much more overtly. And I do think that stems from a concern about us primitive monkeys playing with matches." (Were they concerned when this abduction-like event allegedly happened to Jim Semivan and his wife? Semivan: "I had a hole in the back of my neck, and my wife...unexplained bleeding for 17 days." Source: Engaging The Phenomenon's interview with Jim ~ Jim Garrison: "But Reid, speak to us about this interplay between malevolence and benevolence." Reed: "Sure, well, and you described, Jim, the first part of my life in which I was focused primarily on supporting my father, Marshall (Vian Summers and The Allies of Humanity), who had direct encounters with NHI, communications with NHI." (Was Marshall really in contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, known as The Allies of Humanity? I don't know. But a lot of what he has said rings true to me. Doesn't mean it's true. Read one transcript I did in 2021: “It’s Probably Not Human” – Elizondo, Blumenthal & The Allies Of Humanity ~ Reed: "And my family felt the full force and impact of what that was like, as well as what comes with it ("it" being his dad's alleged contact with ET intelligence). Which is, what might be called the hitchhiker effect, the anomalous effects that attend those who have been selected by the phenomenon without their understanding or knowing why." (Add another few names to the list of people who have now said they experienced the hitchhiker effect: Jay Stratton, George Knapp, Kelleher, Davis, Bigelow, Brandon Fugal, Thomas Winterton, Semivan, and more. That includes poltergeist-like events, shadow people, orbs, etc.) Reed: ""But my later work is really about assessing intent with a structured framework. I think we need to step back from belief systems, hopeful or fearful interpretations, and lay out the spectrum of possibilities, right? From curiosity on the left, salvation and assistance, even further on the left, to transaction, integration on the right, or even something more hostile. And in the end, intent is all about human outcomes. We can't know their consciousness. The project, in my mind right now, is not, let's set out to understand what they're like, who they are, how they think, how they cognate. That's impossible, in my perspective. But we can assess the real human outcomes that stem from the hazard and the risk and the possible threat of a non-human factor acting upon. Like a forcing, an environmental or evolutionary-forcing upon humanity at a historically-unprecedented time." (From what I have seen, whatever this is, has, overall, NOT helped humanity. If that's happening, it's going on behind the scenes. I know some experiencers report having their lives changed in a positive way, and some say they have been healed of illnesses. But others say their lives have been ruined and they've been hurt, intentionally or not, by coming in close contact with the phenomenon. Also, various people have come down with several auto-immune diseases after close contact, and some of that was detailed in the must-read book, "Skinwalkers at the Pentagon." jakebarber also mentioned that. Is it multiple intelligences with multiple intents, or one intelligence mixing in some positive outcomes as a propaganda effort? We don't know.) Reed: "And there are significant signals and indicators in the history of the phenomenon that give very good anchors for assessing intent, and for going from possibilities to probabilities and ultimately making a starting assessment, which informs the research pathway, which is the other part of my work in supporting the human institute, devising an intelligent, scientific research and investigatory citizen-led effort to uncover the phenomenon, to disclose it, to interrogate its activity, lest we just be interrogated, unknowingly, ourselves. So, a lot of good work to do there." (Interrogate the activity of the phenomenon. I really like that approach. Let's not assume anything.) Reed: "But, in my view, when you look at all that the sensor data has given us, technologically, when you corroborate that with the geographic, circumstantial [and] temporal aspects of how the phenomena appears, who it manifests to, and the considerable problem it presents to the international community and to national laws and frameworks that govern territorial sovereignty, these incursions into sensitive sites and the potential, programmatic engagement with civilians in the form of physical NHI-initiated contact - abductions - it builds a picture. It bounds those possibilities into a zone of probabilities. "And whether it's a transactional presence, whether it's an integrative or one that wants to integrate with humanity, or ultimately replace humanity, I think there are multiple possibilities at play and multiple intents at play. Although, I don't think it's the rainbow that everyone kind of hopes that it is. It's not, everything the Universe has to offer is gonna come all at once, now, and function harmoniously in our skies and oceans. No. The hostile intent will not tolerate a beneficial actor who themselves would have to arm themselves and militarily confront the hostile actor, which we do not see indications of." (My translation: If, there's a benevolent intelligence here that wants to help humanity break free from the chains of an alleged malevolent intelligence that may be using us, the benevolent force would need to somehow arm themselves in order to militarily take on this malevolent force, potentially, defeat them, and rescue us from a bad predicament. And we see no evidence of that.) Reed: "So, you know, we have analogs in our own human history to this, the natives of the new world. They looked out on the quay and they saw the ships, different flags, different vessels, and they assumed it's gotta be either the angels from the spirit realm - it has to comport to our belief system - or a variety of intentions, and we should work with and collaborate. And it may not be that way. "It's not about, it's all hostile or it's all beneficial or benevolent. In my mind, it's exo-systemic. It's an ecosystem arriving on our shores at a specific 20th-century moment in which we have detonated nuclear weapons, we have flashed the Universe with technology capability, and we have triggered an engagement event. This is really what this is. And a program to engage humanity over a longitudinal time period." (I think it was here and intersecting with us a long time before we first detonated our nukes.) Karla Turner: "We know from some of our own research that the abduction phenomenon has affected families going back four generations and that would be around the turn of the century (1900). In my husband's family, his grandmother had an encounter with a non-human entity that led her off into a swampy area where there was a period of missing before she was returned, when she was only five-years old. That was 1903. So if you think it's new and you think it's something the media has spread, you start looking into the cases and find out how far back it's goes in some of these families' generations. I know of an African American family in East Texas that has had it going on since the early 1900s and it's still going on today with that same family. Three to four generations is fairly typical." ~ Reed: "And so, we need to step back and really look at the human project of getting our act together to diplomatically engage now and in the future, to manage the NHI presence internationally, and coordinate responses, lest we divide and conquer ourselves over this issue. And that's where the reframing of disclosure as fundamentally belonging to the human species, being one that should, I think, be framed in first principles - to Karl Nell's point - with a naturalistic framework, a science-informed, data-driven framework. "And with that, we go out into the field and collect evidence on the phenomenon. We go out to where it is interacting with people. That's the key missing data set that would be necessary to inform decision makers." (We had that with AAWSAP and can have it again. Plus, the Vallée/AAWSAP Capella database of approximately 250,000 cases. Using AI and the best human minds on this planet, all of that may inform us of the intent of these alleged NHI actors.) Reed: "In my view, there absolutely is an adversarial actor in our world. There is a human-engagement program underway. And that's not the whole story, but if that is true, that should marshal our human response above all other possibilities, initially, because we may wake up in 30 years and find that we are not the human beings we used to be. Genetic interventions, cultural influence, right? Social engineering. All of these could be at play in a subversive sense." (If it's true, it should be the most important thing for human beings to address, ASAP. We need to find out now.) Reed: "And, you know, NHI is operating in a strategic silence, in a state of non-disclosure. They're operating covertly and selectively with military-defense organizations, internationally, which are already in competition." (I'd like to hear more about the claim that NHI are operating covertly and selectively with military-defense organizations. We've all heard those claims but is there evidence of that?) Reed: "And that, to me, is another one of a number of alarming signals that should just command us to take a cautionary response. And and we've gotta get out there and use the best of science, research and investigation to do reconnaissance - reconnai-science, as I call it, on behalf of the human interest, and not just national interests." Garrison: "Yeah, that's a profound way to put it, Reed. You know that we've triggered an interaction event." Reed: "And so, intelligence indicates intent, intentful engagement indicates a program. And so what is their program? We talk about the Legacy-human program. What about the non-human program? We do not query that nearly as much as we should. And in my view, disclosure. How do we get disclosure moving? If we recenter the controversy not on human actors, human governments, but on the non- human presence itself, that allows the human actors a way to rapidly and catastrophically disclose their involvements, which is what is keeping this back in part. Thank you."

Joe Murgia

46,717 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten

There Is No Antisemitism Crisis In Australia. It’s A Carefully Constructed Lie. The Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph has been caught trying to orchestrate what can only be described as a mass media psyop to inflame public hysteria about antisemitism in Australia. In a project internally titled “UNDERCOVERJEW” supposedly designed to show “what it’s like being Jewish in Sydney”, a man wearing a Star of David hat and video glasses went around targeting Muslim and Arab businesses trying to instigate hostility from staff members trailed by a video producer and a Telegraph reporter. The man, who is reportedly associated with the Australian Jewish Association, entered an Egyptian cafe called Cairo Takeaway and postured with his Star of David hat without getting any reaction from anyone. He then started making comments to cafe staff, who caught on to what he was doing and started recording him. Police were then called and it caused a big scandal. It’s obvious that the intention here was to instigate something that could be framed as an “antisemitic incident” and provoke a national outcry and draw all the usual fiery denunciations from Australian officials, followed by arguments citing the incident as evidence that Australia needs even more aggressive speech laws to stomp out all criticism of the genocidal apartheid state of Israel. And it should here be noted that The Daily Telegraph is owned by News Corp, the Murdoch media conglomerate which dominates the Australian press. Rupert Murdoch became the media giant he is with the help of his ties with the Ronald Reagan administration and US government agencies. Also noteworthy is that Murdoch is a board member and significant shareholder of Genie Energy, which holds a contract to drill for oil and gas in the Golan Heights — territory illegally occupied by Israel. This is just the latest in a spate of incidents in which a narrative about an urgent epidemic of antisemitism in Australia is being marketed to the public based on false information. Just today we learned from The Sydney Morning Herald that the Dural caravan laden with explosive materials we were told a couple of weeks ago was intended for use in a “mass casualty event” targeting Jewish sites was not only full of unusable 40 year-old explosives with no detonator, but was involved in a scheme by underworld crime gangs to help negotiate reduced sentences with law enforcement. The entire Australian political-media class lost their minds about this story when it first came out. The words “antisemitic” and “antisemitism” were rife throughout the Australian press. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared that “There’s zero tolerance in Australia for hatred and for antisemitism, and I want any perpetrators to be hunted down and locked up.” The federal government’s special envoy on antisemitism, Jillian Segal, called the incident a “chilling reminder that the same hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust still exists today”. And it had nothing to do with antisemitism. At all. We saw a similar incident earlier this month when headlines blared about an “antisemitic attack” at Bondi Beach involving eggs being thrown at a group of young women. A couple of days later it came out that the egging was perpetrated by two teenagers getting up to teenage mischief and had nothing to do with anyone hating Jews. Right now we’re seeing an uproar over two Arab Australian nurses who were baited by an Israeli influencer into saying on the website Chatruletka that they would kill Israelis if they came into their hospital. The comments by the nurses were obviously extremely ill-advised and unethical, but a police investigation has so far found that they’ve never harmed anybody, and if you watch the extended footage of the exchange it’s clear the influencer went out of his way to inform them that he served in the Israeli military and killed Palestinians. One of the nurses has reportedly lost 70 family members to Israeli atrocities in Palestine. Without defending the irresponsible comments of the nurses, I don’t think anyone would expect a Jewish person who came in contact with a Nazi soldier in the 1940s to maintain their cool and avoid violent speech, much less so if that person had lost family members in the Holocaust, and even less if they believed they were having a conversation in private. These chat roulette sites are not intended as mass public broadcast forums; people participating in them tend to interact on the assumption that they are having a private conversation, so the exchange should be viewed as angry words being hurled at a perceived abuser, not as a public declaration of intent to harm others. I don’t condone a healthcare provider saying she’d kill Israeli nationals in her hospital, even if she has lost scores of family members in the Gaza holocaust. But I also wouldn’t confuse what I was seeing with evidence of an antisemitism crisis in Australia. There is a concerted effort to manufacture the illusion of an antisemitism crisis in Australia in order to protect Israeli information interests — and the call isn’t coming entirely from inside the house. Albanese has acknowledged that the perpetrators of a spate of allegedly antisemitic attacks in this country may have been paid actors working for foreign operatives. The prime minister refused to speculate as to which country might be sponsoring these incidents which just so happen to greatly benefit the interests of Israel, but you don’t exactly need to be Sherlock Holmes to narrow it down. And some of these so-called “antisemitic” incidents are so obviously staged it hurts. When you see graffiti on a synagogue with “Free Palestine” written next to swastikas, it calls to mind the Mississippi man who notoriously claimed in 2015 that his driveway had been vandalized by black activists with graffiti that said “BLACKS RULE”. Apparently we’re all supposed to take very seriously the idea that either (A) Nazis are spray painting the words “Free Palestine” next to their swastikas, or (B) that supporters of Palestinian rights are spray painting Nazi symbols next to their pro-Palestinian slogans. And we are never meant to consider the possibility that this incident was staged by Israel’s supporters or by paid actors working for foreign Zionists. It is always okay to express skepticism about dubious incidents of “antisemitism” in today’s political environment. Israel’s supporters are shitty, evil people who support genocide, and faking antisemitic incidents is a standard hasbara tactic with a well-documented history. There is no antisemitism crisis in Australia. There is an anti-Palestinian crisis in Australia. An anti-Arab crisis in Australia. A pro-genocide crisis in Australia. The fact that our politicians and media have been shrieking their lungs out 24/7/365 about a made-up epidemic of abuse against Jews while standing with Israel and its American sponsors as they demolish Gaza and prepare to ethnically cleanse a Palestinian territory shows that there is indeed something deeply and profoundly sick about our society — but that sickness has nothing to do with antisemitism. There are of course people with hateful attitudes and superstitions toward Jews to be found in any country, but they are a small fringe group whose beliefs have far less meaningful impact on people’s lives than prejudices against Palestinians, immigrants, or Indigenous Australians. The average Australian spends very little time thinking about Jews and Jewishness one way or the other, and we’d spend far less if we weren’t constantly being bombarded with false messaging about how our country is full of dangerous Jew haters. Antisemitism exists in the same way discrimination against divorced mothers exists; it used to be a major issue that did great harm, but in terms of how much it actually affects people’s lives in modern secular times it’s mostly just an obsolete relic of the past. As a divorced mother I might run into the occasional weirdo on the internet calling me a harlot if I mention my personal history, but life is infinitely easier for people like me than it was a century ago. Antisemitism is the same. Generally when you hear people talking about incidents of antisemitism it falls into three separate categories which are too often conflated: 1. People conflating support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews. This is the most common category by an extremely massive margin. 2. People conflating October 7 with a Holocaust-like event in which Jews were murdered simply for being Jewish. In reality October 7 was an act of desperation by the oppressed inhabitants of a giant concentration camp, and they would have killed their oppressors regardless of their religion. 3. Real hatred of Jewish people and real attacks on Jews because they are Jewish. This, while relatively uncommon, is being made more common by Israel’s practice of committing genocide under a Star of David flag while claiming to represent all Jews. Israel apologists always go out of their way to conflate these three categories. The Anti-Defamation League officially made this conflation a standard practice in 2023 by categorizing incidents of pro-Palestinian activism as antisemitic incidents. The Anti-Defamation League recently drew controversy by saying that Elon Musk’s infamous Nazi salute was not antisemitic, while we’re on the subject. There is no antisemitism crisis in Australia. As The Daily Telegraph and their agent provocateur found out, antisemitism is one crisis we don’t have. They tried to provoke an antisemitic reaction, and they failed. No one cared. The real crisis in Australia is that we are the kind of country that would sit and watch a live-streamed genocide without moving heaven and earth to stop it. We have a morality crisis. An apathy crisis. A crisis of our hearts, minds and souls. But what we do not have in this country, in any meaningful way, is an antisemitism crisis. Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

Caitlin Johnstone

254,660 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in 2020 I finally got to see it from the inside. Up close it was both amazing and terrible, like so many other companies and things in life. As someone with a maniacal sense of urgency built into me, Twitter often felt siloed and bureaucratic. Dumb power plays, reorgs and team name changes for the sake of someone’s ego were distractions that occurred too regularly. You couldn’t just be a builder — you also needed to be a politician. I was shocked by how old and bespoke the infrastructure was, but there was little will to think beyond quarterly earnings calls because we were all beholden to the masters of mDAU and revenue growth as a public company. It often felt like things were held together with duct tape and glue, and that many people had just accepted that a small product change could take months or quarters to build. Management had become bloated to accommodate career growth and the company culture felt too soft and entitled for my own taste. Healthy debate and criticism was replaced by a default refrain of “no, that can’t be done” or “another team owns that so don’t touch it”. Teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it’d get killed for being too risky. Just talking directly to customers could turn into a turf war and create deadlocks between functions. I recall one such episode where a teammate spent a month trying to get clearance to reach out to some creators. He went through 3 layers of management and 6 different functional teams. In the end 4 executives were involved in the approval. It was insanity, and unfortunately I saw several top performers get burnt out and demoralized after exhausting experiences like that. Most people were good at their jobs but it was nearly impossible to fire poor performers — instead they got shuffled around to other teams because few managers had the will or resources to figure out how to get them out. A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. Twitter often felt like a place that kept squandering its own potential, which was sad and frustrating to see. The person who was best at cutting through the BS and inspiring a vision during my tenure was Kayvon Beykpour, but he wasn’t fully empowered to run the company since he wasn’t the CEO. Despite those real issues, I was lucky enough to work with some of the most talented people in the business at Twitter in product, design, engineering, research, legal, BD, trust & safety, marketing, PR and more. Often it was a small cross-functional team of intrinsically motivated people who made the biggest impact by challenging some core assumption. Those teams were very fun to be on but they felt like the exception rather than the rule. The months of waiting for the deal to close in 2022 were particularly slow and painful; it felt like leadership hid behind lawyers and legal language as all answers about the company’s future notoriously included the phrase “fiduciary duty”. Colleagues openly talked about how Twitter was being sold because leadership didn’t have conviction in their own plan or ability to fix longstanding problems. Although I didn’t know much about Elon I was cautiously optimistic – I saw him as the guy who built incredible and enduring companies like Tesla and SpaceX, so perhaps his private ownership could shake things up and breathe new life into the company. My take on what’s happened since then is full of lived nuance. When people ask why I stayed it’s easy to answer: optimism, curiosity, personal growth and money. From the beginning I saw that some changes Elon was going to make were smart and others were stupid, but when I’m on a team I uphold the philosophy of “praise in public and criticize in private”. I was far from a silent wallflower. I shared my opinions openly and pushed back often, both before and after the acquisition. I made peace with the fact that I didn’t have psychological safety at Twitter 2.0 and that meant I could be fired at any moment, and for no reason at all. I watched it happen repeatedly and saw how negatively it impacted team morale. Although I couldn’t change the situation I did my best to shine a light on folks who were doing important work while being an emotionally supportive leader for those who were struggling to adapt to the more brutalist and hardcore culture. In person Elon is oddly charming and he’s genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. The challenge is his personality and demeanor can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him. At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said. When individuals encouraged me to be careful about what I said I politely thanked them and said I would not be taking their advice. I had no interest in adding to a culture of fear or walking on eggshells around Elon. Either he would respect me for being real or he could fire me. Either outcome was okay. I quickly learned that product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn’t seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. That was particularly frustrating for me since I believed I had useful institutional knowledge that could help him make better decisions. Instead he'd poll Twitter, ask a friend, or even ask his biographer for product advice. At times it seemed he trusted random feedback more than the people in the room who spent their lives dedicated to tackling the problem at hand. I never figured out why and remain puzzled by it. I don’t think things had to be as difficult or dramatic as they turned out to be but I can’t say I’d bet against Elon or count him out. He’s smart and has enough money to make a lot of mistakes and then course correct when things go awry. As the largest shareholder he can tank the value in the short-term, but eventually he’ll need things to turn around. His focus on speed is incredible and he’s obviously not afraid of blowing things up, but now the real measure will be how it get reconstructed and if enough people want the new everything app he is building. I learned a ton from watching Elon up close – the good, the bad and the ugly. His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful. Elon has an exceptional talent for tackling hard physics-based problems but products that facilitate human connection and communication require a different type of social-emotional intelligence. Social networks are hard to kill but they’re not immune from death spirals. Only time will tell what the outcome will be but I hope X finds its footing because competition is good for consumers. In the meantime, I have a lot of empathy for the employees who are working tirelessly behind the scenes, the advertisers who want a stable platform to sell their stuff on, and the customers who are experiencing chaotic updates. It’s been a madhouse. Twitter moved at the speed of molasses and suffered from bureaucracy but now X is run by a mercurial leader whose instinct is driven by the unique and undoubtedly weird experience of being the biggest voice on the platform. Many of you know me from the sleeping bag incident where I slept on a conference room floor, so I figure, let’s talk about that too. Going viral was an odd and interesting experience. I was attacked by people on the left and called a billionaire bootlicker, while simultaneously being attacked by people on the right for being a working mom who was demonized as an example of a woman choosing her career over her family. Thankfully I can laugh at myself and I don’t take armchair keyboard ideologues too seriously. Being the main character on the timeline, even for a few minutes, requires a thick skin and a strong sense of self. The real story is pretty simple. I was given a nearly impossible deadline for his first project and as the product lead I would never ask anyone to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself. So I worked round the clock alongside an amazing team spanning many timezones, and we delivered it on schedule – truly against the odds. It was intense but also fun. Those first few months were wildly crazy but I wanted to be there and I have no regrets. Showing up and giving it your all should, in most cases, be celebrated. Obviously you can’t work at that pace forever but there are moments where bursts are mission critical. I’ve pulled many all-nighters in my career and also when I was a student for something that mattered to me. I don’t regret putting in long hours or being ambitious, and feel proud of how far I’ve come from where I started thanks in part to that type of work ethic. I think of life as a game, and being at Twitter after the acquisition was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode. Since I like taking on difficult challenges I found it interesting and rewarding because I was growing and learning so rapidly. I realize our society today trends toward polarization but when it comes to this app, its owner, and its future, I am neither a fangirl nor a hater — I’m an optimistic pragmatist. This may really irritate the internet but you cannot pigeonhole me into some radical position of either loving or hating every change that’s occurred. I escaped my fundamentalist upbringing and am a free thinker these days. Everyone can be seen as both a hero or a villain, depending on who is telling what angle of the story. Elon doesn’t deserve to be venerated or vilified. He’s a complicated person with an unfathomable amount of financial and geopolitical power which is why humanity needs him to err on the side of goodness, rather than political divisiveness and pettiness. I disagree with many of his decisions and am surprised by his willingness to burn so much down, but with enough money and time, something new & innovative may emerge. I hope it does. Sometimes I get asked about how I felt when I got laid off, and the truth is it was the best gift I’ve ever received. Sure the headlines and punchlines wrote themselves but I was battle hardened by then. I knew that I’d worked in a way where I could walk out with my head held high. I have no bitterness about the Product Management team being dismantled, and it made sense for me to exit as nearly all of the remaining PMs were let go. Going on a sabbatical afterward has been exactly what I needed to decompress and I’m finally feeling rested and relaxed. I’m a creative and a builder, so sooner than later I’ll jump back into a high intensity company but I’m grateful for this season of thinking, reading, traveling and being with people I love. After having time to reflect I believe more than ever that the very best outcomes flow from great leadership that combines the head and the heart. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that in all of this there is also a cautionary tale for anyone who succeeds at something — which is that the higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. It’s a strange paradox but the richest and most powerful people are also some of the most isolated. I found myself frequently looking at Elon and seeing a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work, which is not the model of a life I want to live. Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions. We’ve all seen high profile cases of celebrities who end up with some combination of depression, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, mania and/or erratic behavior. Living in an echo chamber is dangerous and being at the top makes a person even more susceptible to being surrounded by yes people when nearly everyone around you is on the payroll and somehow stands to benefit from being in your orbit. Figuring out how to keep “better angels” around in the form of family, friends, and teammates is critical to staying on the rails and enduring intense ups and downs. Everyone needs to hear hard truths sometimes and if you fire all the people who speak up then the reality distortion field may just turn into a vortex. I was drawn to Twitter because I’m obsessed with the problem of loneliness and connection between people. I find it fascinating & troubling that humans are getting lonelier as we simultaneously create a world that’s both safer and wealthier. I don’t believe that trade-off has to exist, which is why I keep returning to that theme in my personal and professional life. I realize this is too long of a tweet but Twitter was a weird and special place on the internet, and I’m grateful to have played a teeny tiny role in its story and evolution. I’m here for whatever comes next — on this app and in new places. Consumer social is very much alive and at a fascinating juncture, so I’ll be watching and participating and sharing hot takes because I don’t want to, and probably can’t, turn that part of me off. Perhaps X becomes a resounding success. Or it fails epically. Either way, I expect it will continue to be a very entertaining ride. 🫡

Esther Crawford ✨

5,495,857 Aufrufe • vor 3 Jahren

It's not about what we have or don't have that drives our trading decisions—it's what we're afraid of losing. This fear of loss has often led me down the false path of perfectionism. Yet true mastery and profitability in trading, like in art, comes from embracing the craft's imperfections. ✉️ At the recent Mumbai traders' meetup, Chhirag Kedia spoke a line that has resonated with me all week— वो आदमी सफल होने से कोई रोक नहीं सकता जो अपनी कश्ती जला कर आया हो! It made me reflect on my trading journey and how my risk-taking appetite has evolved over the years. I'm inherently risk-conservative as an individual, though my career decisions and trajectory paint a completely opposite picture. I've never gone bust or even had a significant drawdown in my trading life—initially because I was too cautious, and now because my skills have improved. When I look back at my interactions with other traders and analyse my own performance graph, I am noticing a pattern: traders who started recklessly or faced major drawdowns—but persistently improved their execution—often developed better and faster learning curves than those who began cautiously with small positions. Even Quallamaggie (Q) and Zanger (Z) demonstrated similar patterns—their initial failures didn't reduce their risk appetite or aggression. Rather, they increased their risk appetite as their accounts grew larger. When ordinary traders dismiss Q and Z as exceptions in the trading world, they're likely rationalizing their own fears—fear of bouncing back from setbacks beyond their risk comfort zone, and fear of not having enough skin in the game. After all, as Taleb says, courage is the only virtue you cannot fake. I wonder if I would have been a better trader today had I started more aggressively—even borderline recklessly—and then learned to control that aggression, rather than the other way around. Has my obsession with perfection (or trying to get close to it) actually slowed down my learning curve as a trader? Perfectionism and Self-Abuse In every trade—even with flawless setups and meticulously calculated risks—there are countless ways to feel wrong, whether you make money or not: You buy and it goes down You don't buy and it goes up You buy, it falls, you sell—then it goes up It goes up, you sell, and it keeps going up It goes up, you buy, it goes up further—then drops You buy with half size and it moves up; you pyramid with full size and it goes down You buy with double size and it drops; you buy with half size and it doesn't go up as much . . . and the list can go on But there is only one way you'll feel right: When you buy and it immediately goes up, and when you sell and it immediately goes down. And this is a very very rare instance. But the pursuit of perfect trade—trying to capture both the first and last eighth of every trade—is where much self-belief and confidence is needlessly lost. The search for the perfect chart, perfect market conditions, and perfect mindset was probably the most paralyzing form of self-abuse in trading I had done. It led me to the comfort of inaction rather than risk the ego to scrape the imperfect rewards on offer. Lets take up an example that was discussed in the last Mumbai meetup - PDMJE Paper - Trade Objective An Episodic Pivot setup, gapping out of a big base, to be held as a longer positional play. Entry (Orange lines) 29th October 2024 Entry 113.95, Stop Loss 2% - 111.7 (~Day low) Risk on Trade 0.75% of portfolio, Size - 35% Sells (Blue Lines) 50% Sell at 6R - 128.6 - This was not a planned sell, but I observed weak market depth with sporadic volumes over the next 3-4 days. As a precaution, I reduced size in this illiquid counter. = 3R 50% sell at ~12R - 143 - The swing move had become overextended, moving far from the 10/21 EMA. The position was sold when price broke below the opening range lows in weakness. = 6R Impact of portfolio - 6.75% Analyzing this trade up to this point, it was executed well with little room for improvement—almost perfect. This was also a very obvious EP trade, and many others had executed it similarly. In the group discussion of this trade, even though everyone had profited, regret about the price movements after exit overshadowed the satisfaction from actual gains. If you had missed the pullback entries near the 21 EMA on November 13th (which wasn't actually setup-ready) or the breakout entry that triggered on November 29th (when markets were strong and many stocks were breaking out), you would have likely missed the 80% move that happened in less than a month, which I did. The traders in the group spent much of their emotional energy obsessing over this missed opportunity, ultimately accumulating emotional debt from the markets. The paradox of trading is that while realized losses may dent our account, missing potential gains often dent our confidence. Each time we let the fear of missed opportunities overshadow our actual successes, we unconsciously train ourselves to trade smaller, not bigger - precisely when our proven profitability should be empowering us to scale up. It took me years to understand that successful trading doesn't require feeling happy. I can make sound decisions and evaluate my performance objectively, even when I feel frustrated about missed opportunities. The only true nobility in this business is making money, not chasing dopamine highs. The Adjustment Taking a loss is straightforward—we simply follow our stop loss. The real challenge—and greatest potential for regret—lies in managing profitable positions, particularly when a stock has made big moves in a short period. This is particularly common in magnitude trades like an EP or IPO where our objective is to hold for a longer duration and sell into weakness, but often have moments when the stock is overextended in the short term with a high probability of pulling back. However, we hesitate to sell either because it conflicts with our original trade objective or because we fear missing the chance to buy back during the pullback. This is where many professional traders actively manage their core positions. Rather than passively waiting for a deeper trailing stop loss to trigger during weakness, they sell a portion when the price becomes extended and buy back the same amount at a lower price. This strategy proves more effective than enduring drawdowns while waiting for a formal pullback setup at support levels or moving averages. Let's take a recent example of IGIL (5 min chart) - Trade Objective An early-stage IPO setup displaying a typical volatility contraction pattern (VCP) on intraday charts. The plan is to hold this as a longer-term position, treating it as an All-or-Nothing trade. Entry (Orange line) 24th December 2024 Entry 504, Stop Loss 2% - 493.95 Risk on Trade 0.50% of portfolio, Size - 23% of pf Adjustment Context - 27th December 2024 The stock had surged powerfully over the previous two days, hitting Upper Circuits. On the third day, despite gapping up at open, it immediately broke down during the opening range - like a typical parabolic short setup. This was a point with a high probability of a short-term pullback or consolidation. Sells (Blue Line) 27th December - 585 - 50% size Buyback (Orange line 2) 27th December - 565 - 50% size - Gained 1R Rationale - My anchor bias was for the price to cool off for a bit. - At the 27th open, the price was already at ~8R+ for me. Even if the stock rose further after I sold my partial position, I wouldn't regret it much—I had already secured 4R with half my position still pending, well above my journal averages. This served as an important emotional anchor point for this adjustment. - When buying back, I was simply looking to average down my costs without a specific target or a perfect setup in mind. In this case, I bought back at 565, as the buyback itself presented a good psychological point to cover (10 Rs initial stop loss, 20 Rs points averaged ~1R at half size). It could have been lower too if the breakdown was slower. This was more intuitive and intentionally imperfect. - I close most of these adjustments on the same day since they are just short-term pullbacks and my overall bias remains bullish. A magnitude trade can also be looked at as a combination of several intraday trades around a core position. - This adjustment method applies specifically to magnitude trades like EP and IPO positions, where the trade objective aligns with pyramiding or averaging costs. Caveat You might think this is a cherry-picked example—and you'd be partly right, since it's one of my better and more recent trades (you can see similar patterns in Care or TI). However, I urge you to stay open to the concept. Look back at your previous trades where you held positions too long passively—you'll often find that temporary extensions and pullbacks were easily visible, offering opportunities to capture additional R’s along the way. Traders commonly face similar emotions and dilemmas when deciding how to act in these situations. End Note

Anuragg Venkatakrishnan

24,423 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

The false prophets of the "New Media" Dear international friends and users of X, We are witnessing a dangerous situation unfold where Romania is being used by popular accounts on the platform to create panic and a false image of what is actually happening in the world. One of those accounts is Mario Nawfal, whom I choose to reference because I met him a few months ago and helped my partner film an interview which now seems incredible to listen to. Everyone in the crypto industry had an image of Mario from the last cycle, and it was interesting to see him pivot to what is now called "New Media" and the success he was able to achieve mainly because of retweets from Elon Musk. During the interview you can watch below, he talks about the high level of attention he receives and the responsibility that comes with it. He admits to taking a side in US politics by supporting Donald Trump because he is a "free speech" advocate, but other than that, he says that his journalism is objective regarding Ukraine/Gaza or any other hot topic around the world. He also speaks highly about posting factual information and not misinformation. Now on the current subject, I feel he is not only taking a side but also spreading significant misinformation about the situation in Romania, and I want to help you understand by clarifying some of these "facts." He refers to Calin Georgescu as "the rightful president of Romania." Let me explain what happened here. Romania had a presidential election at the end of 2024. This type of election in Romania is split into two rounds unless one of the candidates gets more than 50% of the votes. In that case, the candidate wins from the first round and gets to be installed as president. Calin Georgescu won the first round with 22.94% of the votes, which equals 2,120,401 votes out of 9,242,186. The total number of eligible voters on the lists was 18,021,800. By simple math, he obtained the vote of 11.77% of Romanians allowed to vote. Although we can objectively admit he was a favorite for the second round based on these numbers, the election was annulled. The Constitutional Court of Romania first validated the first round and then two days later decided to cancel the election after voting had already started in some areas outside the country where voting takes three days to help Romanian citizens living abroad cast their votes. Romania's president at that time declassified the documents based on which the CCR canceled the elections, and most of the data given to the public was vague. It mentioned interference from another state, social media manipulation, or the cost of the campaign being different than previously declared. Georgescu declared 0$ (ZERO) campaign budget. Now again, even if that would be enough to cancel the election, we all agree that the way the situation unfolded is terrible. It showed the lack of interest from Romanian authorities regarding the elections or, worse, parts of the system that accepted all of this before and during the vote. The root of all problems Much like all over the world, Romania is a country with corrupt politicians. Most of the time in the 35 years of democracy, the same parties ruled the country with one main goal: FILL THE POCKETS WHILE YOU CAN. I'm pretty sure you know what that feels like and thus understand that most of the population is fed up and really wants change. It all erupted in the past 2-3 years with inflation skyrocketing after the pandemic and the cost of living becoming unbearable for some parts of the population. Now here comes Calin Georgescu. A self-portrayed savior of the people and a fighter against the current establishment, he campaigned mainly on social media. Most of his ideology is nationalist, populist, and Christian Orthodox. Most of us had no idea who he was until the very last day before the first round, especially in big cities, and the fact that he won struck the country like a truck. In fact, some of his voters declared that they had no idea who he was, but social media, especially TikTok, portrayed him as the savior, and the other options were people they couldn't vote for anymore. One week before the election, most polls gave Georgescu less than 5% and, in the best cases, 8% of the votes. So you can now understand the surprise we had after the counting was done. After that night, Romanians started to analyze the winner of the first round, and what they found was sometimes scary and other times funny—ranging from "There are microchips in Pepsi that enter your body like a laptop" to "The moon landing was fake", "5G technology is extremely dangerous" or "Covid is not real, you can't see it." You can find most of his statements on this website with sources: Setting aside some of these statements, which are mostly harmless, he said things like "Romania should look towards Russian wisdom." He even said he would be ready to leave NATO if it felt necessary and criticized the EU and the way it treats Romania. While we can agree on some small details in these claims, you have to understand the raw feeling of Romanians when it comes to Russia after more than 40 years of communism. It's the same in most of the Eastern Bloc, and it is being passed from one generation to another. And it is mostly hate. Romania is not the most developed country in Europe, but it grew a lot after being accepted into NATO and the EU, and you can check the economic data that sustains this. That being said, you can probably understand why some of those statements were labeled as dangerous by parts of the population that doesn't want to accept even a small chance of leaving the EU/NATO and turning toward "Russian wisdom." Back to our current government One thing that actually unites most Romanians these days is their lack of trust in the current political scene. There is a feeling of exhaustion among us, and we just want honest people ruling the country. Probably just a dream, as my personal take is it will never happen and most of this drama is just "circus". It's always the same situation, just different pockets. Our current prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu , was recently investigated by journalists for different private flights paid for by a company that scammed many Romanians in the real estate industry. Of course, some of those involved in the scam are also politicians. So you probably now understand why we also want change. The situation in Romania is wild these days. We do want change; some think Georgescu is that change, some think he is exactly what we don't need. I don't want to make any judgments in this article. I'm trying to show you what I think "New Media" and "Citizen journalism" should be, at least in my view. What I thought Mario also stands for after that interview. In the course of the last few weeks, Mario has posted every step of Georgescu alongside a network of other popular accounts, some of them known for edgy takes or straightforward propaganda, like Jackson Hinkle or Alex Jones. He even came to Romania to interview Calin and George Simion and said he was afraid. Afraid of what? What did he think he did wrong to be afraid of? Nothing. Just the usual recipe of fear to create drama for views. Many Romanians are asking him in replies to actually dig deeper into the matter and to listen to everyone, but he clearly took a side and goes forward. Why? We don't know for sure; there are some people claiming he was paid to campaign for Georgescu, but there is no actual proof of that being the case. Maybe it's because he wants to continue with the whole "Anti-Soros" agenda widely spread even by Elon Musk these days. We don't know, and I don't want to point out a reason without proof or facts. In fact, that's exactly why I wrote this piece. I'm tired of Old Media, and now the concept of "New Media" is failing harder than I would've ever imagined. Misinformation spreads the fastest on the internet, and most people don't take the time to double or triple check. It is exactly the same practice of biased mainstream media, but for the other side. It's no longer "it must be true, I saw it on CNN" but "it must be true, I saw *insert popular account* posted it." We are witnessing a difficult situation, not only in Romania, and I think journalism should evolve into what it should've always been. But this is not the way. We need to present facts and acknowledge the responsibility, especially as our accounts grow bigger. I encourage every one of you to join the conversation and fill the gaps that I might've missed. Bring facts, bring arguments, do not bring insults. I hope I was clear enough and that this helps some of you understand the situation better. I would love to see you help this post get the attention it needs. Thank you, andreibratucu

andreibratucu🦇🔊

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//The Wire//2300Z April 28, 2025// //PRIORITY// //BLUF: VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK KILLS 11X IN VANCOUVER, CAN. MAJOR BLACKOUT UNDERWAY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE. GROUND STOP ISSUED FOR NEWARK DUE TO RADIO COMMS OUTAGE. CEASEFIRE IN UKRAINE TO BEGIN ON MAY 8TH. LIKELY CARTEL ARMS SMUGGLER REMAINS FUGITIVE AFTER BEING RELEASED BY JUDGE. SOPHISTICATED IED FOUND AT CHURCH IN OREGON.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Canada: A vehicle ramming attack was conducted at the Lapu Lapu Filipino Heritage festival in Vancouver on Saturday night. Authorities state that the attacker intentionally drove his vehicle into a large crowd of people gathered at the intersection of Frasier and E 41st Avenue, killing 11x people and wounding dozens more. Local authorities have identified the attacker as Kai-Ji Adam Lo, who was arrested at the scene. Local police stated that the attacker was very well known to police, and had been the result of many emergency responses involving mental health incidents. Europe: This morning, a large-scale electrical power outage was reported throughout Spain, before rapidly cascading to include Portugal, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. A few hours after the outage began, French utilities started to come back online. Spain and Portugal appear to be hardest hit, with a total blackout affecting much of the two countries. Portugal's grid operator has not given a timeline for a return of power, and has indicated that the delay might be significant. Grid operators in Spain stated that it will take most of the day to restore power throughout the blackout zones, though as night has fallen much of the region remains without electricity. A state of emergency has been declared throughout Spain, and officials in the provinces of Andalusia, Extremadura, and Madrid (plus the city proper) have requested federal authorities declare the crisis a Civil Protection Level 3, so as to maintain order throughout the night in major cities as the outage persists. AC: This level of emergency declaration is usually only reserved for wartime as it involves a declaration of martial law, and a widespread deployment of military forces. Checkpoints and ID checks are also a part of this plan, along with the restriction of travel, curfews, etc. Ukraine: President Putin has announced that a general ceasefire will take place from May 8-10 along all fronts. AC: Neither American nor Ukrainian leadership has commented on the ceasefire announcement yet, nor have there been any indications as to if Ukraine will be participating in the 72-hour cessation of hostilities. Red Sea/HOA: An aviation mishap was reported onboard the USS HARRY S TRUMAN (CVN 75). During routine aviation operations, one F/A-18 aircraft was lost overboard while being towed by aircraft handlers. The tractor towing the aircraft was lost overboard as well. No casualties were reported as a result of this incident. AC: Warfare is dangerous business, and it would seem that this proverbial "business is getting out of control" for the TRUMAN. This deployment has been rough so far for the entire strike group, as military forces globally experience the follow-on effects of an increased optempo, stressed maintenance schedules, and even complacency. On this one deployment to the Red Sea, one of her escorts shot down one of her own aircraft in a friendly-fire incident (Dec, 2024), she collided with a merchant vessel resulting in damage to her fantail (Feb, 2025), and now an entire aircraft was lost overboard. This is important in the context that she is on her second Captain (the first skipper was fired after the collision) during this deployment...a deployment which was extended a few weeks ago amid rising tensions with the Iranians. -HomeFront- California: Over the weekend, vandals set fire to a utility pole in Sacramento, causing internet connectivity loss throughout the eastern and central parts of the city for much of the day on Saturday. New Jersey: This afternoon a ground stop was issued for all aviation traffic departing Newark following a reported loss of radio capabilities at the tower. AC: Since this is the busiest air traffic control sector in the United States, this is a big deal. Details are sketchy at best, but pilots report a loss of radio communication with the tower at Newark for unknown reasons. Some unconfirmed reports suggest Newark tower lost radar at some point as well. Either way (and as serious as this incident is), this has happened before. Illinois: A woman was murdered on the Green Line in Chicago last Thursday, after a brief altercation. Witnesses state that Willie Holmes initially started an altercation with a stranger (identified as Emily Carlson) while transiting on an L train, prompting the victim's boyfriend to confront the assailant. Holmes then produced a knife and murdered Carlson. Wyoming: An alleged cartel weapons trafficker remains at large after being a no-show in court on Friday. Ricardo Paez-Quinones was originally arrested after being caught smuggling around 18,000 small arms rounds in Carbon County last month. Paez-Quinones, being an illegal immigrant that was previously deported twice, was indicted by a grand jury following his initial arrest. AC: Despite the original prosecutor arguing that the individual was very likely to be a flight risk due to his connections to organized crime, U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Scott Klosterman released him from custody on a $20,000 bond. Because this bond was unsecured, he did not have to pay a dime up front for his release. He simply walked free to become a fugitive after being allowed to do so by the judge, who knew that most of the suspect's family lived in Mexico, and that he was a twice-deported illegal alien. Oregon: Details regarding the discovery of a suspicious device have been released by local authorities. Last week, a suspicious package was discovered by an employee of a local mechanic shop in La Grande. After authorities were alerted to the device, a local Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team confirmed that the device was an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that was fashioned as a crude pipe bomb with ball bearings added for additional shrapnel. AC: This story did not gain much traction when it first came to light, however additional details (and photo evidence) has confirmed that this device was located on the sidewalk immediately adjacent to Calvary Chapel. This context indicates that this small-town news story is likely related to the general increase in risks to religious institutions around the nation. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The blackout in Europe is very likely the largest power outage to strike the continent in recent memory, and the effects are very widespread. When power goes out in one neighborhood minor inconvenience is the result, but when a outage strikes on a continental scale, very serious impacts are observed. Portuguese grid officials have claimed that the outage was the result of "rare atmospheric phenomenon". This is comparatively common when severe solar weather causes electromagnetic variations in the Earth's ionosphere. However space weather for the past few days has been very mild, with no watches or warnings even being issued at all over the past few days. Power grid fluctuations occurring with this little solar activity are completely unheard of, making these space weather claims dubious at best. Due to the language barrier, it is possible that the references to "atmospheric" causes were not related to space weather, but rather actual weather. Hot weather can cause power lines to stretch and droop into other lines, the resulting shorting of which can cause exceptionally widespread outages if it occurs in the right place. This has been the cause of several very infamous power outages over the years (combined with mismanaged regulation of voltage, causing transmission lines to heat up and stretch even more). The next most likely theory that is circulating at the moment is that the outage was caused by multiple independent cyberattacks on the core communications functions of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-e). At the moment there's no evidence available to the public that can confirm this for the time being. It also must be noted that almost two weeks ago, Spanish grid operator Red Electrica reached a milestone regarding their renewable energy sector. On April 16, the grid operator claimed that the Spanish electrical grid ran fully on solar, wind, and hydro power for the first time in history. This highlights the recent substantial efforts to further allegedly "carbon-neutral" standards and goals...efforts which in the wake of last month's outage at Heathrow Airport are drawing scrutiny. Of course, not every power outage can be blamed on one single root cause; there are usually long chains of causation for events like this. However, the recent major changes throughout the continent, among all sectors of energy production, certainly will be under major scrutiny as Europe's energy crisis at large starts to impact the average citizen more directly than it has in the past. In Canada, local authorities claim that the attack in Vancouver was not terrorism, however eyewitness statements overwhelmingly confirm this was an intentional terrorist attack. Locals reported the assailant deliberately waited for the event to draw to a close before conducting the attack. He waited until the traffic barriers were being removed as the event was winding down, at which point he threated his vehicle through the barriers that were being removed, to intentionally target the crowd that still remained. After the attack, the assailant exited his vehicle and was confronted/detained by those at the event. While it would be wise to confirm the details of the investigation into this event, enough information has been conveyed by event-goers to fill in the gaps with regards to risk assessment. In this case, it seems as though another mass-casualty event has taken place that would have been preventable had complacency not been a major contributing factor. Reports vary on the status of anti-vehicle barricades for this event. Some state that there were no barricades at all, but rather standard traffic cones which were used for traffic control purposes, while others claim the limited barriers that were emplaced were not sufficient in either traffic control or in preventing the attack itself. Whatever the barrier situation was at the time of the incident, clearly it was not sufficient either in deterring or stopping a major terror attack. Instead of waiting for crowds to disperse fully, traffic barriers being removed before the event was fully over was also likely a factor in attack planning. Much like previous incidents, the proximity to risk is a huge factor many people do not realize. Many people will evacuate a building that's on fire...only to stand 4 feet from the door. Or even more commonly, sprint out of the building just to immediately stop in the doorway, blocking the egress of those behind them. In this case, the exact same mentality could have been a major contributing factor for the success of this attack. If the event ended at midnight, and the traffic barriers and counterterrorism efforts were ceased only 10-15 minutes later, this would have obviously not been adequate to stop the threats that remained as crowds dispersed throughout the area. As such, constant vigilance and situational awareness are desperately needed at all times, especially if local authorities and event-goers alike are largely complacent. Terrorists are patient. Terrorists do not shuffle their feet and moan about their shift being too long. Terrorists can wait a long time and are dedicated to their goals. Terrorists will wait for the precise moment that they have the best possible chance for success, knowing that authorities have to be successful in preventing attacks at all times...while the terrorist only has to be successful once. Analyst: S2A1 Research: //END REPORT//

S2 Underground

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