By LARA SELIGMAN and BRYAN BENDER

01/20/2021 01:00 PM EST

The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, upcoming special operations missions in Africa and the Covid-19 vaccine distribution program, according to new details provided by transition and defense officials.

The effort to obstruct the Biden team, led by senior White House appointees at the Pentagon, is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters as it takes over positions in the Defense Department on Wednesday, the officials said.

Biden openly decried the treatment his aides were receiving at the Pentagon in December, calling it “nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility” after meetings were canceled ahead of Christmas. He said his people were denied information on the SolarWinds hack, and said his team “needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies.”

But people involved with the transition, both on the Biden team and the Pentagon side, gave POLITICO a more detailed picture of what was denied, saying briefings on pressing defense matters never happened, were delayed to the last minute, or were controlled by overbearing minders from the Trump administration's side.

“Defense has traditionally been a bipartisan business between and among professionals, and this is terrible optics for those who want to copy this pettiness in the future,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The effort to block the transition from key national security information is “useless, poor form, and horrible precedent.”

This story is based on conversations with 10 Pentagon and Biden officials involved in the transition, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

Tensions between the Pentagon and the Biden agency landing team emerged almost the moment the General Services Administration authorized the transition to begin in late November after an initial delay following the election. While the military side of the house — the Joint Staff and the geographic combatant commanders — were more cooperative, the civilian side set up roadblocks at every turn.

“They really should not be allowed to get away with this. It’s just completely irresponsible and indefensible,” said one transition official. “To play politics with the country’s national security is just really unacceptable.”

Outgoing acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has maintained publicly that he is committed to ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and Defense Department officials say the Pentagon has worked hard to complete the Biden team’s requests for information and interviews in challenging conditions due to the pandemic and a hyper-partisan environment.

Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said it is “understandable” for there to be limits on what sensitive and classified information the department can provide to the incoming team, including related to future military operations. She also defended the presence of career civilian counsel as “observers” during meetings with the Biden team, saying the lawyers’ participation ensures that the information is “properly handled.”

Joe Biden Joe Biden is sworn in as president during his inauguration on the west front of the U.S. Capitol. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Transition “personnel are not government employees and thus limited to some extent on what they can receive,” Gough said. “Membership on a transition team alone is not a license to access confidential, privileged or classified government information.”

But people with the transition said the outgoing team’s conduct went far beyond the norm and pointed to loyalists installed by the White House as the main reason for the obstruction. Pentagon officials under President Donald Trump refused to provide information about current operations, particularly in the special operations realm, because they are “predecisional.” That means the Biden team now has limited visibility into key operational issues, including what counterterrorism missions are in the works.

In one incident, the Pentagon abruptly canceled the transition team’s meeting with Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which had been scheduled for just before Christmas. At the time, the acting defense secretary said both teams had agreed to reschedule all non-Covid related meetings until after the new year, but Biden officials publicly denied that claim.

The drawdown in Afghanistan, where American troops are expected to leave the country this spring under a deal between the Trump administration and the Taliban, is one of the most pressing issues Biden’s national security team will have to confront in his young presidency.

The team was eventually able to speak with the general in January. But with the Trump administration down to 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and on a path to reach zero by May, “having a multiple-week delay in gaining access to Gen. Miller was not good,” the first transition official said.

Another area where the transition felt they did not have adequate access was Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to develop and distribute Covid-19 vaccines. The Pentagon initially rebuffed the transition’s request to meet with Gen. Gustave Perna, Warp Speed’s chief operating officer.

Perna was present at a meeting between the Pentagon and Health and Human Services transition teams in mid-December, but he did not answer any questions. It wasn’t until last week that the DoD transition team got to meet with Perna in a smaller setting.

Transition officials said the delay in getting answers about Warp Speed will hamper the Biden administration’s plan to dramatically scale up the nation’s vaccination distribution effort over the next three months.

Gough pushed back on the characterization that DoD did not cooperate on Warp Speed, noting that the department has held 64 interviews or briefings with the Biden transition team where Covid-19 was on the agenda or a was major discussion point, and completed 59 Covid-related requests for information.

Overall, Gough said the department as of Tuesday had sent the Biden team 277 responses to requests for information.

But across the department, even when the transition team did meet with DoD officials, both civilian and military, they were often tight-lipped, as if they were given explicit guidance about what they could and could not talk about. Those suspicions were confirmed when the first transition official bumped into a “very high-ranking” military official a week after their meeting, and the officer apologized for his clipped answers.

“We were alone, and he told me ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you more, but I was given very strict instructions,’” the transition official said.

In another interview with a combatant commander, the Biden team asked detailed questions about pressing national security matters, and received “very vanilla answers.”

Some of this reticence may have been due to the fact that in nearly every transition meeting, “minders” from the Defense Department General Counsel’s office were present and frequently cut off the civilian Pentagon officials, citing “predecisional operational matters.”

Inauguration Day in Washington President Donald Trump gestures Wednesday as he boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

In one recent meeting, retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, who served as acting Pentagon policy chief until last week, frequently looked over at the general counsel representative as if to ask for permission to discuss a particular topic.

Meanwhile, every request for information the Biden team filed had to be reviewed by the general counsel’s office, and many were scrubbed of all useful information. Many requests were never answered, and the ones that did come back were thoroughly “sanitized.”

The Biden team had particularly poor visibility into the special operations and low-intensity conflict portfolio. While Trump political appointees in that office were allowed to meet with the transition, many of the career officials have been kept “at arm’s length,” said one defense official, calling the effort unprecedented.

“We have not been sidelined like this,” the person said.

The first transition official echoed those concerns, saying the team met with “some chief of staff who seemed very young and seemed quite new in his portfolio.” The person recalled asking detailed questions about changes the Trump administration made to the process of approving a mission — under former President Barack Obama, most missions had to be approved by the White House — but could not get clear answers.

The team is particularly concerned that they do not have sufficient visibility into what’s going on in Africa, whether it’s covert special operations missions across the continent or Trump’s withdrawal from Somalia.

The Biden team was also frustrated by the lack of cooperation around the upcoming budget request, a concern Biden himself cited in December and that a second transition official called “laughable.” In particular, the Biden team struggled to get details on the Trump administration’s efforts to siphon resources from military construction projects to the border wall, and funding for the Covid-19 response.

Mike McCord, the transition’s lead for Pentagon budget issues, was finally able to meet with representatives from the armed services to discuss the budget request last week, but the delay until days away from inauguration caused heartburn.

The Pentagon has also rebuffed the transition’s efforts to gain insight into a high-profile arms deal with the United Arab Emirates for the F-35, America’s most advanced fighter jet. This prevented the team from understanding key details about how sensitive information about the jet would be safeguarded, and what concerns have been raised by Israel, which also operates its own F-35s and initially objected to the deal.

Some Trump defense officials called the Biden team’s claims of obstructionism “overblown,” blaming their frustrations on the delay in certifying the election, reduced manning due to Covid-19 restrictions, and a larger-than-usual number of requests for information and interviews from the transition team.

“If anything, I think the incoming folks are overwhelming the department (political and careers alike) with requests,” said a second defense official.

As of Friday, the transition team had met with more than 400 Defense Department political appointees and over 180 career officials, said a third defense official, noting that the department has not “denied the [agency review] team anyone they’ve asked for.”

A fourth defense official who is departing with the Trump team and took part in some of the transition planning said he “saw no effort to conceal anything” from the Biden team.

Sen. Jack Reed speaks. DEFENSE

In win for Austin, top Senate Democrat agrees to back waiver BY CONNOR O’BRIEN

But he said he believes that some of the appointees to top jobs in the waning months of the administration did not have the best interests of the institution in mind and were obsessed with political vendettas.

Trump, he said, “hired all the wrong people. And he paid a price for it. There wasn’t much we could do.”

And the acrimony has gone both ways. At the last minute, the Biden team denied Miller office space and resources for his transition out of the role, a courtesy typically provided to the outgoing team. POLITICO confirmed the move, which was first reported by Bloomberg.

The transition elected not to extend Miller that particular “perk” given his acting role and the reduced capacity in the Pentagon due to the pandemic, said another transition official,

CNN Airport, a long-running out-of-home media operation that became an integral part of the traveling experience for people flying through Chicago’s O’Hare, Dallas’ Love Field or even Fresno-Yosemite International Airport, is shutting down, the victim of shifts in consumer behavior that are moving more quickly than a Boeing 737.

CNN said the operation, which aired a mix of news from CNN and snippets from other WarnerMedia networks in 58 different airports in the U.S., would close as of March 31.

“The steep decline in airport traffic because of COVID-19, coupled with all of the new ways that people are consuming content on their personal devices, has lessened the need for the CNN Airport Network and we had to make the very difficult decision to end its operation,” the AT&T unit said in a statement.

This is the second CNN operation to be shuttered in the past five months. The company scuttled its Great Big Story video unit in September.

Launched initially in 1991 and billed as CNN’s Airport Network, the operation served as a way to keep the cable-news outlet in front of consumers even when they couldn’t watch traditional TV — and yet might be in a situation where keeping up with the news was critical. Over the years, CNN’s presence in airport terminals became so ubiquitous that in 2018, Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, tried to prod the Federal Communications Commission to have other companies’ content placed in transportation hubs.

CNN’s media offering let local merchants and transportation authorities place their own messages on the service, which also carried national commercials, news segments and weather and sports updates. Some things were never shown, including footage of commercial aviation crashes and content not appropriate for family viewing.

Even a media offering with little obvious competition was being challenged by a new and growing rival. Over the years, airport executives began to notice travelers were using airport Wi-Fi connections to stream video choices of their own. Suddenly, a captive audience was freed.

“Having to say goodbye to such a beloved brand is not easy,” said Jeff Zucker, CNN Worldwide’s president, in a statement. “I want to thank our friends and colleagues who have contributed to its success and to celebrate the fact that for 30 years, the CNN Airport Network has kept millions of domestic travelers informed. It also became an iconic part of the traveling experience in this country. I am sure most of us have a story to tell about which airport we were at when we first learned of a major news event. Be proud that we had a hand in sharing some incredible stories with many millions of people over the past three decades.”

Source: https://www.survivethenews.com/breaking-super-computer-military-in-italy-altered-the-election-results-in-17-states/

COMMON SENSE: With just two weeks to go in the Trump Presidency, why would Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ask for the 25th Amendment to be invoked? Why would Schumer want Trump removed from office? With so little time left, doesn’t this seem odd to you? It feels more like a dramatic moment in a soap opera than a necessary action to be taken. After all, Joe Biden is now the President-Elect. Because he has official status, what’s the big deal about hounding Trump out of office? Could there be a reason for this. There is. Let me tell you what it is.

While Antifa was rampaging through the Capitol during Biden’s ratification, pretending to be Trump supporters, across the ocean in Rome, Italy, Arturo D’elio, an employee at Leonardo SpA, was busy providing sworn testimony in court. Where D’elio works is important. Leonardo is the world’s eighth largest defense contractor, and Italy is a member of NATO. In his deposition, D’elio revealed the scheme that proved to be successful in using Leonardo computer systems as well as military satellites located in Pescara, Italy. D’elio’s hi-tech equipment altered the election results in the 2020 Presidential Election in the United States. D’elio swore under oath that he altered results in seventeen states—that’s right, seventeen, not just the six swing states.

Those who participated in this scheme were not minor players. Italy’s Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, was involved. So were officials at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. MI-6 and the CIA were involved. Others were involved too, household names in the USA, but revealing those scoundrels will have to wait. What we have here is not just the smoking gun. It’s the confession of the person who used the gun. His sworn testimony is evidence, the very thing we have long awaited. We have always known that votes were altered. Now, we know not only how it was done but also who the people were who were responsible for changing the election’s outcome. We have proof about who stole votes from Trump and gave them to Biden. The scandal this has produced in Italy is so large that Conte’s government will probably fall. It should. That this has happened is being repressed by the U.S. media. No surprise about this but, because this is the biggest story since Pearl Harbor, I don’t believe it can be swept under the rug. The bad guys, those like Chuck Schumer and even some Republicans, know it’s coming. This is why they want to get rid of President Trump once and for all. This discovery may have come too late, but maybe not. Perhaps there is still time to save our republic. Share this far and wide. I’ve provided links to the evidence and to the analysis. While writing this, Numbers 32:23 came to mind. “Be sure, your sin will find you out.” —Jack Watts

Other Sources: https://noqreport.com/2021/01/06/conte-leonardo-spa-and-the-u-s-embassy-behind-the-election-data-switch-fraud-to-take-out-trump/ https://federalinquirer.com/conte-leonardo-spa-and-the-u-s-embassy-behind-the-election-data-switch-fraud-to-take-out-trump/ https://drive.google.com/…/1RQMxmbW8ujZmfTUl2D1jXW…/view https://drive.google.com/…/1yNnkTEuiDkrqnLa…/view https://nationsinaction.org/…/press-release-voter-fraud/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBGiHZfOheI All roads lead to Rome.

Source: https://app.clouthub.com/public/e3476807-b779-4725-acac-9174b10c5ed5

NEW YORK -- New York City will terminate business contracts with President Donald Trump after last week's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.

“I’m here to announce that the city of New York is severing all contracts with the Trump Organization,” de Blasio said in an interview on MSNBC.

De Blasio said the Trump Organization earns about $17 million a year in profits from its contracts to run two ice skating rinks and a carousel in Central Park as well as a golf course in the Bronx.

The city can legally terminate a contract if the leadership of a company is engaged in criminal activity, the Democratic mayor said. “Inciting an insurrection — let’s be very clear, let’s say the words again — inciting an insurrection against the United States government clearly constitutes criminal activity," he said.

An email seeking comment was sent Wednesday to the Trump Organization.

The move to end Trump's business contracts in the city he formerly called home is the latest example of how the Jan. 6 breach by violent Trump supporters is affecting the Republican president’s business interests.

The PGA of America voted Sunday to take the PGA Championship away from his New Jersey golf course next year, a move that came after social media platforms disabled Trump’s accounts and Shopify took down online stores affiliated with him.

De Blasio had said earlier that the city was examining its legal options to end the Trump contracts. He said Wednesday that city lawyers determined that if Trump sues over the move, the city will win. Trump “incited a mob to attack the Capitol,” de Blasio said, adding, “The lawyers looked at it and it was just as clear as a bell that’s grounds for severing these contracts and we’re moving to do that right away.”

The split with Trump's namesake company won't happen immediately, though. De Blasio said in a news release that terminating contract to run the Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx is complex “and is expected to take a number of months.”

Termination of the contract to run Wollman Rink and Lasker Rink in Central Park will take effect 30 days after written notice is delivered, de Blasio said. Termination of the contract to run the carousel, which is now closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, will take effect 25 days after written notice.

The city will seek new vendors for all the attractions, the mayor said.

Removing the Trump name from the rinks, carousel and golf course won't erase him from New York City. He will still operate Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and the Trump International Hotel on Central Park West. Trump moved his official residence from Trump Tower to Florida in 2019.

Source: https://app.clouthub.com/post/5cf2c3d1-55d9-11eb-b19f-716a875b6971

Update: The statement by President Trump was just read on the House floor by Rep. Jim Jordan. https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1349432866502041601

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell made clear Wednesday that he will not be reconvening his chamber early to accept the article of impeachment on President Trump.

McConnell spoke as the Democrat-controlled House began its debate on the second impeachment case against the outgoing president.

The Senate is scheduled to reconvene Tuesday, which McConnell says does not leave enough time for a vote on impeachment prior to Joe Biden's inauguration one day later. And any subsequent trial would take place following the Trump presidency.

At least five GOP House members have said they plan to vote to impeach Trump. Two GOP senators – Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania, have called on Trump to resign. But no Senate Republicans have so far said they would vote in favor of convicting Trump on a House-passed article of impeachment, just days before the president is set to leave office. The House will take a final vote on impeachment in the late afternoon on Wednesday.

AUSTIN - A woman has been arrested for multiple charges including election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot.

Each charge constitutes a felony under the Texas Election Code.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that Rachel Rodriguez has been taken into custody stemming from an investigation after a Project Veritas video surfaced last fall showing her taking part in vote harvesting leading up to the 2020 election.

Rodriguez is heard saying on video that what she was doing is illegal and that she could go to jail for it.

She could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

“Many continue to claim that there’s no such thing as election fraud. We’ve always known that such a claim is false and misleading, and today we have additional hard evidence. This is a victory for election integrity and a strong signal that anyone who attempts to defraud the people of Texas, deprive them of their vote, or undermine the integrity of elections will be brought to justice,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The shocking and blatantly illegal action documented by Project Veritas demonstrates a form of election fraud my office continually investigates and prosecutes. I am fiercely committed to ensuring the voting process is secure and fair throughout the state, and my office is prepared to assist any Texas county in combating this insidious, un-American form of fraud.” This investigation is ongoing.

Following the “indefinite” suspension of President Donald Trump from its platform, Facebook has warned employees to avoid wearing company-branded clothing over fears for their safety.

Business Insider reports that the tech giant Facebook told its employees on Monday to avoid wearing clothing that suggests they work at the company as a safety precaution. The announcement comes shortly after the social media platform made the decision to indefinitely suspend President Trump from its platform last week.

The Information obtained an internal memo sent to Facebook staff on Monday which reads: “In light of recent events, and to err on the side of caution, global security is encouraging everyone to avoid wearing or carrying Facebook-branded items at this time.”

Facebook’s security team posted the memo in an internal workplace board that can be accessed by more than 566,000 employees.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the suspension of President Trump’s account in a Facebook post last week:

The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.

His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.

Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.

Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.

We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.

BY SAMUEL ALLEGRI January 9, 2021

Michael Sherwin, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said that his office has started a federal, excessive force investigation over the shooting and killing of former U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Sherwin confirmed the investigation with CBS News.

His civil rights section will lead the prosecution, which is being investigated by D.C. police and the FBI.

The Epoch Times hasn’t been able to independently verify the investigation.

Brian Hudak, Acting Civil Chief of the U.S. Attorney Office of District of Columbia, the FBI, and The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On Jan. 6, Trump supporters marched on foot to the Capitol after President Donald Trump gave a speech near the White House. Trump thanked his supporters for being present and listed a series of voting irregularities that happened in different states, alleging there was widespread fraud. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s attorney, also gave a speech listing evidence for the alleged fraud.

Babbitt entered the Capitol building with a group of protesters, including left-wing activist John Sullivan.

Epoch Times Photo Protesters storm the Capitol Building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Ahmed Gaber/Reuters) A man in a widely circulated video of the shooting of U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, 28-year-old Thomas Baranyi, later gave a recount of what happened.

A reporter from CBS affiliate WKRG interviewed him after he stormed the Capitol with protestors and Ashli Babbitt.

Ashli Babbitt A social media selfie photo shows Ashli Babbitt. (Twitter/Ashli Babbitt) “We had stormed into the chambers inside and there was a young lady who rushed to the windows,” Baranyi said “A number of police and Secret Service were saying ‘get back, get down, get out of the way.’ She didn’t heed the call.”

He said that he tried to pull her back when she got fatally shot.

“And as we kind of raced up to grab people and pull them back, they shot her in the neck, and she fell back on me and started to say she was fine. It’s cool. And then she started moving weird and blood was coming out of her mouth and neck and nose,” Baranyi said.

“Just make sure people know, because this cannot stand anymore. This is wrong. They don’t represent anyone. Not Republican, Democrat, Independent, nobody. And now they’ll just, they’ll kill people,” Baranyi added.

Tony Mazziott, Babbitt’s grandfather, told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that she was an “excellent patriot” and a “loving person.”

“She served time in the military and she’s passionate about everything, particularly Donald Trump for some reason,” he said. Family members said Babbitt served more than a decade in the Air Force.

President Trump’s political appointees clashed with career intelligence analysts over the extent to which Russia and China interfered or sought to interfere in the 2020 election — with each side accusing the other of politicization, according to a report by an intelligence community ombudsman. Read the story.

BY EVA FU January 9, 2021 Twitter’s decision to permanently ban President Donald Trump is “un-American” and parallels censorship under communist China, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Jan. 9.

“Silencing speech is dangerous. It’s un-American. Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic of the Left. They’ve worked to silence opposing voices for years,” he wrote in a tweet.

“We cannot let them silence 75M Americans. This isn’t the CCP,” he added, referring to the Chinese Communist Party’s weaponization of technology and social media to monitor and suppress dissent.

Earlier, Twitter stated it has permanently removed Trump’s account from its platform, saying they have identified “risk of further incitement of violence” upon review of how his recent tweets “are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter.” Facebook similarly blocked Trump until at least Jan. 20.

In response to Twitter’s move, Trump condemned the tech giant, saying the company “has gone further and further in banning free speech.”

Trump vowed that he “will not be silenced.” He said his team has been negotiating with Twitter’s competitors and is looking into options to build their own platform.

Republican lawmakers and Trump allies have criticized Twitter’s actions as censorship and abuse of power.

“Big Tech’s purge, censorship [and] abuse of power is absurd [and] profoundly dangerous,” wrote Rep. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Twitter.

“If you agree [with] Tech’s current biases (Iran, good; Trump, bad), ask yourself, what happens when you disagree?” he said. “Why should a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires have a monopoly on political speech?”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) voiced similar concerns.

“Even those who oppose Trump should see the danger of having a small [and] unelected group with the power to silence [and] erase anyone,” he said in a tweet. “And their actions will only stoke new grievances that will end up fueling the very thing they claim to be trying to prevent.”

Kate Ruane, senior legislative council for the progressive advocacy group American Civil Liberties Union, also put out a statement, saying Twitter’s decision “should concern everyone.”

“We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions—especially when political realities make those decisions easier,” the statement read.

Besides Trump, Twitter also banned accounts of lawyer Sidney Powell and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The waves of Twitter bans have prompted some users, including radio hosts Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh, to make a voluntary exit.

Pompeo’s message rings a similar bell to that of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who also invoked the Chinese regime’s censorship of those it deemed enemies.

“Silencing people, not to mention the President of the U.S., is what happens in China not our country,” she wrote in a tweet.

Follow Eva on Twitter: @EvaSailEast

Source: https://parler.com/profile/MajorPatriot/posts

Still on Twitter, but on gab too: https://gab.com/catturd

BY NICOLE HAO January 9, 2021 Following a local uptick in COVID-19 cases, hundreds of villagers in northern China’s Hebei Province were ordered by authorities to isolate themselves at three schools that were converted into quarantine centers.

With no heat or bedding, villagers struggled to stay warm as temperatures dropped below freezing.

“The children kept on crying all night because of the cold,” a villager Liu Lin (pseudonym) told the Chinese-language Epoch Times in a Jan. 8 interview. “They [government officials] said our village is a high-risk region for contracting the virus, and all four-thousand-plus villagers would be sent to quarantine centers step by step.”

Parts of the region have entered lockdown to curb the spread of local outbreaks. Authorities confirmed at least 295 cases in the province, though the figure is unreliable due to the Chinese regime’s history of coverup.

On Jan. 8, state-run CCTV quoted Tong Chaohui, a specialist from China’s National Health Commission, who said the outbreak in Hebei had not yet reached its peak. During mass COVID-19 testing, many local people were detected with antibodies in their bloodstream, he noted. The body typically develops antibodies in 10 days or two weeks after contracting the CCP virus.

As of press time, authorities had not announced any deaths related to the latest surge. On Jan. 7, police in Baoding city announced that they detained a 27-year-old man Yang Shuoning who posted on the popular social media platform WeChat that over 200 people had died in Shijiazhuang city, the epicenter of the latest outbreak.

The police said Yang posted the information in a chat group with friends and neighbors on Friday The police claimed that the information was not true, and Yang would be detained for six days and fined 100 yuan ($15.44) for spreading rumors.

Quarantine Xiaoguozhuang village is in Gaocheng district, Shijiazhuang. The villagers have been isolated in their homes since Jan. 2, when the first villager was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Since Jan. 5, Shijiazhuang authorities began removing villagers from their homes and sent them to quarantine centers.

On social media, villagers said they had to follow instructions or else face fines or detention.

Epoch Times Photo A medical worker takes a swab sample from an infant for a COVID-19 test in Shijiazhuang city, Hebei Province, China, on Jan. 7, 2021. (STR/CNS/AFP via Getty Images) Liu told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that officials arranged for her to move on Thursday evening.

“Nobody told us where they would send us to or whether we needed to prepare for something,” Liu recalled. “When I arrived at the gathering point, there were four shuttle buses. The one I took had about 30 villagers inside.”

Liu and her fellow villagers found out that they would be sent to an empty school that was converted into a quarantine center. There was no hot water, no heating, no separated bathroom stalls, and the temperature was minus 14 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit) when they arrived.

Liu and her fellow villagers then started to contact all possible channels to ask for help. Finally, after almost 24 hours in the cold, authorities arranged for them to move to a hotel.

“Ten shuttle buses arrived to pick us up. We had almost 600 people at the school,” Liu said. “However, our trip to the hotel was very difficult, because Pingshan county, where the hotel is located, didn’t allow us to enter [at first].”

County officials said the virus could be easily transmitted in a contained space, so they stopped the buses on the highway and let the door open to allow air circulation. “It was minus 17 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) outside,” Liu said. “The babies were crying for hours and hours, and the old people were trembling.”

The trip eventually took over ten hours. Liu said there was no way to maintain social distancing as she and fellow villagers were forced to share a room initially at the school, then transported in a bus with over 50 people inside.

According to Chinese media Yicai, villagers were sent to the Lianzhou No. 1 Middle School, Gaocheng No. 4 Middle School, and Gaocheng Vocational School. All three schools had no heating.

By the end of Jan. 8, over 1,000 villagers were sent to quarantine centers, while another 3,000 villagers were still at home, according to Yicai.

Food Prices Skyrocket Ms. Zhang (pseudonym) lives in downtown Xingtai, another city in Hebei with a severe outbreak. She told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on Thursday that local food prices have skyrocketed.

“Current prices are five to six times more than the prices a few days ago, before the lockdown,” Zhang said.

Zhang said cooking oil, meat, vegetables, and grains have all become more expensive. “I bought three anaheim peppers, which cost over ten yuan ($1.54),” Zhang complained.

Zhang said that though authorities have claimed all new infections are in Nangong, a locale administered by Xingtai city, all of Xingtai has become tense.

“Some residential compounds have organized all residents for nucleic acid tests [for COVID-19]. The residential compound where I live hasn’t done this yet, but asked us to stay at home,” Zhang said.

A business owner in Nangong told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that the whole area was locked down, and residents in the compounds where diagnosed COVID-19 patients live were not allowed to leave their apartments.

His store was sealed off by police on Dec. 30, 2020 due to the outbreak. “I guess they won’t unseal us in January,” he predicted. “Nobody is allowed to enter or leave. All buses have stopped operating, and schools are closed.”

By Jim Hoft Published January 9, 2021 at 1:09pm

Mozilla, the developer of Firefox browser, says “more must be done” to rid cyberspace of President Trump and other bad actors.

Mozilla argues that banning and permanent removal of bad actors is not enough.

Mozilla tweeted out that the unrest at the Capitol was the “culmination of a four-year disinformation campaign orchestrated by the President.”

Mozilla, developer of the Firefox internet browser, has argued that more must be done to keep Donald Trump and other “bad actors” out of cyberspace, prompting many to vow to never use the group’s services again.

In a blog post titled ‘We need more than de-platforming’, the open-source software community said that Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Trump from its platform didn’t go far enough in weeding out “hate” on the internet. While blaming Trump for the “siege and take-over” of the US Capitol on January 6, the non-profit tech group argued that “white supremacy is about more than any one personality.”

“We need solutions that don’t start after untold damage has been done. Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms,” Mozilla wrote.

The group proposed a number of measures to help protect the internet from verboten views. Internet ads should list who paid for them, how much they are paying, and who is being targeted, Mozilla said. There should also be “meaningful transparency” of platform algorithms so that people can examine what kind of content is being promoted.

The group also demanded that “tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation” are added to the default settings of internet platforms, and said that independent research must be carried out to determine how social media is affecting society and what can be done to “improve things.”

More here: https://thedonald.win/p/11RhYFHCRL/major-nationwide-power-blackout-/c/

BY ZACHARY STIEBER January 9, 2021

The petition to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom exceeded one million signatures this week.

“The people are being heard loud and clear, and it is not a matter of IF we are going to reach our goal necessary that will trigger a recall election of Newsom, it is just when we cross the finish line,” Orrin Heatlie, the lead proponent of the effort to remove the Democrat, in a statement.

There are approximately nine weeks for organizers to gather 500,000 additional signatures, which would put the petition on the ballot for Californians to vote on. March 17 is the deadline.

Heatlie called the recall campaign a “literal steamroller and Gavin Newsom’s failed policies are being runover and flatten [sic] by the People of California who will no longer be held hostage to his dictatorial failed policies.”

Newsom’s office hasn’t responded to requests for comment on the petition.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said last month that the recall campaign has “huge momentum” and warned Newsom, a first-term governor who previously worked as California’s lieutenant governor and San Francisco’s mayor, to take it seriously.

“I think the important thing is that somebody has to have a wake-up call for the governor, or we’re going to go exactly down the road I saw in 2003, where Gray Davis didn’t understand and the people demanded a change, and they got a pretty radical change with Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Issa said.

Davis, a Democrat, was the first California governor to be recalled. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, received the most votes to replace Davis.

Those behind the recall campaign say California under Newsom is doing badly, citing the high number of homeless people, the high cost of living, and the harsh restrictions on businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anne Hyde, who is helping lead the effort, told The Epoch Times that Newsom dining out at an expensive restaurant while repeatedly recommending people stay home during the pandemic was a big moment.

“Clearly, you can pinpoint it to his appearance at the French Laundry … and now you’re starting to see it translated into an absolute spike in signatures,” she said.

“To me, it is a nonpartisan issue,” added Alan Johnson, a volunteer who was helping open mail responses. “I’ve never found myself to be partisan, but I try to judge things based on principle, and with good policy, you get good results. With bad policy, you get bad results. And there’s a whole lot of bad policies coming out of Sacramento. That should not be partisan.”

Drew Van Voorhis contributed to this report.

BY LORENZ DUCHAMPS January 9, 2021

A lawmaker from West Virginia who filmed himself while protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building in Washington earlier this week has been federally charged for entering a restricted area of the building.

Derrick Evans, 35, a Republican and member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, was among other people from the state who traveled to Washington to attend the multi-day rallies that were organized near the White House against the Electoral College results and alleged election fraud.

Evans appeared before a federal judge on Friday in Huntington, a city in the Cabell and Wayne Counties, after he was taken into custody on two misdemeanors—entering a restricted area and disorderly conduct.

He faces up to 18 months in federal prison if convicted of these charges.

Epoch Times Photo West Virginia House of Delegates member Derrick Evans, left, is given the oath of office in the House chamber at the state Capitol in Charleston, W.V., on Dec. 14, 2020. (Perry Bennett/West Virginia Legislature via AP) Ken Kohl, a top deputy federal prosecutor in Washington, announced the case against Evans on a call in which he presented dozens of new charges against members of the crowd that breached the Capitol on Wednesday.

John H. Bryan, an attorney representing Evans, said in a statement (pdf) on Jan. 8 his client “did nothing wrong” and did not engage in any violence, or destruction of property.

“Mr. Evans did nothing wrong,” the civil rights attorney said. “He was exercising his First Amendment rights to peacefully protest and film a historic and dynamic event. He engaged in no violence, no rioting, no destruction of property, and no illegal behavior.”

Bryan added that his client did not organize or lead a group to travel to the protest. The statement reads Evans personally bought himself a ticket for a charter bus ride to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally which was already planned long before the Jan. 6 incident.

Evans was seen in a now-deleted cell phone recording that was widely shared online wearing a helmet as he joined a group of protesters pushing their way into the Capitol building, livestreaming himself strolling inside.

Epoch Times Photo Protesters are seen taking pictures inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) “We’re in! We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!” the lawmaker can be heard saying. “Our house!” he yelled once inside the Capitol halls. “I don’t know where we’re going. I’m following the crowd.”

The video footage shows Evans getting pushed into the Capitol and milling around the building’s Rotunda, where historic paintings depict the republic’s founding. Evans reportedly implored others to not vandalize artwork and busts.

FBI agent David DiMarco wrote in a criminal complaint that Evans allegedly joined and encouraged the crowd to unlawfully enter the Capitol after days of telling his followers on Facebook to fight for President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6 demonstrations.

Evans, who is also an independent activist and journalist with more than 30,000 followers on Facebook, has not publicly posted on social media since issuing the statement, which says he attended the events as an “independent member of the media to film history.”

Epoch Times Photo West Virginia Delegate Derrick Evans exits the Sidney L. Christie U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building after being arraigned on federal charges in Huntington, W.Va., on Jan. 8, 2021. (Sholten Singer/The Herald-Dispatch via AP) Bryans said his client attended the protest in consistence with his “long history of exercising his constitutional rights in this manner,” adding that Evans has “previously traveled throughout the country for similar in furtherance of his activism and amateur journalism.”

“At no point was Mr. Evans located in the crowd on the West side of the (Capitol) building, nor anywhere else on the Capitol grounds, where violence and destruction of property was, or had been, occurring,” the attorney wrote in the statement. “Given the sheer size of the group walking in, Mr. Evans had no choice but to enter.”

A growing number of Republicans and Democrats said they want to expel Evans from the legislature if he doesn’t resign himself. Over 66,000 people have signed a petition on change.org asking for Evans’ removal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More here: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1347987605644845056 UPDATE - Minister for Power Omar Ayub and his entire team are working on the major blackout that hit Pakistan. Major cities including the capital Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and most of the country without power.

Source: https://parler.com/post/220c9054ca95464699169d6559c785bf

Source: https://parler.com/post/efbcbde2bd3b43b2aec5a2d1e61f2746

Article: https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/man-seen-carrying-lectern-during-capitol-rampage-arrested-in-florida/2359476/?amp&__twitter_impression=true