Philadelphia City Council is poised to ban the wearing of ski masks in certain public spaces this week, a move that police say could help them solve more crimes and stop more pedestrians they suspect of being involved in criminal activity.

The measure is cosponsored by 10 members, more than the majority needed to pass the bill Thursday. Authored by Councilmember Anthony Phillips, who represents parts of Northwest and Northeast Philadelphia, the bill allows the city to fine people $250 for wearing ski masks in parks, schools, and on public transit. There are carve-outs for religious expression and “First Amendment activities” like protesting.

… the ACLU says it could violate free expression rights and be misused by officers stopping and frisking pedestrians — a controversial but legal law enforcement tactic that’s been embraced by Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker. …

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” — William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)

The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.

Don’t believe it.

It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.

For instance, it was recently revealed that the White House, relying on a set of privacy loopholes, has been sidestepping the Fourth Amendment by paying AT&T to allow federal, state, and local law enforcement to access—without a warrant—the phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.

This goes way beyond the NSA’s metadata collection program.

Operated during the Obama, Trump and now the Biden presidencies, this secret dragnet surveillance program (formerly known as Hemisphere and now dubbed Data Analytical Services) uses its association with the White House to sidestep a vast array of privacy and transparency laws.

According to Senator Ron Wyden, Hemisphere has been operating without any oversight for more than a decade under the guise of cracking down on drug traffickers.

This is how the government routinely breaks the law and gets away with it: in the so-called name of national security.

Those of us who were around for the Vietnam War remember the photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc– “the napalm girl”– the naked, badly burned 9 year old girl fleeing the advancing bombing.

Today, thanks to “the only democracy in the Middle East” and Israel’s Washington enabler, we watch on TV, in Pepe Escobar’s words, “the wanton killing of women and children, the carpet bombing of hospitals, schools and mosques.”

And nothing is done. Washington sends more bombs, more money. European politicians speak of wanton murder of civilians as “Israel’s right of self-defense.” We are descending into darkness and losing our souls.

Ahed Tamimi, recently released from Israeli prison, sheds light on the dire circumstances inside and emphasises the daily humiliation still faced by 30 women prisoners. The lack of essentials, including food, water, and blankets, paints a grim picture. Tamimi also reveals threats involving her father's imprisonment. Tamimi said that 10 more female prisoners arrived from Gaza leaving their children behind in the streets and that their situation is dire.

Disturbing footage shows a settler attacking a pregnant Palestinian mother on her way to dropping her kids to school in the city of Lod. The attacker stabs her multiple times and gets into a getaway car leaving her to bleed before her children’s eyes. She was reported dead shortly after.

The town I grew up in in New England farming country was even smaller than the film's fictional town of Lawson, California. Loudon, New Hampshire didn't have a movie theater open or closed, and still doesn't. However, like the fictional town of Lawson, the town I grew up in had lost many men in World War II. I was just a child in those post war years, one of the generation later called the baby boomers, but I recall the plaques, the flags, the ribbons, the special emphasis on memorial day, and the markers on the stones in the cemetery behind the church on the hill, identifying where the men had died, and where in some cases, their bodies were presumed to remain. Every family, including my own, had lost people. Parents grieved for lost sons, siblings for lost brothers, wives for lost husbands. Bedrooms were still kept pristine, filled with the artifacts of an innocent childhood, waiting for occupants who would never return. Those who had managed to return carried scars visible and invisible, and in some subtle way never really made it all the way back home.

Looking back on that time, while the US Government declared political victory in the war, and the "Captains of Industry" grew rich turning looted war material into corporations that could hardly fail in competing with nations whose industrial bases had been bombed into rubble, I recognize that the town I grew up in had been defeated in that war. It had been eviscerated. It had had its very heart cut out of it; a gaping hole that never healed, but could only in time be forgotten.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Thursday that Israel has been systematically occupying the Palestinian territories and called to recognise the Palestinian State, Anadolu news agency reported.

“We have seen Israel systematically occupy the Palestinian territories, the West Bank. And now we see what is happening in Gaza” he told Spanish broadcaster TVE.

The Spanish premier who has recently been re-elected to lead Spain, said his government has condemned the Hamas attack on 7 October but at the same time it stressed the necessity of “Israel’s compliance with human rights in its actions.”

“The scenes of killing children in Gaza raised doubts about Israel’s fulfilment of international human rights” he said, stressing that the solution to ending the crisis between Israel and Palestine “must be political,” through recognition of the Palestinian state.

Sanchez said he has heard from representatives of Muslim nations that Western solidarity rings hollow and peace conferences do not work because promises are not complied with.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the number of displaced Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip has risen to 1.8 million people or about 80 per cent of the enclave’s population.

According to OCHA data, approximately 1.1 million displaced persons have been registered in 156 UNRWA institutions throughout Gaza, and 946,000 of them, or about 86 per cent, live in the agency’s 99 shelters in the south of the Strip.

“Another 191,000 displaced Palestinians are being housed in 124 public schools, hospitals, wedding halls, offices and social centres, and the rest are living with host families.”

There are no accurate estimates about the number of displaced persons in Gaza, since many of them live with relatives, while others returned to their homes during the truce, but they continue to be officially registered in UNRWA  shelters and some other organisations.

People who are pro-Palestine are in danger and social media is responsible. I don’t make such a claim lightly.

Social media giants are already being accused of apparent bias in the conflict. Elon Musk has just announced new censorship for Palestinians. Meta and TikTok are censoring pro-Palestine content disproportionately. Posts that shed light on the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza are being suppressed with explanations such as “explicit content”, while videos debunking the lies of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are being taken down on the grounds of “glorifying terrorists”. Those who try to counter the pro-Israel narrative by using the “comments” section find themselves restricted very quickly under the pretext of “community protection”.

However, I assured myself, if I am facing censorship, then same probably goes for pro-Israel accounts as well. Maybe Instagram is being protective and vigilant in order to de-escalate the situation, only to discover later that this was not the case for the “other side”.

The Israeli propaganda machine has been working overtime in its effort to portray to the world a narrative of its own victimhood, tirelessly seeking global backing by depicting Israel’s enemies as inhumane ‘people of the dark’. Whilst portraying the 7 October surprise Palestinian resistance infiltration into Israel as a strain on the state, it has skilfully notched up propaganda victories by eagerly seizing the opportunity to conceal its authoritarianism and maintain the false claim that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Despite groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch declaring Israel an apartheid state, Western leaders, coupled with the media, refuse to shed light on the systematic, industrialised and bureaucratic oppression of indigenous Palestinians. In fact, they do not just refuse to shed light on apartheid, they outright deny it.

In March 2023 for example, former UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverley signed an agreement to oppose the use of the word “apartheid” to describe the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, and even accused International institutions of “anti-Israeli bias” if they used the term.

Suspected drug cartel members abducted seven Mexican immigration agents in Cancun at gunpoint Wednesday, beat them and threatened to kill them before they were freed, authorities said.

The brazen mass kidnapping occurred near Cancun’s bustling airport and illustrates the degree to which Mexico’s cartels and criminal gangs have become involved in migrant smuggling and kidnapping.

Federal forces later located the house where the agents were being held in the Caribbean resort city. The forces — apparently marines and National Guard, along with local police — engaged the kidnappers in a gun battle and freed the agents. They did not say whether anyone was wounded in the confrontation.

An escalation in military engagements have been occurring in the Gulf of Aden as several vessels connected with the State of Israel and its supporters are being targeted by the Yemen resistance force of the Ansar Allah. See this.

On November 26, the United States Department of Defense issued a statement saying it had thwarted an attempted seizure of the Central Park, a commercial tanker operating in these waters.

However, several hours later, Mohammad al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Ansar Allah Political Bureau, denied any involvement in the incident. The resistance movement accused the Pentagon of concocting the story to provide a rationale for the ongoing military support to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in their genocidal war against the Palestinian people and others throughout the region.

Maria Martinez was 26 when she died of breast cancer that her family says would have been survivable if she had received the right diagnosis and treatment from military medical providers. And while two military boards said the medical malpractice suit filed by Martinez before her death in 2021 was invalid because it was filed outside of the two-year statute of limitations, a U.S. district court judge recently ruled that the case can move forward, thanks to a law designed to protect troops from legal liability while in uniform.

On Oct. 31, Judge Rudolph Contreras, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, denied a motion to dismiss from the Army Tort Claims Division, saying the Service Members Civil Relief Act “tolls” the statute of limitations, or pauses the time clock. It’s a development that Martinez’s attorney, David Sheldon, says marks a victory not just for Martinez’s family, but for all troops seeking to bring medical malpractice lawsuits against the Defense Department.

Real Obituary: Waunakee – “Reed Ryan our much loved son, brother, uncle, teammate, and friend was welcomed by the angels into Heaven on November 28, 2023. Reed, age 22, was born on December 27, 2000. Reed went into cardiac arrest on November 21st following a football team workout in the weight-room doing what he loved. This was the result of an undetected genetic heart condition and a large, loving heart. The athletic training team was tremendous in their efforts to immediately initiate CPR and regain his pulse.”

While he was still in the hospital, alive, someone commissioned two fake obituaries for him claiming he died in a “car accident.” These fake obituaries were released on Nov. 26. He died on Nov. 28.

Fake Obituary #1: (Vietnamese website) “In a devastating car accident, the world lost a remarkable individual – Ryan Reed, a talented football player at NDSU. His untimely passing.”

Fake Obituary #2: (India Website with senior writer Rishabh Raikwar) RajasDentalCollege: “Ryan Reed, a talented football player at NDSU, lost his life in a tragic car accident. The news has left his family and friends in profound grief”

The international council of the Auschwitz museum earlier this month issued a statement supporting Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip under the banner of “self-defense.”

This grotesque move by an institution whose alleged mission is “to warn against indifference” to the kinds of atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis at the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, came on 18 November.

This was after weeks of merciless Israeli bombing which had by that time killed more than 13,000 Palestinians, including 5,500 children.

According to The New York Times – no friend of the Palestinian people – the pace of Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza “has few precedents in this century.”

To find a historical comparison for so many large bombs in such a small area, we may “have to go back to Vietnam or the Second World War,” Marc Garlasco, a military adviser for the Dutch organization PAX and a former senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, told the Times.

And yet the official guardians of the memory of the estimated 1.1 million people murdered at Auschwitz are not flinching.

Named by Gizmodo as the most influential source of news on Israel/Palestine on Twitter/X, Visegrád 24 has shot to prominence, amassing more than one million followers across social media platforms. Yet it has consistently shared blatantly false information in an attempt to ramp up support for the state of Israel’s crimes in Gaza. Worse still, the semi-anonymous account pushing a far-right agenda worldwide is known to be funded by the deeply conservative Polish government.

Mars, the maker of some of America's most beloved candies, has been exposed for using child labor to harvest cocoa beans in Ghana, a new bombshell report found.

CBS News visited Ghana's remote cocoa belt and found children as young as five working on farms that supply the chocolate giant - despite the company's pledge to protect children.

Shocking footage shows small children carrying machetes into the fields, with one nearly taking his fingers off as he hacked open a cocoa pod. 

The M&M and Snickers manufacturer said it has a monitoring system to keep children in schools - but CBS News obtained copies of the list and confirmed that some of the kids were working in the fields.

'Personally, I've made up lists before. And I can say on authority that almost every data, almost every data is cooked,' said one cocoa field supervisor.

Joe Biden is facing a significant internal revolt against his administration's stance on the Israel-Hamas war, insiders have said - reflected in nationwide unease at the conflict, and his dismal polls.

The president has been determined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel following the Hamas terror attack of October 7, which killed 1,200 people.

But he warned Israel's leaders in private and in public not to repeat America's mistakes post 9/11, and be blinded by rage and a desire for revenge.

With 15,000 Gazans killed in seven weeks of bombardment, many inside the Biden administration feel that the White House should do more to rein-in Israel.

Only one person has publicly resigned due to the Gaza onslaught - Josh Paul, a director in the State Department's political-military affairs bureau, which oversees U.S. arms transfers.

When “Gross domestic product (GDP) and income have recently diverged by a large margin,” it implies that there’s a significant difference or gap between the overall economic output of a country (as measured by GDP) and the income earned by individuals or households within that country.

India produced a record amount of electricity from coal in October to make up for a shortfall in hydro generation following lower-than-normal monsoon rains.

Coal remains fundamental to the country’s energy security, despite rapid deployment of wind and solar generation, underscoring the challenge of reducing emissions.

The Obama administration, just 17 days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, revised the guidelines of Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333, "Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by the National Security Agency."

Although widely overlooked, the implications were broad and far-reaching.

Under the new procedure, agencies and individuals could request the National Security Agency (NSA) for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contain relevant information that's useful to a particular mission.

No privacy protection of the raw data was undertaken. Under the new rules, sharing of information was significantly easier–and the information being shared was raw and unfiltered.

At the time I wondered about the timing of the order. But what I found particularly curious was that it was enacted so late. Allow me to explain.

A major charity in the UK has dismissed its entire board claiming that they are all too “white and privileged”.

The Daily Mail reports that The Tudor Trust, which has a net worth of £288million and gives away around £20 million a year, is ‘rethinking’ its future, pledging to be a “more diverse group” and to put “social justice and anti-racism” at the centre of its activity.

The government of Viktor Orban in Hungary has blasted a proposal to admit Ukraine into the European Union as "completely premature". Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, on Thursday told a news conference in Budapest that it is too early to so much as begin formal talks on the matter, according to the AP.

"We are dealing with a completely premature proposal," Gulyas emphasized, explaining that Hungary "cannot contribute to a common decision" on inviting Ukraine to join the bloc.

Iowa Republicans will be the first in the nation to weigh in on the competitive Republican presidential race, as they continue their long-time Iowa Caucus tradition on Jan. 15 next year.

But Democrats—with a virtually noncompetitive race, a presidential call to ditch caucuses, and memories of the bungled 2020 caucus—are turning entirely to mail ballots for the 2024 caucuses in Iowa.

If 2020 was the year of election anomalies, the first irregularity was the Democratic Iowa Caucus which was rife with technical flaws, offered no results on election night, and left the Associated Press unable to ever declare a winner.

The Feb. 3, 2020, Democratic Iowa Caucus used a freshly developed smartphone app to communicate caucus results, but the app got glitchy, and a hotline to call in results was overwhelmed, preventing results from being available on caucus night. By the next day, just 62 percent of the Democratic results were counted. A week later, folks were losing patience.

The White House announced on Nov. 29 that Ms. Harris, along with "dozens of senior U.S. officials representing more than 20 U.S. departments and agencies" will be headed to the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, being held in the United Arab Emirates' capital.

In a Wednesday afternoon press call, Ike Irby, deputy domestic policy advisor to the vice president, said the visit builds on the administration's "leadership on bold global action to address the climate crisis."

"Throughout her engagements in Dubai, Vice President Harris will highlight the administration's historic investments to address the climate crisis at home and abroad and announce several initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions support, adaptation, and boost climate resilience alongside global partners," he said.

Russia has long faced widespread international condemnation for what outside countries have decried as a crackdown on sexual minorities. President Vladimir Putin has persisted in stressing that Russia must safeguard traditional family values, and that this means protecting children from the pervasive propaganda of the West which seeks to sexualize young people.

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday in an official ruling designated what it called the "international LGBT public movement" as a banned "extremist" organization. The new ban is expected to take full effect by early next year - but some reports have said it is effective immediately - and while specifics haven't been forthcoming, the label would clearly give state authorities much broader powers to go after activist groups.

A rule to redefine what doing business as a gun dealer means—proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)—is supported by a majority of public commenters, with 10 days left in the comment period.

On Nov. 27, more than 230,000 of the 280,098 comments supported the plan. This is an estimate based on a review by The Epoch Times.

A search of the comments section revealed that 237,172 comments include the opening sentence about loopholes in federal law from a sample email posted on the Everytown for Gun Safety webpage.

Everytown for Gun Safety (Everytown) did not respond to an email seeking comment for this report.

On its webpage, Everytown claims that “loopholes” in the law allow the sale of guns to criminals through online sales, private transactions, and gun shows.

“The regulation goes directly to the loopholes we have been trying to close for years by expanding background checks to guns offered for sale online or at gun shows, keeping weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, and ultimately saving lives,” the webpage reads.

“But for ATF to finish the job on this life-saving action, it needs to know that the public supports closing these dangerous loopholes. ATF needs to hear from us.”

Many of the online comments use language similar to the Everytown email, with some posting the sample message word-for-word.

Webmaster addition: This is called Grass Roots Lobbying and the targeted media outlets and politicians usually fail to see it is an organized PR campaign!