The Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to present a less Orwellian exterior to the public took a big step forward this week, as it disbanded a key subcommittee linked to the Department’s ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board, announced last year and quickly “paused” amid public outcry.

Jen Easterly, head of the DHS’s cyber division — the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA — this week convened the agency’s influential Cybersecurity Advisory Committee (CSAC), which is made up of senior executives from organizations like Twitter, Amazon, and the Stanford Internet Observatory. The agency announced an expanded roster, adding 13 new members to CSAC, including chief cybersecurity officer for General Motors Kevin Tierney and Cathy Lanier, the chief security officer for the NFL. The full CSAC now contains 34 members.

However, amid the additions, CISA also shuffled responsibilities, making a key change. In particular, its “MDM” advisory subcommittee, for “Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation,” was scrapped.

Webmaster addition:

Last summer, the Group of 7 (G7), a self-anointed forum of nations that view themselves as the most influential economies in the world, gathered at Schloss Elmau, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to hold their annual meeting. Their focus was punishing Russia through additional sanctions, further arming of Ukraine and the containment of China.

At the same time, China hosted, through video conference, a gathering of the BRICS economic forum. Comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, this collection of nations relegated to the status of so-called developing economies focused on strengthening economic bonds, international economic development and how to address what they collectively deemed the counter-productive policies of the G7.

In early 2020, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had predicted that, based upon purchasing power parity, or PPP, calculations projected by the International Monetary Fund, BRICS would overtake the G7 sometime later that year in terms of percentage of the global total.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would make tax-free Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) available to all Americans.

Currently, most Americans cannot use HSAs due to the stringent rules that govern their use: only those who pay an abnormally high insurance deductible can take advantage of the pre-tax program. In practice, this means that 90 percent of Americans are not eligible for HSAs.

Roy’s bill, dubbed the Healthcare Freedom Act, would change the rules to make all Americans eligible for HSA accounts.

To do this, the bill would de-link eligibility for an HSA, renamed a “Health Freedom Account” by the legislation, from health insurance requirements.

Many patients who pay high-deductible policies—which have grown more popular among employers over the past two decades—never meet their annual deductible, meaning any money they paid on the policy was effectively wasted. Because of the increased prevalence of high-deductible health insurance policies, many Americans have had to rely on savings to cover their day-to-day medical expenses.

Additionally, the bill would increase the maximum annual contribution to HSAs from $3,650 to $12,000, or to $24,000 for a joint contribution.

Ray Epps’s new attorney, who is demanding on behalf of his client a public apology from Tucker Carlson under threat of a defamation lawsuit, is the director of a radical anti-Trump organization, a close associate of Media Matters Democrat attack dog David Brock and a former employee of Perkins Coie, the lawfare firm behind Russiagate and the Steele dossier.

Epps’s attorney, Michael Teter, sent a letter on Thursday to Carlson, demanding the Fox News host retract what Teter called “false and defamatory statements” that Epps was a J6 government plant.

Carlson and myriad media outlets have reported on Epps’s suspect actions connected to the J6 uprising, his dubious testimony to the J6 Inquisition and his connections to federal agents.

He’s woke. She’s woke. So are they, them, ey, ze, and xeir.

Know what I mean?

Of course, you do. The dominant flashpoint word in today’s political lexicon – woke is here, there, everywhere. From Whoopi’s lips to your ears. I say it all the time – way too much, according to my wife – but never once has anybody asked: what the heck are you talking about?

The word is becoming a problem for woke-noscenti because the more people know about the alphabet soup movement – DEI, CRT, ESG, QIA+, etc. – the less they like it. What to do? Deny, deflect, and demonize, of course. Seizing on a conservative writer’s halting efforts to define the term during an interview, they are arguing that woke is a made-up, meaningless slurbrandished by the right to oppress minorities. Seeking to shut down all discussion of their movement, Touré outlawed it as the new “n-word.”

The decision to transport a "significant" amount of toxic wastewater from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment by rail to a wastewater treatment plant located east of Baltimore City, and eventually discharge it into the local water system, might spark outrage among residents.

Local media outlet WYPR obtained a letter from Contractor Clean Harbors of Baltimore Inc., which described itself as the "optimal wastewater treatment site to treat and discharge the wastewater collected from rainwater, collected water and stream water above and below the cleanup site of the Norfolk Southern Railroad derailment." 

The Ranets E is a High Power Microwave (HPM) weapon system intended to produce electrically lethal damage or disruption and dysfunction in opposing airborne systems, be they aircraft or guided munitions in flight. The system was first disclosed by Rosoboronexport in 2001, but little technical detail has been disclosed since then. The weapon uses an X-band pulsed 500 MegaWatt HPM source, generating 10 to 20 nanosecond pulses at a 500 Hz PRF, and average output power of 2.5 to 5 kiloWatts. The antenna is large enough to provide a gain of 45 to 50 dB in the X-band, for a total weapon weight of 5 tonnes. The weapon has been described as a “radio-frequency cannon” and Russian sources credit it with a lethal range of 20 miles against the electronic guidance systems of PGMs and aircraft avionic systems.

In the United States, the media is often called “Fourth Estate” or the fourth branch of government. It has a profound impact on politics and society. For a long time, the U.S. mainstream media products information that serves only to feed their own interests and intentionally spread false information with the purpose of transferring crisis to other countries, shirking their international obligations. In domestic affairs, the US media obscures major conflicts and shifts the public’s attention away from domestic issues by false reporting. Mainstream media, social media platforms are becoming increasingly ideological and out of touch with the public, which has led to a steady decline in public trust in media.

Why is blood worth more than oil? For impoverished Americans, blood donations have become a source of income - presenting a real risk to their health, as they lie about their health conditions and donate repeatedly to make ends meet.

Protests and strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial reforms package are now so pervasive the planned state visit by Britain’s King Charles III has been postponed pending conditions in France improving.

King Charles III, who became the monarch of 15 countries worldwide including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand after the death of his mother Elizabeth II last year, was due to make his first state visit to France and Germany from this coming Sunday, per details of the tour released by Buckingham Palace earlier this month.

But the French element of the tour will now not go ahead as planned, as the country has been struck by repeated violent protests and lengthy strikes all aimed at stopping or even bringing down the Macron government. President Macron, for his part, has described himself as a god-like ruler but has otherwise struggled to get his deeply controversial pensions reform bill to pass, and has resorted to using emergency executive powers to push it through. Foreseeably, perhaps, this has intensified protests.

A left-run city council in Britain has vowed that it will never again put a child in the care of a paedophile again after authorities were exposed for doing just that, leading to a young girl being sexually abused for years and ultimately impregnated.

Labour Party-controlled Leeds City Council has been forced to pledge that it will increase safeguards to prevent a repeat of the case of “Ruby”, a vulnerable local girl who was put into the care of a known paedophile by a family court on the advice of the local authority

The scandal was revealed in a report in January.

An Anglican vicar who smoked crystal meth, boasted of corrupting young boys, abused animals, and discussed sacrificing babies to Satan with online paedophiles has been convicted in England.

Reverend David Renshaw, 63, was convicted of “three counts of possessing indecent images of children; three counts of making indecent images of children; possessing prohibited images of children; and possessing extreme pornographic images portraying acts of intercourse with animals, namely dogs and horses,” according to a Sussex Police statement.

Strangely, he does not appear to have faced any charges relating to animal cruelty or neglect, despite police officers finding his vicarage full of dead and dying animals including cats, dogs, and chickens.

The leader of Bulgaria, a European Union and NATO member-state, says his country will not use its arsenal of Soviet-era warplanes, air defence missiles, and tanks to bolster the Ukrainian war machine.

President Rumen Radev says “Bulgaria does not support and is not part of the general order for the supply of shells to Ukraine” he said in reference to an EU joint procurement programme which is believed to be going badly, adding that his country will instead “support European diplomatic efforts to restore peace,” according to a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

A U.S. government-funded news organisation which received CIA funding until at least the 1970s and claims its “mission is to promote democratic values by providing accurate, uncensored news and open debate in countries where a free press is threatened and disinformation is pervasive”, RFE/RL describes President Radev as being “known for his pro-Kremlin leanings”, and said he also ruled out Bulgarian participation in Western efforts to supply Ukraine with military aircraft, air defence missiles, and tanks.

Webmaster addition: Deserting the sinking ship?

Florida Congressman Byron Donalds has made a strong statement on Fox Business, claiming to possess evidence of corruption involving President Joe Biden. According to Donalds, bank statements provide proof that Biden lied to the American people, and the media has subsequently covered up these lies. The Congressman went on to assert that investigations are ongoing, and he called attention to the ethical implications of the Biden family's international business dealings, particularly with China. Donalds also questioned the nature of the Biden family's business activities, suggesting that they amount to little more than influence peddling.

A shocking incident in Portland, Oregon, has left the community in disbelief after a homeless man, Terrance Spencer, allegedly sucker punched a young child on Sunday, leaving the boy with a lump on his forehead and soreness from the fall.

According to Portland police, the suspect approached a mother and her young son outside the Tin Shed cafe and, without any provocation, forcefully punched the boy in the face. Witnesses reported seeing Spencer's fist connect with the child's forehead, sending the boy flying into the air before landing backward and hitting his head on the sidewalk.

Thankfully, residents quickly restrained Spencer until police arrived. Upon arrest, Spencer allegedly said, "I want to go back to prison." He has since been booked and charged with disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, and assault. He is currently being held in Multnomah County Jail without bail due to his prior felony record, which includes convictions for sodomy and sex abuse.

This week the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual audit on antisemitic incidents in the United States. According to the data antisemitic incidents rose by 36% in 2022, resulting in 3,697 such occurrences. That’s the highest tally since the ADL began tracking this information back in 1979 and a nearly 500% increase over the past decade.

However, a cursory look at the group’s methodology immediately reveals its conclusions to be dubious. The ADL openly chalks up anti-Zionist actions and protests against Israel as examples of antisemitism because they can make Jewish students uncomfortable.

The vague wording made van Terheyden suspect that Dr. Cheryl Dopke, the medical director who signed it, had not taken much care with his case.

Van Terheyden was right to be suspicious. His claim was just one of roughly 60,000 that Dopke denied in a single month last year, according to internal Cigna records reviewed by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum.

The rejection of van Terheyden’s claim was typical for Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers. The company has built a system that allows its doctors to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file, leaving people with unexpected bills, according to corporate documents and interviews with former Cigna officials. Over a period of two months last year, Cigna doctors denied over 300,000 requests for payments using this method, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case, the documents show. The company has reported it covers or administers health care plans for 18 million people.

In recent developments, German Prosecutor General Peter Frank confirmed “there is no evidence to blame Russia for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines”:

“It currently has not been proven (…) The investigation is ongoing (…) We are currently evaluating all this forensically. [The suspicion] that there had been a foreign sabotage act [in this case], has so far not been substantiated”, he said during the interview with Die Welt.

No evidence of foreign sabotage of an act which has created social havoc and hardship in the European Union, with rising energy prices? People are freezing, unable to pay their heating bills. The EU economy which relied on cheap energy from Russia is in shambles. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to comment on the investigation.