The bar just got even lower. | The BBC reports that a 40-year-old man has been arrested and criminally charged for social media posts that contained “anti-establishment rhetoric.” — Yes, really. Wayne O’Rourke becomes the latest example of the wave of authoritarian hysteria to impact free speech in the UK following the recent anti-mass migration riots. O’Rourke was arrested on Sunday in connection with “posts made from a social media account,” according to Lincolnshire Police. “Nottingham Magistrates’ Court heard the posts were alleged to contain anti-Muslim and anti-establishment rhetoric,” reports the BBC. O’Rourke had nearly 100,000 followers on X and predicted his own arrest days beforehand. So now apparently posting “anti-establishment rhetoric” in the United Kingdom is enough to get you locked up.

■ UK’s crackdown on free speech in light of migrant crisis should not be viewed in a vacuum; It contains the globalist model to collapse U.S. and all of Western civilization (Leo Hohmann)

Kit Knightly | At OffG we reserve the right to be sceptical. Of everything. | Those outside the UK might not have heard, but it’s been a violent week in the UK. Here’s a quick rundown of the official story so far:

Four days ago a 17-year-old allegedly walked into a children’s “Taylor Swift dance class” (whatever that might be) in Southport and started stabbing little girls, wounding 10 and killing 3. It was initially reported the boy was a muslim immigrant.

This story was, however, reversed within hours, the new story “revealing” that he was actually born in Cardiff, the son of Rwandan immigrants. He was named as “Axel Muganwa Rudakubana” late yesterday. His religious affiliation, if any, seems not to have been firmly established.

Another young man was, allegedly, arrested later while in possession of a machete and balaclava at a vigil for the victims. He was, again, reportedly Muslim. This, allegedly, resulted in what are described as protests and riots, the destruction of a brick wall outside a mosque and the burning of a police van.

Further alleged riots subsequently sprang up in London and Hartlepool. This is the current narrative. None of the details has been substantiated as yet, so how much you decide to believe is your personal preference at this point.

Critics have voiced concerns over Stasi-style surveillance methods | The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) may soon be allowed to secretly enter and search homes, according to a draft reform proposal seen by Der Spiegel and RND. ● According to the document, police would also have the power to install spyware on suspects’ computers or smartphones, in addition to conducting covert searches of their homes. These powers would supposedly only be used in exceptional circumstances. [...] Critics have voiced concerns that such far-reaching interventions could undermine the rule of law, as the inviolability of the home is enshrined in Article 13 of the German constitution. Unless there is an “imminent threat,” the current process for searches requires a warrant from the prosecutor's office, while police must inform the person of specific suspicions and the purpose of the search. ● The Free Democratic Party does not support “Stasi 2.0,” Bundestag member Manuel Hoferlin said, referring to the notorious state security service of East Germany. While he acknowledged the need for “adequate and powerful investigative tools,” he noted that the secrecy surrounding searches was very concerning. ● The German Association of Journalists (DJV) has also come out strongly against the plans, with Federal Chairman Mika Beuster warning that journalists and whistleblowers could be affected by secret break-ins reminiscent of methods used by “police states.”

UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail U.S. citizens over online posts: 'We'll come after you' | UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail U.S. citizens over online posts: 'We'll come after you' | 9 Aug 2024 | London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials will not only be cracking down on British citizens for commentary on the riots in the U.K., but on American citizens as well. "We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News. Riots have broken out across the United Kingdom in recent days over false rumors spread online that an asylum seeker was responsible for a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded. The murders, allegedly committed by a now 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents, sparked a series of violent protests that tapped into broader concerns about the scale of immigration in the U.K. [Haha! Good luck with that. I don't comply with sociopaths' orders issued at the behest of the WEF with the goal of destroying the West from within.]

Exiled Catalan politician Carles Puigdemont has managed to evade authorities | Carles Puigdemont has returned after seven years in self-imposed exile to crash the vote for the new president of Spain’s Catalonia region, even as police in Barcelona tightened security to find him. ● Puigdemont was president of Catalonia in 2017 when he unilaterally declared independence. The Spanish government responded by sacking him and ordering his arrest, so he fled to Belgium. ● The Catalan parliament convened on Thursday to approve the election of Socialist Party candidate Salvador Illa, after months of negotiations with the separatist ERC party. The vote was upstaged by Puigdemont, who appeared outside the parliament before the session began and gave a five-minute televised speech. [...] His stunt outside the parliament apparently surprised both police and the media, who were under the impression he would try to enter the building. Police had blocked all but one entrance to the Parc de la Ciutadella, where the parliament is located, and checked everyone’s credentials before they could enter.

Authorities in the UK are now arresting people for posting “inaccurate information” on social media, according to a new report. | Sky News reports that a woman has been arrested by Cheshire Police for posting “inaccurate information on social media” about the attacker who stabbed three girls to death in Southport last week. ● The 55-year-old woman was arrested near the northern town of Chester on “suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and false communications.” ● Chief Superintendent Allison Ross gave a statement explaining how the post is alleged to have “fueled” the protests and riots in the UK over the last week, which she asserts started as a result of “malicious and inaccurate communications online.”

The former USMC intelligence officer's home was raided Wednesday over allegations he had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone who acts on behalf of a foreign nation to register as such to the US government. However, individuals accused of such a violation are typically notified by letter, not a raid. | The recent raid carried out on the New York home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was another chapter in the US government's harassment campaign against him and his family, he told Sputnik. ● "It's a fishing expedition. It's harassment," Ritter told Radio Sputnik's Critical Hour on Thursday, noting that the US government's end goal is to discredit him in the eyes of the public as he continually works to shed light on US policy. ● Within the more than two dozen boxes that were carried out of Ritter's home were documents that substantiated his findings that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction, a key claim that encouraged the US to undertake its invasion of the Middle Eastern nation in 2003.

■ TXT (08/08/24)

The RT contributor is reportedly being investigated as a “foreign agent” | Federal agents and state police have searched the house of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state on Wednesday. ● State Police and FBI agents descended on the street of Bethlehem township, south of Albany, around noon, according to the local outlet Times-Union. They carried “more than two dozen boxes” out of the house just before 5pm local time. [...] He denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said the federal government was trying to intimidate him.

Biden – or at least his signature on paper – has authorized an immediate resignation that puts the finance masters in charge of the United States | On July 22, just one day after the Biden regime announced that "the big guy" is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed an executive action reneging his executive authority and handing it over to the United States Treasury, meaning Janet Yellen and her globalist crew. ● Entitled "Memorandum on the Delegation of Certain Functions and Authorities Under the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act," the executive action claims "the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3" as its bedrock. ● A memo issued by Biden explains that he is "delegating to the Secretary of the Treasury the function and authorities vested in the President by sections 104(a)(1) and 104(a)(2)(A) of the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act (Division F of Public Law 118-50) (the 'Act')."

Martin Armstrong | There is no European Union. There is a European authority within the pretend union that controls all members. | The European Union has revoked Hungary of its right to host the next summit. The EU supposedly has a rotating presidency of council to maintain the appearance that each state has an equal say in the direction of the bloc. The truth of the matter is that the unelected elite in Brussels control all of Europe and will silence dissenters, as Hungray’s Viktor Orban recently learned. ■ The next EU summit was to take place August 28-29 was slated to be Hungary’s opportunity to share its ideas for matters like foreign policy with the rest of the bloc. EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell planned a “formal” council meeting on the exact dates of Hungary’s summit to undermine the country’s voice in the bloc. Now, Borrell is revoking Budapest’s ability to host the next meeting and moving it to Brussels.

Authorities said the event attended by Viktor Orban and Nigel Farage presented a “possibility of disorder” | Belgian police barricaded the entrance to a conference of national conservatives in the capital of the EU for several hours, in what participants denounced as censorship and political repression. ● The event, dubbed NatCon, drew populists from both Europe and the US to Claridge, a venue in central Brussels. As Brexit architect Nigel Farage spoke on Tuesday, police blocked the entrance and prevented keynote speaker Eric Zemmour – a former French presidential candidate – from entering.

US Capitol Police arrested around 200 people protesting US weapons sales to "Israel" inside the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building. | The US Capitol Police have reported the arrest of approximately 200 individuals for protesting against the ongoing US support for "Israel", inside the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC. ● "Approximately 200 people were arrested for DC. Code § 22–1307 - Crowding, Obstructing, or Incommoding – for demonstrating inside the Cannon House Office Building. Demonstrating inside the Congressional Buildings is against the law," the police said on X on Tuesday.

■ Netanyahu speech draws thousands of protesters to the US Capitol (Reuters)
■ Protesters zip-tied, escorted out of Capitol ahead of Netanyahu speech (Al Mayadeen)

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

𝕏 did not. https://t.co/4lKsaRsYoA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2024

■ Musk: EU Wanted "Illegal Secret Deal" to "Quietly Censor Speech" (Pirate Wires)(X)
■ New E.U. landmark law targets Big Tech firms over hate speech, disinformation (NBC News)
■ EU offered X secret censorship deal – Musk (RT.com)

A Latvian Court sentenced activist Yelena Kreile to three (3) years in prison for displaying a Russian flag in the window of her apartment. The woman was charged under a law that proscribes justifying genocide or war crimes. | Hal Turner Editorial Opinion: This is the child-like level of the government of Latvia; apparently little more than a group of spoiled brat children demanding everyone see, think, and do as they. It is also a stark reminder of the totalitarian nature of so-called "Tolerant" Europe. Once again, so-called "tolerant" Europe shows itself to be a complete fraud because its citizens and government are too weak-minded to tolerate even an opinion. Or, is is not a case of weak-minded, but rather overt, tyranny? Maybe Latvia needs to be purged of Nazis, again? Russia would do well to send the Russian army into Latvia, put-down its government by force, and restore liberty to the people being held hostage by the ideological madmen in the Latvia government/courts.

Large-scale prisons being secretly erected in all 50 states – will they be used to house illegals or force Americans into concentration camps? | Former 24-year Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) veteran J.J. Carrell got the chance to interview Christie Hutcherson of Women Fighting for America about a sinister plot by the globalists to build large-scale prison structures and compounds in all 50 states, purportedly to house illegal aliens but probably actually to imprison Americans in concentration camps. ● Hutcherson has an extensive background in federal contracting having worked at forward operating bases (FOBs) in military war zones. Her company built soft-sided structures, water facilities and other necessities for soldiers as part of a multi-billion dollar operating agreement with Washington, D.C. ● Because she has access to the federal database of contract bids for all of the government projects going on at any given time, Hutcherson can see specifically and exactly what is going on behind the scenes at any given time. ● "There are bids for detention facilities being built in all 50 states in America," Hutcherson explained to Carrell in the interview. Carrell, who considers himself something of an expert on these types of things, says he was shocked at what Hutcherson had to say. He says he fell for the idea that these detention facilities are for illegals and migrants, not Americans.

Former Tennessee BlueCross BlueShield employee, Tanja Benton, was awarded nearly $700,000 in backpay and damages by a grand jury after she refused to take the company’s mandated COVID-19 vaccine, court filings show. | A federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee found last week the insurance company owes Benton $687,240 after she was let go from her position as a biostatistical research scientist. ● According to the judge’s filing, BlueCross BlueShield “did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence either that it had offered a reasonable accommodation to Plaintiff or that it could not reasonably accommodate the Plaintiff’s religious beliefs without undue hardship.” ● Benton had worked at the insurance company from 2005 till 2022 prior to the company rolling out the vaccine mandates during the pandemic, according to the Washington Examiner. As the former insurance employee had worked remotely without complaint for a year and a half, she detailed within her case that her position not only didn’t interact face to face with many people, but she only had a client list of 10 to 12 people each year, News Channel 9 reported.

On Monday, Independent media outlet +972 Magazine released a report detailing interviews the outlet did with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, which describe a policy that allowed soldiers to virtually fire at will and required soldiers to burn the homes of Palestinians that they occupied. | The interviewees also alleged that the bodies of Palestinian civilians were allowed to rot in the street and were only hidden by the IDF before international organizations traveled through the area. One soldier testified that soldiers often would fire indiscriminately to blow off steam during the operation. “They report it as ‘normal fire,’ which is a codename for ‘I’m bored, so I shoot.” Another soldier said there was “total freedom of action,” for the IDF in Gaza.

💬 “If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain – you just shoot,” the soldier described. “It is permissible to shoot at their center mass, not into the air. It’s permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.”

■ ‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza (+972 Magazine)
■ Three Gazans found dead after release from Israeli custody (aNews)
■ Involvement in, and Incitement to Genocide — Report to The Hague (10/31/23)
👉 Israeli Defense Minister: "We have abolished all the rules of war. Our soldiers will not be held responsible for anything. There will be no military courts” (10/12/23)

The editorial board of the Columbia Law Review journal — made up of faculty and alumni from the university’s law school — shut down the review’s website on Monday after editors refused to halt publication of an academic article by a Palestinian human rights lawyer that was critical of Israel. | Al Jazeera reports that the student editors of the journal said they were pressured by the board to not publish the article which accused Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza and implementing an apartheid regime against Palestinians. The review’s website was taken down after the article was published on Monday morning and remained offline last night, reports AP news agency. A static homepage informed visitors the domain was “under maintenance”.

Lance D Johnson | UN declares war on FREE SPEECH to censor the TRUTH, subvert accountability, control populations | Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, (UN) just released the globalist’s latest game-plan for population control, surveillance and censorship. The game-plan, titled Global Principles for Information Integrity, seeks to put an end to “harmful misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech” online, all while “upholding human rights such as the freedom of speech.” ■ Guterres presented the game-plan with a sense of urgency, commanding governments, technology companies, the media and advertisers to take control and establish official narratives, while quashing opposition voices. The UN supports Big Tech’s algorithmic control over the information stream online and seeks to control online speech further. A global body of elites seek to delete what they believe is the disinformation, and they seek to discredit and demonetize the voices of dissent. All the censorship coming from global power systems is war on free speech, but it’s also a war on truth, so that these power systems cannot be held to account for their abuses.

Jonathan Cook | Western governments, politicians, the judiciary, and the media all failed Assange. Or rather, they did what they are actually there to do: keep the rabble – that is, you and me – from knowing what they are really up to. | [The media's] job is to build narratives suggesting that they know best, that we must trust them, that their crimes, such as those they are supporting right now in Gaza, are actually not what they look like, but are, in fact, efforts in very difficult circumstances to uphold the moral order, to protect civilisation. For this reason, there is a special need to identify the critical role played by the media in keeping Assange locked up for so long. The truth is, with a properly adversarial media playing the role it declares for itself, as a watchdog on power, Assange could never have been disappeared for so long. He would have been freed years ago. It was the media that kept him behind bars.

A requirement as part of the plea deal is that WikiLeaks remove any unpublished material on the US that they or their affiliates hold. | Australian journalists are being asked by WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange's wife, Stella, to file freedom of information (FOI) requests with the US government to obtain details on its criminal case against him - as his plea deal prohibits him from doing so. In a statement released on Julian Assange's first full day back in Australia, his wife and legal team thanked legislators, the prime minister, and supporters locally and globally whose 14-year effort led to his release. [...] A requirement as part of the plea deal is that WikiLeaks remove any unpublished material on the US that they or their affiliates held. According to Assange's US attorney Barry Pollack, WikiLeaks' published material was over ten years old, and he was unsure whether they still had unpublished records but noted that Assange fulfilled his obligations.

■ COERCED INTO A FELONY...FOR EXPOSING ATROCIOUS U.S. MILITARY-PERPETRATED WAR CRIMES (SOTN)

The television channel showed the general leaving the building of the General Staff escorted by police | Bolivian General Juan Jose Zuniga, who led an attempted coup, has been detained, Bolivia TV reported. The television channel showed the general leaving the building of the General Staff escorted by police. Before getting inside the police car, the general tries to share his vision of the situation with journalists. According to the general, he spoke with President Luis Arce on June 23 and the head of state asked to help him boost his popularity.

■ Bolivia's Interior Minister Presents Detained General Zuñiga to Media (Sputnik)
■ ‘Attempted coup’ reported in Bolivia (VIDEOS) (RT.com)
■ What is known about coup attempt in Bolivia (TASS)

■ Mike Yeadon, PhD on this blog
■ Silver Bullet (Dr. Mike Yeadon )(Substack)(VIDEO)

⚡️Julian Assange reunites with his wife and father in Canberra pic.twitter.com/Y41hQ0377J

— RT (@RT_com) June 26, 2024

Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a free man after taking plea deal in a US court. | A US judge has sentenced WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to time served, with no supervised release, following his guilty plea to a charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information related to the national defense of the United States. Assange has been imprisoned in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019 after British police were allowed to raid the Ecuadorian Embassy where he had secured asylum since 2012. [...] The United States has sought to put Assange on trial for publishing US military secrets and evidence of war crimes in the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is accused of publishing some 700,000 confidential documents relating to US military and diplomatic activities, starting in 2010.

■ All 20,000 Leaked Democrat National Committee Emails DELETED form Wikileaks Server; Part of Assange Plea Deal
■ Assange freed as part of plea deal: As it happened (RT.com)
■ US Federal Judge Accepts Assange's Plea Deal, Declares Him 'A Free Man' - Reports (Sputnik News)
■ ⚡ Assange released from a British prison and left Britain on plane (06/25/24)
■ America's Dark Day (Scott Ritter)
■ Pursuit of Assange Shows ‘Every Citizen on the Planet’ Subject to US Persecution (John Miles)
■ Journalism under fire: Jailed for exposing Jordan (The Cradle)

The continent has “lost its soul,” Karin Kneissl has argued | Freedom of speech and other key liberties have disappeared in Europe and will not return any time soon, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl has said during a panel organized by RT as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

💬 Europe was previously “a dreamland” for people in other parts of the world due to its “constitutionalism, freedom, equality of women and men, security and welfare state,” Kneissl said during the discussion on Friday. “Well, sorry to say, but all that is gone… what Europe was is gone, and I deplore it,” she stated. According to the former diplomat, who was in charge of Austria’s Foreign Ministry between 2017 and 2019, the continent “has lost its soul… it has sold its soul.”

RT hosted a discussion titled ‘The Empire of Evil: Has the West Successfully Demonized Russia?’ as part of the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The event featured several high-profile speakers, including former UN Special Commission weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was prevented by the US authorities from coming to Russia to participate in the forum, as well as Tara Reade – a former aide to Joe Biden – and the great nephew of Otto von Bismarck, Alexander von Bismarck.

"I was taken off flight from New York to Istanbul," Scott Ritter said | Former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has told TASS that he was not let board a flight from New York to Istanbul, a stopover on his way to Russia to take part in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. 💬 "I was taken off flight from New York to Istanbul. They took my passport and taken my bags off the flight," he said. He also said that no explanations were given to him. The police, in his words, said only that it was done at the order from the Department of State. ● The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is set to take place on June 5-8. This year’s event is themed "The Foundations of a Multipolar World - The Formation of New Areas of Growth." The forum is organized by the Roscongress Foundation. TASS is the forum’s information partner.

■ ‘It was about sticking it to the Russians’ – Scott Ritter on US seizure of his passport (RT.com)
■ US seizes Scott Ritter’s passport; Also Removes Former NJ Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano (Hal Turner)
■ US State Department Forced Scott Ritter Off Plane to Russia, Confiscated His Passport (Sputnik News)

Journalists may be detained by Europol | Anna Neistat, the legal director of the Clooney Foundation's Docket Project, says that the criminal code of some European countries has an article on "spreading war propaganda." The foundation is preparing requests to initiate proceedings in countries where such norms exist. ● If an arrest warrant is issued, journalists will be detained throughout Europe by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol). Read that again: Journalists will be detained by Europol. ● In addition: the names of journalists to be prosecuted are not disclosed, so a person may travel to said European country, unaware that there is an arrest warrant out for them. The foundation says they are "the most obvious Russian propagandists, the most prominent among them" but will not name who.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has admitted that the Covid pandemic was a globalist hoax that sought to eliminate cash and force the public to accept central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and digital IDs. | Interestingly, globalists have revealed that the coming single digital currency will have two tiers. There will be one CBDC system for the general public to use and another that only global elites, corporations, and politicians will be able to access. [...] Central Bank of Bahrain governor Khalid Humaidan discussed plans for eliminating physical cash while speaking at the WEF’s “Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy Development” on Sunday. During a panel discussion, titled “Open Forum: The Digital Currencies’ Opportunity in the Middle East,” Humaidan told WEF elites that the goal of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is to replace cash with “100% digital” payments. He revealed that the pandemic was part of the plan to rapidly advance that goal.

The witch hunt takes place against a background of historical structural disadvantage facing Muslims in the Civil Service. | The British government's assault on all things Muslim carries on apace. No sooner had the toxic minister Michael Gove smeared five specific Muslim groups as potentially extremist than he widened the attack by turning on Muslims working in the civil service. ● Echoing the shift in policy from individual extremism to targeting Muslim institutions, the Civil Service Muslim Network was in the crosshairs. ● The Times reported that meetings held under the auspices of the network 'featured numerous antisemitic tropes.' The only alleged trope the Times was able to identify was “one official involved in the webinars allegedly told staff that the ‘Israel lobby’ had an ‘insidious influence’ on British politics, widely regarded as a common antisemitic trope.” ● The Times also reported that the official also shared anecdotes from a lecture given by Lowkey, a controversial anti-Zionist rapper, claiming Western media were covering up US and UK involvement in the war against Hamas… The same official claimed mainstream media were “biased” and “full of lies” None of this is anti-Semitic or even inaccurate.

■ Renowned British-Palestinian surgeon denied entry into France (Al Mayadeen)

Hunter Fielding | The unelected United Nations (UN) is planning to declare a “planetary emergency” that would allow globalists to seize control of sovereign countries. | The UN is scheduled to meet in September for the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, as well as the highly-anticipated “Summit of the Future” where nations will sign the so-called “Pact for the Future.” The Pact is expected to call for declaring a “planetary emergency.” ■ What do this agreement and its policies mean for the future of individual and national sovereignty? By the end of September, the United Nations member states may vote to radically alter the UN itself, what some are calling UN 2.0, and the very nature of how nation-states make decisions regarding the future of the planet. The organization is expected to push to establish itself as an unelected single-world government with authority over individual governments.