Category: Ledger of Lies

I’m going to write about mifepristone and the legal troubles around it, and I will probably regret doing so. That’s partly because the situation is changing – this dispute is now before the US supreme court, and for better or worse, they will have the last word. But as of this writing, that last word hasn’t been handed down, and it’s unclear when it will be (although it should be soon). Another reason to regret taking up the topic is…

Defendants Are New York City Residents Who Allegedly Operated the Police Station in Lower Manhattan and Destroyed Evidence When Confronted by the FBI A complaint was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging two defendants in connection with opening and operating an illegal overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, New York, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx,…

  Ah, remember Parler? They were the first of the “alternative” social media companies targeting the Trumpist crowd, in which I pointed out that their whole “we don’t moderate” schtick wasn’t going to work. The company speed ran the content moderation learning curve faster than most. But even from the beginning, the Trumpists who joined admitted it was just no fun when they couldn’t whine about how victimized they were. Anyway, the site is dead now. You may recall there…

Canada’s public broadcaster CBC and its French-language version Radio-Canada said Monday they were effectively quitting Twitter over a new “government-funded” label it says questions its editorial independence.

The exit follows that of National Public Radio in the United States over the same tag, which had also been applied to the BBC before the British broadcaster successfully petitioned to have it changed to “publicly-funded.”

It doesn’t look like Fox News is going to get away with badmouthing Dominion Voting Systems for weeks following Donald Trump’s unsurprising loss in the 2020 election. Evidence already handed over to Dominion in its libel lawsuit shows many Fox News executives — as well as anchors and commentators — were aware the claims were false but chose to give them airtime anyway.   That led to the recent decision in a Delaware state court where the judge made two…

On Thursday, April 13 at 19:30 GMT: Colombia topped the list for human rights defenders killed in 2022, according to the latest report from the rights group Front Line Defenders.

Western media seems to be actively trying to create an “information tsunami” about the topic, according to Pushilin, who suggested it could mean the leaks may have been deliberate.

“Who knows, this could be the preparation of the global community for a possible reduction in support for Ukraine on the eve of the highly publicized counteroffensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Pushilin wrote. He also said, however, that regardless of the content of the leaked documents or the true intentions of the West, Russia’s task is to continue working and not respond to provocations.

A senior South Korean security official said on Tuesday that information contained in purportedly leaked US confidential documents that appeared to be based on internal discussions among top South Korean officials is “untrue” and “altered.”

Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo made the remark as he departed for Washington ahead of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s state visit to the U.S. on April 26, stressing that the two countries’ alliance remained strong. Several documents have recently been posted on social media offering a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, including one that gives details of internal discussions among South Korean officials about US pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Ukraine.

“The two countries have a same assessment that much of the information disclosed is altered,” Kim told reporters, adding that the report on South Korea is “untrue.” He did not elaborate which part of the document was untrue.

Germans appear to be particularly susceptible to what Bild described as Moscow’s “propaganda,” the newspaper said, adding that experts in the West are “alarmed” over this development. The tabloid then blamed this tendency on the “historically friendly relations” between the two nations, as well as the “legacy” of East Germany, which was once a part of the “socialist camp” and “a large number of Russian-speaking people” living in Germany nowadays. The paper then admitted that pro-Russian views have been spreading both among native Germans and the Russian-speaking part of the population.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the possible release of Pentagon documents that were posted on several social media sites and appear to detail U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine, but may have been altered or used as part of a misinformation campaign. The documents, which were posted on sites such as Twitter, are labeled secret and resemble routine updates that the U.S. military’s Joint Staff would produce daily but not distribute publicly. They are…

  MOSCOW (AP) — Jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been charged with espionage in Russia and has entered his official denial, Russian state news agency Tass reported Friday. Tass said a law enforcement source informed the news agency that Russia’s Federal Security Service officially charged the American journalist with espionage. Tass did not specify if the action was taken during a court hearing. In the Russian legal system, the filing of charges means the formal start of…

The Committee has learned that while Mr. Taibbi was describing his findings of government abuse and civil liberties violations, an IRS revenue officer appeared at Mr. Taibbi’s personal residence in New Jersey — leaving a note for Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. When Mr. Taibbi called the IRS, the IRS informed him that the reason for the visit was because his electronic 2018 and 2021 tax return filings had been rejected due to concerns of identity theft.

According to Mr. Taibbi, the IRS notified his accountant that the IRS had accepted his 2018 filing, and in the four-and-a-half years since then, the IRS has never notified Mr. Taibbi or his accountant of any issue with this return — until the day he was testifying before Congress. With respect to his 2021 return, the IRS rejected Mr. Taibbi’s electronic filing twice, even after his accountant filed with an IRS-provided pin number. In both cases, the IRS informed Mr. Taibbi after the agency visited his home that the problems were not “monetary”; in fact, the IRS apparently owed Mr. Taibbi a “considerable” tax return.

(Reuters) -A Johnson & Johnson company cannot delay a court order dismissing its bankruptcy, a U.S. court said on Friday, despite the company’s planned Supreme Court appeal to use bankruptcy to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits over its talc products. J&J sought to use the bankruptcy of its subsidiary company, LTL Management, to halt more than 38,000 lawsuits alleging the company’s Baby Powder and other talc products are contaminated with asbestos. J&J maintains its consumer talc products are safe…

“Two weeks we fought with Facebook to restore the suspended page of RT Arabic, with 17 million subscribers,” Manna said on her Telegram channel. “We tried to get an explanation of what triggered the shutdown, because we never got any strikes or comments.” After several awkward non-explanations, Facebook’s customer service “simply wished us luck, closed our case, and turned over the URL to another user,” Manna wrote. “Internet democracy in all its glory!” Facebook blocked the page on March 15, without any explanation or advance warning. Attempts to access the page resulted in the message, “this content isn’t available right now.”

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the security services routinely torment domestic reporters who dare to expose the truth and now it has extended to the foreign press, arresting Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranks the country 155th of 180 nations, declaring that “the government has taken complete control of news and information by establishing extensive wartime censorship, blocking the media, and pursuing non-compliant journalists, forcing many of them into exile.” The Committee to…