This morning, the Supreme Court rejected former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s appeal to bring back his civil rights claim against the former president.

Cohen alleged former President Donald Trump, former Attorney General William Barr and other federal officials put him back in prison as retaliation for promoting a book critical of Trump.

“[A]s it stands, this case represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence,” Cohen’s petition states.

As Sam Dorman reports for The Epoch Times, Cohen had argued that two lower courts wrongly dismissed a claim that former President Donald Trump violated his rights by ending his prison furlough during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Cohen’s petition, he had objected to a federal form that probation officers asked him to sign, which prohibited him from engaging with the media, including posting on social media.

At the time, he was writing a book critical of the former president.

Cohen’s attorney, Jon-Michael Dougherty, said the ruling “signals a dangerous moment in American democracy,” and raises questions about free-speech rights.

Both Trump and the Justice Department filed briefs opposing Cohen’s petition.

Cohen had attempted to claim a private right of action under the Supreme Court’s 1971 precedent in Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents.

While that case upheld a cause of action related to unlawful search and seizures, Cohen asked the Supreme Court to consider whether it should apply to his circumstances.

He alleged that he faced “retaliation for his refusal to waive his right to free speech.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar similarly raised concerns about separation of powers and argued that Cohen could have pursued alternative remedies such as the Bureau of Prisons’ Administrative Remedy Program.

Trump told the court that Cohen’s attempt to expand the precedent under Bivens would disrupt the constitution’s separation of powers. He added that the doctrine of presidential immunity presented an “insurmountable obstacle” to Cohen’s claim.

Trump attorney Alina Habba said the Supreme Court had correctly denied Cohen’s petition, and “he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The FBI and a federal agency dedicated to cybersecurity issued a warning on Oct. 18 about efforts by foreign actors trying to “spread disinformation” regarding the upcoming Nov. 5 election—with just over two weeks ago before the contest.

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said they have “no information suggesting cyber activity against U.S. election infrastructure” that has “compromised the integrity of voter registration information, prevented an eligible voter from casting a ballot, impacted the integrity of any ballots cast, or disrupted the ability to count votes or transmit unofficial election results in a timely manner.”

But the two agencies said that foreign adversaries still might promote “false or misleading narratives” to sway the election or to undermine American confidence in its election systems and processes.

Specifically, the two agencies warned of election-related content produced by artificial intelligence (AI) that has lowered the guardrails for malicious or foreign actors to create more advanced schemes to influence the election.

“We are seeing foreign actors use these tools to develop and distribute more compelling synthetic media messaging campaigns and inauthentic news articles, as well as synthetic pictures and deepfakes (video and audio) at greater speed and scale across numerous U.S.- and foreign-based platforms,” their joint bulletin said.

“These efforts to develop content are designed to undermine voter confidence and to entice unwitting consumers of the information to discuss, share, and amplify the spread of false or misleading narratives.”

In one example of AI-aided content produced by foreign actors ahead of the election, the agency said that Russian groups have “created and deliberately designed” web pages “to look like legitimate mainstream news websites” such as The Washington Post or Fox News.

“Russian malign influence actors also created fake social media profiles posing as U.S. citizens to direct users to these fake news websites and purchased social media advertisements to drive traffic to the specific fake articles on the fake news site,” the two agencies cautioned.

The PSA highlights specific examples of tactics we have seen used by Russia and Iran during the 2024 election cycle to target all Americans. These include things from mimicking national level media outlets like The Washington Post and Fox News and creating inauthentic news sites posing as legitimate media organizations to using paid influencers to hide their hand.

In late September, three Iranian government employees were charged and identified by the Department of Justice for a wide-ranging hacking conspiracy that targeted both current and former U.S. officials as well as political campaigns.

The bulletin was referring to an indictment that was returned last month that accused Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi of trying to hack the campaign of a presidential candidate, without providing names. But in a news conference last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that they were targeting the campaign of former President Donald Trump.

Iran-backed hackers who breached the Trump campaign in June and July sent emails with hacked campaign materials to people associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign as well as various media outlets, said the FBI, CISA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last month.

But the agencies said that the the campaign of Biden, who suspended his presidential bid in late July, was not interested in the hacked materials. There is also no evidence the Biden campaign even responded to the emails, which were described by the intelligence and cybersecurity agencies as unsolicited.

“It is important for voters to critically evaluate information sources, particularly as disinformation campaigns evolve to use AI-generated content,” both CISA and the FBI said in a news release accompanying the bulletin. “Both agencies urge the American public to rely on trusted information from state and local election officials and to verify claims through multiple reliable sources before sharing them on social media or other platforms.”

Authored by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer via Americvan Greatness,

Vice President Kamala Harris’s disastrous performance in her interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier was notable for two reasons.

• First, to the degree that there was any discussion of foreign national security threats to America, Harris only mentioned Iran. She failed to mention the disastrous war in Ukraine, where more than a million are dead, and the threat of nuclear war exists. Harris failed to reconcile her administration’s billions in dollars of military and civilian aid to Ukraine and policy actions against Russia for the most significant military threat in Europe since the end of World War Two. Worse though was her failure to make any reference to the existential threat from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

• Second, her performance in response to salient questions—ones that had the chance to inform American voters—was an amalgamation of incoherence, anger, and deception that revealed a candidate who is uniquely unsuited to be president of the United States. The fact that she is the Democratic candidate and might become president is alarming to America’s friends, as it is welcomed by America’s enemies.

In the interview, she had the opportunity to discuss her analysis of threats to America. While Iran is certainly a regional danger and a threat to the U.S. and its allies in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, it pales in comparison to the existential threat of the CCP. Indeed, Iran and Russia would be far less of a concern if the CCP were not given a free hand to back these aggressor nations. That the PRC is a grave and fundamental threat is revealed by its hyper-aggressive policies against the American people, U.S. allies like Japan and the Philippines, and partners like India and Taiwan.

An example of the CCP’s threatening military posture was put on display when Exercise Joint Sword 2024B launched on October 14, in which People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces encircled Taiwan to coerce its new leader, President Lai Ching-te, into a posture of subservience to the PRC. Thus far, those coercive attempts have failed. But Joint Sword 2024B revealed three aspects of the growing PRC threat. First, it showed the increasing capabilities of the PRC. Second, it demonstrated the ever-increasing penetrations of Taiwanese air and seaspace in an effort to normalize those violations and mask the actual invasion when it comes. Third, the first participation of the Chinese Coast Guard in the encirclement of Taiwan occurred.

• First, with respect to the increased capabilities of the PLA Navy, it should be noted that their first aircraft carrier, Chinese Navy Ship (CNS) Liaoning/CV-16, conducted 90 fixed-wing take-offs and recoveries and 50 more from their embarked helicopters during their operations in the exercise. That is 140 sorties from a PLA Navy aircraft carrier in just one day. By any measure, the PLA Navy’s carrier aviation capabilities are now approaching U.S. Navy aircraft carrier air wing levels in terms of the number of sorties. It is the case that PLAN aircraft have a more limited range and weapons capacity than their U.S. Navy counterparts, due to the Liaoning’s ski-ramp launch, but the fact remains that within just two years, the Liaoning has gone from launching an average of just 30 sorties a day in 2022 to a 140 today. That is a real strategic trendline that presidential candidate Harris demonstrated no awareness or strategy to counter.

• Second, regarding PLA incursions into Taiwan’s air and seaspace, exercise Joint Sword 2024B provides another inflection point in the PRC’s dramatic transformation of the military status quo in the cross-strait environment. During the exercise, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported that it detected a total of 153 PLA aircraft, 14 PLAN ships, and 12 Coast Guard ships operating around Taiwan and that 111 of those aircraft crossed the centerline of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zones from the west, southwest, and east. To put that into perspective, from 1954 to 2020, PLA aircraft only crossed the centerline four times. This pattern of PLA air force incursions across the centerline began in earnest in 2022 when the PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the PRC no longer recognized the centerline—a clear violation of the previous agreements between Beijing, Taipei, and Washington to not forcibly alter the status quo. Yet since then, and now with exercise Joint Sword 2024B, the Biden-Harris administration has made no mention of this hyper-aggressive behavior by Beijing or taken any actions to rectify it.

• Third, the Joint Sword 2024B exercise was unique in that it demonstrated the use of non-PLA ships from the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) in this PLA-led exercise. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense reported up to 17 CCGs were detected operating in the waters off Taiwan, or as the PRC’s Global Times noted, the “CCG conducted multi-unit, multi-formation, and multi-subject drills around the island of Taiwan, focusing on strengthening the control network around the island.” The implications of these unprecedented actions by the CCG are to demonstrate that the CCP’s strategy to bring Taiwan under its control, either by blockade or an outright invasion, will use the entirety of the PRC’s assets—a whole of government effort. These facts at sea demonstrate that the PRC’s 2019 declaration of a “People’s War” against the United States is not just propaganda but is advancing in tangible ways.

Americans need to understand the scope and scale of the CCP’s grand strategy as evidenced by the PLA Navy and the CCG’s demonstrated actions during exercise Joint Sword 2024B. The evidence is undeniable: the CCP intends for the PRC to become the dominant naval force, not just in Asia but across the globe.

This reality comes against the backdrop of a Biden-Harris administration that keeps downsizing the size and capabilities of the U.S. Navy.

So, when Bret Baier asks candidate Harris what America’s number one foreign adversary is and there is no mention of the PRC, Americans know this candidate is not competent to assume the office of the Presidency. Americans need to pay attention because U.S. national security is on a knife’s edge—to the U.S., the CCP is a hyper-aggressive regime that is determined to realize its grand strategic objective of dominance. Yet Harris displays no strategic gravitas. She evinces no evidence of the seriousness of the situation or of an understanding that deterrence of the CCP’s hyper-aggression is on her shoulders—let alone having a plan to address this threat.

Deterrence of the CCP is everything. If it fails, this country will be at war with the PRC. Harris appears oblivious to the demands and requirements of deterrence. Accordingly, before the PRC blockades or invades Taiwan or launches an attack against the Philippines in the South China Sea, Americans must have a president sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office who has the knowledge, experience, and courage to prepare our nation for the demands of deterrence of the CCP’s aggression. It must have a president who signals in stark and no uncertain terms to the CCP that their aggression is certain to fail—and so they had better not try it in the first place. A president who not only can talk tough but has the wherewithal to rebuild the U.S. deterrent. The catechism of deterrence is straightforward: weakness invites aggression; strength deters it. Americans must elect a president who understands this catechism and so defends our nation from all threats—most especially from the existential threat of the PRC.

Via Common Dreams

“We have not observed indications that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon.” That sentence is the concluding line from an allegedly leaked (or hacked) U.S. intelligence document posted online this week and later reported on by Axios, CNN, and other outlets.

As Axios reported on Saturday, “U.S. officials are extremely concerned about a potentially major security breach after two alleged U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran were published by a Telegram account affiliated with Iran.”

The Associated Press and independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein both cited government sources who said the documents appeared to be authentic. While U.S. officials have yet to comment publicly on the material, reporting confirmed an investigation into their authenticity and how they came to be in the public domain was underway.

Since a barrage of missile strikes aimed at military targets in Israel by Iran on Oct 1, a retaliatory strike in response to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other attacks, the world has been waiting for Israel’s promised military response.

Assuming the documents are authentic, what they show is that U.S. intelligence—as is well known and despite being close allies—keeps a close and clandestine eye on Israeli military operations.

CNN cited an unnamed U.S. official who called the documents being made public “deeply concerning,” though the outlet did not publish the documents in full. The documents, according to CNN,

are marked top secret and have markings indicating they are meant to be seen only by the US and its “Five Eyes” allies — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

They describe preparations Israel appears to be making for a strike against Iran. One of the documents, which says it was compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says the plans involve Israel moving munitions around.

Another document says it is sourced to the National Security Agency and outlines Israeli air force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles, also believed to be in preparation for a strike on Iran. CNN is not quoting directly from or showing the documents.

NEW: A set of classified U.S. intelligence documents purporting to show information about Israel’s plans to strike in Iran have been confirmed as authentic in a report by CNN (https://t.co/8AVOexA1Y8).

Drop Site News has also been reviewing these documents since they were posted… pic.twitter.com/VKOEq9qcbo

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) October 19, 2024

It has long been known that Israel has a nuclear weapons program and maintains a nuclear arsenal, but it remains both Israeli and U.S. government policy never to acknowledge or confirm the existence of either. In one of the documents, the U.S. specifically references Israel’s ability to deploy a nuclear weapon, though it categorizes the threat of doing so in this case as low.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, recently banned from X for posting an internal opposition research dossier that the Trump campaign had compiled on JD Vance, posted images of both documents to his substack page, as he excoriated major outlets for refusing to do.

“As with the J.D. Vance Dossier, which the entire media knew about but refused to publish, it appears the media has once again lost its nerve – and its sense of what’s news,” Klippenstein wrote.

According to Klippenstein’s assessment:

The intelligence report includes a rundown of the various aspects of Israeli military activities that the U.S. is monitoring to inform its judgments and conclusions: weapons handling, air defense, ground forces, Navy, Air, Special Forces, and even Israel’s Nuclear Forces. But even then, only the weapons handling and special forces categories are identified as having a “medium” predictive ability in regards to determining Israel’s action; the rest are designated “low” predictive ability.

The second intelligence report is titled “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran and Conducts a Second Large-Force Employment Exercise.” The document details Israeli activities during an evident “mission rehearsal” (in U.S. lingo) that could be indicative of how Israel will strike Iran. Citing imagery analysis and other sources, the NGA report notes that the Israeli Air Force is already conducting covert drone operations over Iran (evidently doing its own spying), and how, as part of Israeli Air Force activity, has been handling air-launched ballistic missiles and other weapons.

From the leaked US intel documents: “we did not observe any Jericho II medium-range ballistic missiles … we have not observed any indications that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon”. Notice the NF – no foreigners – marking for that paragraph. https://t.co/Bkfq9KtWew pic.twitter.com/YE9IFKN301

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) October 20, 2024

Defending release of the full documents, he explained that both provide “insight of enormous public interest as we stand at the precipice of a broader conflict” and contained “information that directly bears upon U.S. obligations and actions. It is for that reason that I’ve decided to publish the basic documents.”

It’s a disturbing trend that has been spreading over the past few years:  Gay and Trans couples buying off surrogate mothers to have babies for them, then taking those babies and using them as fashion accessories for social media clout.  The trend includes bizarre newborn baby photo ops in which the couples (usually gay or trans men) pose in a hospital bed with the baby as if they just gave birth to it. 

While legal in many countries, the practice has some unsettling implications in terms of cultural respect for motherhood, the future life stability of children being used as props, and the normalization of gender identity mental illness.

Transgender man lies in a hospital bed as his newborn baby is handed to him after he paid a surrogate to have a baby for him.

Do you agree or disagree with surrogacy?

pic.twitter.com/B3c8L2noOM

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 8, 2024

Transgender man feeds newborn surrogate baby with milk bottle during a TikTok live stream.

The man used the baby to promote his hair products:

“You can go order some shampoo and conditioner and that’s the best gift of all.”

🎥 @SarahisCensored

pic.twitter.com/McDZiUKqu3

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 10, 2024

The Italian government under Georgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, has closed the overseas loophole in the LGBT baby market.  It is one of the first governments to finally address and block the practice of IVF for surrogacy (in place since 2004), and they have now extended that ban to include the recruitment of surrogate mothers outside of the country.  In other words, it’s a complete ban on surrogate pregnancies.  Those who break the law face fines of up to $1 million and 2 years in prison.

Critics are calling the law a “monstrous attack” on the LGBT community and their ability to have a family.  Keep in mind, the law applies to all Italians, not just those that identify as gay or trans.  However, it is likely that the restrictions were specifically designed to stop the explosion of the LGBT baby trade and trans surrogacy.  Meloni has has described herself as a Christian mother and believes children should only be raised by a man and a woman.

Because the practice of surrogacy for gay male couples in particular has been limited until recently, there is scant data on the effects of the practice on children as they grow up.  There are multiple scientific studies that do show that children in gay households fare worse as they grow up than those in homes with a traditional mother and father. 

These problems include whether a child had grown up to need public assistance like welfare, were more likely to have anxiety or depression, were more likely to be abused, or were more apt engage in unhealthy habits such as having more sexual partners, smoking or using drugs.

Whenever such unbiased and non-political studies are released, they are immediately attacked by gay activist groups for “bigotry”.  Today, it is unlikely that these kinds of studies will ever be funded, let alone released to the public.  The science on the social effects of the gay and trans lifestyle is fully suppressed in the 2020s. 

Common arguments against the surrogacy ban include claims that surrogacy is necessary in order to counter Italy’s population decline.  But leftist organizations exploit the western population drop as a rationale for many of their agendas, including their mass immigration agenda. It’s not enough for a society to simply have more babies, they need stable homes for those babies where the children are not merely there to satisfy the narcissism of LGBT activists.  

Italy, it seems, has decided to err on the side of caution.