Hillary already had her turn. Bill should have gone first because she told some whoppers and she’s now putting him on the hot-seat. I wish I didn’t have to write the update right now, because there are bound to be some bombshells.

There’s panic at CNN. They’re losing money hand over fist, and something has to change. All that we see is that Trump is tanking in the polls. But CNN is in trouble. There are insider reports that everybody’s scared to death of being let go. They should have thought of that.

Trump’s State of the Union speech was epic. All the mainstream are panning it, claiming he made misstatements, which is a nice way of saying he lied. We’re going to find out who lied.

Ilhan Omar may have to find a way to enjoy her millions in Somalia. Trump called out Somalia, saying it’s a free for all. They have nothing but dirt and skinny cows.

Everyone’s sitting light on the Epstein matter. Maybe we’ll find out who paid for his murder, maybe not. But now it’s come out that he has storage units all over the U. S., and if that’s true we’re going to find out what, and who. If we can stand it. I’m not sure I want to know the details. In fact I’m sure I don’t. But these guys who thought they’d be untouchable aren’t. There’s news that Trump might be implicated, but you have to consider the source.

I’ve been informed that Pakistan and Afghanistan have declared war. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference in the way they believe, so… Pardon me, but I’ve been to Israel and to say that the Arabs are unreasonable would be an understatement. I don’t know who to root for.

The war in Ukraine is ongoing. The statistics on the killing are chilling, and I don’t know where to go after that. Hope they figure something out. If there’s a war, I’d rather it be in the Middle East. Maybe you’ve understood that I don’t like or trust Zelensky. He was a comedian, still is. In combat garb. The idea of him standing up to Trump is one I can’t abide. Somebody better get good sense, and quick.

Mark

P. S. We’ve mailed the monthly letter, so you should get that soon. Things are moving so fast that it may be old news. I hope not. At least it’ll be accurate, which is something you can’t say about the news.

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – February 27, 2026 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Bill and Hillary Clinton refuse to testify in House Epstein probe, could be held in contempt first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Russia has imposed “retaliatory sanctions” against President Biden, a number of his top administration officials, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden’s son Hunter Biden amid its ongoing war with Ukraine.

According to Russian state-owned news agency Tass, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday imposed “personal sanctions against representatives of the U.S. leadership and persons associated with them.”

RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

The sanctions, according to the report, were imposed “in response to a series of unprecedented sanctions prohibiting, among other things, entry into the United States for top officials of the Russian Federation.”

The report said that as of March 15, Biden and the other individuals listed would be included on a Russian “stop list” on the “basis of reciprocity departments and well-known American figures.”

The individuals included on the list are President Biden, Hunter Biden, Clinton, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, CIA Director William Burns, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, deputy assistant national security adviser Duleep Singh, Director of the Agency for International Development Samantha Power, Deputy Treasury Secretary Adewale Adeyemo and president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank Reta Joe Lewis.

EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS PLAN VISIT TO UKRAINE’S CAPITAL AS RUSSIAN WAR ENTERS THIRD WEEK

When asked about the sanctions during the White House briefing Tuesday, Psaki quipped: “I would first note that president Biden is a junior, so they may have sanctioned his dad. May he rest in peace.”

“The second piece, I would say, is that won’t surprise any of you, that none of us are planning tourist trips to Russia,” Psaki said. “None of us have bank accounts that we won’t be able to access.”

She added: “So we will forge ahead.”

Clinton also reacted to the sanctions on Twitter.

“I want to thank the Russian Academy for this Lifetime Achievement Award,” Clinton tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russia-sanctions-biden-officials

The post Russia announces sanctions against Biden and top US officials first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

FAST FACTS
—Residents of Mariupol, Ukraine, have reportedly contacted a human rights organization with complaints that Russian forces have occupied an intensive care hospital.

—Three European leaders are expected to travel to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Tuesday before a 35-hour curfew for civilians takes effect as Russian forces advance and the city is under sustained shelling.

—The United Nations says nearly 3 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that sanctions it’s imposing on President Biden and other top U.S. officials are “the inevitable consequence of the extremely Russophobic course taken by the current U.S. Administration.”

“In response to a series of unprecedented sanctions prohibiting, among other things, entry into the United States for top officials of the Russian Federation… the Russian ‘stop list’ includes on the basis of reciprocity President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Defense Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, as well as a number of departmental heads and well-known American figures,” it said in a statement.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton are also among those Russia says it is sanctioning.

“This step, taken as a counter reaction, was the inevitable consequence of the extremely Russophobic course taken by the current U.S. Administration, which, in a desperate attempt to maintain American hegemony, has staked, discarding all decency, on the frontal containment of Russia,” it added.

Source:  https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/ukraine-russia-live-updates-03-15-2022

The post Biden to travel to Europe next week for NATO summit on war in Ukraine first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

We’re placed on edge by the minute.  There’s about to be a WAR!  Putin has determined to invade Ukraine last Wednesday and the U. S. is talking mighty tough.  There will be sanctions like they’ve never seen.  We’ll bulk up military readiness in the surrounding NATO countries and send more ammo to the Ukrainians.  Most of all we’ll think of nothing else.  Especially not that little criminal court filing that confirms spying against the former President.

That’s just a distraction, we’re told.  The REAL problem is…

There’s a war of information going on at a very critical time in world events.  Everybody demands the final say on what is and isn’t true.  The government and the media are speaking with one voice, no matter what the subject.  Many of us have seen what they’ve been saying and doing for several years now, and have lost trust, if not interest.

Now there’s one incident after another of shelling in Eastern Ukraine, with the culprit in dispute.  Maybe there will be some battles, if not a war, after all.  Or maybe Vladimir has a point.  He doesn’t want missiles within no more than several minutes from the Russian Capitol.  Think Cuban missile crisis.  The media says little if anything about it.

Special Prosecutor Durham has made criminal court indictments against Clinton campaign lawyers which confirm hacking, spying and possibly the planting of false evidence in order to get a big investigation started, which took hold of nearly every three letter agency and led to “serious concerns” on the part of every media outlet.  Crooked says it’s a “distraction.”

Let’s get visceral about the mandates and the lock downs and demand the government “do more” to make sure there is universal compliance.  Just as the illness burns itself out, we have to come down on one side or the other of government authority.

It’s probably wrong of us to notice, but have you ever seen so many fall over unconscious while expressing how great they feel about complying?  Somebody somewhere has to have a sense of humor.  When you see a stand-up funny lady bragging about how many times she’s been vaxed and boosted, and then say, “Jesus loves me more than anybody else,” just before banging her head on the floor and being rushed to the hospital, now that’s FUNNY!  But it’s not the only example.  I don’t know when we’ve seen so many sports competitors collapse on the field, news people keel over, sometimes while advocating for more stringent mandates.  It’s just a coincidence, mind you.

We’ve watched in disbelief the woke dictator of Canada get tough on naysayers.  It’s not going over very well.  He’s invoked emergency powers, and expects the police and the banks to play along,  and they just might.  But is this really about the virus anymore? There will be no defiance!  The government will destroy you!

Meanwhile, there’s been a destructive attack against a Canadian pipeline that wrecked trucks and buildings.  Haven’t heard?  Figures.

But here’s where the rubber meets the road.  A lady in Finland, a religious teacher, apparently asked whether it was a good idea for the government to be involved in a “gay pride” parade.  She included some Bible verses in her e-mail.  Now she faces up to two years in prison, because the verses she quoted are regarded as “hate speech” in Finland.  Notice, the verses she quoted are not being included in any of the reporting.  There’s a reason for that, and it’s surprising that they want to bring this thing to a head.  But now it’s on.  The Word of God strongly condemns homosexuality, both in the New Testament and the Old.  Political correctness wasn’t being practiced at the time of writing, and it’s highly likely that many will find the Biblical language unsettling, to say the least.

We don’t know which verse it might have been, but none are mistakable.  They are blatant.  The government in Finland regards it as “hate speech.”  That’s where we are.  The Word of God is hate-speech.  This case will reverberate around the world.  From what we’ve seen mainstream Christianity will probably agree, to their everlasting shame.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 18 February 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Trump on Tuesday said he has “fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents” related to the Russia investigation and the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!” The president tweeted Tuesday night.

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!

Paul Sperry@paulsperry_
When all the documents are finally declassified, and all the redactions removed from reports, the nation will see that the FBI and CIA not only knew the Russia “collusion” allegations against Trump were a political dirty trick, but that they were in on the trick.

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
“All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago,” Trump tweeted. “Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country.”

He added: “Act!!!”

Last year, the president gave Attorney General Bill Barr authority to declassify any documents related to surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016. Trump, at the time, also ordered members of the intelligence community to cooperate with Barr’s probe.

Allies of the president, including Republicans on Capitol Hill leading their own investigations into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, have criticized officials like FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel, claiming that the directors have been blocking the release of documents.

The president’s tweets come after Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified documents that revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s purported “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server” ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

DNI DECLASSIFIES BRENNAN NOTES, CIA MEMO ON HILLARY CLINTON ‘STIRRING UP’ SCANDAL BETWEEN TRUMP, RUSSIA

Fox News first reported that Ratcliffe declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes – which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received – and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to the FBI for potential investigative action.

“Today, at the direction of President Trump, I declassified additional documents relevant to ongoing Congressional oversight and investigative activities,” Ratcliffe said in a statement to Fox News Tuesday.

A source familiar with the documents explained that Brennan’s handwritten notes were taken after briefing Obama on the matter.

“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],” Brennan notes read. “CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service,” Brennan’s notes read.

The notes state “on 28 of July.” In the margin, Brennan writes “POTUS,” but that section of the notes is redacted.

“Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign + Russia,” the notes read.

The remainder of the notes are redacted, except in the margins, which reads: “JC,” “Denis,” and “Susan.”

The notes don’t spell out the full names but “JC” could be referring to then-FBI Director James Comey, “Susan” could refer to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and “Denis” could refer to then-Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough.

The declassification comes after Ratcliffe, last week, shared newly-declassified information with the Senate Judiciary Committee which revealed that in September 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral on Hillary Clinton purportedly approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” in order to distract the public from her email scandal.

That referral was sent to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.

“The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate,” the CIA memo to Comey and Strzok stated.

“This memorandum contains sensitive information that could be source revealing. It should be handled with particular attention to compartmentation and need-to-know. To avoid the possible compromise of the source, any investigative action taken in response to the information below should be coordinated in advance with Chief Counterintelligence Mission Center, Legal,” the memo, which was sent to Comey and Strzok, read. “It may not be used in any legal proceeding—including FISA applications—without prior approval…”

“Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,” the memo continued. ““An exchange [REDACTED] discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

The memo is heavily redacted.

Ratcliffe informed the committee last week that the Obama administration obtained Russian intelligence in July 2016 with allegations against Clinton, but cautioned that the intelligence community “does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the text to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”

According to Ratcliffe’s letter, the intelligence included the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”

Nick Merrill, Clinton’s spokesperson, called the allegations “baseless b———t” last week. A spokesman for Clinton did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment on the declassified documents.

But Ratcliffe, in a statement released after the information was made public, pushed back on the idea he was advancing “Russian disinformation.”

DURHAM ASSUMED PARTS OF HUBER’S CLINTON INVESTIGATION

“To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the Intelligence Community,” Ratcliffe said in a statement to Fox News. “I’ll be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days.”

A source familiar with the documents told Fox News on Tuesday that the allegation was “not disinformation.”  “This is not Russian disinformation. Even Brennan knew, or he wouldn’t be briefing the president of the United States on it,” the source said. “There is a high threshold to orally brief the president of the United States and he clearly felt this met that threshold.”

Another source familiar with the documents told Fox News that “this information has been sought by hundreds of congressional requests for legitimate oversight purposes and was withheld for political spite—and the belief that they’d never get caught.”

The source added that the Brennan notes are significant because it is “their own words, written and memorialized in real time.”

Meanwhile, last week, during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey was asked whether he received an investigative referral on Clinton from 2016, but he said it didn’t “ring any bells.”

“You don’t remember getting an investigatory lead from the intelligence community? Sept. 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to James Comey and Strzok regarding Clinton’s approval of a plan [about] Trump…as a means of distraction?” Graham asked Comey.

“That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey said.

Graham questioned “how far-fetched is that,” citing the fact that Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS and ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to author and compile information for the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS and ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to author and compile information for the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.

The dossier contains claims about alleged ties between Donald Trump and Russia that served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants obtained against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Attorney General Bill Barr last year appointed U.S. Attorney of Connecticut John Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe shortly after special counsel Robert Mueller completed his years-long investigation into whether the campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 presidential election.

It is unclear whether this information will be considered part of Durham’s investigation, or whether the president’s declassification will affect Durham’s investigation.

Last month, Fox News reported, though, that Durham had assumed aspects of U.S. Attorney John Huber’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

A source familiar with Durham’s investigation told Fox News last month that parts of what Huber was investigating in 2017 — involving the Clinton Foundation — have been incorporated in Durham’s investigation.

In November 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed Huber, the U.S. attorney for Utah, and other senior prosecutors to evaluate “certain issues” involving the sale of Uranium One, and other dealings related to the Clinton Foundation. Sessions tapped Huber after requests by congressional Republicans, who had been calling for the appointment of a special counsel to review the matters. Huber was also tasked with reviewing the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe, including allegations that the Justice Department and FBI “policies or procedures” were not followed.

It has been unclear, for years, the status of Huber’s investigation, but another source told Fox News Thursday that Huber has faced mounting criticism from the Justice Department and White House over his progress.

It is unclear whether any aspects of the Clinton email investigation were included in Huber’s review.

Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeSingman.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-authorizes-declassification-of-all-russia-collusion-hillary-clinton-email-probe-documents

The post Trump authorizes declassification of all Russia collusion, Hillary Clinton email probe documents first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Donald Trump meets with Republican members of Congress on Friday. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Donald Trump continued to fume over the Russia investigation on Sunday, more than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller filed his report without recommending charges against the president but only three days after the justice department said it would drop its case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

“The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” the president wrote in a tweet accompanying a conservative talk show host’s claim that Barack Obama “used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration”.

The tweet echoed previous messages retweeted by Trump, which earned rebukes for relaying conspiracy theories. On Sunday afternoon the president continued to send out a stream of tweets of memes and rightwing talking heads claiming an anti-Trump conspiracy. One tweet by Trump simply read: “OBAMAGATE!”

Trump fired Flynn, a retired general, in early 2017, for lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions levied by the Obama administration in retaliation for interference in the 2016 election.

The US intelligence community has long held that such efforts were meant to tip the election towards Trump and away from Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI – which Trump has acknowledged – and co-operated with Mueller, who was appointed to take over the investigation of Russian interference after Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy but did lay out extensive links between Trump and Moscow and instances of possible obstruction of justice by the president.

Flynn sought to change his plea while awaiting sentencing and the president championed his case, floating a possible pardon. On Thursday, in an act that stunned the US media, attorney general William Barr said the justice department would drop the case entirely.

Michael Flynn at a campaign event in Virginia Beach in September 2016. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Trump and his supporters have loudly trumpeted the decision and across Saturday and Sunday, the president unleashed a storm of retweets of supporters and conservative commentators attacking targets including Obama, Mueller, Comey, and House intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff.

The talk show host retweeted by the president, Buck Sexton, is a former CIA analyst who now hosts a show which he says “speaks truth to power, and cuts through the liberal nonsense coming from the mainstream media”.

In another message retweeted by the president, Sexton called former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe – who Trump fired just short of retirement – “a dishonorable partisan scumbag who has done incalculable damage to the reputation of the FBI and should be sitting in a cell for lying under oath”.

In February, the US justice department said it would not charge McCabe over claims he lied to investigators about a media leak.

Like Comey, McCabe released a book in which he was highly critical of Trump, who he said acted like a mob boss. McCabe also wrote that Trump had unleashed a “strain of insanity” in American public life.

In his own tweets, Trump did not directly address comments by Obama himself which were reported by Yahoo News. The former president told associates the Flynn decision was “the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic – not just institutional norms – but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk”.

But Trump’s anger was evident.

“When are the Fake Journalists,” he wrote on Sunday, “who received unwarranted Pulitzer Prizes for Russia, Russia, Russia, and the Impeachment Scam, going to turn in their tarnished awards so they can be given to the real journalists who got it right. I’ll give you the names, there are plenty of them!”

The president did not immediately name anyone.

But in 2018 the Pulitzer committee did, awarding its prize for national reporting jointly to the Washington Post and the New York Times for “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the president-elect’s transition team, and his eventual administration.”

Trump has further reason to resent the Pulitzer committee and question its choices.

In 2019, for example, a New York Times team won a Pulitzer for an “exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges”.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, was rewarded for “uncovering President Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment”.

Trump’s actual impeachment, which he survived at trial in the Senate in February, concerned his attempts to have Ukraine investigate his political rivals. No reporter or news outlet won a 2020 Pulitzer, announced this week, for its coverage of that affair.

Trump’s focus on Sunday remained largely on the Russia investigation despite continuing developments in the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 1.3m Americans and killed nearly 80,000.

With cases confirmed among White House aides close to the president, top public health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci in quarantine and Trump reported by the New York Times to be “spooked”, the president claimed in a rare non-Russia-related tweet: “We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic.”

He also attacked Obama and his vice-president, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president this year, over their response to the “disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu” in 2009.

Trump also marked a special day in the calendar, tweeting in trademark capitals: “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/10/trump-obama-biggest-political-american-history-russia-michael-flynn

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China is ramping up aggressive propaganda efforts to pin the blame for the coronavirus pandemic on the United States.

The communist regime’s highly coordinated approach has been threefold:

• Directing Chinese diplomats across the world to tout the nation’s accomplishments through hundreds of interviews and articles.
• Accusing the United States of creating the new coronavirus and spreading it in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.
• Charging President Donald Trump with racism for referring to the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus.”

Although the U.S. government has tried and usually fails at achieving a whole-of-government approach to messaging, the Chinese government has no qualms about deploying all its assets, a strategy known as “sharp power” as opposed to “soft power” or “smart power.”

In tweets last week, China’s ambassador to South Africa, Lin Songtian, repeated the Foreign Ministry’s official line that a visit by 300 U.S. military athletes to Wuhan caused the coronavirus outbreak. Lin is a key diplomat in dispensing the country’s propaganda, and this line is being touted by Chinese media and diplomats the world over.

Lin also agreed with an outrageous remark by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Trump is “turning to racist rhetoric” by talking about the Chinese virus.

“It is true. Justice always speak loudly,” Lin said, including a screenshot of Clinton’s tweet and a China News article highlighting her “racist rhetoric” critique of Trump.

For his part, Trump rightly has refused to stop saying that COVID-19 originated in China. He indicated Wednesday that he would refrain from saying “the Chinese virus,” but used the term again Thursday evening in briefing reporters.

“I talk about the Chinese virus and I mean it,” the president said. “That’s where it came from.”

The Chinese government itself had identified a new, unknown illness spreading in Wuhan. Physicians and scientists such as Dr. Li Wenliang tried to warn of the new pathogen they thought had emerged from a Wuhan seafood market.

Government censors punished and silenced Li and others. Li later died from COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the ominously named Cyberspace Administration of China ensured that the nation’s social media platforms started to censor any references to the new coronavirus as well as critiques of the government’s handling of the spreading epidemic.

According to a report by CitizenLab, a cyber-research group associated with the University of Toronto, Chinese social media platforms such as YY and WeChat began censoring content as early as December.

Social media companies are subject to strict laws requiring them to censor content that “undermines social stability” or is critical of the central government.

So YY added 45 keyphrases to an internal blacklist, including “Wuhan unknown pneumonia” and “Wuhan seafood market” on Dec. 31, a day after eight persons, including Li, raised the alarm about the virus in a WeChat group.

The U.S. government must act forcefully to expose the Chinese deception, propaganda, and suppression of the truth about this deadly virus that China’s government has inflicted on the world.

The Chinese are hard at work. In addition to fighting COVID-19 and bolstering the U.S. economy, we must engage in this information war.

Helle C. Dale is the Heritage Foundation’s senior fellow in public diplomacy. Her work focuses on the U.S. government’s institutions and programs for strategic outreach to the public of foreign countries, as well as more traditional diplomacy. Read her research.

Image: A man wearing a face mask walks on the street following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Beijing, China March 27, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-waging-coronavirus-info-war-138197

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