Less than 24 hours after theGateway PunditexposedManhattan Assistant District Attorney Meg Reiss'public hatred of Donald Trumpon Twitter, Reiss - who's been accused ofmastermindingthe case against the former president,locked and then deleted her account.
As TGP documented Thursday morning, Reiss 'liked' several anti-Trump tweets, exposing her absolute bias against the man her office is about to indict over hush money paid to former adult actress Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford).
Of note, Trump's alleged payment to Daniels through former lawyer Michael Cohen would normally be a misdemeanor which falls outside the statute of limitations. Not for Bragg's office. Not for Reiss.
For comparison, Hillary Clinton was allowed to pay a fine to the FEC for actual election interference with the Steele Dossier hoax her campaign paid for and then boosted throughout the media.
The Institute for Innovation in Prosecution(IIP) which is a research center out of the Soros-funded John Jay College has tagged her dozens of times.
Reiss served as the Executive Director for the IIP."
DA of Brooklyn Eric Gonzalez also tagged Reiss, who previously served in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the Chief of Social Justice, on several occasions too:
Most of these tweets Reiss liked were while she served in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the Chief of Social Justice and as she served as the director of the IIP.
However, her political bias extends into her time at the Manhattan DA’s office as well.
Earlier in the year as she was serving as Manhattan’s Chief Assistant District Attorney she retweeted a video of Democrat representative Hakeem Jeffries giving a speech at the State of the Union.
At one point during the video Reiss shared, Rep. Jeffries says Democrats will put “Maturity over Mar-a-Lago”.
Six US soldiers have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries as a result of attacks from Iran-backed groups in Syria last week, CNN reported Thursday, in addition to the five soldiers initially reported as injured.
A week ago, a drone strike hit the US occupation base at Kharab al-Jir military airport in Hasakah governorate, leaving at least one US contractor dead and several troops injured. US jets then bombed several locations in the city of Deir Ezzor in retaliation, targeting the Syrian army and Iranian advisors and killing eight.
An Iranian Shahed-136 drone is launched during a military exercise in Iran, December 2021.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said theF-15 jets were deployed from the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. In response, a Syrian rocket barrage hit the US base at Al-Omar just hours later.
Five US soldiers were initially reported as injured following the two attacks. Injuries to the six additional soldiers were not immediately apparent, butwere discovered this week after further screening. "As standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injuries," Ryder said. "So these additional injuries wereidentified during post-attack medical screenings."
The US soldiers who were wounded in the attacks last week are all in stable condition, Ryder added.Similar brain injuries were suffered by over 100 US soldiers in 2020 after Iranian forces targeted the Ain al-Asad military base in Iraq, where US forces were stationed.
Iran attacked the US base in retaliation for the US assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi resistance leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport on 3 January that year.
64 cases of traumatic brain injury were initially reported after that incident but climbed to over 100 in subsequent weeks. The number of injuredincreased in the weeks after the attackbecause symptoms of brain injuries can take time to manifest, and soldiers do not always immediately report symptoms.
Commenting on last week’s airstrikes, US President Joe Biden said his country is "prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people," adding that the US will "continue to keep up our efforts to counter terrorist threats in the region."
US forces occupy northeastern Syria in an effort to maintain leverage in its conflict against the Syrian government – and, by extension, Iran. In 2011, US planners supported extremist militants, including some affiliated with Al-Qaeda, in an effort to topple the Baathist-led Syrian government. ISIS later emerged as one of the strongest of these groups.
When the effort to topple the Syrian government through these militias failed, US planners partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight ISIS and thereby occupy Syria’s strategic oil and grain-producing northwest, which had been under ISIS control. This has allowed US officials to limit Syrian efforts to rebuild the country and has exacerbated US-imposed economic sanctions, which have further harmed Syria’s economy and increased suffering among Syria’s civilian population.
Mexican officials have not carried out all the arrests ordered in the probe of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, an independent expert panel said on Friday, flagging concern over the slow efforts to resolve one of Mexico's most notorious human rights scandals.
"We have insisted on the need for verifying and carrying out these arrest orders," Angela Buitrago, one of two current members of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), said in a news conference.
Some of the people who have still not been detained are public officials, she added. She did not detail how many arrests are still pending. A GIEI report accompanying the news conference said some of the orders date back more than six months.
The Attorney General's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors last year called for the arrests of 83 military, police and government officials, among others, but 21 of the arrest orders were later withdrawn, which the GIEI at the time contested, calling the action "incomprehensible."
It also accused the government of interfering with the probe and blocking the investigation.
Buitrago added that GIEI has now sent evidence to prosecutors supporting the arrest orders that were dropped.
"It is evident within the large body of documents that there is a possibility of reactivating many of them," Buitrago said.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018 vowing to uncover the truth around the suspected abduction and massacre of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, after his predecessor's inquiry was riddled with errors and abuses.
Last year, a truth commission created by Lopez Obrador called the disappearances a "state crime" and ex-Attorney General Jesus Murillo was accused of torture, forced disappearance and obstruction of justice - the first high-level official to be charged.
The case is still ongoing and Murillo's lawyers have denied the allegations.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry gives asobering breakdown of the insidious nature of government collusion with Big Tech corporations to censor Americans, violating their 1st Amendment rights using algorithms and flagging operations.
Specifically, Landry, notes the problem of lack of consequences for government officials caught using their positions to suppress free speech.
Louisiana along with other red states are currently engaged in a lawsuit against the federal government in an effort to remove the veil obscuring vast operations to silence alternative information in favor of official narratives and propaganda.
Democrats have been increasingly hostile towards those investigating Big Tech censorship, including journalist Matt Taibbi, a former Democrat now helping Elon Musk release the Twitter Files. The general argument on the political left is that private companies "have a right to censor" whoever they want. In other words, they are no longer denying that the censorship exists, rather, they are defending it as legal.
The problem is that they are oversimplifying the issue.
Government collusion with corporations to censor Americans is in fact illegal according to the US Constitution. Just because they use Big Tech as the middle-man does not mean the law is not being broken.
The dangers inherent in mass censorship cannot be understated, and while civil litigation might be an option for those people censored by the government there also needs to be criminal investigations and consequences for the same activities. Otherwise, there is no incentive for the censorship to stop - It will go on forever.
All three contained radioactive material and went missing over the past three months, in what experts say is a hugely rare coincidence that nonetheless raises safety questions about what are a fascinating – and incredibly useful – set of substances.
What are radioactive isotopes?
A radioactive isotope, also known as a radioisotope, is an unstable form of a chemical element that breaks down over time in the form of radiation.
These chemicals can be found naturally but many are created artificially.
The radiation these elements emit come in the form of alpha, beta and gamma rays which, depending on their concentration, can be dangerous.
But their unique properties also make them useful for a host of applications, from killing cancerous cells to making incredibly precise measurements.
What are these radioactive sources used for?
Radioactive sources are more prevalent than most people might realize.
“Hundreds of thousands” of these sources are “used and transported without issue every day”, Lauren Steen, general manager of Radiation Services WA, a consultancy that writes about radiation management plans in Australia, told CNN.
Radioactive materials have a variety of industrial uses, like the cylinder that went missing in Thailand which measured ash at a coal power plant.
In construction, radiographic cameras, like the one that went missing in the US, can be used to inspect the integrity of ships, pipes and other small spaces, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Radioactive substances can also be found in gauges that test soil. The capsule that went missing in Australia, for example, was used in a density gauge by the mining company Rio Tinto.
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Additionally, radioactive substances are used in hospitals to diagnose and treat various cancers or to sanitize blood for transfusions, according to David McIntyre, a public affairs officers for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
How dangerous are the missing radioactive items?
Much depends on the type of radioactive isotope within a device and whether it is contained within shielding or open to the elements.
The risk of radiation exposure from the camera that went missing in Texas is “very low” especially because the radioactive material is encapsulated by multiple layers of protection, officials said.
The camera's radioactive material is sealed inside a capsule, which is in turn sealed inside the camera with protective shielding and other safety features.
But the capsule in Australia and the cylinder in Thailand contained Caesium-137, a highly radioactive substance that’s potentially lethal.
Experts warn that Caesium-137 can create serious health problems for people who come into contact with it: skin burns from close exposure, radiation sickness and potentially deadly cancer risks, especially for those exposed unknowingly for long periods of time.
Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years, which means it could pose a risk to the population for decades to come, if not found.
The risk of radioactive material being present in an unknown area for an indefinite period of time was a particular concern in the Australia case because the radioactive capsule went missing along a vast stretch of highway in the desert and was not contained within protective housing.
The missing capsule in Australia was 8mm by 6mm, no bigger than a coin.
It was found after a challenging search likened to trying to find a needle in a haystack, assuaging fears that people could have been exposed to radiation unknowingly.
“If general people (come into) contact unknowingly, the health effects will depend on the level of the (radiation) intensity. If it’s high, the first thing we will see is skin irritation,” Pennapa Kanchana, Deputy Secretary General for Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP), a government regulator for radioactive and nuclear research in Thailand, told CNN.
The intensity of the radiation for the missing cylinder in Thailand should be slightly hampered by the protective casing surrounding the radioactive source, experts suggest.
The missing radioactive cylinder in Thailand is a steel tube, 30 cm (12 inches) long with a diameter of 13 cm (5 inches).
“It appears to be 100% in the housing which is lead lined so it’s a bit safer than just a source lying on the size of the road,” Steen told CNN. “The only risk becomes if the caesium source is separated from the housing.”
But that concern may now have become a reality.
Days after the cylinder was reported missing from a coal power plant in Thailand, authorities detected caesium-137 radiation from iron dust in a smelter at an iron melting factory around 6 miles (10 km) from the plant. They are still investigating whether the missing cylinder was taken to this factory and whether the caesium detected came from the missing cylinder.
It is not the first time something like this has happened in Thailand.
In 2000, according to a Congressional Research Service report, canisters containing another radioactive isotope, cobalt-60, were bought by two scrap collectors, who took it to a junkyard where it was cut open.
Some workers suffered burn-like injuries, and eventually three people died and seven others suffered radiation injuries, the report said. Nearly 2,000 others who lived nearby were exposed to radiation.
But Pennapa said the canister that is currently missing is far less radioactive than the one that caused the incident in 2000.
How often do radioactive materials go missing?
Three radioactive items going missing within such a short period of time has sparked concerns but experts say the frequency of the recent incidents is atypical.
“I just think it seems to be massive coincidence,” Steen said.
In 15 years of working in radiation management, Steen told CNN she had never heard of a radioactive source “going missing” until this year.
“To be honest, I’m shocked,” Steen said. “In all my years of practicing radiation safety, I’d never come across these situations before.”
Transportation of radioactive capsules like the gauge in Australia is “not an uncommon practice” but “loss of a source is a rare occurrence,” Steen added.
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission press officer McIntyre said the recent incidents should be perceived as the exception, not the rule, when it comes to radioactive material, and shouldn’t overshadow their valuable uses.
“While devices with radioactive sources do go missing from time to time, I would caution against concluding that there is a lot of unsecured radioactive material out there,” McIntyre said.
