QAnon: The Making of QAnon: A Crowdsourced Conspiracy

On January 6, chaos descended on Washington D.C. as supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol Building. Amid the melee, a longtime QAnon promoter known as “the Q Shaman” made his way onto the Senate floor and occupied the speaker’s rostrum. He was far from the only QAnon supporter on the scene that day: another led the charge into the Capitol.

Once again, this dangerous and eclectic conspiracy is in the spotlight. It has come a long way since its birth on a forum barely three years ago.

On October 28, 2017, an anonymous user browsing the /pol/ section of 4chan, a notorious alt-right imageboard, saw a post that read, “Hillary Clinton will be arrested between 7:45 AM — 8:30 AM EST on Monday — the morning on Oct 30, 2017,” and decided to respond. This user would later adopt the name “Q Clearance Patriot” (soon shortened to “Q”). Q hinted that they were a military officer in President Trump’s inner circle; their writings — almost 5,000 posts to date — gave birth to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Most accounts of QAnon present this first “Q drop”, as Q’s posts are known by their acolytes, as the starting point of the Q movement. This is mistaken for two reasons. One is trivial: Q first gained an audience with a different set of drops, because their earliest efforts sank without a trace and weren’t rediscovered by anyone on 4chan until November 11 that same year. The other is deeply significant: Q’s origins can’t be divorced from the culture of /pol/, which was a rich slurry of racism, anti-Semitism, and (especially relevant here) right-wing conspiracy theories.

Therefore, QAnon was both an outgrowth and an evolution of /pol/ culture: not only were many of Q’s claims already popular on /pol/, but Q borrowed key themes and ideas from predecessors. The key to understanding the roots of Q is to understand the culture of /pol/.

Read complete rreport at: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/07/the-making-of-qanon-a-crowdsourced-conspiracy/

EU - US relations: US Nuclear Weapons stockpiled in Europe: The New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Will Be an Early Trial for Biden - by Miles A. Pomper

With support from nearly half the world’s nations, a new United Nations treaty banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons will take effect early next year. The U.N. confirmed last month that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW, had been ratified by the required 50 countries. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests, many of whom advocated for this treaty.”

Many non-nuclear-armed states, as well as pro-disarmament activists and organizations like the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, have celebrated the agreement, which they see as a milestone in global efforts to prevent nuclear war. However, it has drawn strong opposition from nuclear-armed states, especially the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Trump administration has called on the treaty’s 84 signatories to back out of it. Its entry into force on Jan. 22, 2021, will pose a thorny diplomatic challenge for the incoming Biden administration.

Still, the treaty could pose a political problem in the future for NATO members and other countries that shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, given the TPNW’s call not to support actions inconsistent with the treaty. That challenge is especially acute for the five NATO members that host an estimated 150 forward-deployed U.S nuclear weapons: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. German, Dutch and Belgian disarmament advocates, in particular, enjoy strong mainstream political support among center-left parties in all three countries. And 56 former world leaders, including many from NATO countries, argued recently in an open letter that the new nuclear ban treaty can “help end decades of paralysis in disarmament.”

Note EU-Digest: Five NATO members, including, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey still shelter large numbers of US Nuclear weapons on their soil. Hopefully the UN TPNW Treaty will force the disarmament of these weapons from these countries, which presently makes them a major target for massive destruction and death in case of war.

Read more at: The New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Will Be an Early Trial for

America's Latest Export: The Conspiracy Theorists Crazies have crossed the Atlantic and QAnon is now in Europe–by Mark Scott

If you don't know what QAnon is this is how wikileaks divines the cult - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon.

At first glance it’s not a natural fit. The U.S. conspiracy theory — now with millions of acolytes worldwide — alleges a vast deception to undermine U.S. President Donald Trump. It blends anti-government, anti-lockdown and anti-Semitic rhetoric with unfounded beliefs about a vast pedophile ring run by the global elite. Its followers adhere to a quasi-religious belief that a great savior — aided by “Q,” an anonymous government insider from whom QAnon gets its name — will protect followers from the dark forces behind the conspiracy.

In the U.S., discussion about QAnon has broken into the political mainstream. When Trump was asked to disavow the group at a recent town hall event, he first said he knew “nothing about QAnon” but then added: “I do know that they are very much against pedofiles.

Despite its digital roots, this conspiracy based, populst, ultra -right-wing QAnon has extended its reach into the real world, with attendees at protests against anti-coronavirus measures and supportive of conspiracy theories spreading its talking points across Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Read more at: QAnon goes European – POLITICO

Telescammers not only want your money. They're also after your phone number

 Most times, George Baiden avoids answering calls from numbers he doesn’t know. But when a Toronto area code appeared on his cell, he picked up thinking it was a friend. It turned out to be from an elaborate telephone scam whereby fraudsters steal phone numbers to make their calls.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/scam-cellphone-spoof-cra-1.5360162

Big Pharma: playing dangerous games with human health

Big Pharma nixes new drugs despite impending 'antibiotic apocalypse'

Read more at:
https://p.dw.com/p/3Pbin

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Asteroid Versus Earth NASA confirms new Asteroid heading towards Earth that could destroy it

NASA confirms new asteroid heading towards earth; Will it just pass by or destroy the 

planet?.

Read more at: 

https://www.ibtimes.sg/nasa-confirms-new-asteroid-heading-toward-earth-will-it-just-pass-by-destroy-planet-32357

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NATO has outlived it's purpose and it's present anti-Russian rhetoric and moves are dangerous

Provocative statements and  moves by NATO
 could lead to Nuclear war

Alan Kuperman, a Harvard academic, argued some time ago that NATO intervention in Libya extended the war by a factor of 6 and increased the death toll 7 to 10 times; given that Libya is now a failed state, torn apart by warlords, we can safely say that these estimates were too conservative.

President Obama has privately called the situation in Libya a “shit show”. Only last month a report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament found that the humanitarian justification was an insufficient pretext and based on falsehoods, the supposedly limited intervention led “ineluctably” to regime change, and that the (British) government, and by implication other participating Western powers, did not seriously consider diplomatic alternatives to military action.

Twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO is back flexing its muscles as if nothing had changed since the days of the Soviet Union. Defense ministers from the enlarged, 28-member organization agreed recently to strengthen the alliance’s “forward presence” in Eastern Europe. If their new policy is endorsed at a summit in Poland this summer, NATO will begin deploying thousands of troops in Poland and the Baltic states, right up against Russia’s borders.

In other words, the Western alliance will redouble its military commitment to a Polish government whose right-wing, anti-Russian, and autocratic policies are so egregious that even the stanchly neo-conservative editorial page of the Washington Post saw fit to condemn the new leaders’ encroachments on democracy and the rule of law.

Most Americans are unaware that NATO’s policies, reaffirmed by the Obama administration, view nuclear weapons as a “core component” of the alliance’s capacity to repel even a conventional attack on one of its member states.

An accidental clash of forces, perhaps triggered by military exercises gone awry, could potentially lead NATO to use its nuclear weapons against Russian troops on Poland’s borders. Or, just as catastrophically, it could prompt Russian forces to attack NATO’s nuclear stockpiles preemptively.
Either scenario could trigger a much wider nuclear war.

The British television channel BBC Two explored such a scenario, involving Latvia, in a chilling “war game” film that aired earlier this month.

European countries, including, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain and France all have US stockpiles of Atomic bombs (totalling more than 200 bombs)  and would probably face immediate nuclear destruction  if a war broke out.

The EU Commission and Parliament don't seem to be aware, or at least do not openly comment about it, that this NATO sable rattling against Russia which has been initiated by the US and supported by most, if not all, Eastern European countries is not the appropriate way to carry out a productive dialog  with Russia.

It is not only bad policy, but worse, it could lead to nuclear war.

EU-Digest