Bethany Blankley – Officers with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office rescued eight women who were forced into sex trafficking in Florida by smugglers who illegally brought them into the U.S. through the southern border. They also arrested their alleged smuggler and trafficker, Rosalia Leonard Gacia, 29, and Amet Maqueira, 35.
Arrestees of Human Trafficking Case pic.twitter.com/o8vNUJB2Nn
— HCSO (@HCSOSheriff) October 24, 2022
Sean Adl-Tabatabai – The CIA has been one of the world’s biggest illegal drug trafficking organizations in the world for decades, a leading American analyst has warned.
The Central Intelligence Agency has involved itself in drug trafficking since the spy agency was formed in 1947, journalist and political analyst Stephen Lendman claims.
Presstv.com reports: “It has billions of dollars in its budget already through conducting mischief on a worldwide basis…and it gets more money by trafficking drugs, selling to people who harm themselves egregiously by using this stuff,” Lendman said.
Juan Pablo Escobar, the son of Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, a Colombian drug lord who was one the wealthiest criminals in history, says his father “worked for the CIA.” Continue reading
Joseph P Farrell – I’ll admit, when people started sending me stories about what is going on in Catalonia, and more particularly, the beautiful city of Barcelona, I felt that intuition that “something’s not right here.” I have something of a soft spot for the city because it is, of course, the home to the architecture of Antoni Gaudi, and his masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia basilica, a strange mix of the Gothic, nature, and the surreal. If you’ve never seen his strange architectural visions, then have a look at that one, his strangest and yet perhaps, most enthralling.
In any case, what accounted for my intuition – at least in part – was this article indicating that Madrid’s response to the referendum for Catalonian secession was rather heavy-handed (thanks to all who shared this article):
To Prevent Rebellion, Spain Docks Cruise Ship Housing 16,000 Riot Police In Barcelona Port
Now, whether or not cruise ships can safely house sixteen thousand riot police or not (and I wouldn’t know, since I don’t go on cruises, though the figure seems a little steep). Fortunately we needn’t fear about the cruise ship, for the article clarifies that Madrid has hired ships – plural – and not just one heavily-over-subscribed cruise ship.
Then came more articles about the arrest of Catalonian finance minister Jove:
‘State of siege’: Catalan officials, incl. junior economy minister, arrested over referendum docs
Whatever the reasons for so many in Catalonia wanting secession from the rest of Spain, and whatever the reasons for Madrid’s apparently heavy-handed response, I cannot help but note the hypocrisy of certain segments of the west.
Katherine Frisk – Has anyone seen this article: ‘Unprecedented’ Amount of Child Porn Discovered in the Vatican,“or even remembers the events of 2014? Here are a few extracts:
“…the Vatican reports of Wesolowski not only possessing more than 100,000 images and videos of children being forced into sex acts but also of him sexually abusing multiple children in Poland and the Dominican 
Republic …” he “…had been placed under “protective” house arrest, but mysteriously died before the case even reached a “courtroom”. “
“There were more than 160 videos of teenaged boys being forced to masturbate for the camera and perform sex acts on one another.In addition, the boys were raped and forced to perform sex acts on adults, as well.Wesolowski was tedious and protective of his child porn collection, filing more than 86,000 images into categories in locked folders.”
“…According to the Guardian, beyond the child pornography cases, Vatican authorities are battling an array of crimes including drug trafficking and money laundering.”
More recently we had this report: : Vatican’s Finance Chief, Cardinal Pell, Charged With Multiple Sex Assaults. Continue reading
Rachel Blevins – When you hear “Air America,” there is a good chance the 1990 movie starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. is the first thing that comes to mind. The plot revolves around two men who find themselves in the middle of the CIA’s private airline, which is used to deliver food, supplies, and even opium, to a small kingdom during the Vietnam War.
But what if it was more than just a movie plot?
According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s own website, Air America is in fact described as “an airline secretly owned by the CIA,” which was used as “a vital component in the Agency’s operations” in the small Southeast Asian Kingdom of Laos, from 1955 to 1974.