[Publisher's note: On June 28, 2023, TheGrayzone.com's Max Blumenthal addressed the U.N. Security Council on the role of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in escalating the conflict with Russia and the real motives behind Washington’s support for Kiev’s proxy war. Below is the news site's transcript of Blumenthal's incisive remarks.]

The NY Times reports that police may view you as a domestic terrorist if you have an unusual number

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is a dangerous activity.” – Hannah Arendt Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes: mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.

Ed Newmann Cartoon August 2023 River Cities' Reader - Boy & Chatbot

One of the most insidious threats to America's Republic is the progressive abuse of language in redefining and/or alternative uses of words in order to subtly redirect collective thought for eventual acceptance and absorption into the cultural ethos. By changing languages' meaning, thought can be directed, attitudes controlled, and actions inspired by strategically replacing traditional norms in thought processing that would otherwise be rejected.

Illinois Republicans have been saying ever since a state budget deal was announced by the majority Democrats that not enough money was appropriated for Fiscal Year 2024 to pay for the new AFSCME [American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees] Council 31 employee union contract. Some have even predicted that the contract plus other spending pressures, including health-care for undocumented immigrants, will eventually lead to a tax hike.

Both the majority and minority opinions in the Illinois Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on the SAFE-T Act last week claimed the other side was ignoring the “plain language” of the Illinois Constitution. Each focused on a single, but different, word. As the all-Democrat majority noted, the judiciary must look at the “plain language used in its natural and popular meaning when the constitutional provision was adopted.” For the majority, the “plain language” in question was from the Illinois Constitution’s Bill of Rights: “All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, except for the following offenses where the proof is evident or the presumption great.”

The last time a sitting Illinois Republican congressperson faced a real primary challenge from a non-incumbent was more than seven years ago, when then-state Senator Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon) challenged US Representative John Shimkus (R-Collinsville). Even so, nobody really thought McCarter had much of a chance, and, as expected, he ended up losing to Shimkus by more than 20 points. We’ve seen reapportionment-related GOP primaries between congressional incumbents - the most recent being U.S. Representative Rodney Davis’s 2022 crushing loss to fellow U.S. Representative Mary Miller (no relation) - but serious challenges of sitting Republican US Representatives are otherwise fairly rare here.

Senate President Don Harmon told Public Radio talk-show host Brian Mackey in late June that some of the most prominent business association leaders had “punched us in the nose” after the Senate Democrats devised what he called a “good-faith solution” to solve problems created by the state’s super-controversial Biometric Information Privacy Act. Harmon also claimed the Senate Democratic proposal the business groups attacked was “very friendly to the business community that has been asking for these changes.”

The United Nations recently released its directive calling for a worldwide collaboration to link individual bank accounts to global digital IDs.This is one more critical element to be implemented for the U.N.'s proposed Central Bank Digital Currency (CDBC). But understand this: CDBDs are not currencies. Calling it a currency is a deliberately misleading name, designed to misdirect people from what it really is: a Central Bank Unified Ledger (CBUL) that is programmable.

On Sunday evening, May 28, 2023, six stories of the west wall of the building known as The Davenport at 324 Main Street in downtown Davenport collapsed. Three people lost their lives in the tragedy. There is much controversy about city inspections, accountability and the building's owner Andrew Wold. Numerous lawsuits are in play. The building was originally a hotel built in 1907, had more than 50 tenants renting at the time of the collapse, and has since been demolished. Below, we publish the updates the city of Davenport chief strategy officer Sarah Ott issued to local and national media, in the order in which they were released.

Back in May, Governor JB Pritzker told reporters that his administration had given lawmakers seven options to rein in costs of a health-care program for undocumented immigrants, which was growing well beyond affordability.

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