From Russiagate to Ukrainegate: An Impeachment Inquiry
By Renée Parsons | OffGuardian | October 30, 2019
As the Quantum field oversees the disintegration of institutions no longer in service to the public, the Democratic party continues to lose their marbles, perpetuating their own simulated bubble as if they alone are the nation’s most trusted purveyors of truth.
Since the Mueller Report failed to deliver on the dubious Russiagate accusations, the party of Thomas Jefferson continues to remain in search of another ethical pretense to justify continued partisan turmoil. In an effort to discredit and/or distract attention from the Barr-Durham and IG investigations, the Dems have come up with an implausible piece of political theatre known as Ukrainegate which has morphed into an impeachment inquiry.
The Inspector General’s Report, which may soon be ready for release, will address the presentation of fabricated FBI evidence to the FISA Court for permission to initiate a surveillance campaign on Trump Administration personnel. In addition, the Department of Justice has confirmed that Special Investigator John Durham’s probe into the origin of the FBI’s counter intelligence investigation during the 2016 election has moved from an administrative review into the criminal prosecution realm. Durham will now be able to actively pursue candidates for possible prosecution.
The defensive assault from the Democrat hierarchy and its corporate media cohorts can be expected to reach a fevered pitch of manic proportions as both investigations threatened not only their political future in 2020 but perhaps their very existence.
NBC suggests that the Barr investigation is a ‘mysterious’ review “amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis” while the NY Times continues to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to “deliver a political victory for President Trump.” The Times misleads its readers with:
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it.”
… when in fact, it was the Russiagate collusion allegations that Trump referred to as a hoax, rather than the Mueller investigation per se.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va), minority leader of the Senate Intel Committee suggested that Attorney General William Barr “owes the Committee an explanation” since the committee is completing a “three-year bipartisan investigation” that has “found nothing to justify” Barr’s expanded effort.
The Senator’s gauntlet will be ever so fascinating as the public reads exactly how the Intel Committee spent three years and came up with “nothing” as compared to what Durham and the IG reports have to say.
On the House side, prime-time whiners Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) commented that news of the Durham investigation moving towards criminal liability “raised profound concerns that Barr has lost his independence and become a vehicle for political revenge” and that “the Rule of Law will suffer irreparable damage.”
Since Barr has issued no determination of blame other than to assure a full, fair and rigorous investigation, it is curious that the Dems are in premature meltdown as if they expect indictments even though the investigations are not yet complete.
There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the Barr-Durham investigation ought to send ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a ‘small group’ within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Baker’s cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the Inspector General’s FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release.
As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media.
As the agency’s chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision (real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they knew it.
His ‘cooperation’ can be generally attributed to being more concerned with saving his own butt rather than the Constitution.
In any case, the information he is able to provide will be key for getting to the true origins of Russiagate and the FISA scandal. Baker’s collaboration may augur others facing possible prosecution to step up since ‘cooperation’ usually comes with the gift of a lesser charge.
With a special focus on senior Obama era intel officials Durham has reportedly already interviewed up to two dozen former and current FBI employees as well as officials in the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
From the number of interviews conducted to date it can be surmised that Durham has been accumulating all the necessary facts and evidence as he works his way up the chain of command, prior to concentrating on top officials who may be central to the investigation.
It has also been reported that Durham expects to interview current and former intelligence officials including CIA analysts, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
In a recent CNN interview, when asked if he was concerned about any wrongdoing on the part of intel officials, Clapper nervously responded:
I don’t know. I don’t think there was any wrongdoing. It is disconcerting to know that we are being investigated for having done our duty and done what we were told to do by the President.”
One wonders if Clapper might be a candidate for ‘cooperating’ along with Baker.
As CIA Director, Brennan made no secret of his efforts to nail the Trump Administration. In the summer of 2016, he formed an inter-agency taskforce to investigate what was being reported as Russian collusion within the Trump campaign. He boasted to Rachel Maddow that he brought NSA and FBI officials together with the CIA to ‘connect the dots.”
With the addition of James Clapper’s DNI, three reports were released: October, 2016, December, 2016 and January, 2017 all disseminating the Russian-Trump collusion theory which the Mueller Report later found to be unproven.
Since 1947 when the CIA was first authorized by President Harry Truman who belatedly regretted his approval, the agency has been operating as if they report to no one and that they never owe the public or Congress any explanation of their behaviour or activity or how they spend the money.
Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31
Israel sniper who killed Palestinian child given month’s community service
14-year-old Othman Hilles was shot dead by an Israeli soldier during the Great March of Return on 13 July 2018
MEMO | October 30, 2019
An Israeli soldier was sentenced on Monday to a month’s labour for killing a Palestinian child during a Great Return March protest in the occupied Gaza Strip.
According to a report in the Times of Israel, the soldier – whose name has been banned from publication – was convicted by a military court in relation to the death of 14-year-old Othman Hilles, who was shot during a demonstration on 13 July 2018.
It is the first conviction in connection to the huge number of casualties among Great Return March demonstrators, with Israeli forces shooting more than 7,000 with live fire since March 2018.
Despite Hilles being shot while unarmed and posing no threat to Israeli soldiers, the soldier was only convicted of “disobeying an order leading to a threat to life or health”, as opposed to manslaughter. The military court sentenced the soldier to one month’s labour, as well as a demotion.
The shooting of Hilles was captured on film, likely a factor in the soldier being brought to trial at all.
According to the Times of Israel, the soldier – a sniper from the Givati Brigade – was not convicted of a more serious offense like manslaughter “as military prosecutors were unable to collect sufficient evidence connecting his gunshot to [the boy’s death]”.
The Israeli military spokesperson confirmed the conviction in a statement, saying that the soldier “fired at a Palestinian rioter who climbed the border fence… without obtaining permission from his commanders while not following the rules of engagement or the instructions given to him earlier”.
Rights groups slam Bahrain for torturing 9 female activists in detention
Press TV – October 30, 2019
Rights groups have slammed the Bahraini regime over the detention and mistreatment of nine female activists, saying that the United States and Britain are complicit in Manama’s human rights abuses.
The report, prepared by the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) and Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) last month, was presented during a congressional panel event in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.
The 138-page report examines the cases of nine female political prisoners all arrested, interrogated, and convicted between February 2017 and January 2019.
Speaking during the panel, ADHRB Legal Officer Bridget Quitter said the women had been targeted as part of Bahrain’s “systematic” crackdown on free speech.
“The ill-treatment and torture, coercive interrogation tactics, unfair trial, substandard conditions of detention are not merely coincidental, but part of a systematic repression of the Bahraini population,” she said. “These women were targeted for their opinions or those of their relatives.”
The study revealed that the women had been arrested without search warrants, some of which took place during “highly militarized police raids.” The women faced physical, psychological and sexual abuse during their interrogation, according to the report.
Of the nine women, three are still held in prison in dire conditions, such as being denied access to medical care. The other six have been released after serving their prison terms.
Speaking on Tuesday, Quitter explained that the female activists had been convicted based on forced confessions, and even threatened with rape and death if they refused to comply.
“They were subjected to rights violations from the moment of their arrest, through their interrogation and torture, unfair trials and detention in conditions which fail to meet international standards,” Quitter said.
The report also highlighted how Manama had been using “broad interpretations of counter-terror laws” to facilitate the conviction of the female activists, going as far as revoking citizenship in a number of cases.
“Bahrain has created a system which whitewashes and conceals human rights abuses,” Quitter said.
The Al Khalifah regime has been mounting a heavy-handed security crackdown since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.
The protest campaign is demanding that a just system representing all Bahrainis replace the Al Khalifah ruling dynasty.
Enjoying extensive assistance from the Saudi kingdom and the backing of London and Washington, however, the Manama regime has sought to crush any perceived threat to its authoritarian rule.
The report, which was presented on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, also revealed that UK-funded and trained “oversight bodies” have “consistently whitewashed” Bahrain’s human rights abuses. London actively ignores that “taxpayer money” is being used to support such initiatives, it added.
The report also said that the US government provides “funding, training, and assistance to Bahraini government bodies implicated in human rights abuses.”
The rights groups have called on Bahrain to release the three remaining female prisoners and urged the US and UK to cooperate in improving human rights conditions in the country.
Denmark removes final hurdle for Russian gas pipeline to Europe
RT | October 30, 2019
Denmark has given the green light for the Russia-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to pass through its waters. Copenhagen’s delay in granting permission has been the main hurdle to completing the project on time.
“The Danish Energy Agency has granted a permit to Nord Stream 2 AG to construct a section of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines on the Danish continental shelf southeast of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea,” the agency said in a press release.
It explained that the permit was granted in accordance with Denmark’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“Denmark is obliged to allow the construction of transit pipelines with respect to resources and the environment and if necessary to assign the route where such pipelines should be laid,” it said.
The agency said it concluded that “the southeastern route on the continental shelf is preferable to the northwestern route” as it is the shortest one. It provides the “least risk and impact from an environmental and safety perspective and therefore is the preferable choice.”
The undersea pipeline, designed to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany and other European customers, is set to be finished by the end of the year. The offshore and land sections of the pipeline were connected on the German side last year and a receiving terminal is currently under construction there. Russia has finished laying nearly two thirds of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
The project has only needed approval from Danish authorities; other countries on the route of the pipeline – Russia, Finland, Sweden and Germany – have long-since approved it.
The pipeline’s construction has been criticized by the US administration which attempted to derail the project in order to boost sales of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe.
Is it climate socialism – or eco-fascism?
Green New Deal climate alarm socialism is really intolerant, totalitarian eco-fascism
By Paul Driessen | Watts Up With That? | October 28, 2019
Green New Dealers have convinced themselves that our planet faces an imminent, existential, manmade climate cataclysm – that can be prevented solely and simply by government edicts replacing fossil fuels with biofuel, wind, solar and battery energy. They achieve this state of absolute certainty largely by propagating constant scare stories, while ignoring and suppressing contradictory evidence and viewpoints.
They deliberately and deceptively talk about “carbon pollution.” Carbon is soot – what our cars, factories and power plants now emit in very small quantities. The honest, accurate term is carbon dioxide: the colorless, odorless, invisible gas that we exhale and plants need to grow, by using the tiny but growing 0.04% of Earth’s atmosphere that is CO2 to grow faster, better and with greater resistance to droughts.
They are climate change deniers, who say Earth’s climate is stable and can be kept stable by controlling minor factors (human carbon dioxide and methane emissions) and ignoring water vapor (the dominant greenhouse gas) and fluctuations in solar energy, cosmic rays, clouds, oceanic circulation, volcanoes, planetary orbits and other powerful natural forces that have brought climate changes throughout history.
They insist that even another half-degree increase in planetary temperatures since Earth emerged from the Little Ice Age (1350-1850) would be cataclysmic. That’s absurd. They also rely on computer models that project rapidly soaring temperatures – but already claim average global temperatures should be 0.9 degrees F higher than they actually are, according to satellite and weather balloon measurements.
Climate Crisis True Believers say tornadoes and hurricanes are becoming more frequent and intense. In reality, from 1950-1984, the US averaged 55 violent (F4 to F5) tornadoes every year; but over the next 33 years (1985-2018) only 35 per year. And in 2018, for the first time in recorded history, not one F4-F5 tornado touched down anywhere in the United States. (Is this due to rising atmospheric CO2 levels?)
Similarly, from 1920 through 2005, fifty-two Category 3 to 5 hurricanes made US landfall (1.6/year on average). And then, from October 2005 until August 2017 – a record twelve years – not one Category 3 to 5 ’cane struck the US mainland. Harvey and Irma ended that hurricane drought in 2017, but were hardly unprecedented in their intensity or rainfall. (Was that drought due to rising atmospheric CO2 levels?)
The Washington Post reported that “the Arctic Ocean is warming up … and in some places seals are finding the water too hot.” That was in 1922, and explorers wrote about Arctic ice cycles long before that. “We were astonished by the total absence of ice in Barrow Strait,” Sir Francis McClintock wrote in 1860, whereas at this time in 1854 it was “still frozen up.” As to continental USA weather, a commentator said “Snows are less frequent and less deep, and the rivers scarcely ever [freeze over] now.” That was Thomas Jefferson, in 1799. The 1970s manmade global cooling scare was replaced by today’s warming crisis.
After rising some 400 feet since the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago, oceans are rising at 7 to 10 inches per century. That’s a minimal threat to coastal communities, some of which are more seriously threatened by land subsidence – including Chesapeake Bay lands (Maryland), Hampton Roads (Virginia), Houston and Miami. There has been no increase in the rate of sea level rise in more than a century.
Seawaters cannot become “more acidic.” They are slightly alkaline. They may be getting slightly less alkaline, depending on where and when pH levels are measured. But they are not becoming acidic.
Coral bleaching can result from pollution but is mostly natural, caused by coral animals ejecting their symbiotic zooxanthellae single-celled dinoflagellates, when seawaters become warmer or colder. Corals replace them with new species better adapted to the new temperatures – and then recover their former color and glory, as they have in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Hawaii’s reefs and elsewhere. Corals also grow as seas rise, just as they have since the last Pleistocene Ice Age, creating today’s splendid reefs.
Polar bears are at their highest population levels in memory: as many as 31,000 of them. They’ve survived multiple ice ages, interglacial periods and warming episodes. They are hardly endangered.
We face no climate crisis, no unprecedented warming, climate or extreme weather threat – manmade or natural. Equally important, proposals to replace fossil fuels with biofuel, wind, solar and battery power would be far more ecologically destructive than their climate crisis – and would severely harm food supplies, nutrition, jobs, living standards, health and life spans, in rich and poor countries alike.
For the United States alone, replacing 100% of US gasoline and petrochemical feed stocks with ethanol would require some 700 million acres of biotech corn. That’s four times the land area of Texas turned into biofuel corn plantations – or soy/canola farms for biodiesel – leaving little land for food and wildlife.
Let’s suppose we’re going to use wind power to replace: the 3.9 billion megawatt-hours of electricity that Americans consumed in 2018, coal and gas-fired backup power plants, natural gas for home heating, coal and gas for factories, and gasoline-powered vehicles. We’ll also use wind turbines to generate enough extra electricity, every windy day, to charge batteries for just seven straight windless days.
We’ll also account for electricity loss along lengthy transmission lines, and every time we charge and discharge batteries. As we erect turbines in steadily lower quality wind locations, instead of generating full nameplate power maybe 33% of the year, on average, they will do so only 16% of the year.
Instead of the 58,000 we have now, the United States would need some 14 million 400-foot-tall turbines, each one capable of generating 1.8 megawatts at full capacity, when the wind is blowing at the proper speed. Each turbine would need about 120 acres of open space and access roads, as at BP’s 50,000-acre Fowler Ridge wind energy factory in Indiana. That would total 1.7 billion acres – ten times the area of Texas … or most of the Lower 48 United States! Plus thousands of miles of new transmission lines!
Their bird-butchering blades would wipe out raptors, other birds and bats across much of America. Would Extinction Rebellion go apoplectic? or not give a spotted owl hoot, since wind turbines are “eco-friendly”?
Manufacturing those wind turbines would require something on the order of 15 billion tons of steel, copper, rare earth metals, concrete, petroleum-based composites, gravel and other raw materials. Extracting them would require a hundredfold increase in global mining: removing hundreds of billions of tons of earth and rock overburden, and crushing and processing tens of billions of tons of ore.
Imagine the cumulative land use, eminent domain, property rights, environmental and wildlife impacts.
Using batteries to replace coal and gas-fired backup power plants for intermittent, weather-dependent wind facilities would require some one billion 100-kilowatt-hour, 1,000-pound lithium and cobalt-based Tesla battery packs – and still more mining and raw materials. And that doesn’t include extra battery storage for the cars, trucks and buses that Green New Dealers want to replace with electric vehicles.
Climate Crisis True Believers proudly proclaim themselves environmental socialists, while obstinately ignoring and suppressing these climate and energy realities. They certainly promote a political-economic system under which central government controls the means of production, while limiting private property rights or replacing them with communal ownership. That’s classic socialism.
But what they really want is eco-fascism: an even more extreme and intolerant system under which an authoritarian national or international government does not own businesses and industries outright, but dictates what they can make, do, sell and say – while redistributing wealth and property, employing laws, intimidation, and Antifa-style violence to control people’s thinking, speech and access to information.
Along with Google, Face Book, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, universities and the “mainstream” media – they try to censor, marginalize, ostracize, disinvite, shadow-ban, electronic book burn, and algorithm-eradicate differing, alternative, contrarian evidence, analyses and viewpoints on energy and climate.
They got Dr. Peter Ridd fired for exposing fabrications about the Great Barrier Reef’s demise – and Dr. Susan Crockford cashiered for daring to challenge bogus claims about polar bears. Robert Kennedy Jr., Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and others even want climate and energy dissenters prosecuted and jailed.
We must keep speaking truth to power – to ensure that our future is not compromised by climate lies.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many books, reports and articles on energy, climate and environmental issues.
FIGURE 1. This graph compares the average temperature predictions of 102 climate models relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) versus actual temperature measurements by satellites and weather balloons, and reanalyses of those measurements. Based on John Christy and Roy Spencer; updated September 2019.
![clip_image002[4]](https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/clip_image0024.png?resize=616%2C348&ssl=1 "clip_image002[4]")
FIGURE 2. America’s unexpected 12-year reprieve from Category 3-5 hurricanes making landfall, by far the longest such “hurricane drought” in US history. Based on official government hurricane records.
![clip_image004[4]](https://i1.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/clip_image0044.png?resize=616%2C348&ssl=1 "clip_image004[4]")
The Myth of the Apolitical Scientist
It’s absurd to say scientists are only now speaking up. Reuters publishes egregious climate propaganda.
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | October 28, 2019
Matthew Green is not a naive teenager. He’s a seasoned journalist who has worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and who has written a book about a Ugandan warlord. So how do we explain the Reuters story he filed earlier this month, headlined Scientists endorse mass civil disobedience to force climate action?
Its major theme is that there’s something new going on, that the climate situation is so dire scientists have begun behaving in an extraordinary manner. 400 scientists from 20 countries have broken “with the caution traditionally associated” with their profession, he says. Having previously “shunned overt political debate,” they’ve now discovered “a moral duty” to “defy convention.”
Green quotes Julia Steinberger, an ecological economist:
We can’t allow the role of scientists to be just to write papers and publish them in obscure journals and hope somehow that somebody out there will pay attention. We need to be rethinking the role of the scientist… We can’t allow science as usual.
Lordy, where have these people been? Living in a cave for the past 50 years? Activist scientists who insist that “incalculable human suffering” will result if the world doesn’t prioritize their opinions above all else, are nothing new. Not even close.
In his 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, biology professor Paul Ehrlich declared that “the time of famines” had arrived. The only “hope for survival” was “drastic worldwide measures.” His book was a political treatise that advocated “brutal and heartless decisions” to solve a problem that never did materialize.
The 1972 bestseller, titled A Blueprint for Survival, similarly proclaimed that “a succession of famines, epidemics, social crises and wars” were inevitable if governments didn’t take specific, dramatic actions. Politicians and the public were urged to pay attention since “34 distinguished biologists, ecologists, doctors and economists” had attached their names to that blueprint.
Steinberger’s comments to the contrary, it has been a long time since we’ve had ‘science as usual.’ Here’s a quote from a book published in 1976:
In the past, specialists have often been reluctant to engage in political debate or to share their knowledge and fears with the general public… This generalization no longer holds true. In many branches of science there are radical movements. Increasingly, both in the rich and poor worlds, scientists are involved in active advocacy which they see as an intellectual and ethical duty.” [bold added]
In 1988, climatologist and activist James Hansen mainstreamed global warming as a planetary crisis. Since then, rather than expressing his political opinions lawfully, he has behaved in a manner that has resulted in his arrest on at least four occasions: June 2009, September 2010, August 2011, and February 2013. His actions have produced headlines such as Top NASA scientist arrested (again) in White House protest.
Canadian geneticist and household name David Suzuki has similarly declared it “crystal clear that the planet is losing a battle with the deadliest predator in the history of life on Earth” – humanity. That statement, and many others characteristic of a drama queen, appeared in his 1990 book, It’s a Matter of Survival. 29 years ago, the message from this scientist was unambiguous: adopt his advice or really bad things would happen.
In 2003, environmental biologist Stephen Schneider boycotted a scientific conference because the presentations made there would afterward be published by Cambridge University Press. Schneider said he’d only participate if that publisher withdrew Bjorn Lomborg’s book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Far from being neutral and dispassionate, this major figure in climate science was demanding the equivalent of book burning.
In 2007, Mark Serreze, a “senior scientist at the U.S. government’s National Snow and Ice Data Center,” told the Associated Press: “The Arctic is screaming.” Within the same article, a second scientist, Jay Zwally, was equally over-the-top with his language. Global warming had already become so serious, he said, “the canary has died.”
Elsewhere, I’ve explained how 5 of the 10 lead authors of a crucial chapter in a 2007 climate report had documented links to the activist lobby group, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Indeed, 79 individuals with ties to the WWF helped write that report.
In 2009, hundreds of Canadian scientists, as well as several scientific organizations, signed an open letter published in a national newspaper promoting particular responses to climate change. The letter was orchestrated by the WWF. And let’s not forget UK economist Nicholas Stern’s insistence that a 2009 climate meeting was absolutely our “last chance to save the planet.”
click for full article
In 2010, climate modeller Andrew Weaver (who went on to become the leader of the Green Party in the province of British Columbia), called Canada’s democratically elected Prime Minister a “dictator,” and compared Canada to Zimbabwe in a media interview that was anything but an example of dispassionate science.
In 2012, Canadian economist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author Mark Jaccard was among 13 people arrested after blockading a coal train. Meanwhile, a powerful member of the Obama administration, scientist Jane Lubchenco, flew to Australia to deliver a speech that urged other scientists to become passionate, engaged activists.
In 2014, when the IPCC released a portion of its new report, it didn’t stick carefully to neutral language. Instead, it presented itself as the planet’s saviour (see the image at the top of this post).
In 2015, twenty US academics publicly urged President Obama to target dissenting scientists with organized crime-type investigations. Also that year, dozens of “members of the scientific community” issued an open letter urging museums to spurn donations from people alleged to be large “contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.”
I could go on. And on. And on. For at least half a century, numerous scientists have spoken publicly about issues of the day. They have scolded and threatened us. They have frightened our children, and consumed police resources.
Do scientists who work hard at being neutral and dispassionate still exist? Of course. But it is laughably wrong for journalist Green to suggest that, only now in 2019, have matters become so urgent that scientists are crossing a hitherto uncrossed line.
That premise is so patently incorrect, it makes this Reuters news story look like pure propaganda.
Will phony assault charge intimidate Grayzone editor? Unlikely.
By Damian Wilson | RT | October 29, 2019
The heavy handed arrest and detention of Grayzone founder and editor Max Blumenthal comes five months after an attempted coup and assassination plot against the Venezuelan President failed. Maybe the US is running out of ideas…
The US intelligence service finally ran out of patience with Max Blumenthal last Friday morning and stormed his home, seizing him and spiriting him away to prison for a weekend of illegal detention, mistreatment and threats.
If that had happened to a well-respected investigative journalist in Caracas, Venezuela then the international media would have risen as one in outrage, condemning the heavy-handed tactics of President Nicolás Maduro and his security forces.
There would have been calls for the Venezuelans to explain their actions, demands to release the journalist immediately and to guarantee their future security. Sanctions already in place by the US would have been tightened and denunciations would have been forthcoming from all corners.
But with this happening in the US capital, it is a different story because the intelligence services do not like people like Max Blumenthal. He is the sort of troublemaker who asks awkward questions of the powers that be, who raises issues that are considered best left unexplored and generally makes them squirm when rocks are kicked over and their less honourable activities are revealed in daylight.
Ask Edward Snowden how that goes down. (Better still, read his autobiography Permanent Record which came out a few weeks ago.) Ask Chelsea Manning, ask Julian Assange.
If you cause a fuss that US intelligence does not like then your card is marked and it is only a matter of time before you will be whisked away for a weekend of fun and games while shackled in a cage. It might not be today, or tomorrow, but that knock on the door will come.
So Blumenthal’s reporting from outside the Venezuelan embassy, as he and other activists attempted to deliver food and sanitary supplies to those besieged inside was exactly the sort of thing to make the men in dark suits see red.
He told how, “the pro-coup mob outside turned violent, physically assaulting embassy protectors, and hurling racist, sexist and homophobic abuse at others” and he, along with his colleagues, tweeted details of pro-coup individuals vandalising the Venezuelan embassy and abusing the Embassy Protection Collective activists.
This sort of exposure did not fit in with the plans of the US Government to demonize Venezuela or its president, with Obama having kicked things off by declaring the nation a national security threat way back in 2015.
Current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated that belief earlier this year in case anyone thought there had been a thaw in the frozen relationship since the change in the White House residents.
And as the powers have spoken, don’t you dare disagree with them or make them look bad. Which is what Blumenthal has done.
Having made its mind up about Maduro, the US managed to sign up 50 nations to somehow back the notion that the Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido should actually be recognised as president of the oil-rich nation. There are some powerful dissenting voices, however, namely Russia and China who sit alongside the US as permanent members the United Nations Security Council.
America decided to try and orchestrate a coup back in June this year and along with Colombia and Chile, devised a plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government and assassinate Maduro.
Around the same time, the embassy in DC became a focus for the plotters, who included supporters of Guaido but the local activists were too quick and managed to get people embedded inside the building to report on and record the siege as it unfolded.
That was not what the intelligence services wanted.
Blumenthal and Co needed to be shut down. Stooges willing to press fake charges were found and Blumenthal was wrongly accused of assault albeit five months after the incident apparently took place. Why the delay?
A puzzled Blumenthal wrote online: “If the government had at least told me I had a warrant I could have voluntarily surrendered and appeared at my own arraignment.”
But it is not justice that is being sought here. This is an exercise in intimidation and fear, hence the unheralded 9am arrival of the forces of law and order, the shackles, the cages and the denial of contact with legal representation.
Whatever happened to the press freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment which permits information, ideas and opinions without interference, constraint or prosecution by the government? Or doesn’t that count anymore?
Are threats, insults and attacks now simply occupational hazards for journalists in the USA?
Will Max Blumenthal and his colleagues at The Grayzone, and investigative journalists elsewhere, let an increasingly authoritarian regime intimidate them into early retirement? Unlikely.
Blumenthal has had an unpleasant experience, no doubt, and while the assault charge may not succeed in unnerving him he would certainly know now that the fight to maintain press freedom does not come easily. First amendment or not.
Damian Wilson is a UK journalist & political communications specialist.
Read more:
Discredited bot-whisperers New Knowledge rebrand to Yonder, just in time to save 2020 election… from itself?
By Helen Buyniski | RT | October 29, 2019
Infamous commander of faux Russian bot armies New Knowledge has changed its name to Yonder, memory-holing its troubled reputation with a promise of a ‘more authentic internet’ just in time for the 2020 US presidential election.
New Knowledge, the bot-hunting and consulting firm founded by a State Department alumnus, has undergone a makeover. Billing itself as “the leading authentic internet company,” whatever that means, the newly-rechristened Yonder has neatly divested itself of New Knowledge’s baggage, just in time to bury Americans in horror stories of Russian bot activity for the 2020 election cycle.
The company is under investigation by the Federal Elections Commission for meddling in the 2017 Alabama Senate race with an elaborate false-flag operation involving the creation of an army of fake “Russian” bots. “Project Birmingham” helped hand the Senate seat to Doug Jones, the first Democrat to be elected from Alabama in over two decades. Even Jones backed the inquiry after the New York Times published an exposé on the campaign last year.
That didn’t stop New Knowledge from continuing to mercilessly milk the “Russian bot” fad, smearing Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard as the “Russian favorite” with a report that Gabbard’s enemies have embraced despite its authors being thoroughly discredited. The company’s founder Jonathon Morgan was also involved in the development of the Hamilton68 “Russian bot” dashboard, whose methodology remains proprietary even as its dubious utterances are treated as gospel truth by the media. But after being exposed as disinfo merchants by the Times, of all people, New Knowledge has struggled to be taken seriously in some circles.
None of this appears in the press release New Knowledge published on PRWeb last week to celebrate the company’s new identity, of course. “Yonder is on a mission to humanize the world’s information and deliver on the promise of a more authentic internet,” declared the company whose founder was booted from Facebook for running bot armies. That mission, according to Yonder’s promotional materials, is “helping usher in an era where fake news, bots and other web wreckage isn’t so easily blended with real human insights and interactions.” The jokes write themselves.
The company’s core business of dressing up Cold War fears in slick information-age jargon hasn’t changed – Yonder’s website warns visitors that false information is “70 percent more likely to be shared on social media,” without explaining the context of the statistic (more likely than what or where?). It’s yet another irony for a company that has promised customers it will “add the necessary cultural context to online information.”
“We’re in a moment now where it’s a real reckoning for the tech industry… I think there’s a real lack of trust or loss of trust,” Morgan told Austin Inno. It’s hard to imagine how fearmongering about Russian bots dismantling American democracy is supposed to build trust. But as long as there are politicians who would rather blame a foreign country for their failures than engage in meaningful introspection, there will always be a market for companies like New Knowledge.
Washington FDA Says, ‘Let Them Eat Cotton’
Gossypol, “in most animals, provokes infertility”
By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 29.10.2019
US Government regulators have approved a genetically modified cotton variety as a “potential solution to human hunger.” The radical decision is to permit consumption by humans, in addition to animals, of seeds of a GMO cotton developed at Texas A&M University, with no independent long-term testing. It opens grave new concerns about the safety of our food chain. Soon, as a result, the world food chain may well be contaminated with the GMO cottonseeds whose dangers have been simply ignored by authorities.
The USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved a new type of GMO cotton for unregulated release. The type, called TAM66274, has been genetically modified supposedly to make the seeds fit for human or animal feed by suppressing the presence of a dangerous toxin in the seed, while allegedly leaving the toxin only in the rest of the cotton plant.
With FDA approval the GMO cottons seeds will now be allowed as food for people or animals. The project has been led by Keerti Rathore, a plant biotechnology protégé of the late Norman Borlaug, at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center.
Rathore says the group will now seek approval in other countries starting with Mexico. He calculates that, “There are approximately 10.8 trillion grams of protein locked up in the annual global output of cottonseed. This is enough to meet the basic protein requirements of over 500 million people at a rate of 50 grams of protein per person per day.” He says the GMO cottonseeds can also be used to feed pigs, poultry or farmed fish or shrimp. His group sees it as a major new source of protein for consumption, as well as profit for cotton growers. It is not surprising that Cotton Inc., the US cotton lobby group is sponsoring the GMO project.
Cotton Inc. and Monsanto have a history of cooperation as well. Rathore says for every pound of cotton fiber, the plant produces about 1.6 pounds of seed. The annual global cottonseed production equals about 48.5 million tons. If that can now be turned into cottonseed oil or meal for human and animal consumption and sold, it adds a huge profit boost to cotton producers. The world’s largest purveyor of cotton seeds for planting cotton is Monsanto, now part of Bayer AG.
“The kernels from the safe seed could be ground into a flour-like powder after oil extraction and used as a protein additive in food preparations or perhaps roasted and seasoned as a nutritious snack,” Rathore said.
On October 1 the FDA released its summary of findings for the Texas application which had been made in 2017. That gives the impression the Government researchers were making an intensive testing of the highly controversial issue of whether to permit human consumption of the GMO cotton seeds or not. Far from the case. As the FDA states in their findings of October, 2019, the FDA declaration was simply copied from the tests given them by the producer, Texas A&M and its biotech research group, funded by the US cotton industry group, Cotton Inc.
Highly toxic gossypol
The FDA approval, made with no apparent independent testing of the results given them by the group at the A&M AgriLife Research center, is notable given the fact that cottonseeds contain a highly toxic substance in the seeds known as gossypol. Because of gossypol, previously much of the weight of cotton plants was wasted or usable only for limited animal feed only after special treatment. The seeds were deemed unsuitable for human consumption.
The A&M GMO cotton was modified using what is called RNA interference technology, RNAi, to “silence” a gene that supposedly, again according to its developers, “greatly” reduces gossypol from the cottonseed. Rathore claims to have suppressed the gene of a cotton plant to produce cotton with gossypol in everything but its seeds: “We have eliminated this gossypol from the seed without affecting its levels in other parts of the plant,” said Rathore. “With the toxin removed from the cottonseed, it can potentially feed 500 to 600 million people per year.” Well, almost eliminated it, to be more accurate. They admit that about 3% gossypol remains in the seeds.
Now we are entitled to eat the “low” gossypol seeds which are said to be protein rich and supposedly safe. There are several alarming aspects to this FDA decision to release the GMO cotton variety for human and animal consumption.
Not Adequately Tested For Safety
First of all, as researcher Claire Robinson points out in an excellent analysis, the RNAi procedure for cotton is hardly proven to be safe. She notes scientific research that shows risks of GMO RNAi crops. One study found that RNAi molecules in food plants can survive digestion and enter the body of the human or animal eating it, and even affect the gene expression of the human or animal with unpredictable side effects. Robinson stresses that the FDA made no adequate thorough tests for safety of the GMO cotton, nor did Texas researchers. She notes, “No toxicity testing in animals has been done on the seeds that are intended for consumption. The application only refers to testing in mice of the NPTII antibiotic resistance gene product, though it does not mention how long the tests lasted.”
Not only are the range of tests submitted by the Rathore group deficient or inadequate, they admit that their GMO variety has not entirely eliminated the presence of toxic gossypol in the cottonseeds, hence they term it “low” gossypol cotton seed, with an estimated 3% gossypol. Absent are any tests long-term on mice or other animals of effects of 3% or low gossypol GMO cottonseeds.
Population Reduction?
Gossypol among other traits is a human contraceptive. A study published in the journal Contraception notes that gossypol, “in most animals, provokes infertility, and in man it causes spermatogenesis arrest at relatively low doses… Gossypol should be prescribed preferably to men… who would accept permanent infertility after a few years of use.” It seems to be irreversible for many.
Another study published in The Scientific World Journal notes that among other toxic effects, “… free gossypol may be responsible for… respiratory distress, impaired body weight gain, anorexia, weakness, apathy, and death after several days. However, the most common toxic effect is the impairment of male and female reproduction. Another important toxic effect of gossypol is its interference with immune function, reducing an animal’s resistance to infections…”
Now according to the FDA, we humans are animals too for purposes of consuming GMO cottonseeds. Is a presence of 3% gossypol in now “edible” GMO cottonseeds enough to cause stealth contraception in humans, or any of the other grave symptoms? We simply don’t know as none of the responsible US regulators, neither at USDA nor FDA, have apparently bothered to seriously test.
What has the FDA done to safeguard the health and safety of potential human or animal consumers of the GMO cotton? A careful reading of the FDA testing summary of October 1 shows the entirety of their evaluation, as noted, is lifted directly from the test results given them by Rathore’s group at Texas A&M. And Rathore omits details of the length of their testing, which can conceal negative effects that only show up after longer time tests. Other tests are superficial and inconclusive.
Speaking of his hopes for the application of his new GMO cotton type, Rathore declares, “My personal preference as we move forward would be to follow the ‘Golden Rice’ example in terms of its use for humanitarian purposes.” The only problem with that example is that the Philippines project financed by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1990s to develop Golden Rice, supposedly high in Vitamin A, was a colossal failure that was later abandoned by its creators. It was simply used as a GMO PR stunt. It could well be that the inadequately tested GMO cottonseeds end up blended into our food like so many such ingredients with us being none the wiser. The precautionary principle seems to have been shredded by scientists at FDA.
Lebanese PM Hariri submits his resignation amid ongoing anti-government protests
Press TV – October 29, 2019
Embattled Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has submitted his resignation as people remain on the streets across Lebanon for the thirteenth day of anti-government demonstrations against the country’s economic crisis.
“I have reached a dead end today. I will head to the Baabda Palace to submit the government’s resignation to President Michel Aoun,” Hariri said as he addressed the Lebanese nation in a televised speech on Tuesday evening.
“Posts are not important; what’s important is the country’s dignity and safety,” he added, calling upon people from all strata of the Lebanese society to preserve the stability and security of the country.
Hariri highlighted that he wants to make a “positive shock,” saying, “No one is bigger than his country.”
He also told Lebanese political parties that “It is our responsibility to protect Lebanon.
Under the constitution, Hariri’s cabinet would stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed.
The protests first began on October 17, hitting Lebanon at a time of worsening financial crisis — banks were closed for a 10th day on Tuesday along with schools and businesses.
‘Lebanon government resignation won’t end economic crisis’
Earlier in the day, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the resignation of the incumbent government led by Hariri would not solve the deep social and economic crisis in the country, and would further complicate the situation.
Berri said the government must immediately embark on measures aimed at economic reforms, Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Joumhouria daily newspaper reported.
“Changing the government’s components does not solve the crisis, but complicates it further, and will diminish the possibility of forming a new one in the foreseeable future, which opens the country to an unknown fate,” the senior Lebanese lawmaker pointed out.
Fresh scuffles in Beirut
Meanwhile, clashes have erupted between local residents of Beirut’s Ring Area and a group of vigilantes over the closure of streets in the neighborhood.
“Protesters must stage their sit-ins outside the houses of politicians and officials instead of paralyzing the movement of citizens,” the locals argued.
Lebanese security forces eventually intervened, and dispersed the crowd.
Observers and political pundits view Hariri’s resignation as a stinging blow to his pro-West and pro-Saudi Future Movement. They also state that the move would throw a monkey wrench into Saudi attempts to advance its agenda in Lebanon.
In November 2017, Hariri stunned Lebanon and the world by announcing his resignation in a live television broadcast from Saudi Arabia. He accused Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement of sowing strife in the Arab world – an allegation strongly rejected by both.
Senior sources close to Hariri and top Lebanese officials said Riyadh had coerced the Lebanese premier into stepping down and put him under house arrest.
Aoun stressed at the time that the prime minister was being detained in Saudi Arabia against his will. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, also noted that Saudi authorities had clearly and openly declared a war on Lebanon by holding Hariri hostage and forcing him to quit.
Hariri finally managed to get out of the kingdom amid international pressure on the Riyadh regime. He rescinded his resignation after returning home.
Moreover, President of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, appealed for calm and called on all Lebanese political parties and factions to engage in national talks in the wake of Hariri’s resignation.
“I do not know what circumstances Hariri is currently in, but if he rescinds his resignation, we are with him. Those coming to governance should well know the crisis in Lebanon and avoid an economic disaster,” he told Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network.
Also, France on Tuesday called on Lebanese authorities to guarantee stability and national unity in the country after Hariri stepped down as the country’s prime minister.
“Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri has just resigned a few moments ago, which makes the crisis even worse in a way,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the National Assembly.
“Will politicians and political authorities decide to build Lebanon together? Will they put the collective interest of the country ahead of their own? That is the question posed by Prime Minister Hariri’s resignation,” he added.
Banque du Liban chief denies economic ‘collapse’
Separately, governor of the central bank of Lebanon, officially known as Banque du Liban, has dismissed reports that Lebanon’s economy will collapse in a matter of days in the wake of anti-government protests.
“I am not saying that we are going to have a collapse in a matter of days. I am saying we need to have a solution in a matter of days to regain confidence and avoid collapse in the future,” Riad Salame said in an interview with CNN television news network on Monday.
The senior Lebanese monetary figure underlined that a “solution” to the crisis is needed within days in order to restore confidence and avoid a collapse.
Growth in Lebanon has plummeted in the wake of endless political deadlocks and an economic crisis in recent years.
The country hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees, and their presence is often blamed for putting pressure on the already struggling economy.
Unemployment stands at more than 20 percent, according to official figures.
The Lebanese Finance Ministry says the national debt is hovering around $85 billion, which accounts for more than 150 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
Successive governments have failed to address a waste management crisis or improve the electricity grid, which is plagued by daily power cuts.
Featured Video
No More Ukraine Proxy War? You’re a Traitor!
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
Bill Francis on Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate… Sheree Sheree on I was canceled by three newspa… Richard Ong on Czech–Slovak alignment signals… John Edward Kendrick on Colonel Jacques Baud & Nat… eddieb on Villains of Judea: Ronald Laud… rezjiekc on Substack Imposes Digital ID Ch… loongtip on US strikes three vessels in Ea… eddieb on An Avoidable Disaster Steve Jones on For Israel, The Terrorist Atta… cleversensationally3… on Over Half of Germans Feel Unab… loongtip on Investigation Into U.S. Milita… loongtip on Zelensky’s Impossible De…
Aletho News- No More Ukraine Proxy War? You’re a Traitor!
- Sexual Blackmail Makes the World Go ‘Round
- Powerful Israeli Strikes on South Lebanon and Bekaa
- UAE-backed militia in Yemen reaches out to Israel for alliance against ‘common foes’: Report
- The UAE’s reverse trajectory: From riches to rags
- Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate Speech” Laws Linking Censorship to Terror Prevention
- Majority of Belgians oppose theft of Russian assets – poll
- Czech–Slovak alignment signals growing dissatisfaction with Brussels’ authoritarianism
- Colonel Jacques Baud & Nathalie Yamb Sanctioned: EU Goes Soviet
- Who gets to be a hostage? The language that legitimises Palestinian captivity
- If Americans Knew
- Amnesty: ‘Utterly preventable’ Gaza flood tragedy must mobilize global action to end Israel’s genocide
- Israel Propagandists Are Uniformly Spouting The Exact Same Line About The Bondi Beach Shooting
- Ha’aretz: Free the Palestinian Activist Who Dared to Document Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank
- Garbage Is Poisoning Gaza
- Palestinian journalist recounts rape and torture in Israeli prison
- Gaza is crumbling, but its people persevere – Not a Ceasefire Day 69
- Pro-Israel billionaire Miriam Adelson green-lights a Trump 3rd term
- Australians Being Massacred Shouldn’t Bother Us More Than Palestinians Being Massacred
- Garbage, stench, sewage, and rats plague Gaza – Not a Ceasefire Day 68
- The Zionist Billionaire Circle Hiding in Plain Sight
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
- The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
- New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
- Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
- Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon Challenges The Climate Consensus … It’s The Sun, Not CO2
- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
- Greenland Petermann Glacier Has Grown 30 Kilometers Since 2012!
- New Study: Temperature-Driven CO2 Outgassing Explains 83 Percent Of CO2 Rise Since 1959
- Climate Extremists Ordered By Hamburg Court To Pay €400,000 In Damages
- More Evidence NE China Is Not Cooperating With The Alarmist Global Warming Narrative
Aletho News 