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Bellingcat DID take UK Foreign Office money, open logs show, directly contradicting Eliot Higgins’ claims

By Kit Klarenberg | RT | October 27, 2020

Controversial ‘open source investigations’ website Bellingcat was paid directly by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) at least once, official data shows, debunking its founder and chief’s claims to the contrary.

Suggestions that Bellingcat is a tool of Western governments, and funded by them directly, have long-abounded – and consistently been denied by founder and chief Eliot Higgins.

Such allegations reached fever pitch in late 2018, when files related to the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) military intelligence operation Integrity Initiative were leaked by hacktivist collective Anonymous. The papers revealed the secret endeavour, among other things, worked to discredit left-leaning, anti-war figures at home and abroad, and maintained clandestine global networks of journalists, academics, and military and intelligence operatives to spread pro-Western propaganda and encourage more aggressive policies toward Moscow.

Several documents openly referred to Bellingcat, at least one suggesting the organizations were collaborating on certain projects – if true, this would in turn imply Bellingcat was in receipt of FCO cash. Higgins was repeatedly probed on the question via Twitter, but he strenuously denied Bellingcat had conducted any work for or with the Initiative, or received FCO funding.

However, publicly-available documents prove the latter contention, at least, to be an outright lie. As Declassified UK chief Matt Kennard revealed on Twitter on October  26, official FCO procurement figures make clear the department paid Bellingcat £1,800 on December 20 2018 for “consulting, management and public relations” services – mere days prior to several of Higgins’ spirited denials.

The precise nature of the “consulting, management and public relations” services rendered by the organization is unclear, although it may be related to shadowy FCO program Open Information Partnership (OIP).

Officially, under its auspices Bellingcat collaborates with the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, Zinc Network and Media Diversity Institute to “work together through peer-to-peer learning, training and working groups to pioneer methods to expose disinformation,” in collaboration with a sizable network of NGOs across Europe.

However, leaked documents suggest the endeavor is in actuality an avowed “disinformation factory” itself, seeking to covertly further Whitehall’s global policy objectives, seeking to influence “elections taking place in countries of particular interest to the FCO,” and other malign objectives – and strongly suggest Integrity Initiative is involved in the endeavour, or at least was at some stage.

The Initiative’s parent ‘charity’ Institute for Statecraft was named as one of OIP’s partners alongside Bellingcat et al, a number of Initiative staff were to be seconded to OIP, and the Initiative’s “pre-existing pool of contacts” was intended to serve “as a springboard for the identification of new potential network members.”

Significantly, the documents also detail numerous examples of OIP partners collaborating prior to the program’s April 2019 launch – yet further indications Eliot Higgins was also lying when he denied Bellingcat had ever joined forces with the Integrity Initiative.

For instance, in Ukraine OIP collaborated with a dozen online ‘influencers’ “to counter Kremlin-backed messaging through innovative editorial strategies, audience segmentation, and production models that reflected the complex and sensitive political environment,” in the process allowing them to “reach wider audiences with compelling content that received over four million views.”

In Russia and Central Asia, OIP worked with a network of ‘YouTubers’ in Russia and Central Asia to create videos “promoting media integrity and democratic values.” Somewhat sinisterly, participants were also taught how to “make and receive international payments without being registered as external sources of funding” and “develop editorial strategies to deliver key messages,” while the organization minimized their “risk of prosecution” and managed “project communications” to ensure the existence of the network, and indeed OIP’s role, were kept “confidential.”

Bellingcat’s website notes the organization is an OIP partner, although the fact that the program is funded entirely by the FCO – a fact openly stated on OIP’s homepage – isn’t mentioned. Upon the endeavour’s launch, Higgins was keen to claim Bellingcat was “subcontracted” for the project by OIP partner Zinc Network, which in turn received FCO funds. A cynic might suggest this semantic fudge allowed him to maintain the fiction Bellingcat wasn’t funded directly by the FCO, thus preserving the myth the organization is an independent citizen journalist collective, while nonetheless being heavily bankrolled by the UK government.

Alternatively, it may be the case that Whitehall itself wishes to distance itself from Higgins. After all, a leaked FCO-commissioned appraisal of Bellingcat concluded the organization was “somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay.”

Whatever the truth of the matter, there are indications Bellingcat’s relationship with the FCO may extend far further than what can be pieced together from publicly-available information. A Freedom of Information request submitted to the FCO in January 2019 asked the department for all internal documents related to research on the Syrian crisis mentioning Bellingcat, particularly those relating to the use of chemical weapons in the country, and “any documents that refer to the reliability of Bellingcat as a source when drafting research assessments.”

In response, the FCO stated it could “neither confirm nor deny it holds information relevant to your request,” on the grounds of “safeguarding national security.”

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow Kit on Twitter @KitKlarenberg

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Twitter: Double Standards & Advertising

Twitter earns billions from advertising. But restricts Trump tweets on the grounds they might mislead.

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | October 28, 2020

Censorship by big tech companies is a growing problem. On Monday, a week prior to a national election, Twitter interfered with a tweet by the current president of the United States. The company took steps to prevent anyone from ‘liking’ or sharing this message from Donald Trump:

Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA. Must have final total on November 3rd.

Twitter further inserted a warning above the tweet:

Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about how to participate in an election or another civic process. [bold added]

As if the list of ideas that are disputed isn’t endless. Will we next be denied the opportunity to ‘like’ tweets that refer to Pluto as a planet, since its status is likewise disputed?

Some people dispute the efficacy of annual flu shots. Will Twitter, as a result, be neutering all tweets in favour of those vaccines? Some people dispute the notion that climate change is a crisis and an emergency – rather than a manageable problem. Will Twitter henceforth be preventing us from sharing 17-year-old Greta Thunberg tweets, which mention multiple things a week many grownups would dispute?

It’s hilarious that Twitter’s other concern is that Trump’s assertions might be misleading. This company survives on advertising. By huge multinational brands. Cosmetics. Casinos. Pharmaceuticals. We all know those ad campaigns are orchestrated by saints rather than spin doctors.

Seriously, folks. Spin is a fact of life. Sometimes it’s political. More frequently, it’s financial. The notion that Twitter exposes its users to billions of dollars worth of advertising, yet polices utterances by the US President lest they mislead tells us everything we need to know.

Big tech companies are about double standards and selective censorship. Their thumbs are firmly on the scale. Even during election campaigns.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , | 1 Comment

Newly Increased Coronavirus Crackdowns in Europe, a Preview of What Joe Biden Wants for All of America

Biden campaign rally, 27 October
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | October 28, 2020

Across Europe, supposedly in reaction to rises in the numbers of coronavirus cases, many national governments are imposing increased crackdowns that severely restrict the exercise of liberty. These coronavirus cases are in large part derived from testing that produces many false positives and that is often conducted on relatively young and healthy people who have very little risk of dying or even becoming seriously sick from a coronavirus infection.

Of course, the European politicians exerting their newly increased power say “the science” supports their tyrannical actions. And they will tend to give platforms to doctors and other scientists who back up those claims while ignoring or deriding the many doctors and other scientists who disagree.

If Joe Biden were president of the United States now, we can expect he would be following the course of these European power grabbers. The only likely reasons for restraint, aside from the potential of overwhelming popular revolt, would be if Biden had already implemented and maintained a countrywide crackdown of such high degree that he thought he could not feasibly increase it further or if congressional opposition or court orders managed to stop him.

In an August interview with David Muir at ABC, Muir asked Biden if Biden would shut down the country if “the scientists” say to do so because of coronavirus. Biden replied, “I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists.” Of course, the scientists Biden is referring to are people like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx who have helped stir up and maintain overblown fear of coronavirus and support for state and local crackdowns while members of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force. Biden is not referring to people like Scott Atlas, a more recently added coronavirus advisor of Trump, who argues that much of the government action taken in the name of countering coronavirus cause more harm than good.

Biden also reiterated in the ABC interview his commitment to imposing a national mask mandate.

Keep in mind that Biden, in the ABC interview, is talking about both what he would do at the time of the interview and what he would do as president after he takes office on January 20 — about three months from now, five months after the interview, and ten months after crackdowns began to be imposed across America. He seems content to impose extraordinary mandates on Americans for a long time. In large part this appears to be the case because Biden places little or no value on the average American’s freedom. Biden, in the ABC interview, provides this response to people who say a mask mandate “impacts on their freedom”:

Come on. Give me a break. It’s about saving lives.

Biden disregards freedom. He disregards science as well given that the evidence indicates wearing masks does not prevent coronavirus infection and does damage health.

The beginning portion of the Thursday presidential debate was dedicated to discussion by Biden and President Donald Trump regarding coronavirus policy. The exchange presented a sharp contrast in views related to coronavirus policy. Biden described the upcoming situation with coronavirus in America by saying “we’re about to go into a dark winter,” a hyperbolic description supporting his advocacy for imposing draconian countrywide mandates. If he wins, Biden will take office during that winter. In contrast, Trump said in the debate “no we’re not gonna shut down.” In regard to crackdowns continuing on local and state levels, Trump stated, “we have to open our country.” Trump further stated that “the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, and that’s what’s happening.” Also, unlike Biden, Trump has been very sparing in his wearing of masks and has never proposed a national mandate.

In October, European nations have imposed and expanded draconian mandates in the name of countering coronavirus. Meanwhile, some American states and local governments have eased up on coronavirus mandates while others have increased them. Should Biden become president in January, expect him to act to make the coronavirus crackdown in America go countrywide and go big.

Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Why So Gullible About Government in the Face of Covid-19?

By Donald J. Boudreaux | American Institute for Economic Research | October 27, 2020

At my blog, Café Hayek, I recently posted several entries in opposition to the Covid-19 lockdowns specifically, and, more generally, to Covid-caused hysteria. These posts sparked negative reaction in the comments section and in my email box. This negative reaction is, I think, unwarranted.

Unwarranted Faith

Among the most frustrating features of the pro-lockdown argument is the blind faith that those who make it place in the politicians who issue the orders and oversee the enforcement. This frustration is hyper-charged when such faith is displayed by classical liberals and libertarians, who normally understand that politicians and their hirelings have neither the knowledge nor the incentives to be trusted with much power. Yet in the face of Covid, executive-branch government officials are assumed somehow to become sufficiently informed and trustworthy to exercise the unbounded discretionary power – that is, the arbitrary power – required to prohibit vast swathes of normal human interaction ranging from the commercial through the educational to the personal (such as prohibiting family gatherings above a certain size).

Why this faith? The proffered answer, of course, is that Covid-19 is unusually dangerous and, therefore, we have no choice but to put faith in government officials. This answer is bizarre, for it insists that we must now trust with unprecedented power people who regularly act in ways that prove them to be unworthy to hold lesser amounts of power. My head explodes….

Moving on, and without pausing to explore just what is meant here by “unusually,” let’s grant that Covid-19 is indeed unusually dangerous. But also unusually dangerous is arbitrary government power. Is it unreasonable for those of us who fear this power to require that proponents of lockdowns meet a higher standard of persuasion before we accede to the exercise of such power? Given that the initial spark for the lockdowns, at least in the United Kingdom and the United States, was Neil Ferguson’s suspect and widely criticized Imperial Model – a model, recall, offered by a man with an awful record of dramatically exaggerating the likely mortality rates of diseases – is it unreasonable to demand that much stronger evidence be offered before we turn silent as governments continue massively to interrupt normal life?

If you’re tempted to answer these questions in the affirmative, recognize that there’s at least one important difference between pathogens and power – a difference that should be, but isn’t, taken into consideration by pro-lockdowners. The difference is this: Population immunity, either through a pathogen’s natural spread or through a vaccine, will at some point significantly reduce that pathogen’s danger; in contrast, for protection against government power there is no population immunity or vaccine. When such power expands, the ratchet effect documented by Robert Higgs ensures that that power remains more elevated and widespread than before.

Unlike pathogens, government power continues to nourish itself as it grows into an ever-greater danger. Quaking at the very thought of Covid while discounting the danger that lurks in the immense expansions of government power done in the name of fighting Covid is wholly unreasonable.

Where’s the Perspective?

Several of Café Hayek’s commenters and my email correspondents push back against anti-lockdown arguments by observing that ordinary people support lockdowns because they don’t wish to die, to become severely ill, or to have their loved ones stricken with Covid. This observation is accurate – as is an accompanying observation that Covid is spread from person to person. But as an argument for lockdowns it’s without merit, for it begs several questions.

How many lives are actually saved, on net, by the lockdowns? Obviously, the Covid-induced expansions of government power are not justified if the net number of lives saved is small. And remember, against the lives saved by lockdowns must be counted the lives lost because of the lockdowns – lives lost to suicide, to the reduced health and safety that comes from lower income, and from the failure to diagnose and treat non-Covid illnesses.

Yet those who insist that the desire not to be killed by Covid justifies the lockdowns largely ignore these questions and trade-offs. It would be as if a sincerely expressed desire not to be killed as a pedestrian by an automobile were taken as justification to prohibit automobiles. Such a prohibition would result in approximately 6,000 fewer pedestrians in America being killed annually by automobiles – itself alone an undeniably happy result. Yet would such a prohibition be justified by this objective fact? Would your answer change if someone with a superficial familiarity with economics declares that the danger posed to pedestrians by automobile traffic is a “negative externality”?

And whose lives are being saved by the lockdowns and for how long? I’m baffled by the ongoing failure in the public discussion to recognize that Covid kills mostly very old or sick people, and is practically of no danger to people under the age of 50. This reality alone should utterly discredit the case for locking down entire economies and life events. (Note, by the way, that I write this essay as a 62-year-old.) Not only does Covid pose no real – and much less no unusual – danger to most people, the group of persons to whom Covid does pose an unusual danger is easily identified.

As the Great Barrington Declaration sensibly argues, preventive efforts should be focused on helping this (relatively small) group of vulnerable persons. Keeping them isolated or otherwise protected from the coronavirus simply does not require the vast majority of the population to be locked down, “socially distanced” from each other, or saddled with other restrictions. In fact, as the Declaration’s authors note, by delaying population immunity, lockdowns likely increase the long-term threat to old and sick people.

Public Panic

It’s no good response to note that the general public is panicked by Covid. This panic is indeed real. It explains why the public isn’t more resistant to the lockdowns. But this panic does not justify the lockdowns.

Consider: The risk in America of being killed by terrorism is, as Bryan Caplan describes it, “microscopic.” Between 1970 and 2012 the chance that an American would, in any one year, be done in by terrorism was 1 in 4 million – much less than half the chance of being killed by a home appliance. Yet the 9/11-sparked panic over terrorism has resulted in a permanent increase in efforts to protect Americans from this virtual non-threat.

How much prosperity – including increased health and safety – are we failing to produce because we now waste billions of dollars worth of resources on protection from this minuscule risk? Too much.

And don’t forget that government’s response to 9/11 also includes America’s seemingly permanent war stance in the Middle East and a scaling up of government’s violation of our privacy. How much of our freedom has been permanently lost because of excessive fear of terrorism? Much too much.

Rather than accept as given the public’s irrational fear of terrorism, the far better course is to stop stoking this fear and, instead, to calm it by broadcasting accurate information about terrorism’s relative risks. (Aren’t we constantly told that one of the core functions of government is to produce and spread accurate information as a “public good?”) The spread of better information would prompt the public to demand better policies.

The same must be said about Covid. Tamping down the Covid hysteria by making available accurate information about this disease is what well-informed and public-spirited governments would do. Yet such governments are largely mythical. Real-world governments behave quite differently. Most governments, in the U.S. and elsewhere, chose – and continue to choose – a course precisely the opposite of what ‘good’ governments would choose. The reason, alas, isn’t mysterious: As H.L. Mencken observed, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Covid-19 is the perfect hobgoblin. And while its dangers are not imaginary, their degree and impact certainly are. Governments’ failure to ensure that their citizens are accurately informed about Covid is itself sufficient reason to distrust governments with the powers they’ve seized over the course of this hellish year.

Donald J. Boudreaux is a senior fellow with American Institute for Economic Research and with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Mercatus Center Board Member; and a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | 2 Comments

Spain: Study Shows 80% COVID Patients Deficient in Vitamin D

21st Century Wire | October 28, 2020

A new study has all but confirmed the link between COVID sufferers and Vitamin D deficiency. This latest study lends additional support to the argument that cheap therapeutics are already readily available to the public – a key point which further demolishes the US, UK government and Big Pharma narrative that “only a vaccine” can save the population from a rapidly waning ‘novel’ coronavirus which is still being used by politicians and the World Economic Forum to justify the continuation of highly damaging lockdown policies.

Results of new research done by the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital in Spain shows that a large number of COVID-19 patients – 82% of them, were found to have low levels of vitamin D, according to this new peer reviewed study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Evidence seems to suggest that out of the 216 tested, more men were affected by this condition than women.

Conversely, a control group showed that only 47% of people who didn’t have the virus were Vitamin D deficient.

Vitamin D is a hormone produced in the kidneys which aids in the regulation of calcium in the bloodstream.

According to researchers, one possible mechanism for the high risk to serious illness in low Vitamin D sufferers could be a clear increase in serum levels of inflammatory markers like D-dimer and ferritin used by the body to fight off an infection.

One specific note: researchers did not find a clear association with the levels of vitamin D and the severity of COVID, or a need to be sent to intensive care, or placed on a ventilator, or death.

According to researcher Dr Jose Hernandez, from the University of Cantabria, “One approach is to identify and treat vitamin D deficiency, especially in high-risk individuals such as the elderly, patients with comorbidities, and nursing home residents, who are the main target population for the COVID-19.”

Regarding the issue of treatment, Dr Hernandez added that, “Vitamin D treatment should be recommended in COVID-19 patients with low levels of vitamin D circulating in the blood since this approach might have beneficial effects in both the musculoskeletal and the immune system.”

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Nine Covid Facts: A Pandemic of Fearmongering and Ignorance

By Jeff Harris | Ron Paul Institute | October 28, 2020

Ever since the alleged pandemic erupted this past March the mainstream media has spewed a non-stop stream of misinformation that appears to be laser focused on generating maximum fear among the citizenry. But the facts and the science simply don’t support the grave picture painted of a deadly virus sweeping the land.

Yes we do have a pandemic, but it’ a pandemic of ginned up pseudo-science masquerading as unbiased fact. Here are nine facts backed up with data, in many cases from the CDC itself that paints a very different picture from the fear and dread being relentlessly drummed into the brains of unsuspecting citizens.

1) The PCR test is practically useless

According to an article in the New York Times August 29th 2020 testing for the Covid-19 virus using the popular PCR method results in up to 90% of those tested showing positive results that are grossly misleading.

Officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada compiled testing data that revealed the PCR test can NOT determine the amount of virus in a sample. (viral load) The amount of virus in up to 90% of positive results turned out to be so miniscule that the patient was asymptomatic and posed no threat to others. So the positive Covid-19 tests are virtually meaningless.

2) A positive test is NOT a CASE

For some reason every positive Covid-19 test is immediately designated a CASE. As we saw in #1 above up to 90% of positive Covid-19 tests result in miniscule amounts of virus that do not sicken the subject. Historically only patients who demonstrated actual symptoms of an illness were considered a case. Publishing positive test results as “CASES” is grossly misleading and needlessly alarming.

3) The Centers for Disease Control dramatically lowered the Covid-19 Death Count

On August 30th the CDC released new data that showed only 6% of the deaths previously attributed to Covid-19 were due exclusively to the virus. The vast majority, 94%, may have had exposure to Covid-19 but also had preexisting illnesses like heart disease, obesity, hypertension, cancer and various respiratory illnesses. While they died with Covid-19 they did NOT die exclusively from Covid-19.

4) CDC reports Covid-19 Survival Rate over 99% 

The CDC updated their “Current Best Estimate” for Covid-19 survival on September 10th showing that over 99% of people exposed to the virus survived. Another way to say this is that less than 1% of the exposures are potentially life threatening. According to the CDC the vast majority of deaths attributed to Covid-19 were concentrated in the population over age 70, close to normal life expectancy.

5) CDC reveals 85% of Positive Covid cases wore face masks Always or Often 

In September of 2020 the CDC released the results of a study conducted in July where they discovered that 85% of the positive Covid test subjects reported wearing a cloth face mask always or often for two weeks prior to testing positive. The majority, 71% of the test subjects reported always wearing a cloth face mask and 14% reported often wearing a cloth face mask. The only rational conclusion from this study is that cloth face masks offer little if any protection from Covid-19 infection.

6) There are inexpensive, proven therapies for Covid-19

Harvey Risch, MD, PhD heads the Yale University School of Epidemiology. He authored “The Key to Defeating Covid-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It” which was published in Newsweek Magazine July 23rd, 2020. Dr. Risch documents the proven effectiveness of treating patients diagnosed with Covid-19 using a combination of Hydroxychloroquine, an antibiotic like azithromycin and the nutritional supplement zinc. Medical Doctors across the globe have reported very positive results using this protocol particularly for early stage Covid patients.

7) The US Death Rate is NOT spiking

If Covid-19 was the lethal killer it’s made out to be one would reasonably expect to see a significant spike in the number of deaths reported. But that hasn’t happened. According to the CDC as of early May 2020 the total number of deaths in the US was 944,251 from January 1 – April 30th. This is actually slightly lower than the number of deaths during the same period in 2017 when 946,067 total deaths were reported.

8) Most Covid-19 Deaths Occur at the End of a normal Lifespan

According to the CDC as of 2017 US males can expect a normal lifespan of 76.1 years and females 81.1 years. A little over 80% of the suspected Covid-19 deaths have occurred in people over age 65. According to a June 28th New York Post article almost half of all Covid suspected deaths have occurred in Nursing Homes which predominately house people with preexisting health conditions and close to or past their normal life expectancy.

9) CDC Data Shows Minimal Covid Risk to Children and Young Adults

The CDC reported in their September 10th update that it’s estimated Infection Mortality Rate (IFR) for children age 0-19 was so low that 99.97% of those infected with the virus survived. For 20-49 year-olds the survival rate was almost as good at 99.98%. Even those 70 years-old and older had a survival rate of 94.6%. To put this in perspective the CDC data suggest that a child or young adult up to age 19 has a greater chance of death from some type of accident than they do from Covid-19.

Taken together it should be obvious that Covid-19 is pretty similar to typical flu viruses that sicken some people annually. The vast majority are able to successfully fight off the virus with their body’s natural immune system. Common sense precautions should be taken, particularly by those over age 65 that suffer from preexisting medical conditions.

The gross over reaction by government leaders to this illness is causing much more distress, physical, emotional and financial, than the virus ever could on its own. The bottom line is there is NO pandemic, just a typical flu season that has been wildly blown out of proportion by 24/7 media propaganda and enabled by the masses paralyzed by irrational fear.

State and local governments in particular have ignored the rights of the people and have instituted outrageous attacks on freedom and liberty that was bought and paid for by the blood and sacrifice of our forefathers.

Slowly the people are recognizing the great fraud perpetrated on them by bureaucrats and elected officials who have sworn to uphold rights and freedoms as spelled out in the US Constitution. The time has come to hold these criminals accountable by utilizing the legal system to bring them to justice.

Either we act now to preserve freedom and liberty for our children and future generations yet unborn, or we meekly submit to tyrants who crave more power and control. I will not comply!

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Defining Despotism Down

By James Bovard | American Institute for Economic Research | October 27, 2020

The simultaneous defining down of both democracy and despotism is 2020’s darkest legacy. Voters are recognizing that their ballots merely choose elective dictators who can exempt themselves from the Constitution simply by pronouncing the word “emergency.” At the same time, despotism is being redefined to signify government failing to force people to do the right thing.

Hundreds of millions of Americans were locked in their homes via governors’ shutdown orders earlier this year. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he may decree a national lockdown if Covid infection numbers rise. More than 10 million jobs have been lost thanks to the shutdown orders and countless misery has been imposed on scores of millions of people unnecessarily isolated from friends and family.

New York, the state hit worst by Covid, had one of the earliest and strictest lockdowns in the nation. After Gov. Andrew Cuomo swayed the legislature to give him “authorization of absolute power,” as the New Yorker declared, he issued scores of decrees, including one compelling nursing homes to admit Covid-infected patients and permitting Covid-infected staffers to keep working at those homes. More than 10,000 New York nursing home patients died of Covid. In June, Cuomo said the nursing homes deaths occurred “because the staff brought in the infection,”

A New Yorker profile explained that Cuomo and his aides saw the battle over Covid policy as “between people who believe government can be a force for good and those who think otherwise.” For many liberals and much of the nation’s media, placing people under house arrest, padlocking schools, and bankrupting business vindicated government as “a force for good.”

But the lockdowns failed to prevent almost nine million Americans from testing positive for Covid (the actual number of cases may be ten times higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control). As AIER’s Jeffrey Tucker quipped, “Mitigating disease through compulsory lockdowns is like cleaning your house by bombing it.” The World Health Organization’s envoy for Covid-19, David Nabarro, warned that “lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never, ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.” Nabarro also warned that “we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year” or “at least a doubling of child malnutrition.”

Lockdowns that were initially justified to “flatten the curve” have been perpetuated on increasingly ludicrous pretexts:

  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently decreed that Covid restrictions would be perpetuated in California counties based on voter turnout, alcohol availability, and other non-health factors. California assemblyman Kevin Kiley groused, “An entire county can be kept shut down because certain areas are judged to be lacking in ‘equity,’ even if the whole county has relatively few cases of Covid.”
  • In Washington, D.C., the local government is perpetuating private and public school shutdowns and other restrictions as long based on a newly-decreed standard: “a requirement that more than 60 percent of new cases be closely connected to other known cases.” The city currently can connect less than 10% of cases, so this Veto on Normalcy can last forever – or at least as long as devotees pledge their devotion to (mindless) “data and science.” D.C. Covid mania is so extreme that worshippers at the Basilica at Catholic University have been prohibited from performing the “stations of the cross” inside the church, instead being ordered to sit in a pew.

The contract between citizens and the government in this nation hinges on elected politicians obeying the Constitution. After Covid crackdowns obliterated constitutional rights, courts slammed run-a-mok rulers:

  • Federal judge William Stickman IV last month condemned Pennsylvania’s Covid restrictions: “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.”
  • The Michigan Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had extended a “state of emergency” far beyond what an unconstitutional state law allowed.
  • Federal judge Daniel Domenico last week ruled that some of Colorado’s Covid restrictions violated religious freedom: “The Constitution does not allow the State to tell a congregation how large it can be when comparable secular gatherings are not so limited, or to tell a congregation that its reason for wishing to remove facial coverings is less important than a restaurant’s or spa’s.”
  • In May, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a state official’s stay-at-home order as “unlawful, invalid, and unenforceable.”

The U.S. Department of Justice declared earlier this year: “There is no pandemic exclusion … to the fundamental liberties the Constitution safeguards.” Attorney General William Barr declared last month that imposing “a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery… this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.”

But most of the media cheered almost every arbitrary restriction imposed by any government official in the name of fighting Covid. University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner fretted in the Washington Post that “judicial opposition to the lockdown orders is not just about religious liberty. It’s also, and perhaps really, about the role of government in American life.” And any limit on government power is equivalent to national suicide, apparently. A New York democratic legislator told the New Yorker that Gov. Cuomo is “inclined towards tyranny. But in a crisis that’s what people want.” The media’s valorization of Cuomo helped make his new book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, a bestseller. Tyranny is comforting to some people regardless of how much havoc and pointless suffering tyrants inflict.

For many liberals, mandatory masks have become the new version of the Emancipation Proclamation. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, presidential candidate Joe Biden declared, “We’ll have a national mandate to wear a mask — not as a burden but as a patriotic duty to protect one another.” When asked if he will force everyone to wear a mask, Biden replied, “This isn’t about freedom, it’s about freedom for your, your neighbors.” Biden also declared, “Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months, at a minimum.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in July that a federal mask mandate would be “authoritarian” but endorsed a national mask decree last week.

The ultimate symbol of maskless tyranny became Trump’s White House balcony appearance, when he removed his mask and muttered a few words after exiting Walter Reed Hospital. Even though no one was standing close by, Trump was widely compared to Mussolini – as if not wearing a mask was the ultimate betrayal of the American people.

Rather than campaigning against Trump’s abuses of power, Biden and the Democrats are condemning Trump for not seizing far more power to pretend to keep everyone safe from everything. During the first years of the War on Terror, some servile Republicans cheered on Bush administration travesties with the throwaway line: “You don’t have any constitutional rights if you’re dead.” Nowadays, many frightened Americans seem ready to support perpetual lockdowns based on the axiom: “You don’t have any rights if anyone tests positive for Covid-19.” A virus with a 99.9% survival rate has spawned a 100% presumption in favor of despotism.

The failure of iron fist policies should be the storyline of the 2020 election but instead Biden and much of the media want to double down on repression. Can the votes that are cast in the coming week close the authoritarian Pandora’s Boxes that have opened across the nation? Or will conniving invocations of “data and science” suffice to blight Americans’ rights and liberties in perpetuity?

James Bovard is the author of ten books, including Public Policy Hooligan, Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

The Most Dangerous Disease in the World

AwakenWithJP | October 27, 2020

In this video, learn all about the most dangerous disease in the world, intelligence. You’ll understand what you need to do to help slow the spread of this disease. If we all work together and follow the proper social guidelines, we can rid the world of intelligence once and for all.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 1 Comment

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter Limit Access to 20 Russian Media Sources, Internet Watchdog Says

Sputnik – 27.10.2020

In late-September, Facebook said in a statement that it had removed a total of 242 users, 41 Pages, 19 Groups and 45 Instagram accounts allegedly originating from Russia.

Censorship of Russian media outlets by foreign Internet companies has become systematic, with Google, Facebook and Twitter restricting access to materials of around 20 Russian outlets, the Russian communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said on Tuesday.

“Foreign Internet companies’ censorship of Russian media has become systemic, Google (YouTube), Facebook and Twitter restrict access to materials of around 20 Russian media outlets, including RIA Novosti, Russia Today, Sputnik and Russia-1,” Roskomnadzor said in a statement.

As a result of these foreign attempts to control the Russian media, Russians may fail to receive objective information, the watchdog specified.

“Multiple requests to stop the censorship of Russian media outlets are being ignored,” Roskomnadzor went on to say.

The communications watchdog added it had submitted to both chambers of the Russian parliament proposals on enshrining in the national legislation measures that may be implemented to retaliate to the facts of censorship.

Roskomnadzor also reported an increase in the spread of fake news by foreign platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

Twitter again censors Trump as it begins spamming Americans with new Orwellian warnings

RT | October 27, 2020

Twitter has slapped a “misleading” label on yet another tweet from President Donald Trump, as it rolls out a new effort to “pre-bunk” criticism of mail-in voting and warns Americans not to expect final results on election night.

In a tweet on Monday night, Trump stressed the need to have a final vote tally on the day of the general election, stating there are “big problems and discrepancies with mail-in ballots all over the USA,” reiterating previous complaints about potential flaws in universal distance voting. The post was soon appended with a notice warning users the tweet is “disputed” and “might be misleading,” directing them to a link explaining that “voting by mail is legal and safe,” citing a coterie of favored “experts.”

Under Twitter’s new “civic integrity policy” updated in September, the platform said it would add labels to tweets “containing false or misleading information” about elections, or even reduce their visibility for other users – a form of “shadowbanning,” a practice the company has repeatedly renounced. Even before the new rule went into effect, Twitter previously ‘fact checked’ other election-related posts from the president, and attached a “misleading” label to another missive about the coronavirus earlier this month.

The company further bolstered its efforts to combat so-called disinformation on Monday, launching a new feature to preemptively debunk – or “pre-bunk” in the words of Twitter’s head of site integrity Yoel Roth – “common misleading claims” about the 2020 race, which apparently includes any form of skepticism about mail-in voting.

#Election2020 is unlike any other in US history. With so many more people voting by mail and potentially delayed results, starting today, we’ll show you prompts in your Home timeline and Search to help you stay informed on these critical topics. pic.twitter.com/OAtbnoa70W

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) October 26, 2020

We’re introducing “pre-bunks” for some of the most common misleading claims about #Election2020. Research shows that getting ahead of misinformation is a powerful way to build resilience. Excited to see this application of inoculation theory in practice. https://t.co/O0bzCtNrVv

— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) October 26, 2020

The new “pre-bunk” alerts will be seen at the top of American users’ timelines and search pages, and will explain that they could encounter “misleading information about voting by mail,” again citing “election experts” to insist mail-in ballots are secure. The alerts also warn that “election results might be delayed,” noting this could cause confusion about who may have won the November 3 race after the polls close.

Though Twitter and its assorted ‘fact-checkers’ have repeatedly challenged claims that distance voting is linked to “fraud” in particular, Trump’s criticisms have gone beyond the narrow question of ballot-tampering. The president and others have also suggested the system will be susceptible to errors, as was seen during New York’s primary race this summer, which even the New York Times described as “botched.” With the “experts” preoccupied with allegations of fraud, however, those other concerns have largely gone ignored, and that appears set to continue as social media platforms move to purge any and all expression of doubt in the mail-in system.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Disinformation By Popular Demand: How The Authenticity of Hunter’s Laptop Became Immaterial

By Jonathan Turley | October 27, 2020

Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by the FBI. No mainstream reporter bothered to ask the simple question of whether this was his son’s laptop and emails, including emails clearly engaging in an influence peddling scheme and referring to Joe Biden’s knowledge.  Instead, media has maintained a consistent and narrow focus. Indeed, in her interview, Leslie Stahl immediately dismissed any “scandal” involving Hunter in an interview with the President on 60 Minutes. It was an open example of what I previously noted in a column: “After all, an allegation is a scandal only if it is damaging. No coverage, no damage, no scandal.”

In her interview with Joe Biden, CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell did not push Biden to simply confirm that the emails were fake or whether he did in fact meet with Hunter’s associates (despite his prior denials). Instead O’Donnell asked: “Do you believe the recent leak of material allegedly from Hunter’s computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?”

Biden responded with the same answer that has gone unchallenged dozens of times:

“From what I’ve read and know the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on? What is he running on?”

It did not matter that the answer omitted the key assertion that this was not Hunter’s laptop or emails or that he did not leave the computer with this store.

Recently, Washington Post columnist Thomas Rid said the quiet part out loud by telling the media: “We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren’t.”

Let that sink in for a second. It does not matter if these are real emails and not Russian disinformation. They probably are real but should be treated as disinformation even though American intelligence has repeatedly rebutted that claim. It does not even matter that the FBI has seized the computer as evidence in a criminal fraud investigation or that a Biden confidant is now giving his allegations to the FBI under threat of criminal charges if he lies to investigators.

It simply does not matter. It is disinformation because it is simply inconvenient to treat it as real information.

October 27, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Anthony Fauci: 40 Years of Lies From AZT to Remdesivir

As the planet’s “Virus Tsar” since 1984, he has spread misinformation and ignored critical questions. The consequences could hardly be more fatal.

By Torsten Engelbrecht & Konstantin Demeter | OffGuardian | October 27, 2020

Last week, US president Donald Trump committed a kind of blasphemy by attacking Anthony Fauci, his pandemic consultant and practically the spokesperson for the White House regarding COVID-19, saying that:

“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots. He’s been here for 500 years.  Fauci is a disaster. If I listened to him, we’d have 500,000 deaths.”

A remarkable statement of historical dimension, since Trump is the first American head of state to cast doubt on Fauci, who has acted as the virus tsar for no less than six presidencies: Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and Trump.

To make it clear, the logic behind Trump’s attack is scientifically unfounded. He refers to a statement of Fauci made some months ago, according to which people should “not wear face masks.” But even if all Americans had followed this advice, it would not have lead to a single extra death.

The simple reason is that the COVID-19 death rate data show unambiguously that a viral cause for the excess mortality seen in some countries, including the US, is virtually impossible — and that instead the massive experimental use of highly toxic drugs is the key factor in this context, as I recently outlined together with Claus Köhnlein MD, in an in-depth analysis for Real News Australia.

But on one point Trump hits the nail on the head: Fauci is simply a disaster, because he has been telling the world one lie after another for decades, why his presence actually feels almost as if he has been there for 500 years. And tragically, the mass media sell them to their audience of billions as a kind of gospel.

An example is — there’s no other way to put it — the downright shameful four page interview with Anthony Fauci in Germany’s best-known news magazine, Der Spiegel, published recently.

Shameful because Fauci here, too, is doing what he is a master at, namely, hoaxing the world — and Der Spiegel has been hoodwinked by him and, in admiration for the man dubbed by The New Yorker as “America’s Doctor,” which is a euphemism of the highest order, has forgotten to do its job: to ask critical questions.

The initial question alone is unworthy of a journalistic medium:

“Dr. Fauci, you once said of yourself that you had‚ a reputation of speaking the truth at all times and not sugarcoating things. Can we hope to get a few samples of previously unspoken truths from you today?”

And Fauci answers:

“Of course! I will always give you truth. Just ask the question and I’ll give you the truth. At least to the extent, that I think it is, right [laughs].”

Fauci: 36 years as the Modern Munchausen

What a farce. What Fauci thinks is right may be true for himself. But his statements do not stand up to an objective examination of scientific evidence.

Therefore he is not only “Dr. Wrong”, as he has been called recently by the conservative economist Stephen Moore, but actually “Dr. Baron of Lies”, because he must be aware that he is telling the untruth or that there are well-supported doubts about his theses. Especially because, since the beginning of his “reign” as global virus tsar in 1984, he has been repeatedly confronted with critical questions by many people (including me).

And what was his reaction over and over again? He just silenced and ignored the inquirers.

This is why his answer to Der Spiegel, “Just ask the question and I’ll give you the truth” is also a downright Fauci lie.

Unfortunately, he gets away with it not least because even world-famous personalities like Brad Pitt buy his lies and sell him to the world public as thoroughly sincere.

This is what happened on April 25, when the Hollywood star portrayed Fauci on Saturday Night Live. With a Fauci wig on his head and with the virus tsar’s typical raspy voice Brad Pitt spoke: “Until [I am getting fired by Trump], I am gonna be there puttin’ out the facts to whoever is listening.”

And at the end of the performance the actor took off the wig and said in his own voice: “To the real Dr. Fauci. Thank you for your calm, and your clarity in this unnverving time.” ix

But the only truth in these statements by Brad Pitt is that we live in “unnerving times.”

In fact, not outlining the facts, but saying the untruth and not answering is a characteristic behaviour that runs through Fauci’s entire 36 years in which the now 79-year-old has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). And this has very serious consequences.

Because with a current annual budget of almost six billion dollars, Fauci’s institute is a giant in AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and autoimmune research — while he himself is perhaps the most powerful man in the global virus circus.

The abundance of lies Fauci puts into the world is so great that you don’t even know where to start to enumerate them all. One of the many topic fields about which he is sending out factually untenable statements to the whole world is without question COVID-19. In order to become aware of this, one has to realize that:

Thus, Fauci‘s narratives about the alleged novel coronavirus become a downright fairy tale. And a fairy tale teller, a modern-day Munchausen “Baron of Lies”, Fauci has been since he became the director of the NIAID in 1984 — the year Ronald Reagan was US president and AIDS was put on the world stage.

This was a turning point in modern world history. Since then the virus hunters enjoy god-like status, and this was accomplished by lies and deceit. Fauci played a decisive role in its creation, and the parallels to the “installation” of COVID-19 are striking.

How Fauci’s Falsehoods turned AZT into a “magic bullet”

How could this happen? Not least due to the swine flu disaster in 1976 in which 50 million US citizens were persuaded to get vaccinated, resulting in side effects in 20 percent to 40 percent of recipients, including paralysis and even death, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came into unsettled political waters at the end of the 1970s.

As a result, the great contemplation began at these two most powerful organizations related to health politics and biomedical science.

In fact, Red Cross officer Paul Cumming told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1994 that “the CDC increasingly needed a major epidemic” at the beginning of the 1980s “to justify its existence.” And the HIV/AIDS theory was a salvation for American epidemic authorities.

As a result, “All the old virus hunters from the National Cancer Institute put new signs on their doors and became AIDS researchers. [US President Ronald] Reagan sent up about a billion dollars just for starters,” noted Kary Mullis who received the Nobel Prize for his invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) which plays a central role in the context of COVID-19. “And suddenly everybody who could claim to be any kind of medical scientist and who hadn’t had anything much to do lately was fully employed.“

Among those who jumped over from cancer research to AIDS research, the best known is Robert Gallo. “HIV didn’t suddenly pop out of the rain forest or Haiti. It just popped into Bob Gallo’s hands at a time when he needed a new career,” as Mullis, who unfortunately died last year, noted with a wink.

And it started with big lies. The most important one was announced in April 1984 by Gallo, working under Fauci, when he claimed in a press conference that gained worldwide attention that “the probable cause of AIDS has been found.“

NB. Gallo’s papers were printed in the journal Science over one week after his press conference and also after he had filed a patent application for an antibody test later misleadingly named “HIV test”. Thus, nobody was able to review his work prior to his spectacular TV appearance, and for some days afterwards.

This presented a severe breach of professional scientific etiquette. And as review later showed Gallo’s studies did not deliver any proof for the virus thesis.[1]

Mullis confirmed it as well:

“People keep asking me, ‘You mean you don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS?’ And I say, ‘Whether I believe it or not is irrelevant! I have no scientific evidence for it!’ I might believe in God, and He could have told me in a dream that HIV causes AIDS. But I wouldn’t stand up in front of scientists and say, ‘I believe HIV causes AIDS because God told me.’ I’d say, ‘I have papers here in hand and experiments that have been done that can be demonstrated to others.’ It’s not what somebody believes, it’s experimental proof that counts. And neither Montagnier, Gallo, nor anyone else had published papers describing experiments which led to the conclusion that HIV probably caused AIDS.”

Mullis even had the opportunity to ask Montagnier personally about a reference proving that HIV causes AIDS. But he couldn’t name one. “It was damned irritating,“ as Mullis reported. “If Montagnier didn’t know the answer, who the hell did?“

Of course, whoever is in possession of a solid peer-reviewed study that proves that HIV causes AIDS may please present it to me or my co-author!

I have searched for such a study by myself, but haven’t found it, either. I have also approached Anthony Fauci and his NIAID several times asking them, among other things, to send me such a study showing that HIV is a retrovirus that causes a deadly infection. Finally, I was told by Hillary Hoffman from the NIAID’s News and Science Writing Branch that:

“Dr. Fauci respectfully declines to respond to the questions that you emailed.”[2]

About this practice of refusing to answer questions Horace F. Judson, historian of molecular biology, wrote in his book The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science:

“Central to the problem of misconduct is the response of institutions when charges erupt. Again and again the actions of senior scientists and administrators have been the very model of how not to respond. They have tried to smother the fire. Such flawed responses are altogether typical of misconduct cases.”

Calling AZT trials “scientifically controlled” is like referring to garbage as “haute cuisine”

Such behavior, which smells of misconduct, runs like a golden thread through Fauci‘s 36-year history as director of the NIAID.

A particularly blatant example is the approval of azidothymidine – commonly known as AZT – that became the first authorized AIDS medication. The basis for this was the so-called Fischl study which was published in July 1987 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) — and already then Fauci was in charge of federal AIDS funding.

John Lauritsen, journalist, Harvard analyst and active in the Gay Rights Movement since the 1970s, had viewed the FDA documents on the Fischl study and came to the conclusion that the study was “fraud”; the Swiss newspaper Weltwoche termed the experiment a “gigantic botch-up” and NBC News in New York branded the experiments, conducted across the US, as “seriously flawed.“

Even the FDA toxicology analyst Harvey I. Chernov concluded — months before publication of the mentioned pivotal AZT study – in an FDA document obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act by John Lauritsten that:

‘The available data are insufficient to support FDA approval [of AZT].”

The Fischl experiments were, in fact, stopped after only four months, after 19 trial subjects in the placebo group (those who did not receive AZT, but rather an inactive placebo) and only one participant from the so-called verum group (those who were officially taking AZT) had died. Through this, according to the AIDS establishment, the efficacy of AZT appeared to be proven.

But the Fischl study was not even worth the paper it was printed on. Not only was it financed by AZT manufacturer Wellcome (today GlaxoSmithKline), which is clearly a conflict of interest, but it was “clear that Fauci‘s NIH and the FDA had far too ‘cozy’ a relationship with Burroughs-Wellcome,” as Lauritsen writes.

Apart from that, the study was stopped after only four months. A clinical trial observation period of only four months is much too short to be informative, considering the usual practice of administering AIDS medications over years, or even a lifetime.

Moreover, the Fischl study had been conducted in a downright fraudulent manner. “It is almost beyond the bounds of probability that the mortality data could be correct,” as Lauritsen states. “There are many ways that errors can occur in research. But in this particular study the most parsimonious explanation would be deliberate fraud.” [3]

For example, the double-blind conditions of the study (according to which neither the researchers nor patients should have known who was taking AZT and who was taking placebos) were no longer existent after a short time. NBC lead reporter Perri Peltz stated in 1988, that almost immediately everyone knew who was getting what. Patients told how they can distinguish AZT from placebo by the taste.

Furthermore, the FDA documents show that the study results were distorted. For example, sicker patients were placed in the placebo group or because the group that swallowed AZT (and therefore had to cope with the severe side effects) received more supportive medical services than the placebo subjects.

NBC reported that there was widespread tampering with the rules of the Fischl trial. The rules had been violated coast to coast, and if all patients with protocol violations were dropped, there wouldn’t be enough to be able to continue the study.

Fauci’s History of Ignoring Critical Questions

On 27 January 1988, NBC News (Channel 4) broadcasted the first of Peltz‘ three-part exposés on AZT.

“When preparing this report, we repeatedly tried to interview Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institutes of Health. But both Dr. Fauci and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Frank Young declined our request for interviews.”

“Welcome to the club, Perri!” wrote John Lauritsen in his book The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profeteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex.

“When it comes to questions of HIV or AZT, the Public Health Service bureaucrats and “scientists” won’t speak to me either; they have also refused to speak to the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio, Channel 4 (London) television, Italian television, The New Scientist, and Jack Anderson.“

The same happened to me recently when I sent Fauci, and his NIAID, questions regarding the Fischl study — to this day I have not received any answer.[4]

Of course, Fauci was willing to talk… in media that did not ask critical questions and only let him pray down his advertising messages.

On February 19, 1988, Fauci appeared on the television program Good Morning America, as Lauritsen writes in his book. And he was asked why only one drug, AZT, had been made available. He replied:

“The reason why only one drug has been made available — AZT — is because it’s the only drug that has been shown in scientifically controlled trials to be safe and effective.“

But “this brief statement contains several outstanding falsehoods,” as Lauritsen points out.

“First, there have been no “scientifically controlled trials” of AZT; to refer to the FDA-conducted AZT trials as ‘scientifically controlled’ is equivalent to referring to garbage as la haute cuisine. Second, AZT is not ‘safe’: it is a highly toxic drug — the FDA analyst who reviewed the toxicology data on AZT recommended that it should not be approved. Third, AZT is not known objectively to be ‘effective’ for anything, except perhaps for destroying bone marrow.” [5]

Nevertheless, Fauci did not get tired of spreading factually unsubstantiated statements about AZT throughout the world. Even this year, at the end of April, Fauci was not afraid of promulgating the untruth about AZT during a White House meeting about Gilead’s drug remdesivir, by saying “the first randomized placebo-controlled trial with AZT… turned out to give an effect that was modest” (more on remdesivir below).

By the way, the inventor of AZT himself, Jerome Horwitz, said he was so cloyed with the drug that he “dumped it on the junk pile,” he “didn’t [even] keep the notebooks.“

His invention AZT was a chemotherapy-like drug of extreme, not to say fatal, toxicity and “so worthless” to him that he “didn’t think it was worth patenting,” as former BusinessWeek journalist Bruce Nussbaum writes in his book Good Intentions: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment are Corrupting the Fight against AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Cancer and More.

In the mid 1980s Fauci promised the world they would “develop a vaccine for AIDS” rapidly. But even 35 years later such a vaccine is not yet in sight — and this despite the fact that, according to calculations since the 1980s governments alone have funded HIV research with well over half a trillion US dollars so far, with annual budgets that are now around 35 billion dollars, compared to 0.9 billion in 1987.

Is the Watergate phenomenon — follow the money — also evident here? To this Charles Thomas, molecular biologist and former professor of biochemistry at Harvard and John Hopkins Universities, said:

“Too many people are making too much money out of it. And money is stronger than truth.”

Same Old Scam: From AZT to “swine flu” vaccines, PrEP & remdesivir

The list of Fauci‘s assertions, which he must know he cannot substantiate scientifically, is almost endless. This cannot be stressed often enough.

In the context of so-called “bird flu” (H5N1) which was exaggerated to a world threat by the WHO, politicians, scientists and the mainstream media between 2003 and 2005, Fauci predicted that “even in the best-case scenarios” it would “cause 2 to 7 million deaths” worldwide. As the journalist Michael Fumento writes in his article:

“Dr. Fauci’s recurring disease ‘nightmares’ often don’t materialize.”

In fact, even the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that by May 16, 2006, H5N1 had killed “only” 100 people.

Equally unsubstantiated was Fauci’s aggressive promotion of H1N1 influenza (“swine flu”) vaccine in 2009. Back then he was reassuring that serious adverse events were “very, very, very rare”. Unfortunately, this statement was also irresponsibly unfounded, because the underlying studies were fast-tracked ones and lacked solid double-blind placebo-controls. There were also heavy conflicts of interests.

To make matters worse, only one year later, in 2010, the Swedish Agency for the Regulation of Prescription Drugs reported cases of children and adolescents suffering from narcolepsy after a swine flu vaccination — a neurological disorder that leads to a disturbance of the circadian rhythm (the biological clock that regulates the sleep-wake cycle).

Further analysis confirmed that the Pandemrix vaccine also caused the disease in vaccinated people in other countries. That the swine flu vaccine causes narcolepsy has been confirmed by the courts.

Nevertheless, Fauci did not let himself be put off.

In December 2015, for instance, the NEJM published his article Ending the HIV–AIDS Pandemic: Follow the Science. In this piece he made a case to “dramatically scale up HIV testing and treatment around the world” — including preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP), i.e. “using ART [antiretroviral therapy] for HIV prevention in HIV negative persons.”

That is to say, healthy people should take highly toxic drugs. But here again: As self-assured as he presents his statements, he was not prepared to substantiate them factually.

In my mentioned request to the NIAID, in relation to his 2015 article about PrEP I asked:

  • In your NEJM article you write that the IPERGAY study showed that ‘persons who took PrEP… were 86% less likely to acquire HIV infection than those taking placebo.’ But in which study has it been shown that HIV is a very special retrovirus that causes a deadly infection?
  • Or in other words: If even Luc Montagnier admits, that on the images done by electron microscopy of the cell culture that he used he “saw some particles but they did not have the morphology typical of retroviruses”xxxii — in which study has it been proven that HIV, which is said to be a retrovirus, is a deadly retrovirus?
  • In your article you are making a case for “dramatically scale up HIV testing”—but in which study it has been proven that so-called HIV tests are in fact HIV tests?
  • Do you agree that:
    1. so-called HIV tests respond “positive” to a wide range of physiological conditions
    2. HIV test kits were approved only for blood screening
    3. these tests do not claim to diagnose infection
    4. proteins such as p18 or p24 are not specific for HIV, and that
    5. there is no gold standard for an HIV test?

    If not, which of these statements is wrong, and why is it wrong? If yes, why should we “dramatically scale up HIV testing” ?

  • You say in your article that “the early promise of durable effects from combination therapy has been realized for many patients.” But how can we conclude that ART being introduced in 1995/1996 is life-prolonging and responsible for having decreased the number of AIDS deaths in industrialized countries if:
    1. in 1995/1996 only a fraction of patients received ART
    2. statistics from the CDC and the RKI clearly show that the number of AIDS deaths actually reached the peak (mortality summit) as early as 1991,
    3. no reliable statements can be made as to whether a single drug and ART are life-prolonging, since the basic prerequisite for this is lacking: a solid placebo-controlled study that has demonstrated the superiority of the drug/ART?

Unfortunately, as mentioned, Hillary Hoffman from NIAID just let me know that:

“Dr. Fauci respectfully declines to respond to the questions that you emailed.”[6]

Another example of a Fauci farce is Gilead Sciences’ rapid-release drug remdesivir, which was approved on May 2, 2020 in the context of COVID-19 for emergency use only. A few days before, the NIAID director claimed that a study found remdesivir would reduce recovery time and reduce mortality.

This can only be described as another scandal in which Fauci plays a central role—especially when you look at the fraudulent way in which the drug was approved and which is very similar to the way AZT was authorized in 1987.

An article from the Alliance for Human Research and Protection (AHRP) — Fauci’s Promotional Hype Catapults Gilead’s remdesivir — brought up the following painful subject:

Fauci has a vested interest in remdesivir. He sponsored the clinical trial whose detailed results have not been peer-reviewed. Furthermore, he declared the tenuous results to be ‘highly significant,’ and pronounced remdesivir to be the new ‘standard of care.’ Fauci made the promotional pronouncement while sitting on a couch in the White House, without providing a detailed news release; without a briefing at a medical meeting or in a scientific journal — as is the norm and practice, to allow scientists and researchers to review the data.

When he was asked about a recently published Chinese study on remdesivir, in The Lancet (April 29th , 2020); a trial that was stopped because of serious adverse events in 16 (12%) of the patients compared to four (5%) of patients in the placebo group, Dr. Fauci dismissed the study as ‘not adequate.’

But while the Chinese study that Fauci denigrated, was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center peer-reviewed, published study in a premier journal, The Lancet, with all data available, the NIAID-Gilead study results the remdesivir approval is based on have not been published in peer-reviewed literature — nor have details of the findings been disclosed.

“However, they were publicly promoted by the head of the federal agency that conducted the study, from the White House,” as the AHRP underlined. “What better free advertisement?”

By the way, regarding Fauci’s financial relations with Gilead, there is a petition that requests that he discloses them, since he hasn’t done it yet.

What the virus tsar also failed to disclose to the public in his promotional pronouncement of remdesivir was that the primary outcomes of the study that led to its emergency use approval were changed on April 16, 2020. Changes in the primary outcome are posted on clinicaltrials.gov.

Where previously there was an 8-point scale, which also included the deceased patients, from then on there has been only a 3-point scale, which leaves the deceased patient out of the equation and which at the same time only measures the time until recovery or being released from the hospital.

“Changing primary outcomes after a study has commenced is considered dubious and suspicious,” as the AHRP pointed out. And Reuters News reported that respected prominent leaders in the medical community — such as Steven Nissen MD, the chief academic officer at the Cleveland Clinic and Eric Topol MD, director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California — were unimpressed by remdesivir’s tentative, modest benefit at best.

Referring to the Lancet report, Topol stated:

“That’s the only thing I’ll hang my hat on, and that was negative.”

As for the NIAID modest results, Dr Topol was unimpressed:

“It was expected to be a whopping effect. It clearly does not have that.”

The change in primary outcome measures raised serious red flags for scientists; but was largely ignored by the mainstream media which mostly repeated Fauci’s promotional script.

Steve Nissen told The Washington Post :

“I think that they thought they weren’t going to win, and they wanted to change it to something they could win on. I prefer the original outcome. It’s harder. It’s a more meaningful endpoint. Getting out of the hospital early is useful, but it’s not a game-changer.”

As you can guess, all the questions I have asked the NIAID regarding remdesivir have remained unanswered as well… [7]

How toxic remdesivir is, is also shown by the fact that just recently, on October 2, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the regulator of medicinal products of the European Union, started a safety review of remdesivir. Reason: Some patients taking the drug reported serious kidney problems.

About two weeks later, on October 15, the WHO reported that in its own trial named “Solidarity” which started in March this year remdesivir not only failed to produce any measurable benefit in terms of mortality reduction, but that it also didn’t reduce the need for ventilators, or the length of hospital stays.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s organization Children’s Health Defense pointed this out on October 23 on its website. Fauci, by contrast, again remained silent about this study.

But Gilead shot ahead and commented in all seriousness “it is unclear if any conclusive findings can be drawn from the [Solidarity] study results,” because the trial hadn’t been peer reviewed or published in a scholarly journal.

But this comment is downright ridiculous.

On the one hand, it was no less a figure than Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, who initiated this multi-center, global Solidarity trial (more than 11,300 adults with Covid-19 in 405 hospitals in 30 countries) for the very reason that:

“multiple small trials with different methodologies may not give us the clear, strong evidence we need about which treatments help to save lives. This large, international study is designed to generate the robust data we need, to show which treatments are the most effective.”

Moreover, Gilead forgot to mention in its statement that the pivotal trial of remdesivir leading to its emergency use approval, as outlined, had not been peer reviewed and published in a solid journal on the day of its approval (May 2nd), either, and that it was seriously flawed.

Nevertheless, the study funded by Fauci’s NIAID has been finally published on October 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The only alleged benefit reported was a shorter recovery time for patients receiving remdesivir compared to those in the placebo group.

But this result has no validity, not only because of the seriously flawed underlying data. The way in which this drug got its approval is very reminiscent of the outlined fraudulent way in which AZT received its approval in 1987 in an alleged placebo trial. But in reality, almost from the beginning, everyone knew who was getting what (AZT or placebo) and patients even had their pills analyzed in the craving for the alleged miracle drug.

Who wants to rule out that this did not happen with remdesivir as well?

Especially since the placebo subjects in the remdesivir study did not receive a real placebo. Instead, the bulk the patients got a “placebo” containing the same ingredients as remdesivir except the agent sulfobutylether-beta-cyclodextrin, which can cause serious damage.

hydroxychloroquine illustrates Fauci’s mendacity

The story of the drug hydroxychloroquine also illustrates Fauci’s phoniness. At the end of March, US president Trump called this agent “a gift from God”, while Fauci warned against jumping on conclusions.

On May 27, Fauci even stated on CNN about hydroxychloroquine, “The scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy.”

And his comments came days after the Lancet published a 96,000-patient observational study that concluded that hydroxychloroquine had no effect on Covid-19 and may have even caused some harm.

Too bad that shortly after, this Lancet study was retracted, because:

“several concerns were raised with respect to the veracity of the data and analyses conducted by Surgisphere Corporation and its founder and our co-author, Sapan Desai.”

Hence, Fauci’s assertion on May 27, “The scientific data [about hydroxychloroquine] is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy,” was definitely a voluntary false statement, simply because at that date Fauci must have known that scientific data backing his claim did not exist.

Or as Politico put it on May 27:

“There is no data yet from randomized, controlled clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine—the gold standard for evaluating potential treatments.”

In fact, in 2005 the Virology Journal published an article concluding that chloroquine (of which hydroxychloroquine is a slightly milder derivative) is a “potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus” dubbed SARS-CoV-1, as health care expert Kevin Corbett points out in a Twitter post on October 26. And so-called SARS-CoV-2 is claimed to be genetically related to so-called SARS-CoV-1.

Of course, the Virology Journal study lacks validity because the science behind SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 is totally unfounded, and not least also because the study was just a cell culture and not a patient trial.

But Fauci is the world’s number one herald of the official corona narrative, and the study has been conducted by CDC scientists. So he should actually be totally convinced that chloroquine (and thus also hydroxychloroquine) is helpful in the context of corona.

Nevertheless, Fauci was unequivocal on Wednesday May 27, saying that “the data are clear right now” that hydroxychloroquine is not effective against the coronavirus.

This is why I asked Fauci’s NIAID, “How did Anthony Fauci come to his conclusion on May 27?” [8]. But I have not received an answer to this question, either.

Conversely, this does not mean that the effectiveness of the drug has been properly proven. Let’s not forget that hydroxychloroquine is far from a candy, it can have many serious side effects and even be fatal by causing cardiac arrhythmias, for example. Especially if it is given in higher doses, which is what happened in the treatment of so-called COVID-19 patients.

As mentioned, the experimental administration of high doses of potentially lethal drugs such as hydroxychloroquine is the major factor for the excess mortality observed in some (but not all!) countries. “I agree about hydroxychloroquine overdosing, both from a reduced function point of view and toxicity,” writes me Yale epidemiologist Harvey Risch by e-mail. [9]

Risch belongs to the best-known researchers who see a potential curative effect in the drug. The relevant studies with COVID-19 patients “all showed significant benefit for high-risk outpatients,” says Risch. [10]

A view that is also expressed, for example, in the almost 40-page inquiry of Paul V. Sheridan to Fauci with copies sent to President Trump and others.

But even if we assume that administering hydroxychloroquine in lower doses alone, or in combination with an antibiotic and possibly zinc, to so-called COVID-19 patients may help decreasing the hospitalization and mortality risk, for instance, there is definitely no solid proof that this is due to an antiviral/anti-SARS-CoV-2 effect, as claimed. So the only conclusion would be that the positive effect is due to hydroxychloroquine having an anti-inflammatory effect, antibiotics clearing pathogenic bacteria and zinc boosting the immune system and metabolism function.

Furthermore, it must be considered in this context that administering hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with an antibiotic and maybe zinc cannot be at all a sustainable long-term therapy nor does it represent a real causal therapy.

This approach also just follows “modern biomedicine’s basic formula with its monocausal-microbial starting-point and its search for magic bullets: one disease, one cause, one cure,“ as American sociology professor, Steven Epstein, writes in his book Impure Science — AIDS, Activism and the Politics of Knowledge. An approach that finally is just escapist.

This was expressed by Allan Brandt, a medical historian at Harvard Medical School, stating in his book No Magic Bullet: The promise of the magic bullet has never been fulfilled.

Apart from that, there is only one way to prove that a drug or a combination of agents help reducing mortality or hospitalization or is effective in relation to any other clinical endpoint, that is if you do compare it with a real placebo.

As Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, states quite rightly in her book The Truth About the Drug Companies:

“If there is really doubt about whether a standard treatment is effective, the FDA should require that clinical trials of new treatments have three comparison groups—new drug, old drug, and placebo.”

Unfortunately, there is no such placebo-study for hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19 showing that this drug is superior compared to doing nothing.

In this context, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on August 2 on Instagram, Fauci “insists he will not approve HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] for COVID until its efficacy is proven in ‘randomized, double blind placebo studies.’”

On this point one can indeed only agree with the virus tsar. And at the beginning of June, researchers reported the results of the first gold-standard clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine in Covid-19, concluding that it did not perform any better than placebo.

But here as well Fauci’s hypocrisy shows up in the end. Not only did the results of the said “first gold-standard” placebo study become known only at the beginning of June — thus a couple of days after Fauci made his unfounded claim that “The scientific data [about hydroxychloroquine] is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy.”

Also, “to date, Dr Fauci has never advocated such [placebo] studies for any of the 72 vaccine doses added to the mandatory childhood schedule since he took over NIAID in 1984,” as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also notes in his Instagram post. “Nor is he requiring them for the COVID vaccines currently racing for approval. Why should chloroquine be the only remedy required to cross this high hurdle?”

Fauci follows Big Pharma’s track

Additionally, the following question must be asked: Why do Fauci and his compliant companions focus on a “magic bullet” oriented symptom treatment medicine and not on causal therapies that take lifestyle factors such as nutrition, industrial toxins, exercise and psyche into account?

That can only be because people who occupy the highest positions of power such as Fauci obviously are on the side of pharmaceutical companies.

“Dr Fauci’s peculiar hostility towards HCQ is consistent with his half-century bias favoring vaccines and patent medicines,” as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. states. “Dr. Fauci’s double standards create confusion, mistrust and polarization.”

In this context, Kennedy Jr. points out that:

“HCQ’s patents are long expired; pills cost 30¢. [And] HCQ might compete with Dr Fauci’s vaccines including the Moderna vaccine for which his agency owns half the patent and Dr Fauci has invested $500 million in taxpayer dollar.”

The emperor of worldwide virus research also has ties with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who in turn is associated with Big Pharma and other powerful industries, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) that is associated with powerful industries as well.

In 2012 Fauci was named one of the five Leadership Council of the Gates Foundation-created Global Vaccine Action Plan.

The Gates Foundation also invests directly in Fauci’s NIAID (around $1.5 million in 2020 and around $7.5 million in 2019). And not least through Fauci’s vested interest in remdesivir, the circle closes when one realizes that the Gates Foundation owns more than $1.3 million in Gilead stock and more than $3.2 million in Gilead bonds.

So it is just jaw-dropping how Fauci can bloviate in the interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel mentioned at the beginning of this article:

“I stay completely apolitical. I never, ever, get involved in politics… I have been neutral throughout the six presidents that I have served.”

With this assertion Fauci conveys a completely unrealistic picture of the reality which resembles a Fata Morgana in which politicians rule, companies keep the economy going and science tracks down the facts in completely independent manner — without getting significantly in each other’s way or even corrupting each other.

Besides, scientists are in no way immune to careerism, greed, and thirst for glory. Even though they are often perceived as such, scientists are not saints, they are humans with virtues and faults. Even Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur whose claims laid the foundation for the whole virus mania, were demonstrably career-obsessed science fraudsters.

No doubt, we are living in times in which politicians are less and less in control of politics and in which the influence of powerful industries is so great that the independence of research is no longer guaranteed in many areas.

As a 2004 Lancet review of Judson’s aforementioned book The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science points out:

“Judson paints a dark picture of [biomedical] science today, but we may see far darker days ahead as proof and profit become inextricably mixed.”

Fauci himself is the personified expression of this alarming development and thus far from being “completely apolitical,” in fact the opposite. Against this background, it seems just comprehensible that there is even a petition titled “#Fire Fauci.”

NOTES:

  • [1] Steven Epstein. Impure Science—AIDS, Activism and the Politics of Knowledge (University of California Press, 1996, p. 73)
  • [2] Author’s email communication with the NIAID media team (among them Hillary Hoffman) between January 9 and 30, 2018
  • [3] John Lauritsen. The AIDS War. Propaganda, Profeteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex (Asklepios, 1993, p. 77)
  • [4] Author’s emails to the NIAID on August 24 and 27, 2020
  • [5] John Lauritsen. The AIDS War. Propaganda, Profeteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex (Asklepios, 1993, pp. 71-79)
  • [6] Author’s email communication with the NIAID media team (among them Hillary Hoffman) between January 9 and 30, 2018
  • [7] Author’s email to the NIAID on August 27, 2020
  • [8] Personal email from September 11, 2020
  • [9] Personal email from September 9, 2020
  • [10] ibid.

Torsten Engelbrecht is an award-winning journalist and author from Hamburg, Germany. In 2006 he co-authored Virus-Mania with Dr Klaus Kohnlein, and in 2009 he won the German Alternate Media Award. He has also written for Rubikon, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland and many others.

Konstantin Demeter is a freelance photographer and an independent researcher. Together with the journalist Torsten Engelbrecht he has published articles on the “COVID-19” crisis in the online magazine Rubikon, as well as contributions on the monetary system, geopolitics, and the media in Swiss Italian newspapers.

October 27, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 2 Comments

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