Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Fukushima, the Nuclear Pandemic Spreads

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | November 5, 2020

It was not Covid, therefore the news went almost unnoticed: Japan will release over a million tons of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. The catastrophic incident in Fukushima was triggered by the Tsunami that struck the northeastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, submerging the power plant and causing the core of three nuclear reactors to melt.

The power plant was built on the coast just 4 meters above sea level with five-meter-high breakwater dams, in a tsunami-prone area with waves 10-15 meters high. Furthermore, there had been serious failures by the private company Tepco managing the plant, in the control of the nuclear plant: the safety devices did not come into operation at the time of the Tsunami.

Water has been pumped through the reactors for years to cool the molten fuel. The water became radioactive, and was stored inside the plant in over a thousand large tanks, accumulating 1.23 million tons of radioactive water. Tepco is building other tanks, but they will also be full by mid-2022.

Tepco must continue pumping water into the melted reactors and has decided to discharge, in agreement with the government, the water accumulated so far into the sea after filtering it to make it less radioactive (however, to what extent it is not known) with a process which will last 30 years. There is also radioactive sludge accumulated in the decontamination filters of the plant, stored in thousands of containers, and huge quantities of soil and other radioactive materials.

As Tepco admitted, the melting in reactor 3 is particularly serious because the reactor was loaded with Mox, a much more unstable and radioactive mix of uranium oxides and plutonium.

The Mox for this reactor and other Japanese ones was produced in France, using nuclear waste sent from Japan. Greenpeace has denounced the danger deriving from the transport of this plutonium fuel for ten thousand kilometers.

Greenpeace also denounced that Mox favors the proliferation of nuclear weapons, since plutonium can be extracted more easily and, in the cycle of uranium exploitation, there is no clear dividing line between civilian and military use of fissile material.

Up to now, around 240 tons of plutonium for direct military use and 2,400 tons for civil use (nuclear weapons can however be produced with them), were accumulated in the world (according to 2015 estimates), plus about 1,400 tons of highly enriched uranium for military use. A few hundred kilograms of plutonium would be enough to cause lung cancer to 7.7 billion inhabitants of the planet, and plutonium remains lethal for a period corresponding to almost ten-thousand human generations.

A destructive potential has thus accumulated, for the first time in history, capable of making the human species disappear from the face of Earth. The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the more than 2,000 experimental nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, at sea and underground; the manufacture of nuclear warheads with a power equivalent to over one million Hiroshima bombs; the numerous accidents involving nuclear weapons and those involving civilian and military nuclear plants, all this has caused radioactive contamination that has affected hundreds of millions of people.

A portion of approximately 10 million annual cancer deaths worldwide – documented by WHO – is attributable to the long-term effects of radiation. In ten months, again according to the World Health Organization data, Covid-19 caused about 1.2 million deaths worldwide. This danger should not be underestimated, but it does not justify the fact that mass media, especially television, did not inform that over one million tons of radioactive water will be discharged into the sea from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, with the result that it will further increase cancer deaths upon entering in the food chain.

*

This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Pfizer’s CEO Dumps 62% Of His Stock On COVID Vaccine Announcement

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 11/11/2020

On Monday, Pfizer shares soared 16% following a bullish statement on the company’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine showed 90% effectiveness in preliminary results. Then on Tuesday, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla sold 62% of his stock.

The SEC Form 4 filing showed Bourla sold 132,508 shares at an average price of $41.94 per share, equivalent to $5.6 million – nearly top-ticking the 52-week-high.

Bourla’s sale was conducted under Rule 10b5-1, established by the SEC, allowing the corporate insider to sell a predetermined number of shares at a predetermined time. A Pfizer spokesperson told Axios that the CEO’s predetermined trading plan was formed in August.

Despite the sale being perfectly legal under Rule 10b5-1 to avoid accusations of insider trading, the optics aren’t great for Bourla, who still managed to top-tick the 52-week-high on the sale on news day. One can argue that he couldn’t have known the results of the vaccine trial months ahead of time. And while all this is coming out just days after a critical US election, though it’s not clear if that was a trigger.

Other pharmaceutical companies such as Moderna, also producing a COVID-19 vaccine, experienced similar insider selling over the summer around vaccine news – where insiders dumped tens of millions of dollars of stock.

Under the cover of Rule 10b5-1, corporate insiders at some pharmaceutical companies are already running for the exits by dumping their stock, of course, it’s easier to commit to pre-plan sales of stock when you know you can pump the price by simply publishing a press release.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

A Biden Administration Makes the Lessons of WWI Newly Relevant

Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | November 11, 2020

It’s November the 11th again. The poppies are all out, worn by TV personalities (as instructed by their PR department), and politicians who have long forgotten what it was supposed to mean.

“Never Again”, that was the intention. But it happened again. And again and again and again and again.

The wars never stopped, not because of religion or racism or humanity’s bloodthirsty nature… but because of money. Money and power for the very few – the driving force behind almost every war, no matter the thin ideological veneer.

“War is a racket”, that’s how Major General Smedley D. Butler, put it:

I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

This message is more important than ever now, with a Biden administration being crow-barred into power at the cost of even the facade of democracy. Biden is not “progressive”, no matter what they call him or how many rainbow flags they wave. He is not new. He is old, in more ways than one.

The Warhawks in politics and the press are already salivating at the idea. The BBC is putting out a new “documentary” series about Syria. The Guardian is writing about “US leadership on the world stage”. One year on from his death, the press has decided that Russia is to blame for James Le Mesurier’s “suicide”.

Back in September, Josh Rogin writing in the Washington Post was even more flagrant, demanding Biden:

… increase pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to secure some dignity, safety and justice for the Syrian people.”

It’s not to hard to see where this is going. Whatever Trump may be, there’s no denying he’s been the least militarily aggressive president in recent memory. For the first time in nearly 40 years, a President did not start a new war in his term.

That is likely to change. They will begin drip-feeding propaganda on some “enemy” state soon enough – most likely Syria. The war drums will bang softly at first, they always do, but they will build.

That’s when the lessons of World War I need to be foremost in our minds. When the old lies are busy being given new life.

I leave you with this excellent passage from All Quiet on the Western Front. Read, and remember what was true 106 years ago is still true today:

Tjaden reappears. He is still quite excited and again joins the conversation, wondering just how a war gets started.

“Mostly by one country badly offending another,” answers Albert with a slight air of superiority.

Then Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. “A country? I don’t follow. A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a field of wheat.”

“Are you really as stupid as that, or are you just pulling my leg?” growls Kropp, “I don’t mean that at all. One people offends the other

“Then I haven’t any business here at all,” replies Tjaden, “I don’t feel myself offended.”

“Well, let me tell you,” says Albert sourly, “it doesn’t apply to tramps like you.”

“Then I can be going home right away,” retorts Tjaden, and we all laugh, “Ach, man! he means the people as a whole, the State” exclaims Müller.

“State, State” Tjaden snaps his fingers contemptuously, “Gendarmes, police, taxes, that’s your State; if that’s what you are talking about, no, thank you.”

“That’s right,” says Kat, “you’ve said something for once, Tjaden. State and home country, there’s a big difference.”

“But they go together,” insists Kropp, “without the State there wouldn’t be any home country.”

“True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the majority of men are labourers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They weren’t asked about it any more than we were.”

“Then what exactly is the war for?” asks Tjaden.

Kat shrugs his shoulders. “There must be some people to whom the war is useful.”

“Well, I’m not one of them,” grins Tjaden.

“Not you, nor anybody else here.”

“Who are they then?” persists Tjaden. “It isn’t any use to the Kaiser either. He has everything he can want already.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” contradicts Kat, “he has not had a war up till now. And every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous. You look in your school books.”

“And generals too,” adds Detering, “they become famous through war.”

“Even more famous than emperors,” adds Kat.

“There are other people back behind there who profit by the war, that’s certain,” growls Detering.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Ongoing legal battle over 2005 UK police killing brings to light covert op to smear victim justice campaigns

By Kit Klarenberg | RT | November 10, 2020

On July 22, 2005, Jean Charles de Menezes was executed by armed police on a London Underground train. He was quickly found innocent, but his family’s fight for justice goes on, exposing police efforts to dodge responsibility.

Due to a litany of catastrophic blunders and miscommunications by senior officials and officers on-the-ground, he’d been wrongly identified as one of the fugitives involved in a string of failed suicide bombings the previous day.

Followed by a team of plainclothes police from his home to nearby Stockwell Underground station, despite clear orders from Metropolitan Police ‘Gold Command’ he be apprehended, Jean Charles was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at close range in an underground train carriage. His body was said to be “unrecognizable” afterwards.

Lying squad

In the immediate aftermath, confusion and hysteria abounded, thanks largely to contradictory witness accounts and numerous “off-record” briefings from police being eagerly and uncritically amplified and speculated upon over and again by the mainstream media.

The day after his killing, it was fully established that Jean Charles hadn’t been a bombing suspect, and was in fact entirely innocent. Yet news outlets seemed oddly determined to imply he wasn’t entirely guiltless.

It was widely reported that he’d been an illegal immigrant, wires had been trailing from his rucksack, he’d been acting dubiously, fled from police after being challenged, vaulted the station ticket barriers, and refused to stop running despite shouted demands from officers.

All of these stories were entirely untrue, and widely acknowledged to be false over the course of subsequent months, but these impressions endure to this day in the minds of many. Suspiciously, the stories all seemed purpose-built to cast doubt on Jean Charles’ actions and character, and in the process mitigate the seriousness of the police’s fatal errors.

A subsequent investigation of Jean Charles’ killing by the then-Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) specifically examined the question of how these lies entered the public domain.

It determined that no officer had knowingly fed disinformation to the press, but somewhat contradictorily, concluded that once officials knew Jean Charles was innocent the morning of July 23, 2005, “they should have refrained from publicly discussing the shooting until… the facts had been fully established.”

“Whilst [police] admitted to having made a tragic mistake they continued to try to justify the shooting by referring to de Menezes’ own actions and clothing,” the IPCC added.

The same probe concluded none of the officers involved would face disciplinary charges, while criticising the Metropolitan Police’s command structure. As of November 2020, no one has ever been criminally prosecuted for their actions on that fateful day.

Without knowledge or consent

Jean Charles’ family have never given up their quest for British police to be held accountable for his killing. In August 2005, they launched a campaign, Justice4Jean, calling for a public inquiry into his “unlawful killing.”

Shockingly, in 2014 they were contacted by representatives of Operation Herne, which was investigating the activities of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a now-defunct covert unit of Special Branch, Britain’s elite national security police force. They were told information about them and their campaign had been inappropriately gathered by undercover operatives.

Among them was Patricia Armani Da Silva, Jean Charles’ first cousin and flatmate, who’d played a prominent role in Justice4Jean since its foundation. At a subsequent meeting with Herne investigators, she and other family members were shown five heavily redacted intelligence reports. The documents recorded covertly obtained information about individuals connected with the campaign and its meetings. For reasons unclear, the details gathered included the family’s political views.

In October 2015, Patricia was granted core participant status in the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI), established by then-home secretary Theresa May to investigate numerous controversies surrounding the British state’s use of clandestine operatives.

Despite offering to actively participate with the investigation and two judicial reviews into her surveillance, in 2020 Patricia remains entirely in the dark as to why she, her relatives, and their campaign, were spied on by police. Now the UCPI has finally begun hearing evidence, and an opening statement on her behalf was read to the Inquiry on November 9 by Phillipa Kaufmann QC.

She outlined the immensely distressing impact mendacious media allegations had on Jean Charles’ family at the time, as they knew it highly unlikely their law-abiding, respectable son could have done anything wrong. She also noted they often relive the pain of the dark, harrowing period following his death, as they still encounter those bogus allegations, and are frequently forced to counter erroneous perceptions that Jean Charles in some way contributed to his own killing.

Moreover though, Kaufmann made it clear that the family are adamant police were fundamental to the dissemination of these stories, and continued to perfidiously pump discrediting disinformation about Jean Charles into the public domain long after he was so brutally slain.

For example, at the start of 2006, it was widely reported that a woman had approached police and claimed a man bearing a “striking resemblance” to Jean Charles had sexually assaulted her in a hotel room on New Year’s Eve 2002 in West London. After initially refusing, his family consented to a blood sample being taken from Jean Charles’ autopsy for forensic tests, and in April that year, Scotland Yard announced he’d been fully exonerated.

Strikingly, Kaufmann revealed that in March 2006, Patricia’s solicitor Harriet Wistrich received a telephone call from DI Paul Settle informing her that an article detailing the woman’s allegations would soon be published by the Sunday Mirror. Moreover, Wistrich clearly recalls that Settle “gave the unambiguous impression” the article was a result of a police leak.

The matter was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service’s Directorate of Professional Standards, under the supervision of the IPCC. Settle denied having suggested the information was leaked by police, and the probe halted after concluding the number of people who knew of the allegations, including those outside the police, meant further investigation was unlikely to identify its source.

Undermining campaigning efforts

To say the least, Jean Charles’ relatives well understand the critical role that information and disinformation play in shaping public narratives about police action.

It’s in this context that undercover surveillance of the family justice campaign gains an even more sinister dimension. Illicitly obtained private information about them could easily be weaponised to discredit them and undermine their battle, in the same way disinformation served to discredit Jean Charles and by implication exonerate police.

In all, undercover officers spied on at least 18 family justice campaigns between 1968 and 2011. Such a profusion suggests a clear pattern of behaviour, a pattern in turn plausibly influenced by established internal policy. However, police consistently seek to characterise surveillance of justice campaigns as mere ‘collateral intrusion’ – inadvertent and unintentional intelligence gathering by covert operatives investigating individuals involved, rather than direct and deliberate targeting of grieving relatives themselves.

Families are deeply sceptical of this explanation, particularly in light of the revelations of former undercover officer Peter Francis, who as ‘Pete Black’ infiltrated 12 separate justice campaigns between 1993 and 1997. In 2010, under the alias ‘Officer A’, he said his presence in these groups was specifically intended to make the truth they sought “harder to obtain,” as part of a wider wrecking tendency on the part of SDS. Once the unit infiltrated an organisation, it was “effectively finished,” he claims.

In later years, Francis identified himself publicly, and shed further light on his undercover activities, particularly in regard to the Stephen Lawrence justice campaign, set up after the South London teenager was murdered in a cold-blooded racist attack. He alleged he was specifically tasked with unearthing incriminating information on Stephen’s parents and friends, which could halt their crusade in its tracks.

“Had I… found anything detrimental, the police using the media would’ve used that information to smear the family. My superiors were after any intelligence of that order. That was made clear to me. The Lawrences weren’t unique in this. I suggest journalists read some of the information leaked to the press at the time about these campaigns and seriously question where they came from and why,” he has claimed.

Kaufmann said that for Patricia, there was a “chilling parallel” between the disinformation about her cousin perpetuated in public, and Francis’ accounts of seeking out dishonouring dirt at his superiors’ behest.

While an individual spied-upon campaign may not be able to prove particular information was disseminated as part of a deliberate police strategy to smear them, if this is provably a common experience across many such groups, then defences of accidental error, or denial of attribution, on the part of the police by definition become very difficult to maintain.

“The inquiry is asked to scrutinise very carefully, with a penetrating sceptical gaze, the purported explanation advanced by the [police] for undercover reporting on justice campaigns… Patricia asks the inquiry to seek out the evidence of those involved in the campaigns and consider whether there are common aspects of their experiences which call into question those denials,” Kauffman concluded.

Isolated examples of disinformation about victims of police misconduct circulated by news outlets may be dismissed as perverse mishaps, the result of misunderstandings, breakdowns in communication, overzealous officials carelessly hypothesising beyond available evidence. Repeated instances of information on these groups and their members being secretly obtained and committed to internal police documents raise obvious questions over ulterior motives and ultimate objectives.

Patricia has waited over 15 years for justice in respect of Jean Charles’ killing, and over six to learn the truth about the police surveillance of her and her family. She’s now forced to wait even longer to see whether the UCPI delivers the answers she so deserves. Inquiry hearings related to police undercover activities between 1993 and 2007 are only expected to commence in the first half of 2023.

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

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | | Leave a comment

Petition To Congress To Reopen the 2001 Anthrax Attacks Investigation

OffGuardian | November 11, 2020

The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry has recently petitioned Congress to reopen the 2001 Anthrax Investigations, which it claims were ‘intentionally obstructed’ and ‘not conducted in good faith’. View the petition’s Executive Summary below.

Known as ‘Amerithrax’, the 2001 Anthrax Attacks took pace one week after 9/11 and became know as the ‘worst biological attacks in U.S. history’. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to various news outlets and two Democratic Senators, killing 5 people and infecting 17 others.

In their petition, sent to all 435 House of Representatives and 100 United States Senators, the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry reach a number of damning conclusions, including that the ensuing FBI investigation – one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement – was in fact… intentionally… steered… away from the most likely suspects.

The petition calls for Congressional involvement, due to a Department of Justice ‘conflict of interest’. What’s more, it concludes, those responsible for the attacks are yet to be brought to justice and are ‘still at large’.

The Lawyers’ Committee’s conclusions are supported by 69 Petition exhibits, it explains. Amongst these are documents provided by a Col. Anderson, which deal with alleged evidence tampering and forged handwriting, leading to the false incrimination of Bruce Edwards Ivins, says the petition.

Ivans, 62, died in an apparent suicide while under investigation by the FBI in July 2008, after being informed of impending charges to be brought against him.

On August 6, 2008, the Justice Department posthumously declared Ivins the sole perpetrator of the attacks, motivated by his desire to secure the future of an anthrax vaccination program he was working on.

The findings of the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, however, cast the FBI’s ‘Amerithrax’ investigations in a very different light.

Below is the Executive Summary of their petition to Congress. Visit the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry homepage for information and updates.

Petition To Congress To initiate A Congressional Investigation Into The 2001 Anthrax Attacks

This Petition is a formal request to Congress for redress of grievances regarding the federal government’s misconduct detailed in the referenced Petition related to the post-9/11 anthrax attacks of 2001. These attacks against Congress and the media involved use of a lethal biological warfare agent. This lethal agent killed 5 individuals, injured at least 17 others, and was used to attempt the assassination of two United States Senators.

This Petition centers on multiple lines of evidence relating to the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax attacks beginning in 2001 and concluding in 2010 which was intentionally obstructed and was not conducted in good faith.

The FBI’s analyses and reports were knowingly deceptive.

The Petition is 75 pages with 69 Exhibits supporting the urgent need for a Congressional investigation.

The Major Conclusions of the Lawyers’ Committee in this Petition are:

1. The FBI’s sole identified anthrax killer, Dr. Bruce Ivins, a distinguished scientist with a 28-year career at U.S. Army’s Medical Research Institute, was innocent and an unfortunate scapegoat of FBI contrivance.

2. The FBI intentionally, by concealing and avoiding key evidence, steered its investigation away from the most likely suspects, those personnel associated with Dugway Proving Grounds, Battelle Memorial Institute and their contractual CIA partner, and institutions and individuals associated with them, and concentrated instead on the least likely suspects, scientists from United States Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), and prematurely concluded its investigation upon the death of Dr. Ivins.

3. Congressional involvement is necessary as the Department of Justice has a conflict of interest in investigating its own alleged misconduct.

4. Those responsible for the anthrax attacks are still at large and the Nation remains in peril.

5. The anthrax attacks appear to have been intended to rush the passage of the United States Patriot Act, thus undermining civil liberties, facilitating a War on Iraq predicated on nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and inaugurating the War on Terror which continues to this day

You can also view and download the 76 page Full Petition and Petition Exhibit.

The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization of lawyers, investigators, scientists and concerned citizens created to promote transparency and accountability regarding the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | | 1 Comment

Brennan & other spooks go full conspiracy theorist over suggestion ‘cornered’ Trump will indeed ‘DECLASSIFY EVERYTHING’

RT | November 11, 2020

Former CIA director John Brennan took to CNN to speculate wildly on how Trump would dump the US’ most precious military secrets out of spite. Mainstream outlets and social media alike piled on the declassification rumors.

Brennan took to CNN’s airwaves on Monday to denounce Trump for firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper, claiming the axe came down over Esper’s “rebuff[ing] Trump’s efforts to politicize the US military.” But the mind-reading went on considerably further as Brennan, aided and abetted by host Chris Cuomo, wondered aloud “who knows what else he has refused to do” – like expose the nation’s deepest, darkest secrets.

If Esper had “been pushed aside because he was not listening to Donald Trump, who knows what his successor is going to do if Donald Trump does give some type of order that really is counter to what I think our national security interests need to be?” Brennan wondered aloud. He cited no proof of his initial statement about the reason for Esper’s firing, or any evidence to back up Trump’s supposed inclination toward spilling all of the national security beans pre-Inauguration Day, but Cuomo didn’t seem to care.

Brennan was concerned even as the pundit reminded him that Trump only had 70 days to leave the White House without leaving a smoking crater in his wake. “You can do a lot of damage in 70 days,” he hinted darkly, questioning whether the president was “going to carry out these vendettas against these other individuals.”

“It’s clear Donald Trump Is trying to exercise the power because he can, and he’s going to settle scores, but I’m very concerned about what he might do,” the spook-turned-Resistance stalwart mused, veering into projection territory with a suggestion that the president was “just very unpredictable. Right now he’s like a cornered cat” or “tiger” and was going to “lash out.”

“Is he going to take some kind of military action? Is he going to release some information that could in fact threaten our national security interests?”

Brennan may have quite a bit to fear should Trump decide to burn the intelligence agencies down on his way out of the White House.

Recently-declassified handwritten notes from the ex-CIA director suggest he and his agency knew there was no substance to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign’s allegations the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election – an explosive allegation that could prove key to prosecuting the scandal the president and his allies have come to refer to as “Spygate.”

Unsurprisingly, Brennan was far from the only person to suggest Trump might declassify the US’ secrets if legal challenges to his apparent election loss failed. CNN’s Jake Tapper even appeared to encourage him, tweeting “I love this idea!!!!” after the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. urged his father to “DECLASSIFY EVERYTHING!!!”

And the Washington Post cited the same declassification of Brennan’s notes and a handful of other releases surrounding the 2016 Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the roots of the Russiagate probe which have since been all but decisively proven fraudulent. Far from vindicating a sitting president, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe had placed a valuable intelligence source at risk, WaPo argued.

Apparently lacking further factual basis for fearmongering about Trump’s loose lips sinking the ship of state, former CIA officer David Priess told the outlet that Trump “fit the profile” of a leaker, noting that “anyone who is disgruntled, dissatisfied or aggrieved is at a risk of disclosing classified information, whether as a current or former officeholder.” WaPo itself noted Trump “checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the US government,” the paper wrote – never mind that such a description fits a sizable minority of American taxpayers.

No mention was made in the Post’s article of the plethora of disgruntled Trump administration leakers who did their best to eviscerate the campaign from the inside, spilling national-security tea for all to see including foreign adversaries. The recently self-unveiled “Anonymous” opted to tell the world last month that Trump had committed unpardonable sins such as telling his staff the US had to “get the hell out of Syria” and “ditch these NATO countries.”

Get Assange out while you still can. He is your trump card. Can’t you see that?

— Syrian Girl 🎗️🇸🇾 (@Partisangirl) November 9, 2020

Not all who believe Trump has leaker potential view that as a negative, however. Some commentators have suggested that even if the president is replaced in January, he has some chance to make a difference over the next few months – whether by pardoning WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or by declassifying details of the US’ strategy in the Middle East.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

“Shredding The Fabric Of Our Democracy”: Biden Aide Signals Push For Greater Censorship On The Internet

By Jonathan Turley | November 10, 2020

We have been discussing the calls for top Democrats for increased private censorship on social media and the Internet. President-elect Joe Biden has himself called for such censorship, including blocking President Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting. Now, shortly after the election, one of Biden’s top aides is ramping up calls for a crackdown on Facebook for allowing Facebook users to read views that he considers misleading — users who signed up to hear from these individuals. Bill Russo, a deputy communications director on Biden’s campaign press team, tweeted late Monday that Facebook “is shredding the fabric of our democracy” by allowing such views to be shared freely.

Russo tweeted that “If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.” Russo objected to the fact that, unlike Twitter, Facebook did not move against statements that he and the campaign viewed as “misleading.” He concluded. “We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers.”

For those of us in the free speech community, these threats are chilling. We saw incredible abuses before the election in Twitter barring access to a true story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden and his alleged global influence peddling scheme. Notably, no one in the Biden camp (including Biden himself) thought that it was a threat to our democracy to have Twitter block the story (while later admitting that it was a mistake).

I have previously objected to such regulation of speech. What is most disturbing is how liberals have embraced censorship and even declared that “China was right” on Internet controls. Many Democrats have fallen back on the false narrative that the First Amendment does not regulate private companies so this is not an attack on free speech. Free speech is a human right that is not solely based or exclusively defined by the First Amendment. Censorship by Internet companies is a “Little Brother” threat long discussed by free speech advocates.  Some may willingly embrace corporate speech controls but it is still a denial of free speech.

This is why I recently described myself as an Internet Originalist:

The alternative is “internet originalism” — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism; they would assume the same status as telephone companies. We do not need companies to protect us from harmful or “misleading” thoughts. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not approved speech.

If Pelosi demanded that Verizon or Sprint interrupt calls to stop people saying false or misleading things, the public would be outraged. Twitter serves the same communicative function between consenting parties; it simply allows thousands of people to participate in such digital exchanges. Those people do not sign up to exchange thoughts only to have Dorsey or some other internet overlord monitor their conversations and “protect” them from errant or harmful thoughts.

Russo’s comments mirror the comments of other Democrats who are seeking greater censorship. Indeed, in the recent Senate hearing on Twitter’s suppression of the Biden story, Democratic senators ignored the admissions of Big Tech CEOs that they were wrong to bar the story and, instead, insisted that the CEOs pledge to substantially increase such censorship. Senator Jacky Rosen warned the CEOS that “you are not doing enough” to prevent “disinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech on your platforms.”

Again, as someone raised in a deeply liberal and Democratic family in Chicago, I do not know when the Democratic party became the party for censorship. However, limiting free speech is now a rallying cry for Democratic members and activists alike. At risk is the single greatest invention for free speech since the printing press. Russo’s comments reaffirm that the Biden Administration will continue this assault against Internet free speech. What is most unnerving is that Russo is denouncing such free speech as “shredding the fabric of our democracy.” There was a time when free speech was the very right that we fought to protect in our democratic system. It was one of the defining principles of our Constitution system. It is now being treated as a threat to that system.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Why is Russia accused of undermining the US by not recognizing its election results before Americans themselves call a winner?

By Glenn Diesen | RT | November 11, 2020

The same people who spent four years accusing Russia of interfering in America’s internal affairs are now attacking Moscow for not meddling. It’s another curious case of something previously described as ‘Russophrenia’.

Russia has explained that it will hold off congratulations to Biden until the US election has been officially called, or his rival Donald Trump concedes. You may think this is a reasonable approach to demonstrate respect for the democratic process amid a contested election. But you would be wrong according to the Western mainstream media, which explains this is an effort by authoritarian leaders to keep their man in Washington.

It is also apparently evidence of Moscow supposedly still supporting Trump and Putin fearing that the morally righteous Biden will hold the evil Russians accountable yet again. No matter that the US State Department, long America’s primary ‘democracy promotion’ vehicle, has reminded foreign leaders that the count has yet to be completed.

The narrative of Russiagaters in the media immediately collapses once you factor in how China and Mexico have also indicated they will wait for the official election results. Trump started a trade war and a Cold War against China and his principal foreign policy objective has been to curb the rise of China.

Beijing will undoubtedly celebrate once Trump departs the White House, while Mexico has also been in the crosshairs of Trump’s economic nationalism, immigration policy, and foreign policy. Polls compiled by the Pew agency have found that Mexicans are the most critical of Trump with six percent expressing confidence for Trump in 2018, and eight percent in 2020. Are the Chinese and Mexicans also supporting Trump by holding off congratulations to Biden?

The interest in Moscow’s decision

What explains the media obsession with Russia holding off its congratulatory remarks to Biden? Is the media exploring it from a foreign policy perspective to assess future US-Russian relations under a Biden presidency? No. Much like Russiagate, this is all about domestic American politics.

If the election outcome was not contested, the media would not likely care if Russia congratulated Biden. However, the Republicans are supporting investigations into alleged voter fraud, and the failure of Russia to recognize a Biden win can be framed as a common cause between Republicans and Russia against America.

Former US Ambassador to Russia and leading Russiagate conspiracy theorist Michael McFaul sees yet another conspiracy in Putin’s failure to congratulate Biden, and suggests that Americans doubting the legitimacy of Biden are playing into the hands of the Russians.

Another Russian conspiracy to destroy America?

What is Moscow achieving by not recognizing Biden? After four years of checking under the bed for Russians, these accusations only need to rest on innuendos, and they collapse once articulated.

One can make a reasonable argument that Russia would benefit from a divided America. Much like the West attempting to sow divisions within Russia, it could be beneficial for Moscow to have divisions in an America that casts Russia as the principal enemy that must be confronted. However, how do delayed congratulations sow divisions in the US?

The failure to obtain Russia’s blessing and support is presented by the liberal political-media class as a badge of honor that proves the anti-Russian credentials of Biden. The Republicans are for the same reason not using Russia’s delayed congratulations to advance the legitimacy of their efforts to investigate alleged election fraud.

The entire media coverage of Russia’s lack of congratulations is indeed intended to do the exact opposite – to heighten the legitimacy of Biden as the opponent of authoritarians.

Russian efforts to exit American domestic politics

When Trump ran in 2016 on a foreign policy platform of “getting along with Russia,” Moscow was understandably optimistic as Russophobia is usually a symbol of virtue in Washington. What Moscow failed to appreciate is that Trump inadvertently drew a target on Russia by making it a pawn to de-legitimize Trump.

As confirmed by CIA Director John Brennan’s notes to President Obama, Hillary Clinton concocted Russiagate “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.” The attempts to portray every populist referendum and election victory as a grand Russian conspiracy mostly serve the purpose of de-legitimizing these political groups at home. Trump’s election did not result in reaching a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement with America, instead, Russia had to play the villain in US politics.

Russia has been used for the past four years to question the legitimacy of Trump. The Biden-Trump presidential debate became a competition over which one is the most belligerent towards Russia. Eager to exit American domestic politics, Moscow has avoided making statements on the US election and waited for the Americans to decide the winner before congratulating anyone.

However, this time the ‘Russian conspiracy against America’ is supposedly refusing to recognize the election results before the Americans do so.

Respecting US democracy

Moscow’s patience in terms of holding off congratulations should be interpreted as an effort to respect the democratic institutions of America, and its own normal protocols. There is no history of the Kremlin congratulating a US election winner before their opponent concedes.

Foreign leaders traditionally congratulate the winner immediately after election day. This was, however, not a traditional election. Due to Covid-19 and the large number of mail-in ballots, there was a clear break from the tradition of declaring a winner on election night. The media has for months been cautioning that it could take weeks to declare a winner this time, yet the same media now sees a conspiracy.

The break from the traditional election format augments uncertainty in a deeply divided nation. Speculation about voter fraud, either real or imagined, was predictable as the stakes are high and trust is low. The antidote to uncertainty and division is surely a commitment to transparency and the pursuit of objective facts.

Luckily, America has these mechanisms in place. A non-partisan assessment of the voter fraud allegations is important to strengthen the unity of the country, trust in democratic processes, and the legitimacy of the Biden presidency. So why is Russia accused of undermining America by not recognizing the election results before the Americans themselves?

Trump wanted to stop the counting and declare victory when he expected that illegal votes were counted, while the Democrats want to declare victory before the investigation into voting irregularities is held. The US should solve disputes around its election process and not drag the rest of the world into its domestic politics. After four years of Russiagate, is it too much to ask that Moscow be allowed to stay out of America’s internal affairs?

Glenn Diesen is an Associate Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal. Follow him on Twitter @glenndiesen

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Russophobia | | 2 Comments

EU refuses to attend international conference on Syrian refugees

Press TV | November 11, 2020

The European Union (EU) has refused to attend an international conference aimed at putting an end to the suffering of Syrian refugees and facilitating their return to their homeland.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced on Tuesday that the EU representatives would not take part in the International Conference on the Return of Syrian Refugees, which is set to commence with the participation of several countries in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday.

“A number of EU member states’ foreign ministers and the High Representative have received an invitation to a conference on the theme of refugee returns, on 11-12 November, in Damascus. The EU and its member states will not attend this conference,” Borrell said in a statement.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that the two-day conference is to address the current situation in Syria, review conditions for the return of refugees and the obstacles hindering their return, and also aims to set the appropriate conditions for their return.

The conference will also discuss the humanitarian aid, rebuilding the infrastructure, and the cooperation between the scientific and educational organizations in Syria in the post-war stage.

In his statement, Borrell censured the conference as “premature” and said the first priority should be to make it safe for the Syrian refugees to go back to the conflict-ravaged country.

The EU official said the 27-member bloc believes that “the priority at present is real action to create conditions for safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their areas of origin.”

Insisting that no Syrian refugee should be forced to go back, Borrell said, “Conditions inside Syria at present do not lend themselves to the promotion of large-scale voluntary return.”

China, Russia, Iran, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Oman are among the countries that will participate. The United Nations will participate as an observer.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a video conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday that the return of Syrian refugees is a priority.

Assad underlined that “the largest part of the refugees” is willing to return to their homeland after the Syrian government set things right for their return.

The Syrian leader also stated that the biggest obstacle facing the return of refugees is the Western sanctions imposed on Syria, both on its government and people.

Putin, for his part, said Moscow would continue efforts to encourage a political solution to the crisis in Syria and that it preserves the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Arab country.

Some 5.6 million Syrians have been forced to flee abroad as refugees, mostly to the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.

Moreover, one million Syrian children have been born as refugees ever since the foreign-backed militancy began in their country back in March 2011.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Israel seeks to stop flights to Beirut airport

MEMO | November 11, 2020

An Israeli legal team is seeking punitive measures against airlines and insurance companies which fly or provide services to Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport under the pretext of supporting Lebanese Hezbollah group, Israel Hayom newspaper reported.

The paper said on Monday that the Israeli team has sent “warning letters” to major airlines around the world, claiming that by operating civilian flights to Beirut’s airport, they risk falling foul of international law and committing war crimes.

The team has also demanded the companies suspend all services provided to the airport or face legal action on charges of supporting a terrorist organisation.

“The Beirut International Airport has become a hornet’s nest for Hezbollah,” the letter said, adding that the airport and its surrounding area have witnessed large-scale terrorist operations by the group.

Over the past month months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly shown maps allegedly showing missiles and weapons storage sites belonging to Hezbollah, in areas close to the airport. None of his “evidence” has been corroborated.

November 11, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | 2 Comments