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February 12, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

The American establishment has lost its mind in its obsession with trying to discredit Trumpism

Protest against U.S. President Donald Trump on Veterans Day on November 11, 2019 in New York City. © Getty Images / Stephanie Keith
By Michael Rectenwald | RT | February 12, 2021

An appallingly biased new article on Trumpism in Foreign Affairs shows that if the American establishment was an individual, it would be diagnosed as clinically insane, likely suffering from delusions of persecution and paranoia.

Yet this same establishment calls half the population of the US conspiratorial, delusional, and terroristic, even as it parades a lunatic’s version of events during a second unfounded, evidence-free impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump, and as it continues lamentations over the supposed malignancy of his presidency, weeks after it has ended.

At this point, it would be a misdiagnosis to call this illness Trump Derangement Syndrome. The idée fixe persists unabated, even in the absence of its favorite bogey, and extends well beyond any reasonable obsession with Trump himself. This syndrome, whatever it is, appears to be resistant to treatment. The ministrations of political outsiders have only left the patient with a firmer ideational conviction. Electoral engineering and repeated political exorcisms have apparently been to no avail.

This illness has affected every element of the broad political left, the political and corporate establishment, and the mainstream media. Unsurprisingly, the nation’s foreign policy “experts” remain in its thrall. Like Jonathan Kirshner, political science and international professor at Boston College, they display its symptomology without remission.

In an article titled Gone But Not Forgotten: Trump’s Long Shadow and the End of American Credibility, Kirshner exhibits the signs of the recalcitrant derangement with a fact-free, hyperbolic prognosis of US foreign policy in the wake of the Trump presidency. Like others bewitched by him, Kirshner repeats the tired shibboleths associated with hallucinatory Trump repudiation: he cozied up with dictators, scorned long-term allies, and represents “a deeply regrettable, and in many ways embarrassing, interlude” in American international relations.

The patient refers to Trump’s management of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and alludes to Trump’s most unreasonable demand that NATO partners pay their fair share of dues to the European peace-keeping organization that’s waning in importance. Yet evidence of the widespread “anarchy” caused by Trump is never given–no doubt because it doesn’t exist.

Kirshner exhibits the typical apriorism expected from the afflicted. Trump is guilty–of something, anything–in advance. The point of the exercise is to look for crimes committed by the presumed villain, even as the language for conviction must remain forever nebulous and abstract, as it does in this piece of feigned objectivity.

Somewhat off-topic for a commentator on foreign policy, Kirshner immediately excoriates Trump’s handling of “a pandemic that killed well more than a quarter of a million of the people under his charge.” Kirshner’s guilty verdict is meted out without evidence, and despite the fact that the death rate in the US is broadly on par with that of Europe and elsewhere.

It’s not as if Italy has fared any better, or that Sweden, which eschewed draconian lockdown laws, did any worse than Italy or France. But carrying on about Trump’s supposedly disastrous pandemic response measures is a requisite symptom of the establishment’s disorder, and Kirshner must display it like all the others. Never mind that, soon after taking office, Biden stated that there was nothing he could do to stem the spread of the virus.

As Kirshner sees it, one of Trump’s most egregious transgressions was the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the first week of his presidency. No mention is made of the fact that no one really knew what was in the deal. Never mind that, like NAFTA, it would likely cost more Americans their jobs, jobs probably shipped to China, where wage slaves work under penal colony conditions. And never mind that it would likely gut environmental regulations to please China.

Kirshner levies the usual charges against Trump’s foreign policy: “isolationism,” “nationalism,” and “knuckle-dragging Americafirstism.”

“America first” has been the most maligned and misrepresented element of the Trump doctrine, and Kirshner’s declamation is no exception. Like other detractors, he refuses to acknowledge what Trump meant by the phrase: the interests of the majority of Americans should come before all else when making any political decision, not that America should become a selfish, dominating player on the world stage. From the standpoint of the economic and political oligarchy, who stood to lose the most by it, “America first” was unconscionable, and remains impossible to excise from national and international consciousness.

Kirshner barely acknowledges the fact that the Trump doctrine follows from a particular brand of populist American nationalism, including a foreign policy stemming from 19th-century Republican politics. Those who have subscribed to this political position have been traditionally non-interventionist, while demanding that a premium be laid on national self-determination, the protection of national sovereignty via strong borders, and the promotion of national self-interest over international or “globalist” entanglements. Instead, Kirshner misrepresents “America first” by surreptitiously associating it with fascism and Nazism.

No mention is made of the fact that, of the past five presidents, Trump was the only one not to begin a new war, and the only one not to extend the American military presence throughout the world. Instead, Kirshner gives away his hand by mourning that the US may “soon simply be out of the great-power game altogether.” This admission signals Kirshner’s allegiance to the neocon military establishment, and practically disqualifies him as an interlocutor supposedly concerned with international order and stability. It’s as if George W. Bush’s unprovoked and disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have been entirely forgotten and forgiven, while Trump’s partially flouted attempts to withdraw troops from the Middle East and Afghanistan are the real international crimes.

Yet the biggest specter haunting Kirshner’s storyline is “the significant possibility of a large role for Trumpism” in the future, regardless of whether or not Trump himself continues to play a role in national politics. This is the crux of the matter, and the real problem Kirshner sees. How can the US be a reliable international partner while Trumpism persists? Kirshner’s real concern is that Trump’s policies were actually popular, and that Trumpism thus cannot instantly be extirpated from the national identity.

This fear of Trumpism haunts the entire political establishment. It explains the second impeachment trial, the calls for re-education, and the characterization of Trump supporters as “terrorists” and “the enemy within.” It is this new leftist McCarthyism, and not Trumpism, that really afflicts the country. And it is this which makes the US an unreliable player on the international stage. For how can the US act as a single nation when the entire establishment suffers from schizophrenia?

Michael Rectenwald is an author of 11 books, including the most recent, Thought Criminal. He was Professor of Liberal Arts at NYU from 2008 through 2019. Follow him on Twitter @TheAntiPCProf

February 12, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | | 2 Comments

The Omnipotent Power to Assassinate

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 12, 2021

It goes without saying that the Constitution called into existence a government with few, limited powers. That was the purpose of enumerating the powers of the federal government. If the Constitution was bringing into existence a government of unlimited or omnipotent powers, then there would have been no point in enumerating a few limited powers. In that event, the Constitution would have called into existence a government with general, unlimited powers to do whatever was in the interests of the nation.

If the Constitution had proposed a government of omnipotent powers, there is no way the American people would have accepted it, in which case America would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation. Our American ancestors didn’t want a government of omnipotent powers. They wanted a government of few, limited, enumerated powers.

Among the most omnipotent powers a government can wield is the power of government officials to assassinate people. Our American ancestors definitely did not want that type of government. That is why the power to assassinate is not among the enumerated powers of government in the Constitution.

Despite the enumerated-powers doctrine, our American ancestors were still leery. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people who would thirst for the power to assassinate people. So, to make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people enacted the Fifth Amendment after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly prohibited the federal government from taking any person’s life without due process of law.

Due process of law is a term that stretches all the way back to Magna Carta. At a minimum, it requires formal notice of charges and a trial before the government can take a person’s life. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, assassination involves taking a person’s life without notice or trial.

For some 150 years, the federal government lacked the power to assassinate people. For the last 75 years, however, the federal government has wielded and actually exercised the omnipotent power to assassinate, including against American citizens.

How did it acquire this omnipotent power? Certainly not by constitutional amendment. It acquired it by default — by converting the federal government after World War II from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.

A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. North Korea is a national security state. So is Cuba. And China, Egypt, Russia, and Pakistan. And the United States, along with others.

A national-security state is based on a vast, all-powerful military-intelligence establishment, one that, as a practical matter, wields omnipotent powers. Thus, when the CIA, one of the principle components of America’s national-security state, was called into existence in 1947, it immediately assumed the power to assassinate. In fact, as early as 1952 the CIA published an assassination manual that demonstrates that the CIA was already specializing in the art of assassination (as well as cover-up) in the early years of the national-security state.

In 1954, the CIA instigated a coup in Guatemala on grounds of “national security.” The aim of the coup was to oust the country’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, and replace him with a military general. As part of the coup, the CIA prepared a list of people to be assassinated. To this day, the CIA will not disclose the names of people on its kill list (on grounds of “national security,” of course) but it is a virtual certainty that President Arbenz was at the top of the list for establishing a foreign policy of peace and friendship with the communist world. To his good fortune, he was able to flee the country before they could assassinate him.

In 1970, the CIA was attempting to prevent Salvador Allende from becoming president of Chile. Like Arbenz, Allende’s foreign policy was based on establishing a peaceful and friendly relationship with the communist world. The CIA’s plan included inciting a coup led by the Chilean military. However, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, stood in the way. His position was that he had taken an oath to support and defend the constitution and, therefore, that he would not permit a coup to take place. The CIA conspired to have him violently kidnapped to remove him as an obstacle to the coup. During the kidnapping attempt, Schneider was shot dead.

Schneider’s family later filed suit for damages arising out of Schneider’s wrongful death. The federal judiciary refused to permit either U.S. officials or the CIA to be held accountable for Schneider’s death. Affirming the U.S. District Court’s summary dismissal of the case, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that U.S. officials who were involved in the crime could not be held liable since they were simply acting within the course and scope of their employment. Moreover, the U.S. government couldn’t be held liable because, the court stated, it is sovereignly immune.

Central to the Court’s holding was what it called the “political question doctrine.” It holds that under the Constitution, the judicial branch of the government is precluded from questioning any “political” or “foreign policy” decision taken by the executive branch.

Actually though, the Constitution says no such thing. It is in fact the responsibility of the judicial branch to enforce the Constitution against the other branches, including the national-security branch. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibits the federal government from taking people’s lives without due process of law.

So, why did the federal judiciary come up with this way to avoid taking on the CIA? Because it knew that once the federal government was converted to a national-security state, the federal government had fundamentally changed in nature by now having a branch that could exercise omnipotent powers, such as assassination, with impunity. The federal judiciary knew that there was no way that the judicial branch of government could, as a practical matter, stop the national-security branch with assassinating people. To maintain the veneer of judicial power, the judiciary came up with its ludicrous “political question doctrine” to explain why it wasn’t enforcing the Constitution

Once Pinochet took office after the coup in Chile, the Chilean judiciary did the same thing as the U.S. judiciary. It deferred to the power of the Pinochet military-intelligence government, declining to enforce the nation’s constitution against it. Like the U.S. judiciary, the Chilean judiciary recognized the reality of omnipotent power that comes with a national-security state. Many years later, the Chilean judiciary apologized to the Chilean people for abrogating its judicial responsibility.

February 12, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Media Consider Trump Guilty by Accusation, Case Closed

By Stephen Lendman | February 12, 2021

Establishment fourth estate practitioners in the US and West transformed the term media into a four-letter word.

They find new ways to disgrace themselves daily, probing for new lows and finding them.

Trump’s sham Senate trial is a current example among many others, a travesty of justice.

There’s nothing remotely legitimate about impeaching and trying him for inciting insurrection.

The January 6 Capitol Hill false flag was staged by US dark forces in cahoots with undemocratic Dems to further vilify and frame him for what he had nothing to do with.

No respectable publisher would touch Big Media hate-mongering rubbish masquerading as news, information, and analysis.

The self-styled newspaper of record NYT is the worst offender.

On all things Trump, truth and full disclosure was banned in favor endless mass deception hateful enough to make some despots blush.

It doesn’t rise to the level of poor fiction. Yet it’s featured daily in multiple propaganda pieces.

Mindless of facts, it wants Trump vilified and convicted for invented reasons that took center stage on the Senate floor.

WaPo editors demanded Trump’s conviction, saying:

“The House impeachment managers’ presentation before the Senate has crystallized in graphic and compelling detail the horror of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — and Mr. Trump’s deep responsibility for it (sic).”

No credible evidence supports the above mass deception. Yet much of the nation is riveted on a stream of orchestrated fake news.

Remarks from Trump like “stop the steal” had nothing to do with inciting insurrection.

His legal team’s legitimate efforts to expose and reverse election rigging was mocked.

Perhaps the most brazen election fraud in US history was supported by Big Media, all the while pretending the illegitimate process was the other way around, knowing otherwise.

Trump was right saying “(i)f you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Passivity in the face of state-sponsored law-breaking assures worse to come.

WaPo long ago abandoned truth-telling journalism for deep state approved propaganda.

On all issues mattering most, including Trump’s politicized show trial, everything WaPo publishes is unfit to print.

Virtually across the board, Big Media want Trump hung out to dry for invented reasons while ignoring legitimate ones. Some examples:

WSJ : “(Dems) Argue Trump ‘Inflamed and Incited’ Capitol Riot (sic)”

Dems and supportive media lied.

Reuters : “Graphic riot videos not enough to convict Trump, some Republican senators say”

Instead of reporting that Trump had nothing to do with storming Capitol Hill, Reuters and other Big Media pretend otherwise — to their shame.

AP News : “Trump trial video shows vast scope, danger of Capitol riot”

No “riot” occurred. Trump and supporters were uninvolved with what happened on January 6 — an orchestrated false flag rally.

Fox News quoted unindicted war criminal, perjurer, serial liar Hillary, saying if Trump is acquitted, it’s “because the jury includes his co-conspirators (sic).”

Anti-Trump CNN expressed fury over Trump’s likely acquittal.

ABC News: “Majority of Americans say Trump should be convicted, barred from holding federal office”

Most Americans are brainwashed by Big Media, their minds filled with mass deception mush.

CBS News rubbish: “Trump’s tweets” show guilt.

Love, hate or otherwise reject them, Trump’s tweets exercise his constitutional right of free expression — eroding en route to disappearing altogether.

Chicago Tribune : “(Dem) impeachment of Trump puts his 74 million voters on trial (sic)”

LA Times : “Senate Republicans are as much on trial as Trump (sic).”

USA Today : “Trump Senate impeachment trial forces hard choices on Republicans and (Dems) alike (sic)”

National Pentagon Radio (NPR): “Impeachment Managers To Focus On Insurrection Damage”

Undemocratic Dems and complicit dark forces bear full responsibility for lawless actions ahead of and following events on Capitol Hill.

What’s going on in the Senate chamber is an attempted political lynching with no legitimacy.

Instead of exposing and denouncing it, Big Media share guilt for supporting what no one should tolerate.

February 12, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 4 Comments

What REALLY Got Gina Carano Cancelled

Don’t believe the lies about “racism”, the actress and former athlete has been found guilty of wrongthink. Nothing more.

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | February 11, 2021

We don’t comment on pop-culture much, but as the incredibly fine line between politics and entertainment begins to fade totally out of existence the overlap becomes harder and harder to ignore.

Plus, sometimes something is just so unfair you have to take a moment to correct the record.

Actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano has lost her role in Disney’s hit Star Wars spin-off “The Mandalorian”, lost out on her own spin-off series and been dropped by her agent.

All this is the result of a series of social media posts described as “abhorrent” in a press release from LucasFilm:

Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

But what did Carano actually say?

Well, the post is deleted but there are screencaps available. Here’s the “abhorrent” text:

Because history is edited, most people today don’t realise that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbours hate them simply for being Jews.

How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”

Is this “abhorrent”? Is this “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities”?

Obviously not. It’s an entirely historically accurate statement, making a broader point about the dangers of dehumanising large groups of people.

It’s not racist. It’s not racist to compare modern society to Nazi Germany. It’s not racist to warn against what you perceive as burgeoning fascism.

It’s. Not. Racist.

More than that, it’s actually anti-racist.

But if “go home in peace and love” can become “inciting violence”, or spending Passover with the “wrong kind of Jews” can be “Antisemitism”, than I guess “hey you shouldn’t hate people for being different” can be racist.

As I wrote yesterday, reality itself is under a prolonged assault, and we have to struggle to stick up for what words mean. For what is real.

But, if Carano didn’t say anything racist, why has she actually been fired?

Well, this is not the first time she has courted controversy on social media. She has made many posts critical of enforced mask-wearing, questioning the Covid vaccine, suggesting the 2020 election may have been rigged, and just generally not buying into pandemic hysteria. (Just yesterday, she was posting that Epstein didn’t kill himself. Which he obviously didn’t).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, LucasFilm have been “looking for a reason to get rid of her for months”. Which is even stronger evidence that this has nothing to do with any supposed “racism”, and everything to do with rigidly enforcing a consensus.

Gina Carano didn’t say anything racist and she was not fired for saying anything racist. She was fired for being just a bit of an outsider. For thinking for herself, a little, and expressing those thoughts.

It’s another example of the real purpose of identity politics, and its weaponisation as “cancel culture”. It’s all about stifling actual honest discussion. Slamming the Overton window shut. Branding everything even passingly controversial “offensive”, no matter how illogical, nonsensical or backwards it may seem. About making people afraid to honestly express themselves, for fear of the mob.

To finish, let’s pay one last visit to Gina Carano’s “abhorrent” social media, and quote something she shared on Instagram several months ago. Another example of the type of thinking that is the true target of “cancellation”:

If you go to the southwest desert and catch 100 red fire ants, as well as 100 large black ants, t can catch about 100 red fire ants that live in the southwestern desert and also about 100 of those large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen.

However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other.

The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa when, in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar.

This is exactly what’s happening in society today:

Liberal vs Conservative
Black vs White
Mask vs Anti Mask

The real question we should be asking ourselves is who is shaking the jar and why?

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | 1 Comment

Guardian writer insists cancel culture doesn’t exist, gets whacked by Big Israel

By Helen Buyniski | RT | February 11, 2021

The meaning of ‘free speech’ is devolving rapidly, with an ever-widening swathe of journalistic content deemed deplatform-worthy, but one writer’s run-in with the Israeli lobby should remind us where “cancel culture” began.

Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson, a columnist for the Guardian, tripped over Tel Aviv’s time-honored third rail back in December. He was incensed – as any sane American might be – by the truly preposterous piles of money that were being bundled off to Israel as part of what was supposed to be an omnibus spending bill combined with Covid-19 stimulus passed by Congress as a life-raft for a desperately needy American populace. So he sent out a tweet.

Robinson’s tweet – which wryly suggested “it’s the law” that “the US Congress is not actually allowed to authorize any new spending unless a portion of it is directed toward buying weapons for Israel” – was a joke that took a moment to recognize as a joke, given its resemblance to reality, as the best satire often is. But, at some point, he seemed to get cold feet, following up the tweet with a qualifier noting while it wasn’t really the law, it was “at least so customary as to be functionally identical” to it.

Apparently smelling weakness (and finding satire a wholly inappropriate pastime for a Guardian columnist), the Guardian’s US editor ordered him to delete the tweets, declaring they were not “helpful to public discourse.” One might ask how 95 percent of what’s printed in the Guardian is helpful to public discourse, but one would probably not receive a reply. The email also included what seemed to be a forwarded message from some humorless individual who denounced the tweets as “clearly anti-Semitic,” arguing they were “saying that the only Jewish state controls the most powerful country in the world” and were liable to “inform murderous hatred.”

“Delete this and apologise,” the nameless critic demanded.

Robinson at this point was going to get fired no matter what. He could have stood his ground, explaining to his editor that only the unsigned letter-writer had claimed “the only Jewish state controls the most powerful country in the world,” a conclusion which was nowhere to be found in Robinson’s tweets. He could have pointed out that deeming criticism of Israel “anti-Semitic” was itself anti-Semitic, because plenty of Jews disapprove of the sociopathic actions of the Israeli government and don’t appreciate being used as human shields for those actions. Or he could have just said “no.”

Instead, he went the route traveled by so many journalists desperate to save their jobs, deleting the tweets, groveling at the feet of his editor, and even asking for guidance from the Guardian on what was off-limits – only to be told there was no such code, just an “unwritten one.” Thus was Robinson sucked into the apology vortex that has destroyed so many upwardly-mobile political and media figures – including UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – who’ve dared to oppose the “war crimes” of a foreign country.

After weeks of emails going unreturned, Robinson was informed his services would no longer be needed.

His fate certainly had a ring of poetic justice – his last column published by the Guardian denied the existence of “cancel culture,” gloating that “bigots like Jordan Peterson” aren’t owed a platform after some employees at the publisher who’d already inked a deal with Peterson complained.

However, the Israeli lobby has been bullying journalists since long before “cancel culture” had a name, as Robinson himself documented in a typically long-winded piece posted to his website after he discovered his groveling had been for naught. Indeed, today’s “cancel culture” practitioners most likely learned their craft from observing the craven sneak-attacks practiced by the Lobby that dare not speak its name.

Like the Israeli lobby’s defenders, cancel culture practitioners pile on their targets without regard for logic, fact, or common sense. They hammer away at not only their victim, but their victim’s employer until it becomes easier to just give them what they want, even if the “offensive” statement that started the controversy was utterly unimpeachable.

Robinson’s criticism of the US dumping billions of taxpayer dollars at the feet of Israel while millions of Americans struggled to make ends meet was accurate, as most job-killing jabs at Israel are. Because there is no way of justifying the expenditure of $3.8 billion per year on a country that deliberately antagonizes its neighbors in order to justify the purchase of more American weaponry, Israel’s defenders merely lob the same “anti-Semitism accusation” grenade, again and again. As former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni has freely admitted, “it’s a trick, we always use it.”

“The ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong.”

It doesn’t matter if the critic of Israel is himself or herself Jewish, either: The list of Jewish critics of the Israeli government’s heinous crimes, all dismissed as “self-hating Jews,” could fill a book (whose publication would no doubt be censored). The Israeli government does not represent the Jewish people, no matter how hard it pretends to, and to suggest it does is itself anti-Semitic.

Unfortunately, the American establishment is utterly unwilling to stand up to these bullies for fear of being smeared as anti-Semitic itself, leading to the spectacle satirized so well in a New York Times cartoon from two years ago – one which also got its creator fired.

It’s a trick they will keep using until someone in the media establishment grows a backbone. As more and more self-styled aggrieved groups pick up on how ‘cancel culture’ works, eventually journalists will be unable to speak at all.

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 2 Comments

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Responds to being Kicked off Instagram

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | February 11, 2021

Earlier, I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the founder and chairman of Children’s Health Defense being kicked off Facebook-owned social media website Instagram on Thursday, purportedly because he posted misinformation related to coronavirus vaccines.

Here is an update: Kennedy has written a strong response to the removal, discussing the nature of his posts at Instagram, relating the debate stifling effect of Instagram’s action, and pointing to the fact that both he and Informed Consent Action Network founder Del Bigtree were removed from Instagram just 15 minutes before they were to air a webinar featuring doctors and other individuals discussing matters related to coronavirus vaccines.

In his statement Kennedy writes:

Every statement I put on Instagram was sourced from a government database, from peer-reviewed publications and from carefully confirmed news stories. None of my posts were false. Facebook, the pharmaceutical industry and its captive regulators use the term ‘vaccine misinformation’ as a euphemism for any factual assertion that departs from official pronouncements about vaccine health and safety, whether true or not.

Further, states Kennedy, “the mainstream media and social media giants are imposing a totalitarian censorship to prevent public health advocates, like myself, from voicing concerns and from engaging in civil informed debate in the public square.” That assessment is in line with my take in my earlier article.

Regarding the timing of Kennedy and Bigtree’s removal from Instagram, Kennedy writes:

Instagram deplatformed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and HighWire host, Del Bigtree, just 15 minutes before they were to air the webinar, ‘COVID Vaccine on Trial, If You Only Knew’ highlighting COVID concerns, injuries, mechanisms and other facts from four MDs, several Ph.D.s and leaders from the vaccine-injured community. COVID-19 vaccines use novel technology never before used in a human population. With that comes great unknown risks. The people of the world deserve to have this crucial information to protect their health and that of their children.

Read Kennedy’s complete statement here.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 4 Comments

American Police State: No Questions Allowed

By J.B. Shurk | American Thinker | February 11, 2021

When does a free state become a police state? Is it when government declares itself “essential” but religious worship “selfish”? Or when making a living becomes a crime? Or when free speech rights are afforded only to those who say “correct” things? Or maybe when tens of millions of Americans find themselves unexpectedly labeled as “domestic terrorists” by the military-media complex overnight?

Perhaps the telltale sign is this: simply asking why becomes subversive. Questions become bigger threats than foreign missiles. Words are regarded as weapons legally possessed only by those in power. For all else, they are rendered contraband.

If Congress were transparent, rather than vindictive, and if its members worried more about finding truth than burying it, then lawmakers in D.C. would have spent the last few months quelling doubts about the 2020 election instead of intensifying those doubts with a second, inflammatory impeachment. Alas, we’re ruled by unserious people who take their power very seriously.

Consider the following contraband questions Congress will never answer:

Why should the 2020 election be viewed as legitimate if the outcome depended entirely upon the unprecedented use of mass mail-in balloting implemented, in some cases, against state law?

Why is Congress not interested in knowing how many mail-in ballots were counted in battleground states that were either received after legal deadlines or in violation of signature-matching requirements or other safeguards for authenticating voter identity?

Why is Congress so incurious about the reality that Donald Trump won nearly every bellwether county from coast to coast by double-digits on his way to losing the election?

Why is Congress so incurious about how an incumbent president could expand his support by over ten million new voters and increase his share of the minority vote, yet still come up short against an opponent with historically low levels of enthusiasm among his own base?

Why is Congress so incurious about the conspiracy between corporate news and social media to censor negative stories about Joe Biden during the campaign while aggressively deplatforming conservative commentary and online social networks of Trump-supporters for years before the 2020 election?

Why is Congress so incurious about a “secret cabal of wealthy and politically connected elites” who conspired “to manipulate the rules and laws of an election in order to win”?

Why does Congress deem such reasonable questions so threatening?

Why do lawmakers insist on threatening American citizens for thinking critically just because Congress itself abandoned critical thinking long ago?

All of these questions are now too dangerous or too inconvenient for the U.S. government to abide. They are too dangerous or too inconvenient for Google, Facebook, and Twitter to tolerate on their “free speech” platforms. They are too dangerous or inconvenient for our domestic intelligence services to permit a private citizen to say out loud. So spurious criminal charges are leveled at ordinary citizens just as they have been leveled at the president of the United States.

When it becomes natural for politicians to flex the muscles of government with the intent of intimidating citizens, and when governing institutions become more concerned with their own survival than with the security and protection of those for whom they were created, then free speech is always the first liberty summarily executed by those in power.

Benjamin Franklin, though only sixteen years old at the time, said it best: “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation, must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

Look how fast questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election became a state offense. In November, doing so was mocked as mere “conspiracy-mongering.” In December, it had become a “threat to democracy.” By January, it was “insurrectionist.” And by February, Congress is holding a Soviet show trial to punish the president; the FBI is busy arresting his supporters; the military is purging MAGA troops from its ranks; and prominent media personalities openly suggest drone strikes against American citizens.

This is not normal in a free country, and it is important to say so. Free people neither fear nor punish debate; open and continuous disagreement is, in fact, a hallmark of all free societies. Anybody who claims that political speech should be punished as criminal incitement is no friend to freedom. Anybody who pretends that words are violence is only looking to police thought.

And make no mistake: everything from the second public inquisition of President Trump to the Department of Justice’s decision to stigmatize freedom-minded Americans as terrorists for questioning the 2020 election is entirely about policing thought — not preventing or punishing statutory crimes.

When Representative Cheney impugns President Trump as being the subject of a “massive criminal investigation,” she throws “innocent until proven guilty” out the window. When Representative Raskin says President Trump’s refusal to testify at these Star Chamber proceedings should be cited as evidence of his own guilt, Raskin torches Americans’ Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in the process. Surely, anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats who find it expedient to discard constitutional rights in order to settle scores and silence critics should never be trusted in positions of power, and surely, any congressperson who seeks to justify the criminalization of speech by appealing to national unity has no intention of governing other than as a tyrant.

What Congress is doing by labeling President Trump’s political speech as treasonous is a far greater threat to the country’s survival than anything China has in mind for our future. However else this spectacle of a witch trial against the president unfolds, the “greatest deliberative body in the world” proves that it is neither great nor deliberative.

If the former “leader of the free world” can be labeled a “premeditated murderer” and “domestic enemy” for asking questions out loud, ordinary people learn pretty quickly that question marks are too dangerous except when whispered far from prying ears.

So we have two worlds now — the real world that everyone knows is true but must pretend is false and the political world that everyone knows is false but must pretend is true. We have become a country of dissidents trapped within a prison of lies.

When “a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything else his own.” Franklin said that, too. And when that is the case, a police state has taken over.

There is a wonderful corollary, however: when the greatest threat to a state’s survival becomes questioning its monopoly on truth, then ordinary people become extraordinarily powerful simply by asking questions.

The most dangerous thing to any police state is a person capable of thinking clearly.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

Iraq’s Muqtada Al-Sadr warns of looming normalisation with Israel

MEMO | February 11, 2021

Leader of the Iraqi Sadrist Movement and prominent Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr said yesterday that his movement will not allow normalisation between Iraq and Israel, even if the price is “blood”.

“Normalisation is at the door, and the parliament must prevent this. We will not allow normalisation at all, even if it costs us blood,” Al-Sadr told reporters in the southern city of Najaf.

Al-Sadr did not provide further details, however, in January a new movement named October 25 was formed under the leadership of Secretary-General Talal Hariri who called to have good relations with Israel.

The Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, has not issued a clear position on the movement’s demand.

Iraq does not officially recognise Israel, and there are no relations between the two sides.

In October 2017, the Iraqi Parliament passed a resolution prohibiting raising the Israeli flag and punishing violators with imprisonment.

Last year, the UAE, Bahrain , Sudan and Morocco signed normalisation deals with Israel. At the time of the first announcements, Iraq declared that its laws prohibited it from normalising relations with the occupation state.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Arranging The Middle East Narrative To Push The Agenda Forward

South Front | February 11, 2021

The United States is returning to a level of activity in the Middle East unseen in nearly 4 years. This development has become obvious over the weeks since Joe Biden became US President, firstly with a large deployment into Syria, and subsequently with smaller ones.

On February 9th, the Pentagon said that it was no longer in Syria to protect and exploit oil fields.

It is now back to hunting ISIS. Back to the square one of 2014 and the Obama era. ISIS somehow obliged by ramping up their activities throughout Syria.

It is a mystery that they were able to make such a sharp and sudden resurgence. It should also be noted that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces allegedly have about 10,000 ISIS terrorists imprisoned.

This statement of intent denotes a massive shift in posture for the US. When defending the oil fields the US troops were mostly static, when hunting ISIS they can, once again, roam around and carry out various operations.

It appears likely that Idlib is now also in focus – US combat drones were observed surveying Greater Idlib. Idlib is a mixed bag – it has Turkish troops, Russians, the Syrian Arab Army along with terrorists and the moderate opposition, although confusing these two groups can be forgiven. The newest, future, US ally is there – the soon-to-be-rebranded Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

An indication of expected escalations and attacks are the Russian and Syrian military drills being carried out near Aleppo during effective wartime. Russia, separately, carried out a naval drill near Tartus.

And, as if by design, long-range missiles attempted to strike Russia’s forces at the Hmeimim Air Base. Drones occasionally attempt to infiltrate its airspace, but missiles are a rare sight.

Meanwhile in Western Daraa, the rebel leaders submitted to Damascus, likely fearing the upcoming chaos and wanting to choose a side.

Finally, the Biden administration is also working to secure Israeli support. The State Department said it doesn’t endorse Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, but doesn’t oppose it. It also provided a $9bn weapon sale as consolation. Tel Aviv is likely to use these weapons to counter its nemesis – Iran. It does so by targeting alleged Iranian interests in Syria.

Syria remains the lynchpin of US Middle East policy but the US posture in Iraq and Afghanistan has also changed. Withdrawing from the region is now out of the question – ISIS is making a resurgence, and there are other groups targeting American forces and convoys.

In Afghanistan, specifically, if the withdrawal does not move forward, the Taliban are also likely to begin targeting the US again.

The democrats are back in control and back to spreading democracy in the Middle East.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

Why Victoria Nuland Is Dangerous and Should Not be Confirmed

By Rick Sterling | Global Research | February 11, 2021

Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. It is a bad sign that [proclaimed] President Joe Biden has nominated Victoria Nuland for the third highest position at the State Department, Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

As a top-level appointee, Victoria Nuland must be confirmed by the US Senate. There is a campaign to Stop her confirmation. The following review of her work shows why Victoria Nuland is incompetent, highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.

Afghanistan and Iraq

From 2000 to 2003, Nuland was US permanent representative to NATO as the Bush administration attacked then invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan government offered to work with the US remove Al Qaeda, but this was rejected. After Al Qaeda was defeated, the US could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, split the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.

From 2003 to 2005 Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney who “helped plan and manage the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, including making Bush administration’s case for preemptive military actions based on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.” The foreign policy establishment, with Nuland on the far right, believed that removing Saddam Hussein and installing a US “ally” would be simple.

The invasion and continuing occupation have resulted in over a million dead Iraqis, many thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at a cost of 2 to 6 TRILLION dollars.

From 2005 to 2008 Victoria Nuland was US Ambassador to NATO where her role was to “strengthen Allied support” for the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the 10th anniversary of the invasion, when asked about the lessons learned Nuland responded “Compared to where we were in the Saddam era, we now have a bilateral security agreement … We have deep economic interests and ties. We have a security relationship. We have a political relationship.” Nuland is oblivious to the costs. Nuland’s loyalties are to the elite who have benefitted from the tragedy. According to online google, “One of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton. Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in ‘federal contracts related to the Iraq war.’ Nuland’s boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, was the former the CEO of Halliburton.

In January 2020, seventeen years after the US invasion, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution demanding the US troops and contractors leave. Now, over one year later, they still have not left.

Libya

In spring 2011, Victoria Nuland became State Department spokesperson under Hillary Clinton as she ramped up the “regime change” assault on Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya. UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorized a “No Fly Zone” for the protection of civilians but NOT an air assault on Libyan government forces.

That summer, as US and others bombed and attacked Libyan forces, she dismissed the option of a peaceful transition in Libya and falsely suggested the UN Security Council required the removal of Ghaddafi.

The campaign led to the toppling of the Libyan government and killing of Ghadaffy. Commenting on the murder and bayonet sodomizing of Ghaddafi, Nuland’s boss Hillary Clinton chortled “We came, we saw, he died.”

Before the overthrow, Libya had the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Since the US led assault, Libya has become a failed state with competing warlords, huge inflation, huge unemployment, and exploding extremism and violence that has spread to neighboring countries. Most of the migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, or drowned trying to, are coming from Libya. By any measure, the goal of “protecting” Libyan civilians has failed spectacularly.

Syria

One reason that Clinton and hawks such as Nuland wanted to overthrow Ghaddafi was to get access to the Libyan military arsenal. That way they could funnel arms to insurgents seeking to overthrow the Syrian government. This was confirmed in secret DOD documents which state: “During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria”

In January 2012, Nuland claimed the US is “on the side of those wanting peaceful change in Syria.” While saying this, the US was supplying sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and 125 mm and 155 mm howitzer missiles to the “peaceful” protestors.

The US “regime change” strategy for Syria followed the pattern of Libya. First, claim that the protestors are peaceful. Then claim the government response is disproportionate. Put pressure on the target government to paralyze it, while increasing support to proxy protesters and terrorists. As documented, there were violent Syrian protesters from the start. During the first days of protest in Deraa in mid-March 2011, seven police were killed. As spokesperson for the State Department, Nuland was a major figure promoting the false narrative to justify the “regime change” campaign.

Ukraine

In September 2013 Victoria Nuland was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. The uprising in the central plaza known as the Maidan began soon after her arrival. To underscore the US support for the protests, Nuland and Senator John McCain passed out bread and cookies to the crowd.

Protests continued into January 2014. The immediate issue was whether to accept a loan from the International Monetary Fund which was going to require a 40% increase in natural gas bills or to accept a loan from Russia with the inclusion of cheap oil and gas. The opposition wanted the Yanukovych government to take the EU/IMF loan. The opposition was comprised of different factions, including the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Right Sector.

In early February 2014, an audio recording of Victoria Nuland talking the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked to the public. The 4-minute conversation was a media sensation because it included Victoria Nuland saying, “Fuck the EU.”.

But Nuland’s cursing was a distraction from what was truly significant. The recording showed that Nuland was meddling in domestic Ukraine affairs, had direct contacts with key opposition leaders, and was managing the protests to the extent she was deciding who would and would not be in the post-coup government! She says, “I don’t think Klitsch [Vitaly Klitschko] should go into government…… I think Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk] is the guy… “

The reason she wanted to “Fuck the EU” was because she did not approve the EU negotiations and compromise. Nuland and Pyatt wanted to “midwife” and “glue” the toppling of the Yanukovych government despite it being in power after an election that was observed and substantially approved by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Over the next few weeks, the protests escalated. The President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kiev, Bernard Casey, described what happened next. “On February 18-20, snipers massacred about 100 people [both protestors and police] on the Maidan …. Although the US Ambassador and the opposition blamed the Yanukovych Administration, the evidence points to the shots coming from a hotel controlled by the ultranationalists, and the ballistics revealed that the protestors and the police were all shot with the same weapons.”

The Estonian Foreign Minister later said the same thing: “behind the  snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new (opposition) coalition”.

President of the American Chamber of Commerce President for Ukraine, Bernard Casey, continues: “On February 20, 2014 an EU delegation moderated negotiations between President Yanukovych and the protestors, agreeing to early elections – in May 2014 instead of February 2015…. Despite the signing of an agreement … the ultranationalist protestors, and their American sponsors, rejected it, and stepped up their campaign of violence.”

The coup was finalized over the coming days.  Yanukovych fled to for his life and Yatsenyuk became President after the coup as planned.

One of the first acts of the coup leadership was to remove Russian as an official state language, even though it is the first language of millions of Ukrainians, especially in the south and east. Over the coming period, the “birth” of the coup government, violence by ultranationalists and neo-Nazis was prevalent. In Odessa, they attacked people peacefully protesting the coup. This video shows the sequence of events with the initial attack followed by fire-bombing the building where protestors had retreated. Fire trucks were prevented from reaching the building to put out the fire and rescue citizens inside. Forty-two people died and a 100 were injured.

A bus convoy heading back to Crimea was attacked with the anti-coup passengers beaten and some killed.

In the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, protests against the coup were met by deadly force.

Victoria Nuland claims to be a “victim” because her conversation was leaked publicly. The real victims are the many thousands of Ukrainians who have died and hundreds of thousands who have become refugees because of Nuland’s crusade to bring Ukraine into NATO.

The audio recording confirms that Nuland was managing the protests at a top level and the results (Yats is the guy) was as planned. Thus, it is probable that Nuland approved the decision to 1) deploy snipers to escalate the crisis and 2) overturn the EU mediated agreement which would have led to elections in just 3 months.

Why were snipers deployed on February 18? Probably because time was running out. The Russian leadership was distracted with the Sochi Olympic Games ending on February 23. Perhaps the coup managers were in a hurry to “glue” it in advance.

Russia

During the 1990’s, Nuland worked for the State Department on Russia related issues including a stint as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs. The US meddled in Russian internal affairs in myriad ways. Time magazine proudly proclaimed “Yanks to the rescue: the secret story of how American advisors helped Yeltsin win.” The Yeltsin leadership and policies pushed by the US had disastrous consequences. Between 1991 and 1999, Russian Gross Domestic Product decreased by nearly 50% as the social safety net was removed. The Russian economy collapsed, oligarchs and lawlessness arose. Nuland was part of the US group meddling in Russia, deploying economic “shock therapy” and causing widespread social despair.

Meanwhile, the U.S. reneged on promises to Soviet leader Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch” eastward. Instead, NATO became an offensive pact, bombing Yugoslavia in violation of international law and then absorbing Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Albania, Croatia and more.

Coming into power in 2000, Putin clamped down on the oligarchs, restored order and started rebuilding the economy. Oligarchs were forced to pay taxes and start investing in productive enterprises. The economy and confidence were restored. Over seven years, GDP went from $1300 billion (US dollars) to $2300 billion.  That is why Putin’s public approval rating has been consistently high, ranging between 85% and a “low” approval rating of 60%.

Most Americans are unaware of these facts. Instead, Putin and Russia are persistently demonized. This has been convenient for the Democratic Party establishment which needed a distraction for their dirty tricks against Bernie Sanders and subsequent loss to Donald Trump. The demonization of Russia is also especially useful and profitable for the military industrial media complex.

Victoria Nuland boosted the “Steele Dossier” which alleged collaboration between Russia and Trump and other salacious claims. The allegations filled the media and poisoned attitudes to Russia.  Belatedly, the truth about the “Steele Dossier” is coming out. Last summer the Wall Street Journal reported “the bureau (FBI) knew the Russia info was phony in 2017” and that “There was no factual basis to the dossier’s claims”.

While promoting disinformation, Victoria Nuland is pushing for a more aggressive US foreign policy. In an article titled “Pinning Down Putin”, she says “Russia’s threat to the liberal world has grown”, that Washington should “deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin” and “rebuff Russian encroachments in hot spots around the world.”

The major “hot spots” are the conflicts which Victoria Nuland and other Washington neocons promoted, especially Syria and Ukraine. In Syria, the US and allies have spent hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars promoting the overthrow of the Assad government. So far, they have failed but have not given up. The facts are clear: US troops and military bases in Syria do not have the authorization of the Syrian government.  They are actively stealing the precious oil resources of the Syrian state. It is the US not Russia that is “encroaching”. The dangerous behavior is by Washington not Moscow.

Conclusion

Victoria Nuland has promoted a foreign policy of intervention through coups, proxy wars, aggression, and ongoing occupations. The policy has been implemented with bloody and disastrous results in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.

With consummate hypocrisy she accuses Russia of spreading misinformation in the US, while she openly seeks to put “stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens.” She wants to “establish permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border and increase the pace and visibility of joint training exercises.”

Victoria Nuland is the queen of chicken hawks, the Lady Macbeth of perpetual war. There are hundreds of thousands of victims from the policies she has promoted. Yet she has not received a scratch. On the contrary, Victoria Nuland probably has profited from a stock portfolio filled with military contractors.

Now Victoria Nuland wants to provoke, threaten and “rollback” Russia. A quick look at a map of US military bases shows who is threatening whom.

Victoria Nuland is  dangerous and should not be confirmed.

*

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@protonmail.com.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

Hundreds of Scientists Write To Biden To Stop Dirty Biomass Industry

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | February 11, 2021

I have been covering the scandal of burning forests for power, only made possible by obscene subsidies and EU rules that class it as “zero carbon”.

I am pleased to see that several hundred scientists have now written to Biden, von der Leyen and others, objecting to the practice on scientific rather than environmental grounds.

Their basic argument is that the new biomass industry is not sustained by offcuttings, as claimed, but by wholly new harvesting. As I have been arguing, it could take decades for the carbon dioxide released from burning to be offset by regrowth. And that assumes that these forests will be replaced, an unlikely scenario.

In the meantime of course, more trees will be chopped down for burning, leaving a permanent “carbon debt”. As they point out, burning wood for power is far more carbon intensive than coal or gas, as it has a lower energy content.

Worse still, more than half of the wood is lost in harvesting and processing, long before it reaches the power station, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere without even replacing fossil fuels. (They might also have mentioned the emissions resulting from processing and shipping).

And if that’s not bad enough, there are concerns that palm oil will be used in biomass plants. As we know, carbon dense tropical forests have been cleared already for palm oil plantations. Demand for more palm oil will be a catastrophic consequence of biomass policy.

Unfortunately biomass is now big business, not only in Europe but also in the US and Japan. Companies like Drax will fight tooth and nail to protect their generous subsidies.

Meanwhile governments will continue to turn a blind eye to this dirty industry, as without it they would find it impossible to achieve their climate targets.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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