Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Executive Order Canceling the Constitution

By Leo Goldstein | American Thinker | April 20, 2021

On April 15, Preident Biden signed an Executive Order on Blocking Property with Respect to Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation. Contrary to its title, this EO is not about Russia. It is designed to allow the Biden administration to deprive American citizens and organizations of their rights and property by arbitrarily linking those persons to real, imagined, or vaguely defined activities of the Russian government.

The Biden administration unilaterally makes the determination and requires neither criminal acts nor intent. The punishment is blocking assets and a prohibition on any dealing with the accused person. Spouses and adult children of individuals found guilty by accusation under this EO are punished, too.

The EO was preceded by some distracting maneuvers, both diplomatic (hostile rhetoric toward Russia) and military (sending naval ships toward the Black Sea and recalling them back, as if dealing with Russian threats). Thus, many people assumed that the EO was directed at Russia, and completely missed the fact that it is directed at dissent here, at home.

Over the past four years, the Democrat Party, Fake News, and Big Tech have been frequently portraying their opponents as Russian trolls or Russian misinformation operators. The Russian collusion narrative, initially invented to overthrow the Trump administration, has been used to smear many conservative movements. Now this effort has been crowned by an Executive Order.

Biden’s administration has been recently pushing so many other radical changes, such as packing the Supreme Court, eliminating the filibuster, restricting Second Amendment rights, etc., that the real ramifications of this new EO went completely unnoticed. In my opinion, this EO is the most dangerous of them all. It allows the Biden regime to eliminate its opposition, quickly and quietly.

Section 1 of the EO enumerates prohibited activities and defines guilty persons as those “determined” by the Secretary of Treasury and/or Secretary of State in consultation with the Attorney General to be:

(a)(ii) responsible for or complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, any of the following for or on behalf of, or for the benefit of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation:

(A)  malicious cyber-enabled activities;

(B)  interference in a United States or other foreign government election;

(C)  actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the United States or abroad; 

(D)  transnational corruption;

Some of the language in this EO borrows from another: EO-13224 – Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism. George W. Bush signed EO-13224 on September 23, 2001, in response to 9/11.

However, Biden’s EO is as similar to Bush’s EO as an atomic bomb is to a sniper rifle. Bush’s EO targeted financing terrorism. It defined terrorism clearly and narrowly. It minimized legal jeopardy to US persons. It did not strip away the standard for criminal liability requirements of action and intent. It did not target spouses or children of accused individuals. Additionally, Bush made a legally meaningful promise to use it with due regard to culpability and the Bush administration used it with restraint. Even so, Democrats criticized it harshly, opposed it, and fought it in courts.

In contrast, Biden’s new EO is directed mostly at US persons. It criminalizes speech and political activities, based on whimsical and arbitrary definitions. The Biden administration can define “malicious activities,” “democratic processes or institutions,” and the activities that undermine them as it wants.

The Biden administration is also free to interpret what constitutes “interests of the Russian Government.” Such broad and vague language allows the Biden regime to select US citizens and political organizations arbitrarily, and then deprive them of their property and rights without anything reminiscent of due process. The EO does not even require that anybody commit an actual crime somewhere. False cyber-attribution or fake bounty claims are sufficient. Biden’s remarks to the EO showed no regard to the culpability of any targeted US citizens or other persons.

Leftist pseudo-elites have been eager to ban speech based on allegations that such speech may be beneficial to Russia. Such ideation has been present among Big Tech influencers for a long time. This EO effectively gives Big Tech, banks, and credit card companies a new pretext to deplatform conservatives and anyone else who opposes the Biden regime by claiming that they are now engaged in illegal activity.

Biden’s EO appears to allow the Democrat party to deny Americans the right to advocate against it in future federal elections. This might be accomplished through a “determination” that Russia is interfering in elections against democratic candidates. Thus, any US citizens who also oppose Democrats could be found to be acting for Russia’s benefit, directly or indirectly.

The list of prohibited activities justifying a Biden administration “determination” to deprive American persons of their property and other rights (referred to here as a “Deprived Person”) states:

       [a] (iii) to be or have been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of:
…   (C)  an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order;

For comparison, Bush’s EO only covered the leaders of terrorist-supporting entities, not multiple officials, executives, or directors.

Unprecedently, Biden’s EO targets children and spouses:

[a] (v)    to be a spouse or adult child of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to subsection (a)(ii) or (iii) of this section;

and countless associations:

[a] (vi)   to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of:

(A)  any activity described in subsection (a)(ii) of this section; or

(B)  any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order …

[a] (vii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, … any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

Notice the infinite reach these subsections afford. Those connected to a “Deprived Person” can receive the same designation, and so on. There is no limit to the number of iterations.

“Deprived Persons” essentially become untouchables, as dealing with them in any way is expressly prohibited without additional determinations:

Sec. 2.  The prohibitions in section 1 of this order include:

(a)  the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; and

(b)  the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Giving legal representation, hosting the website, selling food, and giving medical care to a “Deprived Person” is automatically prohibited. Section 4 prohibits transactions that “cause a violation” of this EO, even absent intent or knowledge. This serves as a hint to pre-emptively cut ties with anyone the Biden regime targets.

Section 9 exempts UN bodies and “related organizations” (NGOs) from any responsibility for interfering in US elections and other activities under this order.

The Russian Federation is mixed into the EO only for distraction and as a primer, triggering expanding layers of culpability.

I do not expect any putative human rights organizations or large media outlets to hold the Biden regime accountable for how it applies this EO or to defend its victims. So far, these outlets have either ignored it or defended it.

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

Parents, Please Read This. It Could Save Your Child’s Life.

By Richie Allen | April 29, 2021

Public Health England has admitted that it did not consider’ the negative health impacts of requiring children to wear face masks during lessons. Parents, read that again. And again.

In documents seen by The Telegraph newspaper, the watchdog acknowledged that it; “expressly did not consider any potential disbenefits of the policy.”

I’ll put it more plainly. The organisation charged with looking after the health and wellbeing of children, didn’t give a fuck about whether masks might harm them. Mind-boggling isn’t it?

Christine Brett, the co-founder of the parent group UsForThem told The Telegraph :

“It beggars belief that the Government has recommended secondary school children wear face coverings for up to eight hours a day without the usual rigour of an public health intervention imposed on a healthy population.

There is increasing evidence of masks being harmful to children’s health, welfare and impacting on their ability to learn, develop and communicate.”

The evidence is overwhelming, not increasing. There isn’t a shred of data, to support the claim that wearing a mask reduces transmission. The government and its scientific advisers have known this from day one.

When you accept that they know facemasks are both useless and highly dangerous, you must then ask, why have they mandated them? That’s a place most people don’t want to go.

I’m telling you now, that if you are a parent and you consent to your children wearing a mask at school or anywhere else for that matter, you are putting them in grave danger.

The government doesn’t give a shit about the welfare of your children. Public Health England couldn’t be bothered to investigate the possible harms before claiming that kids should wear masks.

Only you can stand up for your child. Do it. Today. What are you waiting for?

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | 1 Comment

US’ new Foreign Malign Influence Center is just official cover for politicized intelligence interference in domestic politics

By Scott Ritter | RT | April 28, 2021

The Director of National Intelligence has ostensibly created a new “center” for the sharing and analysis of information and intelligence about foreign interference in US elections. Its real focus is much more nefarious.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced in a statement on Monday that it was creating a new intelligence “center” focused on tracking so-called “foreign malign influence,” reported Politico.  This new entity, known as the Foreign Malign Influence Center, was mandated in the recent intelligence and defense budget authorization acts, representing the reality that the impetus for its creation came from Congress, and not the intelligence community.

For example, the most recent defense expenditure authorization required that the ODNI establish a “social media data analysis center” to coordinate and track foreign social media influence operations by analyzing data voluntarily shared by US social media companies. Based upon this analysis, the ODNI would report to Congress on a quarterly basis on trends in foreign influence and disinformation operations to the public. As envisioned by Congress, the intelligence community would determine jointly with US social media companies which data and metadata will be made available for analysis.

In short, the intelligence community, using data obtained from the social media accounts of American citizens, will report to Congress how this data influences the political decision making of these same American citizens.

If this does not make the most ardent defender of the US Constitution ill, nothing will.

It is not as if the US intelligence community wasn’t trending in this direction on its own volition. The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was the publication in March 2021 of an intelligence community assessment entitled ‘Foreign Threats to the US 2020 Presidential Election’. In this document, the US intelligence community assessed that “Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.”

But the most damning portion of this assessment came when it delved into the specific methodology employed by Russia to achieve these nefarious aims. “Throughout the election cycle”, the assessment declared, “Russia’s online influence actors sought to affect US public perceptions of the candidates, as well as advance Moscow’s long standing goals of undermining confidence in US election processes and increasing sociopolitical divisions among the American people. During the presidential primaries and dating back to 2019, these actors backed candidates from both major US political parties that Moscow viewed as outsiders, while later claiming that election fraud helped what they called ‘establishment’ candidates. Throughout the election, Russia’s online influence actors sought to amplify mistrust in the electoral process by denigrating mail-in ballots, highlighting alleged irregularities, and accusing the Democratic Party of voter fraud.”

As an American citizen who is politically engaged, I read the intelligence community assessment with a combination of interest, concern, and outrage. The notion of “Russian online influence actors” affecting “US public perceptions of the candidates” is as intellectually vacuous as it is factually unsustainable. The stupidity encapsulated by such analysis can only be excused by the fact that the intelligence community assessment is a document produced more for the benefit of domestic political consumption than a genuine effort at identifying and quantifying legitimate threats to the US.

The assessment itself is short on hard data. However, the House Intelligence Committee has documented some 3,000 social media ads bought by Russian “troll farms” between 2015-2017, at a cost of some $100,000. These ads were in addition to so-called “organic posts,” some 80,000 of which were published on US social media, free of charge, by alleged Russian “bots” resulting in 126 million “views” by Americans. These ads were crude, unfocused, and simply inane in terms of their content.

To put the alleged Russian influence campaign into perspective, one need only reflect on the fact that during his short bid for the Democratic nomination, Michael Bloomberg spent nearly $1 billion underwriting the single most sophisticated public relations campaign, including hundreds of millions of targeted social media ads put together by the most brilliant political minds money could buy. All this money, time and effort, however, could not change the reality that, to the American public, Michael Bloomberg was an unattractive candidate – in the end his $1 billion bought him exactly two delegates.

The fact is, the political opinions of most American citizens are formed based upon a lifetime of exposure to issues that matter for them the most, whether it be education, right-to-life, gun control, social justice, agriculture, energy, environment, law enforcement, or any other of the multitude of sources of causation that impact the day-to-day existence of the American electorate.

Some of these beliefs are inherited, such as the working-class attachment to unions. Some are driven by current affairs, such as the growing awareness of climate change. But all are derived from the life experience of each American, and the thought that these deeply held beliefs could be bought, changed, or otherwise manipulated by social media posts published by foreign actors, malign or otherwise, is deeply insulting to me, and should be to every other American as well.

The irony is that by creating an intelligence organization whose task it is to help prevent the political Balkanization of America by analyzing the social media accounts of Americans who hold differing political beliefs than “the establishment” the newly minted Foreign Malign Influence Center ostensibly serves, the resulting process will only cause the further political division of the United States.

Some 74 million Americans voted for a candidate, Donald Trump, who has promulgated the very issues that the Democratic-controlled Congress seeks to denigrate and suppress through the work of this new intelligence center. These ideas will not simply disappear because the Democrats in Congress have empowered a “center” within the intelligence community whose sole function is to demonize any political thought that does not conform with the powers that be.

As it is currently focused, the Foreign Malign Influence Center is the living, breathing embodiment of politicized intelligence, two words which, when put together, represent the death knell for any intelligence organization. Worse, the work it will be doing, when turned over to a Democratically controlled Congress desperate to undermine the political viability of those 74 million American citizens, will only further fracture an already divided nation.

The Foreign Malign Influence Center was specifically mandated to examine the social media influence campaigns operated by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. It is particularly telling that they were not directed to investigate the two largest foreign sources of political influence in America today, namely the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee and the Murdoch media empire. President Putin could only dream about being able to buy congressional seats the way AIPAC does, or control what information becomes magnified (and, by extension, suppressed) by the newspapers, television and radio enterprises owned by Rupert Murdoch.

These are the true villains when it comes to foreign corruption of American politics. These foreigners, however, have a seat at the establishment table. Their malign influence will never be labeled as such, and they will never have to withstand the ignominy of having their work scrutinized under the politicized microscope of an intelligence community that has allowed itself to be corrupted by domestic American politics to the point that it no longer serves the American people as a whole, but only a select class of American persons.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Japan Restarts Older Nuclear Reactors For First Time Since Fukushima

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | April 28, 2021

Since achieving the ambitious emissions-reduction targets laid out in the Paris Accords will require developed nations to revive their nuclear plans (something that climate activists have increasingly supported despite the continuing fallout from the disaster at Fukushima) Japan on Wednesday decided to revive three long-idled reactors, marking the first time that Japan has restarted a reactor that’s more than 40 years old.

After Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga last week announced a new goal of cutting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions 46% by fiscal 2030 (an announcement that coincided with President Biden’s virtual climate summitNikkei reports that Gov. Tatsuji Sugimoto of Fukui Prefecture (located about 300 km, about 186 miles, west of Tokyo) gave the green light on Wednesday to restart the Kansai Electric Power reactor units 1 and 2 at the Takahama nuclear power plant, and unit 3 at the utility’s Mihama plant. Japan’s plans for building new reactors have been frozen for years, leaving its aging nuclear infrastructure largely intact.

Achieving the emissions goals laid out by Suga last week will require generating 20% of Japan’s power via nuclear energy in the coming decades, experts said.

Currently, Japanese regulations imposed after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown set the operating life of Japanese reactors at 40 years, while leaving open the possibility of extending that to 60 years. No reactors older than 40 years are currently operating in Japan – but that’s about to change.

Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama on Tuesday told Sugimoto that Japan “will use nuclear power sustainably into the future” and promised up to 2.5 billion yen ($23.1 million) in federal grants to help restart older reactors. Sugimoto told reporters that Kajiyama’s remarks were “something we hadn’t heard before.”

Japan had about 50 nuclear reactors when Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi plant was struck by a tsunami in 2011 that knocked out its emergency power, leading to a historic meltdown.

Since then, more than 20 reactors in Japan have been marked for decommissioning. By 2030, nearly half of the country’s remaining reactors will be over 40 years old.

Still, as Fukushima fades into history, support for nuclear power is growing within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. To open the door to reviving more reactors, more lawmakers favor a different rubric for counting a reactor’s operating age that will subtract the years they spent idled.

Unfortunately for the nuclear industry in Japan, other obstacles remain aside from environmental concerns. For example, the outlook for restarting Tokyo Electric’s workhorse Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant has been dimmed by a report that finds insufficient safeguards against terrorist attacks. In the US, nuclear has remained out of favor ever since the incident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.

As we pointed out on Earth Day, proponents of lower emissions are starting to accept that nuclear is the only practical strategy that wouldn’t involve massive reductions in energy use, while still maintaining robust systems that won’t seize up when wind turbines freeze.

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Nuclear Power | | Leave a comment

US agency in charge of nukes approves plutonium project as Washington urges Iran to curtail its own nuclear program

RT | April 29, 2021

The US has approved a multibillion-dollar project to beef up its plutonium production at the same time Washington is calling on Iran to return to an international agreement designed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear bombs.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the federal agency responsible for nuclear research and weapons manufacturing in the US, has approved the first design phase for the new project.

At least 30 plutonium pits per year will be built to “meet national security needs,” the NNSA said in a statement on Wednesday.

The project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, will cost an estimated $2.7–$3.9 billion and could be finished between 2027 and 2028, the agency said.

Plutonium pits are bowling-ball-sized plutonium shells, and a crucial component in nuclear warheads.

The move to expand plutonium production is a bid by US President Joe Biden’s administration to make up for the country’s near-three-decade shortfall in the quantity of material the NNSA says is required for America’s nuclear arsenal.

At the same time as it hatches plans to bolster America’s own stockpile, the Biden administration has repeatedly called on Iran to restrict its nuclear program and return to the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Indirect US-Iranian talks to revive the accord – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – have been taking place in Vienna over the last three weeks.

Under the deal, Iran originally agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.But in 2018 Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement and reverted to imposing crippling sanctions on Iran.

Tehran then began breaching its commitments under the deal.

Biden has said he wants the US to re-join the JCPOA – but first wants Iran to make concessions by cutting back on the amount, and purity, of uranium it produces and stores.

Tehran has said it will not alter its approach until Washington lifts sanctions.

On Thursday Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is one of the mediators at the negotiations, briefed the US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley on the talks.

“We had a detailed and very useful discussion on major topics which are under consideration in the course of on-going talks in Vienna on full restoration of the #JCPOA,” Ulyanov said in a statement on Twitter.

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Lavrov Calls Out Perfidious Albion in EU Diplomat Spat

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 28, 2021

Britain is fomenting a diplomatic crisis between the European Union and Russia, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Evidence and precedent indicate Lavrov has his sight well-trained.

The British establishment’s notorious ability for machination and intrigue – hence the ancient moniker Perfidious Albion – can be seen as stirring the escalating row between the European Union and Russia in which diplomats are being expelled pell-mell.

This week, Russia ordered the withdrawal of representatives from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia. That came in response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from those countries. Russia has also ordered home more diplomats from the Czech Republic. Poland and Italy have also been caught up in diplomatic antagonism with Moscow.

The row blew up last week when the Czech Republic accused Russian state agents of being responsible for twin explosions on its territory back in 2104. The blasts caused the deaths of two workers at an ammunition depot near the village of Vrbetice close to the border with Slovakia. Until recently, the Czech authorities had concluded that the explosions were an industrial accident.

What prompted the Czechs to revise their ideas and to now blame Russia for sabotage is the interpolation of Britain in providing “new information”. Specifically, it was the MI6-sponsored media group Bellingcat (a so-called private investigatory agency) which appears to have furnished the disinformation which purports to show the involvement of Russian military intelligence (GRU). Incredibly, the British claim their “evidence” shows that two of the GRU agents were also the same individuals who were alleged to have been involved in poisoning the Russian traitor-spy Sergei Skripal in England in 2018. The British claim to have passport information to support their claims, but such methodology is rife with forgery – a black art that the British are all-too skilled at.

On leveling the accusation against Russia, the Czech Republic then ordered the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats. Moscow responded angrily, saying that the claims of sabotage were a “dirty fabrication” and pointing out that Prague did not provide any information for verification. Russia took swift reciprocal action by banishing 20 Czech diplomats from its territory.

However, the row continues to flare with the Baltic states entering the fray by banning Russian officials in “solidarity” with the Czech Republic. The move by the Baltic states is predictable as they are supercharged by anti-Russian political sentiment. It’s a case of any excuse for them to inflame relations.

The dispute comes at a fraught time when the European Union is discussing imposing more sanctions on Russia over wider concerns about the conflict in Ukraine, the imprisonment of blogger Alexei Navalny and a Russian security crackdown on Navalny’s shadowy Western-backed “opposition” network.

The skirmishing over diplomats is a convenient way to further damage relations between the EU and Russia, especially as the strategically important Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project nears completion – a project that Washington wants to eviscerate for its own selfish commercial reasons. Uncle Sam’s junior partner Britain may be obliging in that regard and thus trying to curry favor for garnering an American trade deal in the post-Brexit world.

Certainly, Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov is clear about the stealthy British hand in recent events. In a media interview this week, Lavrov mentioned the United Kingdom in wary terms, saying: “As far as the relations between Russia and Europe are concerned, I still believe that the UK is playing an active and a very serious subversive role. It withdrew from the European Union, but we see no decrease in its activities on this track. On the contrary, they are trying to influence EU member states’ approaches to Russia to the maximum possible extent.”

It should be recalled that Britain has played a starring duplicitous role in demonizing Russia and poisoning international relations.

It was Bellingcat (MI6) that pushed the narrative that Russia was complicit in the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner in 2014 over Eastern Ukraine with the loss of nearly 300 lives. Based on British “evidence” (which has been debunked as fabrication), a Dutch investigation into the disaster has accused Russia. That affair has hardened European prejudices against Russia which has fomented the imposition of sanctions.

It was a former British MI6 operative Christopher Steele who was instrumental in promoting the Russiagate dossier around 2016 which destroyed bilateral relations between the United States and Russia, and which continues to fuel fabrications about Moscow’s interference in American and European politics (even those Steele’s “dirty dossier” is a risible load of rubbish and has been debunked).

And it was the Skripal saga in Salisbury in March 2018 which Britain hatched to further poison international relations with Russia. That saga – with no proof against Russia – has become a concocted “standard proof” for the subsequent saga of “poisoning” the blogger conman Alexei Navalny. Western governments and media refer to the “Kremlin plot” to kill Skripal as “evidence” for another “Kremlin plot” to assassinate Navalny. This is tantamount to one fiction being used to prove another fiction. The same saga is now feeding into the Czech explosion row. And it all comes back to the devious ingenuity of Perfidious Albion.

Foreign Minister Lavrov added a further incisive comment on the role of Britain. He said: “At the same time, you know, they send us signals, they propose establishing contacts. This means, they do not shy away from communication [with Russia], but try to discourage others. Again, probably [this can be explained by] their desire to have a monopoly of these contacts and again prove that they are superior to others.”

The British establishment likes to boast that they “punch above their weight” in terms of influence beyond their territorial size. It’s not hard to see how they manage such a feat. It’s called duplicity, intrigue, lies, and dividing and ruling. Perfidious Albion par excellence.

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Perspectives on the Pandemic – Investigative journalist Sam Husseini

Episode 7

Journeyman Pictures | May 12, 2020

Perspectives on the Pandemic / Episode 7: Investigative journalist Sam Husseini

Investigative journalist Sam Husseini has had a storied career asking world leaders questions they would prefer to dodge, on subjects ranging from missing weapons of mass destruction to very real nuclear stockpiles. Now he takes on the “elephant in the room”: the extreme dangers posed by bio-research facilities not just in China, but all over the world…

https://www.journeyman.tv/
https://www.thepressandthepublic.com/

Sam Husseini

https://husseini.posthaven.com/

Episode list

Episode 1: Dr. John Ioannidis
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VnaTtRQfJbb4/
Episode 2: Knut Wittkowski
https://www.bitchute.com/video/kLRYC73jlfin/
Episode 3: Dr. David L. Katz
https://www.bitchute.com/video/UJt1YSMecfZw/
Episode 4: Dr. John Ioannidis update
https://www.bitchute.com/video/gS3cLkoIw7pz/
Episode 5: Knut Wittkowski update
https://www.bitchute.com/video/dvMgvJAak9N1/
Episode 6: The Bakersfield doctors
https://www.bitchute.com/video/2nH3EF6c1ZSh/

April 29, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Washington rejected Moscow’s offer of complete reset in Russia-US relations shortly after inauguration of Biden: Lavrov

By Jonny Tickle | RT | April 28, 2021

The Kremlin proposed a complete reset in the strained relationship between Moscow and Washington after the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, but it was turned down by the White House, Russia’s chief diplomat said on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that Russia wants to get back on a sound footing in its relationship with the US.

“If it only depended on us, we would return to normal relations,” Lavrov explained, noting that the first step would be to cancel the expulsions of Russian diplomats from Washington, and US diplomats from Moscow.

“We offered this to President Biden’s Administration as soon as he took all the necessary oaths and assumed power,” he continued. “I mentioned this to Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken.”

According to Lavrov, the crisis began when former President Barack Obama took measures against Russia prior to his leaving office. After the election of Donald Trump, Moscow remained patient and waited for the new administration to reverse the “excesses” of the outgoing president, but it never happened.

“I very much hope that Washington, as we do, recognizes their responsibility for stability in the world,” Lavrov continued. “There are not only problems between Russia and the US that complicate the lives of our citizens… but also disagreements that put international security at serious risk, in the broadest sense of the word.”

In recent weeks, relations between Moscow and Washington have become even more strained.

On April 15, Biden signed an executive order imposing further sanctions against Russia. Targeting more than 30 individuals and organizations, the measures are said to be punishment for alleged interference in the US presidential election, as well as the infamous SolarWinds cyber-espionage case, which Washington says was ordered by the Russian government. Biden also announced the expulsion of 10 people from the Russian diplomatic mission.

In response, Moscow sent 10 US diplomats back home.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 1 Comment

All of liquified natural gas from Russia’s Arctic for next 20 years sold in advance

RT | April 28, 2021

Russia’s energy giant Novatek said on Wednesday it has inked 20-year agreements with the shareholders of its Arctic LNG 2 project on the sale and purchase of the entire volume of liquified natural gas.

The LNG sales from the plant’s first liquefaction train are planned to commence in 2023, according to the company.

The agreements “provide for LNG supplies from Arctic LNG 2 on FOB Murmansk and FOB Kamchatka basis with pricing formulas linked to international oil and gas benchmarks. The LNG offtake volumes are set in proportion to the respective participants’ ownership stakes in the project,” Novatek said.

The company’s chairman of the management board, Leonid Mikhelson, said that “The long-term offtake agreements between Arctic LNG 2 and its participants ensure the future revenue stream from LNG sales and de-risks the project. This represents one of the most important milestones in attracting the project’s external financing that will be completed in 2021.”

Mikhelson said earlier that the Arctic LNG 2 plant is 39% complete and will be launched as planned.

Arctic LNG 2 envisages constructing three LNG liquefaction trains of 6.6 million tons per annum each, as well as cumulative gas condensate production capacity of 1.6 million tons per annum. The total LNG capacity of the three liquefaction trains will be 19.8 million tons. The first train of Arctic LNG 2 is 53% ready and is scheduled to start operations in two years.

Novatek owns the majority stake (60%) in the project, with minority stakes held by foreign companies. The list of foreign investors includes French oil and gas company Total (10%), Chinese firms CNPC (10%) and CNOOC (10%), and the Japanese consortium of Mitsui and JOGMEC (10%).

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama administration scientist says climate ‘emergency’ is based on fallacy

By Dr. Steven E. Koonin | New York Post | April 24, 2021

The Science,” we’re told, is settled. How many times have you heard it?

Humans have broken the earth’s climate. Temperatures are rising, sea level is surging, ice is disappearing, and heat waves, storms, droughts, floods, and wildfires are an ever-worsening scourge on the world. Greenhouse gas emissions are causing all of this. And unless they’re eliminated promptly by radical changes to society and its energy systems, “The Science” says Earth is doomed.

Yes, it’s true that the globe is warming, and that humans are exerting a warming influence upon it. But beyond that — to paraphrase the classic movie “The Princess Bride” — “I do not think ‘The Science’ says what you think it says.”

For example, both research literature and government reports state clearly that heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years. When I tell people this, most are incredulous. Some gasp. And some get downright hostile.

These are almost certainly not the only climate facts you haven’t heard. Here are three more that might surprise you, drawn from recent published research or assessments of climate science published by the US government and the UN:

    • Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century.
    • Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago.
    • The global area burned by wildfires has declined more than 25 percent since 2003 and 2020 was one of the lowest years on record.

Why haven’t you heard these facts before?

Most of the disconnect comes from the long game of telephone that starts with the research literature and runs through the assessment reports to the summaries of the assessment reports and on to the media coverage. There are abundant opportunities to get things wrong — both accidentally and on purpose — as the information goes through filter after filter to be packaged for various audiences. The public gets their climate information almost exclusively from the media; very few people actually read the assessment summaries, let alone the reports and research papers themselves. That’s perfectly understandable — the data and analyses are nearly impenetrable for non-experts, and the writing is not exactly gripping. As a result, most people don’t get the whole story.

Policymakers, too, have to rely on information that’s been put through several different wringers by the time it gets to them. Because most government officials are not themselves scientists, it’s up to scientists to make sure that those who make key policy decisions get an accurate, complete and transparent picture of what’s known (and unknown) about the changing climate, one undistorted by “agenda” or “narrative.” Unfortunately, getting that story straight isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I should know. That used to be my job.

I’m a scientist — I work to understand the world through measurements and observations, and then to communicate clearly both the excitement and the implications of that understanding. Early in my career, I had great fun doing this for esoteric phenomena in the realm of atoms and nuclei using high-performance computer modeling (which is also an important tool for much of climate science). But beginning in 2004, I spent about a decade turning those same methods to the subject of climate and its implications for energy technologies. I did this first as chief scientist for the oil company BP, where I focused on advancing renewable energy, and then as undersecretary for science in the Obama administration’s Department of Energy, where I helped guide the government’s investments in energy technologies and climate science. I found great satisfaction in these roles, helping to define and catalyze actions that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the agreed-upon imperative that would “save the planet.”

But doubts began in late 2013 when I was asked by the American Physical Society to lead an update of its public statement on climate. As part of that effort, in January 2014 I convened a workshop with a specific objective: to “stress test” the state of climate science.

I came away from the APS workshop not only surprised, but shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed. Here’s what I discovered:

Humans exert a growing, but physically small, warming influence on the climate. The results from many different climate models disagree with, or even contradict, each other and many kinds of observations. In short, the science is insufficient to make useful predictions about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what effect our actions will have on it.

In the seven years since that workshop, I watched with dismay as the public discussions of climate and energy became increasingly distant from the science. Phrases like “climate emergency,” “climate crisis” and “climate disaster” are now routinely bandied about to support sweeping policy proposals to “fight climate change” with government interventions and subsidies. Not surprisingly, the Biden administration has made climate and energy a major priority infused throughout the government, with the appointment of John Kerry as climate envoy and proposed spending of almost $2 trillion dollars to fight this “existential threat to humanity.”

Trillion-dollar decisions about reducing human influences on the climate should be informed by an accurate understanding of scientific certainties and uncertainties. My late Nobel-prizewinning Caltech colleague Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. At the 1974 Caltech commencement, he gave a now famous address titled “Cargo Cult Science” about the rigor scientists must adopt to avoid fooling not only themselves. “Give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another,” he implored.

Much of the public portrayal of climate science ignores the great late physicist’s advice. It is an effort to persuade rather than inform, and the information presented withholds either essential context or what doesn’t “fit.” Scientists write and too-casually review the reports, reporters uncritically repeat them, editors allow that to happen, activists and their organizations fan the fires of alarm, and experts endorse the deception by keeping silent.

As a result, the constant repetition of these and many other climate fallacies are turned into accepted truths known as “The Science.”

This article is an adapted excerpt from Dr. Koonin’s book, “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” (BenBella Books), out May 4.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Book Review, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Facemask Wearing Runner Collapses After Winning 800 Metre Race

By Richie Allen | April 28, 2021

Track runner Maggie Williams, a student in Bend, Oregon, broke a school record in an 800 metre race last week. Williams won the race, but fainted as she crossed the line. She had run the race while wearing a facemask.

When she recovered enough to speak, the junior athlete said that she felt unable to breathe during the race. State guidelines mean competitors must wear a face covering during competition.

“In the past, this has never happened,” Williams said. “Then this race I was wearing a mask and it did happen, which I don’t think is a coincidence.”

Her coach Dave Turnbull agrees with her. He said:

“It was a different response than I’ve seen for kids that have collapsed to the track just because they were exhausted. She wasn’t sure where she was.”

Oregon’s health authority (OHA) released a statement yesterday. It said:

“The Oregon Health Authority regularly reviews COVID-19 guidance based on medical evidence and evolving science. We are revising the current guidance on the use of masks outdoors during competition. The guidance will allow people to take off face coverings when competing in non-contact sports outdoors and maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from others and the other virus protective protocols.

* The exception will not apply while training and conditioning for these sports or for competitions.
* The exception will not apply before and after competing.”

There is no evidence that facemasks protect the wearer or anyone they come into contact with. There is an abundance of evidence that facemasks are harmful.

Wearing one while running can kill you.

Don’t wear one, ever.

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

The Growing Plague of Mandatory Testing in UK Workplaces

Lockdown Sceptics – April 28, 2021

Lockdown Sceptics reader has written to tell us about mandatory testing that’s happening at his workplace.

Regarding the story on Durham University today and lateral flow tests, you’ll probably be aware that there’s a growing problem of mandatory testing in workplaces.

I work in an office in London and we were told this week that twice-weekly tests are mandatory to come into the office. We currently have about 10 people coming in out of a possible 200+.

To make it worse, we were originally told these tests were advisory, but now apparently they are mandatory – something to do with the firm’s “duty of care to those with hidden underlying health conditions”. The people being tested are the same people who’ve been vaccinated of course, which shows the senselessness of the whole thing. And arguably makes the testing permanent, given that having been vaccinated doesn’t absolve you of the need to get tested twice a week.

People who hadn’t taken the test this week were sent home halfway through the day, despite having reasonable objections, including having recently had the virus (and so having the antibodies that meant they could neither catch it nor pass it on), and others not being prepared to risk having to self-isolate, given individual circumstances that make that impossible. Of course, companies can do as they please – but this is all so self-defeating and driven by all the wrong instincts.

Those of us grateful to still have a job and income have to pick and choose our battles. But why is there not more of an outcry over mandatory testing? Will mandatory vaccinations be next? You could make a case for all this (I personally wouldn’t) in a care home, but not in a normal office. Many people will say it’s the price we have to pay for getting back to normal, but it’s a high price.

My own circumstances are even worse but probably not unique. I refuse to comply with any of this because my partner had a miscarriage a few months ago, caused, we believe, by having to carry something heavy in her workplace which colleagues wouldn’t help with “due to the social distancing rules”. This is the true hidden horrific cost of lockdown and the other measures. She was then made to suffer alone in hospital on multiple occasions (family not allowed in), and even the paramedics were reluctant to come to the house – for a critical emergency – without ascertaining her Covid status. The cruelty of lockdown and the restrictions is my biggest bugbear, quite aside from its efficacy.

If other readers have stories about mandatory testing in their workplace, do email them to us here (saying whether you’re happy for us to publish your name).

April 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment