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More bad news: new US coordination center in Stuttgart for Ukraine operations a landmark on the way to WWIII

By Gilbert Doctorow | November 13, 2022

Earlier today I received an email from my good friend Professor of Law at the University of Illinois Francis A. Boyle regarding the creation in Stuttgart of a new U.S. coordination center for war operations in Ukraine headed by a 3-star general. The news item seems to have been sidelined this past week by Western mainstream coverage of the Russian withdrawal from Kherson and entry of Ukrainian forces into that city. However, judging by Boyle’s interpretation, there is every reason to put a spotlight on this issue and to seek the broadest possible discussion in Alternative News electronic and print media.

I offer the following quote from Boyle’s email with his permission:

The story below is a pure cover story by the Pentagon. You do not need a 3 Star General and a Staff of 300 to keep tabs on U.S. Weapons in Ukraine. This is a War Command to wage war against Russia. The last time I dealt personally with a 3 Star General was  when I lectured at West Point on “Nuclear Deterrence” in their Senior Conference on that subject in front of, among others, the 3 Star General in Charge of War Operations at the Pentagon. The Pentagon puts a 3 Stars  General in Charge of War Operations—not Inventory. And you do not need a Headquarters Staff of 300 to do an Audit. It’s a War Headquarters Staff. We are going to war against Russia unless the American People can figure out some way to stop it!

Francis A. Boyle

Professor of Law

STUTTGART, Germany — A three-star general will lead a new Army headquarters in Germany that will include about 300 U.S. service members responsible for coordinating security assistance for Ukraine, a senior U.S. military official said this week.

I refer those unfamiliar with Francis Boyle to his brief biography in the University of Illinois website.

To that I can add, that his ‘political science’ studies for the Masters and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard were primarily in Russian/Soviet affairs, and that in his time at Harvard he worked under many of the same professors as did I. In this sense, Boyle is a well qualified Russia expert, even if his primary listing at Illinois is as defender of human rights.  He is also particularly noteworthy this year for his efforts to promote among several key Congressmen the articles of impeachment against President Biden that he has drafted; the charges – waging undeclared war on Russia in violation of the Constitution. So far that has gained little traction, but when the new Congress with Republican majority takes its seats in 2023 the prospects of finding sponsors may be significantly improved.

Notwithstanding the worrisome or alarming news above, I close this essay with a glimmer of hope that the world has not yet gone completely mad.  From my volunteer translator in Germany, I have learned about the start of what should be a nationwide “Ami Go Home” movement in the Federal Republic. It will begin with mass demonstrations in the East German city of Leipzig on 26 November. The protests are inspired by the thinking of Oskar Lafonteine, a German politician who held leading positions in the SPD and later in Die Linke: namely the notion that it is high time for the United States occupation forces to leave Germany so that the country may recover its sovereignty. Those new to German politics may more easily identify Lafonteine as the husband of the eloquent Opposition member of the Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht. It behooves me to add that per the advice of my translator when he forwarded to me news about the ‘Ami Go Home’ demonstration that the actual organizers are not on the German Left but, on the contrary, on the Hard Right. This interpretation has been reconfirmed by a well informed reader living in Berlin. Call this yet another ‘impersonation’ or imposter phenomenon if you will. We are living through interesting times.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

November 14, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Is the Anglo-Russian Fisheries Agreement about to end?

By Drago Bosnic | November 14, 2022

During the early (First) Cold War era, particularly the 1950-1970 timeframe, Soviet diplomacy tried easing tensions with the political West. This greatly contributed to the development of Anglo-Soviet relations in many areas, despite the overall geopolitical rivalry. It was at this time that a number of agreements were inked between Moscow and London, including the 1956 Fisheries Agreement, which is still in effect. It was signed in Moscow on May 25, 1956 by Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov and the UK Ambassador to the USSR William Hayter. On August 31, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ratified the agreement.

The document contained only three articles. Article 1 read: “The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics agrees to grant fishing vessels assigned to the ports of the United Kingdom the right to fish in the waters of the Barents Sea along the coast of the Kola Peninsula between the meridians 36° and 37° 50′ E. along the mainland east of Cape Kanin Nos between meridians 43° 17′ and 51° E, as well as along the coast of Kolguev Island, outside three nautical miles from the low tide line both on the mainland and on the islands; these vessels are also granted the right to navigate and anchor freely in these waters.”

Additionally, the Protocol to Article 1 of the Agreement stated: “The permission given by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to fishing vessels assigned to the ports of the United Kingdom to fish, sail freely and anchor in the waters specified in Article I of the Agreement, shall not be regarded as granting to such fishing vessels the right to fish, navigate and anchor in prohibited zones which may be established by the competent Soviet authorities within the waters covered by the Agreement.”

In turn, Article 2 stated: “When fishing vessels of the United Kingdom enter Soviet ports and protected waters in case of emergency, these vessels will be guided by the rules established by the competent Soviet authorities.”

The Fisheries Agreement was signed for a period of five years and entered into force on the date of the exchange of instruments of ratification, which took place at the end of 1956 in London. It was automatically renewed every five years and is still valid, since neither party announced its withdrawal. As per a special clause, Moscow or London are obligated to declare this no later than one year before the expiration of the specified term of the Agreement.

It should be noted that the UK was a fairly large player in the international fishing industry at the time, particularly in the cod and haddock fisheries. Obviously, having concluded the agreement with the Soviet Union, the UK intended to expand its fishing industry to the Soviet part of the Barents Sea. At the same time, it should be noted that the 1956 Fisheries Agreement did not affect the rights of Soviet fishing vessels in UK waters.

In this regard, on September 30, 1964 Moscow and London exchanged notes on the issue of Soviet fishing vessels’ presence and floating bases within the fishing borders. As per these notes, Soviet fishing vessels and floating bases were allowed to anchor, sail, transship fish and carry out other work that is auxiliary to fishing operations within the zone between 3 and 12 miles from the baseline, from which UK territorial waters are measured around the Shetland Islands north of a line drawn west from Ash Ness Lighthouse and a line drawn east from the southern tip of Bressay Point.

Over the years, the so-called “Khrushchev euphoria” resulting from possible closer cooperation with the political West, particularly the UK, was starting to die down, and Moscow then fully realized that UK ships, extracting a significant part of the marine life resources available in the Barents Sea, seriously undermined Russian reserves. However, for some reason, the USSR (later the Russian Federation) showed no intention of ending the 1956 Fisheries Agreement. Although there might be serious reasons for this that were never made public, the fact is that the UK continues to fish freely and virtually unchecked in the waters of the Barents Sea.

And yet, the economic consequences fade in comparison to possible security challenges for Russia, as foreign vessels fishing in the area of the Barents Sea could easily be working for UK intelligence services, collecting and passing sensitive information which could undermine the Russian military in the area. Given the current extremely tense relations between Moscow and London, this is completely unacceptable for Russia, as the UK is one of the most adamant supporters of the Neo-Nazi junta in Kiev. As Russian fishermen have long had little interest in fishing off the UK coast, Moscow will likely need to reassess the benefits of the agreement for itself, especially as waters around the Arctic are of prime strategic importance.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

November 14, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Energy Experts

Tony Heller | November 4, 2022

World leaders have been taking energy advice from people like Michael Mann and Greta Thunberg, who have no experience or expertise related to energy. Simultaneously, governments have been refusing to listen to the people who provide the world’s energy.

November 14, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | 20 Comments

BBC Admit Their Pakistan Floods Claim Was False

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | November 13, 2022

There’s been an interesting follow up to BBC’s recent story about the Pakistan floods at the end of August.

Readers will recall that the claim that one third of the country was under water immediately set off my BS detector, and I did a full analysis here, totally debunking it.

But just a couple of days after my piece, the BBC’s More or Less radio programme also looked at the claim, after some viewers had complained.

They interviewed an environmental scientist who checked out what the various satellite records indicated. His conclusion was that the true figure was that about 10% of the country had been affected by floods, and much of this was short term.

In fact, all the BBC had to do was what I did in a few minutes, and check what NASA were reporting.

It was plainly evident that nothing like a third of the country had flooded. Indeed a simple look at the map would have shown them that much of Pakistan is either mountainous or desert, which would be impossible to flood.

They could also have checked with the UN disaster agency, OCHA, who were publishing regular reports on the flooding.

According to them, the area affected was 75000 sq km, or 9% of the country.

In fact, these are precisely the sort of checks the BBC should have carried out before making their absurd claim. One which anybody with an ounce of common sense, or integrity, would have immediately suspected was wrong.

It is doubly ironic that the BBC’s defence was that the one third claim had been widely reported across the media. This shows just how utterly corrupt most of the media is nowadays.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

Russia strategises with Iran for the long haul in Ukraine

Ali Shamkhani (L), representative of Supreme Leader and Secretary of Supreme National Security Council, met Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Tehran, Nov. 9, 2022
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 14, 2022

Ignoring the hype in the US media about White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Kissingerian diplomacy over Ukraine, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, former KGB counterintelligence officer and longstanding associate of President Putin, travelled to Tehran last Wednesday in the equivalent of a knockout punch in geopolitics. 

Patrushev called on President Ebrahim Raisi and held detailed discussions with Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the representative of the Supreme leader and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The visit marks a defining moment in the Russia-Iran partnership and plants a signpost on the trajectory of the war in Ukraine. 

The Iranian state media quoted Raisi as saying, “The development of the extent and expansion of the scale of war [in Ukraine] causes concern for all countries.” That said, Raisi also remarked that Tehran and Moscow are upgrading relations to a “strategic” level, which is “the most decisive response to the policy of sanctions and destabilisation by the United States and its allies.” 

The US State Department reacted swiftly on the very next day with spokesman Ned Price warning that “This is a deepening alliance that the entire world should view as a profound threat… this is a relationship that would have implications, could have implications beyond any single country.” Price said Washington will work with allies to counter Russian-Iranian military ties. 

Patrushev’s talks in Tehran touched on highly sensitive issues that prompted President Vladimir Putin to follow up with Raisi on Saturday. The Kremlin readout said the two leaders “discussed a number of current issues on the bilateral agenda with an emphasis on the continued building up of interaction in politics, trade and the economy, including transport and logistics. They agreed to step up contacts between respective Russian and Iranian agencies.” 

In this connection, Patrushev’s exceptionally strong support for Iran over the current disturbances in that country must be understood properly. Patrushev stated: “We note the key role of Western secret services in organising mass riots in Iran and the subsequent spread of disinformation about the situation in the country via Persian-language Western media existing under their control. We see this as overt interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.” 

Russian security agencies share information with Iranian counterparts on hostile activities of western intelligence agencies. Notably, Patrushev sidestepped Iran’s suspicions regarding involvement of Saudi Arabia. Separately, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also publicly offered to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh. 

All this is driving Washington insane. On the one hand, it is not getting anywhere, including at President Biden’s level, to raise the spectre of Iran threat and rally the Arab regimes of the Persian Gulf all over again. 

Most recently, Washington resorted to theatrics following up an unsubstantiated report by Wall Street Journal about an imminent Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia in the coming days. The US forces in the West Asian region increased their alert level and Washington vowed to be ready for any eventuality. But, curiously, Riyadh was unmoved and showed no interest in the US offer of protection to ward off threat from Iran.

Clearly, the Saudi-Iranian normalisation process, which has been front-loaded with sensitive exchanges on their mutual security concerns, has gained traction neither side gets provoked into knee-jerk reaction.

This paradigm shift works to Russia’s advantage. Alongside its highly strategic oil alliance with Saudi Arabia, Russia is now deepening its strategic partnership with Iran.

The panic in spokesman Price’s remarks suggests that Washington has inferred that the cooperation between the security and defence agencies of Russia and Iran is set to intensify.  

What alarms Washington most is that Tehran is adopting a joint strategy with Moscow to go on the offensive and defeat the weaponisation of sanctions by the collective West. Despite decades of sanctions, Iran has built up a world class defence industry on its own steam that will put countries like India or Israel to shame. 

Shamkhani underscored the creation of “joint and synergistic institutions to deal with sanctions and the activation of the capacity of international institutions against sanctions and sanctioning countries.” Patrushev concurred by recalling the earlier agreements between the national security agencies of the two countries to chart out the roadmap for strategic cooperation, especially in regard of countering western economic and technological sanctions.

Shamkhani added that Tehran regards the expansion of bilateral and regional cooperation with Russia in the economic field as one of its strategic priorities in the conditions of US sanctions, which both countries are facing. Patrushev responded, “The most important goal of mine and my delegation in traveling to Tehran is to exchange opinions to speed up the implementation of joint projects along with providing dynamic mechanisms to start new activities in the economic, commercial, energy and technology fields.” 

Patrushev noted, “Creating synergy in transit capacities, especially the rapid completion of the North-South corridor, is an effective step to improve the quality of bilateral and international economic and commercial cooperation.” 

Patrushev and Shamkhani discussed a joint plan by Russia and Iran “to establish a friendship group of defenders of the United Nations Charter” comprising countries that bear the brunt of illegal western sanctions. 

With regard to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Shamkhani said the two countries should “intelligently use the exchangeable capacities” of the member countries. He said the danger of terrorism and extremism continues to threaten the security of the region and stressed the need to increase regional and international cooperation. 

Patrushev’s visit to Tehran was scheduled in the run-up to the conference on Afghanistan being hosted by Moscow on November 16. Iran and Russia have common concerns over Afghanistan. They are concerned over the western attempts to (re)fuel the civil war in Afghanistan. 

In a recent op-ed in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov alleged that Britain is financing a so-called “Afghan resistance”  against the Taliban (which is reportedly operating out of Panjshir.) Kabulov wrote that the US is baiting two Central Asian states by offering them helicopters and aircraft in lieu of cooperation in covert activities against the Taliban. 

Kabulov made a sensational disclosure that the US is blackmailing the Taliban leaders by threatening them with a drone attack unless they broke off contacts with Russia and China. He said, specifically, that the US and Britain are demanding that Kabul should refrain from restricting the activities of Afghanistan-based Uyghur terrorists. 

Interestingly, Moscow is exploring the creation of a compact group of five regional states who are stakeholders in Afghanistan’s stabilisation and could work together. Kabulov mentioned Iran, Pakistan, India and China as Russia’s partners. 

Iran is a “force multiplier” for Russia in a way no other country — except China, perhaps — can be in the present difficult conditions of sanctions. Patrushev’s visit to Tehran at the present juncture, on the day after the midterms in the US, can only mean that the Kremlin has seen through the Biden administration’s dissimulation of peacemaking in Ukraine to actually derail the momentum of the Russian mobilisation and creation of new defence lines in the Kherson-Zaporozhya-Donbass direction. 

Indeed, it is no secret that the Americans are literally scratching the bottom of the barrel to deliver weapons to Ukraine as their inventory is drying up and several months or a few years are needed to replenish depleted stocks. (here, here  ,here and here) 

Suffice to say, from the geopolitical angle, Patrushev’s talks in Tehran — and Putin’s call soon after with Raisi — have messaged in no unmistaken terms that Russia is strategising for the long haul in Ukraine. 

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eventbrite could face lawsuit after banning debate on trans ideology

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | November 13, 2022

A British lawyer plans to sue US-based ticket-selling firm Eventbrite for banning her from selling tickets to a debate event because it alleged the event would create a platform for “dangerous” views.

Sarah Philimore is fundraising legal fees to sue Eventbrite for pulling tickets to the launch of her book “Transpositions: a personal journey into gender criticism.” Comedy writer Graham Linehan co-authored the book.

Philimore argued that Eventbrite has to obey UK laws, adding that gender critical belief should be respected in a democratic society. She sent several letters asking for clarification on why her event violated Eventbrite’s terms. She has not received any meaningful reply, so she decided to sue.

“I want the court to confirm that what Eventbrite have done is unlawful.

“I think there is a clear breach of the Equality Act here, in that my event was removed from the platform because it was decided it promoted ‘violent’ or ‘hateful’ content.

“It does not. It was removed because people complained – falsely – that it was ‘transphobic,’” Philmore told The Telegraph.

She added: “My point is simple. If Eventbrite wishes to operate in the UK, it must obey UK laws.

“In particular it cannot ignore the will of Parliament which has made it clear via the Equality Act and the EAT decision in Forstater, that ‘gender critical’ belief is worthy of respect in a democratic society.

“I believe my claim raises interesting and important issues that go beyond just the Equality Act.

The event will go ahead as scheduled, on December 2, and tickets will be sold at the door.

Linehan, a critic of gender ideology and is also scheduled to speak at the book launch, said: “This is the latest attempt to make feminism a hate crime. For some time, people have been attempting to reframe feminist statement as hate crimes; as attacks on transgender people.’

“The companies just follow along because they are cowards, or because they are in the grip of ideological capture, and believe truly in this stuff. The problem is we’re having our morality dictated to us by companies in the US according to their prevailing obsessions.”

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Lab-grown meat & nuclear yeast vats: COP27 reignites the war on food

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | November 13, 2022

We’re a week into this year’s UN climate summit, COP27, and the various agenda planned to roll out on the back of it are coming into focus.

None more so than the autumn offensive in the establishment’s war on food. There’s a big push on that front.

Today was “Adaptation and Agriculture” day at COP27, and you probably don’t need me to tell you what was on the agenda – a lot of talk of “sustainability”, “innovation”, “climate-friendly production” and so on.

As usual with these global meetings, the closed-door discussions and po-faced newspeak presentations are accompanied by a wave of synchronized propaganda.

One angle this propaganda is taking is that COP27 “refused to discuss” meat or farming in general, and therefore those people insisting we should kill all the cows in the world and eat lab-grown paste instead are somehow rebels speaking truth to power.

That’s how George Monbiot is arranging the narrative for his piece in the Guardian.

It’s nonsense, of course. COP27 literally had an entire day dedicated to discussing farming, “food security” and “innovations” to “reduce methane” (that’s code for “getting rid of cows” by the way).

Further, COP27 is being used to launch the UN’s new Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) initiative. Which, according to Forbes, will promote:

[A] shift towards sustainable, climate-resilient, healthy diets would help reduce health and climate change costs by up to US$ 1.3 trillion while supporting food security in the face of climate change.

As well as the AIM initiative, which intends to channel 8 BILLION dollars into “farming innovations”.

But, in another example of the fake binary, while COP27 members were inside discussing “adapting agriculture”, “protestors” were outside demanding they discuss adapting agriculture.

The protesters even used the platform to announce the launch of a new campaign “Reboot Food” which assures us that all we need to feed the world is giant nuclear-powered fermenting vats:

The cornerstone idea is swapping animal agriculture, where possible, for a technology called precision fermentation, which would involve brewing yeasts and bacteria to make protein. It could create biologically identical animal proteins using genetically engineered micro-organisms fermented in tanks. These factories would be powered by solar, wind and nuclear.

That’s just the broadest most ambitious “food reform” propaganda coming out in the last few days though, there’s a lot more where that came from.

Earlier this week it was announced that synthetic meat company GoodMeat would be unveiling their new lab-grown meat products at the COP27 summit.

On a similar theme, EuroNews asks:

Companies are making slaughter-free meat – so why isn’t it for sale in shops?

It’s not just lab-grown meat or nuclear-powered yeast paste hitting the headlines either, edible insect stories are suddenly all over the news again.

The I has a piece from a “journalist” who didn’t like the idea of eating insects, but then tried it for a week and found out it was actually great.

The academic journal PNAS published an article unsubtly titled “How to convince people to eat insects”, which suggests we need to “create a new norm”.

Healthline News has an article “What Science Says About Eating Insects”. Spoiler alert – “science” says that eating insects is great and everybody should do it as much as possible. Who knew, right?

At the same time, the UK’s Food Standards Agency published a startingly well-timed report on the safety of edible insects (turns out they’re safe, shocking isn’t it?)

But the prize of the clumsiest propaganda of the week goes to the Independent, which boasts an article with the headline:

Eww world order: How the right-wing became obsessed with eating bugs

This opens with a screed about how lunatic right-wing conspiracy theorists think we’re all being programmed to eat insects… and then seamlessly blends into half-a-dozen paragraphs about how eating insects is actually really good for you though, and good for the planet too:

The reality is that there are a multitude of good reasons to eat insect protein, not least the environmental impact. Breeding insects such as crickets and grasshoppers requires less feed, land and water than farming traditional livestock like pigs and cows, and results in the production of much less greenhouse gas.

Great job guys, real smooth.

UN summits – especially climate summits – always provide a little sneak preview of the upcoming narratives. And while “food reform” may not be the only, or even the biggest, item on the agenda… it’s definitely a major part of the plan. And it’s probably coming soon.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 3 Comments

Despite progress in data transparency, the FDA still keeps its data secret

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | November 10, 2022

History shows that hiding clinical trial data can be deadly.

Vioxx is a well-known example of how the US drug regulator withheld important information about the harms of the drug for over three years, before it was withdrawn from the market and tens of thousands of people died as a consequence.

Numerous initiatives have been launched over the past two decades to improve access to trial data after it became evident that what was reported in peer-reviewed journals was often cherry-picked and misleading.

Eminent scientists have succeeded in gaining access to trial data from the European and Canadian drug regulators, but a recent analysis published in the Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics, found that the US FDA still lags behind others when it comes to data transparency.

Europe ahead of the pack

Drug regulators have traditionally been the guardians of a treasure trove of trial data which they kept hidden from the public. But, over a decade ago, the efforts of Danish professor Peter Gøtzsche turned that on its head.

Gøtzsche and his PhD student were studying the effects of an anti-obesity drug and requested the trial data held by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

“We already had good evidence that the efficacy and harms of drugs were incompletely reported in the medical journals, so by asking for the regulatory data for the anti-obesity pills, we were convinced it would get us closer to the truth”, said Gøtzsche.

At first, EMA denied their request, saying that it needed to protect commercially confidential information, but Gøtzsche was undeterred. He made a formal complaint to the European Ombudsman.

After an arduous 3-year process, the Ombudsman accused EMA of “maladministration” for refusing to share its data – it was a serious and embarrassing charge, so EMA had no choice but to capitulate.

In 2013, EMA announced that it would provide public access to regulatory data – which included study reports, protocols and the raw anonymised patient data in statistical programmes enabling anyone to independently scrutinise the data for all new drugs that it approved.

It was a bitter-sweet moment for Gøtzsche.

“I was satisfied with the outcome, but I also felt a bit betrayed. When EMA praised itself for being transparent, it conveniently omitted telling the public that it was basically forced to make the decision because of my efforts and that of the Ombudsman,” said Gøtzsche.

“I’ve been around a while to know that this is exactly how the drug industry operates. They cover up their failures while praising themselves for what others force them to do,” he added.

Millions of pages containing trial data have since been released. Interestingly though, this remarkable feat has gone largely unrecognised and the response from the research community has been rather tepid.

Gøtzsche suspects it’s because analysing regulatory documents is complex and requires experience to decipher regulatory data – skills that few researchers have.

“It is a huge job to do systematic reviews of clinical study reports held by drug regulators, but it is the difference between producing reliable reviews or merely “garbage-in, garbage-out” reviews,” said Gøtzsche.

Since then, Gøtzsche’s group showed this was the case for reviews of antidepressant drug trials.

When they compared data from medical journals to that from regulatory documents, they found major discrepancies such as underreporting of harms, including suicide attempts and aggressive behaviour.

Canadian regulator in the cross hairs

Following the landmark policy change in Europe, researchers believed it would help unlock regulatory documents elsewhere that were historically kept hidden from the public.

In 2016, Peter Doshi, professor at the University of Maryland and senior editor of The BMJ requested the release of unpublished clinical trial data relating to antivirals for the treatment of influenza (Tamiflu, Relenza) and three human papillomavirus vaccines from the Canadian drug regulator, Health Canada.

After some resistance, Health Canada agreed to allow Doshi access to the documents but imposed a confidentiality agreement that would prevent him from making his findings public.

When Doshi refused to sign the confidentially agreement, his request for access to the trial data was denied, so he filed a lawsuit in a federal court seeking a judicial review of the regulator’s decision.

Remarkably, in 2018, in the case of Peter Doshi v. Attorney General of Canada, a federal court judge ruled in favour of Doshi and in the public’s interest, ordering Health Canada to hand over the trial data for independent scrutiny.

It was hailed a “major victory” for transparency and after the win, Doshi told The BMJ, “For me this case has always been about something larger than my specific request. It is about the principle of transparency. If my case sets a precedent and Health Canada begins making clinical trial data available to others—promptly, and without imposing confidentiality agreements—that will be the real victory.”

Notably, the Canadian drug regulator has gone one step further than EMA by proactively releasing data for not only approved drug submissions, but also “unapproved, and withdrawn drug and biologic submissions… Class III and IV medical device applications.”

What about the US FDA?

The US FDA houses the largest known repository of clinical trial data in the world, but it doesn’t proactively share it.

In 2018, the FDA launched a new pilot program to proactively publish clinical study reports from the pivotal studies of nine recently approved drugs – but the agency put an end to that program in March 2020.

“It is just so typical of the FDA, which is very beholden to industry, and which some have dubbed the Foot Dragging Agency when it comes to the public interest,” said Gøtzsche.

Now, the only mechanism to ascertain regulatory data for FDA-approved drugs is to submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, a lengthy process which often results in heavily redacted documents of limited value.

A study by US researchers, analysed the FDA’s willingness to release data, compared to other regulators, EMA and Health Canada.

They found that between 2016 and April 2021, EMA released data for 123 unique medical products, while Health Canada released data for 73 unique medical products between 2019 and April 2021.

In stark contrast, the FDA only proactively disclosed data supporting one single drug that was approved in 2018, clearly demonstrating that the agency has failed to keep pace with the European and Canadian regulatory bodies.

The problem of data secrecy within the FDA has been especially evident during the pandemic. Recently, I reported in The BMJ that the agency had failed to disclose covid-19 vaccine ‘safety signals’ derived from post-marketing data.

Also, the non-profit group, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency had to sue the FDA for access to trial documents used as the basis for licensing Pfizer’s covid-19 mRNA vaccine. Initially, the agency wanted 75 years to release all the data but a Federal Court Judge rejected its request, ordering the release of the documents at a rate of 55,000 pages per month, taking approximately 8 months.

Given the widespread use of this important public health intervention, and the billions of dollars in public funds used to conduct vaccine research and development, these data should have been made publicly available immediately.

Data secrecy has undermined the health care system by subverting the allocation of scare resources and eroding public trust. The damage done to people’s confidence in vaccines, and medicines more broadly, will be felt for generations and likely to harm public health.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

False and Misleading Efficacy Claims — What is the Motivation?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky Tweeting Counterfactuals with Intent 

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | November 10, 2022

CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, for the record, continues to make false claims about the COVID-19 vaccine boosters with the apparent motivation of getting more Americans “fully vaccinated.” This is in the backdrop of an 8.4% rate of Americans over age 5 taking one of them.[i]

No matter how hard the internal pressure is at the CDC to get a “needle in every arm,” what would be such a strong motivation for Walensky to blatantly deceive Americans with such obvious counterfactual information?

She states “COVID-19 vaccines may not prevent every infection (as apparent in her personal case), but they do provide us important protection against severe illness, hospitalization, and death…”

In order for that claim to be valid by US regulations, a COVID-19 vaccine would need to reduce the risk of adjudicated COVID-19 hospitalization and death as a primary endpoint in a prospective, double blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. The benefit would need to be meaningful, e.g., ~20% relative risk reduction, and statistically significant, e.g., p<0.05. The conclusive study should have no significant threats to validity such as loss to follow-up. There has been no pivotal randomized trial, and no one can claim COVID-19 vaccines reduce hospitalization and death. The shortest section on the FDA Pfizer Fact Sheet is the “Benefits” section! This is given with the consent form and makes no claims about severity, hospitalization, and death.[ii]

She goes on to promote a two-month period between the last injection (presumably legacy mRNA) and the new bivalent vaccine. This schedule has never been tested and demonstrated to be safe in human beings. Even more shocking, the bivalent boosters which failed in animal studies to stop Omicron, have never been tested for safety or efficacy in human RCTs with clinical outcomes. In academic medicine and the pharmaceutical regulatory community, the question is WHY does Walensky cross the line into making false claims, an illegal act for fully FDA approved and marketed drugs/vaccines? Only senate or congressional hearings with direct questions will get the truth out of her.

Here are some possibilities: 1) she is following orders from higher governmental authorities, 2) she knows the claims are false but truly believes the only way for vaccination to work is to keep everyone vaccinated on a continuous basis no matter what the costs, 3) she is in a form of a trance or psychological state driven by fear in herself and for humanity where COVID-19 vaccination has become like a talisman with special powers and cannot be challenged. Indeed, Walensky has never comprehensively discussed safety of COVID-19 vaccination, and she has not disclosed who should NOT take a COVID-19 vaccine. So, the next time someone in your circles claims you or your loved one should take a COVID-19 vaccine to be “safe” or “protected” from serious outcomes, ask them to take a look at the consent fact sheet and read the tiny benefit section.

[i] CDC COVID Tracker, Accessed November 9, 2022

[ii] VACCINE INFORMATION FACT SHEET FOR RECIPIENTS AND CAREGIVERS ABOUT COMIRNATY (COVID-19 VACCINE, mRNA), THE PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE, AND THE PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE, BIVALENT (ORIGINAL AND OMICRON BA.4/BA.5) TO PREVENT CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19) FOR USE IN INDIVIDUALS 12 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER, August 22, 2022

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

How the British royals overthrew Australian democracy

By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | November 13, 2022

This week marked the 47th anniversary of the dismissal of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam by the country’s British-appointed governor-general John Kerr.

The role and power of governors-general is little known, let alone understood today, but they wield enormous clout over many countries that once comprised the British Empire.

Appointed by a royal decree, they serve as the reigning British monarch’s local representatives, appoint government ministers, judges and ambassadors, grant royal assent to laws passed by parliament, bestow state honors, and are commanders-in-chief of the respective nation’s armed forces, among other things.

The unceremonious dismissal of Whitlam and his elected government is largely forgotten today, but the sordid episode detonated the myth that constituents of the British Commonwealth are independent, sovereign states, free from control or influence of their former imperial master – however briefly.

Elected in 1972 on a wave of popular upheaval, Whitlam was an upstart social democrat who made clear his country would not be dominated by the interests of foreign powers.

Within months, he abolished royal patronage, recognised the People’s Republic of China, drew up plans for Aboriginal land rights, ended conscription, and withdrew all Australian troops from Vietnam, with his ministers referring to the US war as “corrupt and barbaric.”

Fast forward to November 1975, and he was thrown out of office upon the request of governor-general John Kerr. When that fateful day came, Queen Elizabeth II’s deputy private secretary William Heseltine, an Australian citizen, stated that “the palace was in a state of total ignorance.”

Secret communications between Buckingham Palace and Kerr, recently reported on in forensic detail by Declassified Australia, prove Helestine’s professions to be an outright lie, beyond doubt.

Doing the monarchy ‘good’

In a series of letters, starting in September 1975, Kerr openly discussed ways in which Whitlam could be removed from power in a bloodless coup with both the Queen and Prince Charles, now King of Great Britain, and Australia.

This was despite vice-regal convention dictating that a governor-general must “advise, counsel and warn” an elected prime minister about their planning and thinking, even in the event of potential dismissal, the British monarch theoretically being duty-bound to remain disinterested and politically neutral, and Australian High Court justice Anthony Mason warning Kerr that his behavior was “deceptive”.

Both he and the palace were unfazed, no doubt confident that “royal secrecy” laws would conceal their activities forever.

Among the earliest communications are notes from a meeting between Prince Charles and Kerr during Papua New Guinea’s 1975 independence celebrations. The governor-general made clear what he was plotting, but expressed anxiety that Whitlam, if he caught wind of the conspiracy, would dismiss him first.

“The Queen should not have to accept advice that you should be recalled at the very time, should this happen, when you were considering having to dismiss the government,” Kerr cited Charles as saying.

Upon returning to Britain, Charles informed the Queen of the plan in motion. Charteris then wrote to Kerr outlining how he would be protected in the event Whitlam requested that the palace recall the governor-general.

Should that “contingency” arise, Charteris said, Elizabeth II would “try to delay things” rather than responding promptly according to protocol, allowing Kerr to plunge the dagger first.

While the Queen took the lead role in consulting with Kerr on legal and regulatory routes to oust Whitlam, Prince Charles was also intimately involved, actively encouraging and counseling the governor-general.

In order to legitimize his sinister scheme, Kerr sought the advice of Australia’s two most senior law officers as to whether Whitlam could be dismissed under “reserve powers”. This authority, only usable in specific, adverse circumstances such as crises, would allow the governor-general to act unilaterally, without governmental or parliamentary approval.

Kerr knew that it was likely no legitimate grounds for such an extraordinary intervention would be identified, and accordingly warned the palace in early November, although made clear he would move ahead anyway.

In a series of letters, Charteris variously reassured Kerr, “that you have powers is recognised,” “those powers do exist,” and “if you do, as you will, what the constitution dictates, you cannot possibly do the monarchy any avoidable harm. The chances are you will do it good.”

The senior Australian legal officers’ opinion arrived on November 6, 1975 – and as expected, they warned Kerr he had no legal or constitutional grounds for overthrowing the Whitlam government. Five days later, he did so anyway.

In March 1976, Prince Charles wrote to Kerr, praising him for his actions and stellar work as Buckingham Palace’s man Down Under more generally.

“I wanted you to know that I appreciate what you do and admire enormously the way you have performed in your many and varied duties. Please don’t lose heart. What you did last year was right and the courageous thing to do,” the King-in-waiting fawned.

Web of lies and connivance

The public would be utterly in the dark about this web of lies and connivance, were it not for a bitter four-year-long High Court battle in Australia to secure declassification of these highly incriminating papers.

Within hours of the release of letters, Buckingham Palace issued a public statement, denying the dark reality so amply exposed by the disclosure: “Neither Her Majesty nor the Royal Household had any part to play in Kerr’s decision to dismiss Whitlam.”

The High Court decision was a landmark development, marking the first time the concept of “royal secrecy” had been overturned anywhere in the British Commonwealth.

It has remained unchallenged in every other constituent country ever since, meaning the obvious question of whether similar chicanery was undertaken against troublesomely independent figures elsewhere in the political association remains an open one.

This is particularly relevant to consider given that the new British King has a dual history of directly pressuring state officials at home to structure policy and action domestically and internationally according to his personal will, and doggedly attempting to keep such lobbying hidden from public view.

In May 2015, over two dozen private communications between then-Prince Charles and British ministers were published after a 10-year-long legal struggle, which cost successive governments hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The contents of these letters showed Charles – again in breach of conventions on “political neutrality” – petitioning elected representatives on subjects ranging from the Iraq War to alternative medicines.

In some, then-heir to the British throne openly warned a health secretary that “chickens will come home to roost” in their government department if redevelopment of a hospital – in which the Prince’s architecture charity was involved – was not accelerated.

It’s clear though that Charles didn’t typically need to rely on threats – government officials were usually willing to obsequiously roll over how and when he requested them to.

In response to one royal intervention, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair unctuously stated: “I always value and look forward to your views.” In another, an education secretary signed off: “I have the honour to be Your Royal Highness’s most humble and obedient servant.”

The letters were released at a time when speculation was rife in the mainstream media that Charles intended to rule in a far more outspoken way than his publicly taciturn mother.

Since taking the throne, there is little sign publicly of this – although that could in part be attributed to the British government amending the Freedom of Information Act to provide an “absolute exemption” on all requests relating to the royal family since.

Now that more and more countries are choosing to unbridle themselves from the yoke of British rule and secede from the Commonwealth, it’s surely never been more important for the royal family to maintain an intensive cloak of secrecy around their political influence.

And the temptation to employ “reserve powers” to displace upstart governments in the manner of Gough Whitlam’s has surely never been higher.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular | , | 3 Comments

Name-Calling, ‘Fact-Checking’ and Censorship in the Covid Era

BY NOAH CARL | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 11, 2022

One novel feature of the pandemic, from the standpoint of public debate, is the fact that so much name-calling, ‘fact-checking’ and censorship was aimed not just at random dissidents but at credentialed scientists.

Academics who’d reached esteemed positions within their field were denounced as ‘Covid deniers’, accused of spreading ‘misinformation’, and subjected to multiple forms of censorship.

Renowned scholars had warning labels attached to their tweets, and found their articles blacklisted on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. In one particularly egregious case, the Great Barrington Declaration was downranked by Google, so that when users searched for it, articles critical of the Declaration appeared above the Declaration itself.

Somehow, Big Tech firms felt they were in position to adjudicate complex scientific debates. This would be like two scientists having an argument at speaker’s corner in Hyde Park, but the groundskeeper keeps blasting an airhorn every time one of them speaks.

And it wasn’t just Big Tech that restricted one side’s freedom of speech. Academics who questioned the mainstream view on Covid faced sanctions from their universities, journals and professional associations.

In a recent paper, Yaffa Shir-Raz and colleagues analysed the tactics that were used against dissenting scientists, based on semi-structured interviews with some of the targets. Their findings have already been summarised by Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, but it’s worth pulling out a few anecdotes from the paper.

One interviewee recounted that he/she was even censored on Google docs – a program for creating documents and spreadsheets (like Microsoft Office):

Google Docs started restricting and censoring my ability to share documents… This is not Twitter throwing me off like they did. This is an organisation telling me that I cannot send a private communication to a colleague or to a friend, or to a family member.

Another interviewee explained that his/her employment contract was re-written after he/she deviated from the narrative:

They offered me a new contract… we got some new terms for you, because my old contract was not restricted. The new one basically had like seven or eight restrictions of my First Amendment rights… basically I couldn’t talk to the press, I couldn’t speak in public… unless I said, these are my opinions not that of my employer… It was a relatively short conversation. I said that’s never going to happen, I’m never going to sign that thing.

A third interviewee described how he/she was cancelled by several organisations without any due process:

There was a whole series of actions taken again with no due process and no explanation… I received a notice from the [medical association] that I was being stripped from a committee position… I received a letter from a journal…where I was the Editor-in-Chief, being stripped of the editorship, again with no due process, no phone calls no, tractable explanation… I received a letter from the National Institutes of Health being stripped from a longstanding committee position.

Remember, these were all “established doctors and scientists”, not foreign spies engaged in subversion.

The point isn’t that dissenting scientists were right about everything (although they were right about a lot). It’s that we can’t have a proper debate if one side faces a barrage of name-calling, ‘fact-checking’ and censorship. Enforcing a narrative around Covid shouldn’t be the role of Big Tech companies. And it certainly shouldn’t be the role of academic institutions.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 1 Comment

How False Narratives Are Protected

By Bill Rice, Jr. | November 9, 2022

In my research into “early spread,” one oddity that’s jumped out at me is how some people with antibody evidence of early infection seem to intuitively know this information is taboo or controversial. Some people clearly sense when they’re saying something that “goes against the narrative” … and this makes them very nervous.

On one level, this has always bothered me. What’s wrong with simply telling the truth? For an investigative journalist, it’s frustrating that some people with important information won’t go on the record and provide such information.

On the other hand, I get why some people would prefer to remain anonymous or not be mentioned in any story at all. Fear rules the thinking of just-about everyone (a maxim that also explains how those who create said fear effectively rule the world).

Many people with important information clearly fear some type of reprisals even if they are simply telling the truth. The disturbing point is that many of these people aren’t being paranoid. They probably would suffer some kind of negative blowback if they told the truth. This could be as extreme as losing a job or as prosaic as having friends or family members treat them differently because they said something others don’t agree with.

The story of ‘Jean’ from Washington state ….

I started thinking about this topic when I went back and re-read a couple of stories published by The Seattle Times that document two residents of Snohomish County who almost certainly had Covid in December 2019.

One of these two residents was not named. However, the other resident did exhibit some level of courage by allowing a reporter to interview her. But the lady was only identified in the story by her middle name. So “Jean,” a 64-year-old retired nurse from a rural area of Washington state, thinks she had Covid.

My hunch is Jean intuitively knew her story might upset some powerful people – people who did not want to “confirm” any evidence that Americans were coming down with this illness before the Wuhan Outbreak in China.

Or maybe Jean thought her claims might bother some of her friends and neighbors, friends who always trust the experts and authorities and don’t like it when anyone goes against, say, the pronouncements of Anthony Fauci … or CNN.

For whatever reason, Jean settled on a compromise. She’d share her story, but she wouldn’t use her full name.

And the example of Mayor Michael Melham ….

After researching the case of another “early spread” candidate, I understand why Jean might have wanted to be identified only by her middle name.

Michael Melham happens to be the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey. Along with Jean and the other unknown person from Washington, Melham is among the 17 Americans I’ve identified in previous articles as Americans who almost certainly had Covid weeks or months before the virus was supposed to be circulating in our country.

Michael Melham did go public with his story. Among the news organizations covering his claim was NJ.com.

The headline from the “straight news” piece makes this news organization’s point, as well as my point:

“N.J. mayor makes unfounded claim that he had coronavirus in November.”

One piece of yellow journalism apparently wasn’t enough so the news organization also published a scathing opinion column the next day.

Wrote columnist Jeremy Schneider:

“It needs to be said. Again. This is not the time for voluntary stupidity. If you have something to say about the coronavirus that is not supported by proven truths presented by experts, you should really, really just keep it to yourself. People are dying and you are almost certainly not an epidemiologist. Be quiet and listen.”

Schneider also called the people who suspect they may have had Covid before the experts said was possible, “a sub-sect of well-meaning dopes on social media.”

And although readers had already gotten the author’s unsubtle point – our official guidance –  the writer made it again in the smear piece he was happy to pen: “Stay safe, listen to the experts.”

Basically, Schneider is calling Mayor Melham, and anyone else who believes they had Covid before mid-January 2020, idiots. It never occurs to the author he might be the real idiot. Nor does it occur to him that the experts he thinks are infallible may be using people like himself to advance their misery-producing agendas.

Why don’t more people come forward? Well …

Why don’t more people come forward as whistleblowers? Here we probably have part of our answer.

But the sociology and psychology component that really fascinates me is how so many people quickly accept the authorized “narrative” and then have a visceral reaction to people who do not happen to subscribe to this thinking.

This evidence of mass “groupthink” can also be seen from reading the 1,600 reader comments that followed a Fox News story on Michael Melham’s claim.

As I was doing my “due diligence” on early spread, I think I read every one of these comments. I would say that 95 percent of commenters thought Melham was simply wrong in thinking he had Covid or, like the NJ.com columnist, were angered the mayor had the temerity to share his own story and personal opinions.

What I’m really trying to understand is why so many people are so quick to share their disgust with individuals who don’t think like they do.

People with important information like Jean who are afraid to use their full name (or those who won’t come forward at all) must conclude that the potential wrath of their peers is not worth the benefits … and/or that there are no benefits from going against the narrative.

Due to this dynamic, the public is unlikely to learn important, narrative-changing information. The only thing that might change some harmful and false narratives is if people did come forward and expose this. However, in the “home of the brave” very few people are bold enough to do this.

And as we saw above, even when people like Mayor Melham do come forward, their revelations are dismissed or ridiculed by the people who matter – the watchdog press and authorities. That is, everything works to “protect the narrative.”

The real villain remains the AWOL ‘watchdog’ press

Which leads me to my final depressing point: If 99 percent of the people posting in Reader Comments sections happen to be dead wrong, this wouldn’t matter if, say, 10 percent of the country’s journalists were real skeptics and did the job of real journalists.

If this was the case, truth-seeking journalists would write important stories that might influence the 90 percent of the population who’ve been sold a bill of goods. That is, journalists – if they did their most important job – could maybe change a few bogus or dubious narratives.

But this isn’t going to happen because, at least regarding Covid narratives, the group think is 100 percent.

So what we have is some kind of “Catch-22” self-protecting loop of WrongThink. In such a world, the probability any taboo truths could break through the barricades erected by our “gatekeepers of the news” is probably zero. No false narratives will ever be de-bunked.

The journalists who are supposed to challenge narratives won’t do it because they always believe authorities and experts. As most people get their information from mainstream journalists, it’s a case of the dumb leading the …. ah, non-critical thinkers.

Anyway, all of this probably explains, at least in part, why so many would-be whistleblowers are afraid to blow any whistles.

In summary, many people intuitively sense when they posses information that contradicts the official narrative. This Sixth Sense makes many people leery of coming forward or attaching their name to revelations that go against conventional wisdom .

While this is a small observation, the implications which flow from it are probably large. For example, the quality of life of our children and grandchildren will be lower because important truths were not previously acknowledged, because rotten leaders were not previously exposed.

It might be counter-intuitive, but it’s not the false opinions of the masses that matter. It’s the views of a very small minority of truth-revealing contrarians, a group that’s too often afraid to come forward and reveal what they know.

Those who smear, bully or dismiss such people know not what they do … nor the harm they are really causing.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | 1 Comment

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