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October 22, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Has the Biden regime ‘disappeared’ a potential whistleblower?

An ABC News investigative journalist disappeared six months ago. He seems to have known a lot about US aims in Ukraine.

FILE PHOTO. James Gordon Meek, an ABC News investigative journalist. ©  Michael Le Brecht/ABC via Getty Images
By Felix Livshitz | Samizdat | October 22, 2022

On 27 April, ABC News reporter James Meek tweeted a single word – “facts” – above another Twitter post from a retired CIA officer, who stated that the 2014-2022 Ukrainian civil war was an eight-year “lab experiment” on Russia’s military “tactics, techniques, and procedures.” It added that US intelligence and “unconventional warfare” experts had “learned a shit ton.”

It was the last time, to date, Meek posted on the social network. In fact, it seems it was the last time he did anything in public at all, both online and in-real-life. Rolling Stone has published an investigation into the veteran journalist’s vanishing act in the months since, revealing how just hours after that tweet was posted, a number of menacing vehicles blocked off roads around Meek’s apartment in Arlington, Virginia, then proceeded to raid the premises.

Neighbors interviewed by the magazine recall a collection of police cruisers, official-looking cars with blacked-out windows, and even armored tactical vehicles frequently used by the FBI, which resemble tanks. Quick as a flash, their occupants exited and rushed into Meek’s apartment complex, “at least 10” of them being “heavily armed.”

The raid was reportedly over very quickly, and Meek apparently didn’t leave the scene with the authorities. To this day, there is no indication of what if anything was seized or why it was conducted, and all records related to the case remain sealed, including the search warrant approved a day prior. While no charges have officially been filed, Meek has dropped off the face of the Earth, and his apartment has remained vacant ever since.

At precisely this time, Meek is said to have resigned “very abruptly” from his ABC News post without warning or explanation, with even close coworkers unaware of the reasons for his departure.

He is also said to have telephoned Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret, with whom he was collaborating on an almost completed book, “Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan,” to tell him he needed to withdraw from the project due to “serious personal issues.” Meek was apparently “really distraught” during the call.

Almost immediately, Meek’s name was scrubbed from the work’s entry on US publishing giant Simon & Schuster’s website, and its cover on various e-commerce sites listing it for pre-order. Several tweets from Meek promoting his involvement in the project have also been deleted.

Tell no tales

It’s remarkable that it has taken six months for anyone to publicly raise the alarm over Meek’s disappearance, and raise questions as to his whereabouts. One might think that a relatively high-profile veteran mainstream US journalist suddenly going missing would stoke concerns among his employers, if not fellow reporters, particularly given Meek’s history of reporting on contentious topics.

He has previously broken stories on foiled terrorist attacks, and military cover-ups surrounding the fatal ambush of four Green Berets by ISIS in 2017, and the accidental death by friendly fire of US private James Sherrett II in 2008. The latter exposure resulted in Meek meeting personally with President Barack Obama.

To source such scoops would have necessitated maintaining close high-level contacts within Washington’s national security apparatus – and there are clear indications Meek could himself have experience in that very sphere. As a 2013 ABC press release announcing the creation of a new investigative unit stated, since 2011 he’d “served as Senior Counterterrorism Advisor and Investigator for the House Committee on Homeland Security, grappling with some of the top threats to our country, including the bombing at the Boston Marathon.”

What this grappling entailed isn’t explained, although Rolling Stone interviews with his ABC peers indicate that despite his background being “shrouded in mystery,” Meek was in close quarters at various times with military and intelligence professionals. One of his coworkers mentioned a photo in his office taken in a desert, featuring Meek posing with a number of people who had had their faces retrospectively blacked out.

These nuggets might suggest not only that Meek had a background in military and/or intelligence work, but that these professional exploits could have overlapped with his journalism career, perhaps up to the present day.

This interpretation is greatly reinforced by an underexplored disclosure in Rolling Stone’s article. It is noted that unnamed sources had said “federal agents allegedly found classified information on Meek’s laptop during their raid.” One of Meek’s ABC coworkers further told the magazine: “it would be highly unusual for a reporter or producer to keep any classified information on a computer.” Which is true – but was he simply a “reporter or producer,” or something else too?

Even stranger, Rolling Stone fails to put two and two together when discussing how it would be unusual and unprecedented for the FBI to seize a reporter’s documents, as US laws make it illegal for journalistic material to be captured by federal prosecutors without special prior authorization from the US Attorney General’s office, and there is no evidence in the public domain that such an agreement was officially reached.

Again though, such restrictions only apply to documents held by journalists – not regular citizens, or individuals involved in national security work. As such, Meek’s final tweet – despite being posted after a warrant to search his home was secured – might be a highly incisive clue as to the rationale for the mysterious and completely unpublicized FBI raid.

Meek’s tweeting about the situation in Ukraine since 24 February was fairly sparse, but on 4 March, he revealed that America’s Germany-based 10th Special Forces Group had “spent a decade training Ukraine’s special operations forces in unconventional warfare, almost exclusively. They are seeing those tactics being used very effectively against the Russian Bear.”

In exposing this secret schooling, Meek was notably ahead of the curve – it is only since late September that Western news outlets have acknowledged the decade-long 10th Special Forces Group training provided to Kiev. This indicates he knew something the rest of the media didn’t, or maybe wasn’t allowed to mention at the time.

Meek’s other posts on Ukraine suggest that while far from a Russian apologist, he was very critical of US policy in the region, particularly plans to ship endless weapons to Ukraine, believing it would be difficult for the cargo to reach the frontline, let alone be used very effectively by local troops. Both obvious outcomes have been subsequently admitted, leading to online backlash, and official denials.

The ABC journalist’s knowledge of that covert training, and the US intelligence community exploiting the post-Maidan regime’s brutal war on the Donbass civilian population as a petri dish for prepping war with Russia, strongly suggests insider access. Combined with public skepticism over Washington’s war effort, could it be that Meek planned an expose of inconvenient hidden truths about the Western proxy war in Ukraine, or alternatively knew too much, and was dangerously well-positioned to publicize it?

Declassified documents reveal that the rule change protecting a journalist’s possessions from seizure contain massive loopholes. If the FBI is trying to identify an individual who leaked documents to a reporter, or attempting to surveil someone they believe to be an intelligence operative, those protections evaporate, and the bureau can monitor privileged private communications without the Attorney General office’s approval.

Were it the case that Meek was both a journalist and intelligence professional, by receiving sensitive briefings on US involvement in the war in Ukraine, he could have walked into a series of traps of his dual career’s own making, with no legal protections, and no need for official sign-off on a massive spying and raid operation targeting him.

It is unknown quite what information he could have possessed that the US government wanted to suppress, although the White House is so desperate to maintain official narratives on the Russia/Ukraine conflict that it’s giving direct briefings to Tik-Tok stars on the subject.

Of course, it’s entirely conceivable that someone who could blow the whistle on how Russia’s intervention was provoked, or what the US is trying to get out of prolonging the fighting, would need to be silenced as a matter of urgency.

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Reports about Putin’s threat are false – Scholz

Samizdat | October 22, 2022

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

When asked about the issue during an interview with Die Welt newspaper on Saturday, Scholz said the media had been too loose in its interpretation of official reports from Berlin on its discussions with Moscow.

“For good reasons, I don’t speak about the negotiations that I have with the Russian president. But here’s what I can say: The reports that I read about the alleged threats during these negotiations are false,” the chancellor said.

The Russian and German leaders last talked on the phone in mid-September. According to Berlin, Scholz urged Putin to find a diplomatic solution for the conflict in Ukraine based on a ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Russian troops during their 90-minute conversation. He also “emphasized that any further Russian annexation steps would not go unanswered and would not be recognized under any circumstances.”

According to the Kremlin, Putin told Scholz about the incessant shelling of cities in Donbass by Ukraine, which had led to civilian deaths and the destruction of infrastructure. The Russian leader called it a “gross violation of humanitarian law” by Kiev.

A few weeks after that, referendums on joining Russia were held in Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, and in the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, with the territories being officially incorporated into the Russian state in early October.

Earlier this week, Scholz told Deutschlandfunk outlet that the tone of his conversations with Putin “is always friendly, even if we have very different views on the matter.”

“I think it’s important that we have this conversation,” the chancellor said, but added that one shouldn’t “harbor any illusions” about those contacts bringing swift results.

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Hungary criticizes ‘pro-war’ EU

Samizdat – October 22, 2022

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry has rejected EU calls for Russia to be defeated in Ukraine, saying the bloc needed peace, not a prolonged conflict.

EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson made several statements on the hostilities this week, stressing the bloc’s “determination, resolve and unity to stand by Ukraine as long as it takes.” She also insisted that “to end this crisis, first, Putin must lose.”

Responding on Friday, Tamas Menczer, State Secretary at Hungary’s Foreign Ministry, accused Johansson of making “a very dangerous statement because it links the end of a crisis with a military event, about which we don’t know when will it happen or if it happens at all.”

“This pro-war stance of Brussels extends the conflict and suffering. This is extremely dangerous and unacceptable,” he insisted.

Menczer reiterated the position of the Hungarian government, which is that “we need immediate peace instead of a longer war. Peace requires an immediate ceasefire and dialogue.”

Hungary has remained relatively neutral since the outbreak of fighting in Ukraine in late February. It has refused to send arms to Kiev unlike many fellow EU members and consistently criticized the sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow. Budapest, which is heavily dependent on Russian fuel, was also able to negotiate an exemption for itself from the bloc-wide ban on Russian oil.

Moscow, which has repeatedly invited Kiev to come to the negotiating table, has blamed the Ukrainian side for undermining any potential for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a declaration that officially made it “impossible” to hold any negotiations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The move followed the inclusion of the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, into Russia as result of referendums in those territories. Kiev and its Western backers have labeled September’s votes a “sham” and continue to view the areas as parts of Ukraine.

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

White House dismisses scathing UN report against ‘unfairly targeted’ Israel

The Cradle | October 21, 2022

US State Department spokesman Ned Price alleged on 20 October that Israel is “unfairly targeted in the UN,” in the wake of a scathing report released by the ongoing UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) investigating human rights abuses committed by Tel Aviv during the 74-year occupation of Palestine.

“Israel is consistently unfairly targeted in the UN system, including in the course of this commission of inquiry,” Price told reporters during a news conference on Thursday.

“No country, the record of no country, should be immune from scrutiny, but no country should also be targeted unfairly. And that’s the principle that we seek to uphold,” he claimed.

In their report, the COI determined that “the occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful under international law due to its permanence and the Israeli government’s de facto annexation policies.”

The COI report also refers to numerous statements made by the UN secretary general and UN member states concerning the Russia-Ukraine war, in which officials reaffirmed that the “unilateral annexation of a State’s territory by another State is a violation of international law and is null and void.”

Speaking to reporters, COI chair Navi Pillay stressed that just last week, “143 member States including Israel … voted in favor of a General Assembly resolution reaffirming this.”

“Unless universally applied, including to the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, this core principle of the United Nations Charter will become meaningless,” she added.

In a second report also released on Thursday – and set to be presented to the UN General Assembly on 27 October – the COI requested an urgent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “on the legal consequences of the continued refusal on the part of Israel to end its occupation.”

“Actions by Israel constituting de facto annexation include expropriating land and natural resources, establishing settlements and outposts, maintaining a restrictive and discriminatory planning and building regime for Palestinians and extending Israeli law extraterritorially to Israeli settlers in the West Bank,” the UN officials conclude in their report.

Since the start of this year, at least 105 Palestinians – including 26 children – have been killed by Israeli troops, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006 for Palestinians residing in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

On top of this, Tel Aviv currently holds 4,500 Palestinians in prison, 730 of whom are held without charge and mainly on the basis of ‘secret evidence.’

Children as young as 12 are subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention measures by the occupation government. Just last month, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy fell to his death after being chased by Israeli soldiers.

But despite the countless deaths and wanton destruction caused by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and violent raids across the West Bank, Israeli authorities maintain a policy of “not apologizing” for their war crimes, under the full support of the US.

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli regime brings in strict rules on West Bank visitors amid international criticism

Press TV – October 21, 2022

The Israeli regime has implemented strict rules on all foreigners or Palestinians holding dual nationality who intend to come to the Occupied Palestinian territories, where it limits their ability to enter and stay in the occupied West Bank.

A 90-page authoritative order came into effect on Thursday despite international criticism, as reported by The Guardian, which will create complications for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families who hold dual nationality and are already having a hard time maneuvering a complicated permit system.

COGAT, the Israeli body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs issued the rules, which are to be allegedly implemented over a two-year pilot period. The strict rules are expected to suffocate the Palestinian economy and academia and the work of aid agencies, where all foreign internationals coming to volunteer, study or work in the West Bank will be granted a single-entry visa valid for only three months.

There are no guarantees they will be granted a visa again, and they will have to leave and wait between visas in some cases for more than one year before they are able to reapply for entry. In most cases, residency is limited to a 12- to 27-month period, making family life and long-term employment almost impossible.

Palestinian academics, business leaders and rights groups expressed outrage over the policy when it was first outlined in February.

“This is going to cause major issues. Some of our board members come here frequently and they need to be able to see their investments. They are destroying Palestinian businesses,” said Bassem Khouri, chief executive of a pharmaceutical company in the West Bank, adding, “Who can live and work here is supposed to be a Palestinian decision. This is designed to isolate us.”

Meanwhile, Jessica Montell, executive director of HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group that has challenged the rules in court slammed the ordinance, saying, “The Israeli military is proposing new restrictions in order to isolate Palestinian society from the outside world and keep Palestinian families from living together.”

In a move that controls the lives of foreigners and Palestinians as well, the rules stipulate that only 150 foreign students a year may register at Palestinian colleges and universities. The major they chose to study must be pre-approved, and there is a quota of 100 foreign “distinguished” lecturers that will be determined by the Israeli occupation regime.

Also, Palestinians holding dual citizenship will have to hand the Israeli apartheid regime a list of names and ID numbers of family and friends they plan to visit beforehand, even before they travel.

Students, teachers, journalists working for Palestinian media outlets, tourists, and Palestinian family members including siblings, grandparents or grandchildren will all have to undergo these new rules.

The rules also read that if a foreigner starts a relationship with a Palestinian, “the appointed COGAT official must be informed as part of their request to renew or extend the existing visa.”

According to Montell, none of the rules have any legal ground. “Under international law, the Israeli military is only allowed to work for the interests of the occupied population, or its own security needs. These restrictions obviously advance neither.”

The new procedures apply only to Palestinians, and not Israeli settlers living across the area in violation of international law. Nearly 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s homage to Nord Stream pipelines

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 22, 2022

David Brinkley, the legendary American newscaster with a career that spanned an amazing fifty-four years from World War II once said that a successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. How many American statesmen ever practised this noble thought inherited from Jesus Christ remains doubtful. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stunning proposal to Turkish President Recep Erdogan to build a gas pipeline to Turkiye to create an international hub from which Russian gas can be supplied to Europe breathes fresh life into this very “Gandhian” thought.  

Putin discussed the idea with Erdogan at their meeting in Astana on October 13 and since spoke about it at the Russian Energy Week forum last week where he proposed creating the largest gas hub in Europe in Turkey and redirecting the volume of gas, the transit of which is no longer possible through the Nord Stream, to this hub.

Putin said it may imply building another gas pipeline system to feed the hub in Turkiye, through which gas will be supplied to third countries, primarily European ones, “if they are interested.” 

Prima facie, Putin does not expect any positive response from Berlin to his standing proposal to use the string of the Nord Stream 2, which remained undamaged, to supply 27.5 billion cu. metres of gas through the winter months. Germany’s deafening silence is understandable. Chancellor Off Scholz is terrified about President Biden’s wrath. 

Berlin says it knows who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines but won’t reveal it as it affects Germany’s national security! Sweden too pleads that the matter is far too sensitive for it to share the evidence it has collected with any country, including Germany! Biden has put the fear of God into the minds of these timid European “allies” who have been left in no doubt what is good for them! The western media too is ordered to play down Nord Steam saga so that with the passage of time, public memory will fade away. 

However, Russia has done its homework that Europe cannot do without Russia gas, the present bravado of self-denial notwithstanding. Simply put, the European industries depend on cheap, reliable supplies of Russian gas for their products to remain competitive in the world market. 

Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi said last week that he cannot envisage a future where “zero Russian gas” flows to Europe. He noted acerbically, “ If that’s the case, then I think the problem is going to be huge and for a very long time. You just don’t have enough volume to bring (in) to replace that (Russian) gas for the long term, unless you’re saying ‘I’m going to be building huge nuclear (plants), I’m going to allow coal, I’m going to burn fuel oils.’” 

Quintessentially, Russia plans to replace its gas hub in Haidach in Austria (which Austrians seized in July.) Conceivably, the hub in Turkiye has a ready market in Southern Europe, including Greece and Italy. But there is more to it than meets the eye. 

Succinctly put, Putin has made a strategic move in the geopolitics of gas. His initiative rubbishes the hare-brained idea of the Russophobic European Commission bureaucrats in Brussels, headed by Ursula von der Leyen, to impose a price cap on gas purchases. It makes nonsense of the US’ and EU’s plans to put down Russia’s profile as a gas superpower. 

Logically, the next step for Russia should be to align with Qatar, the world’s second biggest gas exporter. Qatar is a close ally of Turkey, too. At Astana recently, on the sidelines of the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Putin held a closed-door meeting with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. They agreed to follow up with another meeting soon in Russia. 

Russia already has a framework of  cooperation with Iran in a number of joint projects in the oil and gas industry. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak recently disclosed plans to conclude an oil and gas swap deal with Iran by the end of the year. He said that “technical details are being worked out – issues of transport, logistics, price, and tariff formation.” 

Now, Russia, Qatar and Iran together account for more than half of the world’s entire proven gas reserves. Time is approaching for them to intensify cooperation and coordination on the pattern of the OPEC Plus. All three countries are represented in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). 

Putin’s proposal appeals to Turkiye’s longstanding dream to become an energy hub at the doorstep of Europe. Unsurprisingly, Erdogan instinctively warmed up to Putin’s proposal. Addressing the ruling party members in the Turkish parliament this week, Erdogan said, “In Europe they are now dealing with the question of how to stay warm in the coming winter. We don’t have such a problem. We have agreed with Vladimir Putin to create a gas hub in our country, through which natural gas, as he says, can be delivered to Europe. Thus, Europe will order gas from Turkey.” 

Apart from strengthening its own energy security, Turkiye also can contribute to Europe’s. No doubt, Turkiye’s importance will take a quantum leap in the EU foreign policy calculus, while also strengthening its strategic autonomy in regional politics. This is a huge step forward in Erdogan’s geo-strategy — the geographic direction of Turkish foreign policy under his watch.  

From the Russian viewpoint, of course, Turkiye’s strategic autonomy and its grit to pursue independent foreign policies works splendidly for Moscow in the present conditions of western sanctions. Conceivably, Russian companies will start viewing Turkiye as a production base where western technologies become accessible. Turkiye has a customs union agreement with the EU, which completely removes customs duties on all industrial goods of Turkish origin. (See my blog Russia-Turkey reset eases regional tensions, Aug 9, 2022)

In geopolitical terms, Moscow is comfortable with Turkiye’s NATO membership. Clearly, the proposed gas hub brings much additional income to Turkiye and will impart greater stability and predictability to the Russia-Turkey relations. Indeed, the strategic links that tie the two countries together are steadily lengthening — the S-400 ABM deal, cooperation in Syria, the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, Turk-stream gas pipeline, to name a few. 

The two countries candidly admit that they have differences of opinion, but the way Putin and Erdogan through constructive diplomacy keep turning adverse circumstances into windows of opportunity for “win-win” cooperation is simply amazing. 

It does need ingenuity to get the US’ European allies to source Russian gas without any coercion or boorishness even after Washington buried the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the depths of the Baltic Sea. There is dramatic irony that a NATO power is partnering Russia in this direction. 

The US foreign policy elite drawn from East European stock are rendered speechless by the sheer sophistication of the Russian ingenuity to bypass without any trace of rancour the shabby way the US and its allies — Germany and Sweden, in particular — slammed the door shut on Moscow to even take a look at the damaged multi-billion dollar pipelines that it had built in good faith in the depths of the Baltic Sea at the insistance of two German chancellors, Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel. 

The current German leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks very foolish and cowardly – and provincial. The European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen gets a huge rebuff in all this which will ultimately define her tragic legacy in Brussels as a flag carrier for American interests. This becomes probably the first case study for historians on how multipolarity will work in the world order.  

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , , | Leave a comment

Fauci forced to testify on social media censorship

Samizdat | October 22, 2022

The White House’s chief medical advisor, Anthony Fauci, and other senior officials are set to be deposed under oath as part of a lawsuit claiming the government worked alongside social media platforms to create a “massive censorship enterprise” throughout the Covid-19 outbreak.

In a Friday ruling, Judge Terry Doughty granted a joint request from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana to compel several current and former officials to testify in the suit, among them Fauci, ex-White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Director of White House Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and two high-level figures from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“After finding documentation of a collusive relationship between the [Joe] Biden administration and social media companies to censor free speech, we immediately filed a motion to get these officials under oath,” Missouri AG Eric Schmitt said in a statement. “It is high time we shine a light on this censorship enterprise and force these officials to come clean to the American people, and this ruling will allow us to do just that. We’ll keep pressing for the truth.”

While the defense insisted that senior officials can only be called to testify about their actions in office under “extraordinary circumstances,” Judge Doughty said the personnel in question met that standard. He added that the two GOP-led states “have proven that Dr. Fauci has personal knowledge about the issue concerning censorship across social media as it related to Covid-19,” ordering him to cooperate with a deposition.

Requests to depose the other officials were granted on similar grounds, as the judge concluded all either held direct meetings with social media firms about the purported censorship, or had close knowledge of those discussions.

Jen Easterly, who heads up the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was also ordered to testify. She played a “central role” in “flagging misinformation to social-media companies for censorship,” the plaintiffs argued, describing the cyber agency the “nerve center” of “the federal government’s efforts to censor social media users.” The same official was said to be involved in the DHS’ now-defunct ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ – dubbed the ‘Ministry of Truth’ by critics – which would have created a new mechanism to facilitate cooperation between the White House and social media sites.

Initially filed last May by Schmitt and  Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, the lawsuit claims the federal government encouraged online platforms to censor, delete or ban certain speech about the pandemic, including discussion of the “lab leak theory of Covid-19’s origin,” as well as questions about the effectiveness of face masks, vaccines or lockdown policies, among other issues. The two AGs have largely relied on documents obtained through subpoenas of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook’s parent firm Meta, which detail regular communications between the government and social media sites.

The White House, as well as the eight officials ordered to testify, have yet to comment on Friday’s ruling. The depositions must take place within 30 days of the order, though it remains unclear whether the defense intends to appeal the decision.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NEW EVIDENCE PROVES BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PRESSURED FACEBOOK AND TWITTER TO CENSOR AMERICANS

Liberty Justice Center | October 21, 2022 

Yesterday, author and data analyst Justin Hart filed new evidence in his federal lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and U.S. President Joe Biden. The evidence documents collusion between social media companies and the federal government to silence Americans online on the Internet — a public forum the Supreme Court has determined is the most important place for the exchange of ideas. Hart sued the social media giants and Biden administration in August 2021 for violating his First Amendment right to free speech for working together to monitor, flag, suspend, and delete social media posts it deems “misinformation.”

Hart is represented by attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center, a national public-interest law firm that fights to protect fundamental constitutional rights. Since filing the federal lawsuit, Liberty Justice Center, other nonprofit law firms, and state attorneys general have uncovered communications and documents proving collusion between Big Tech and Biden administration officials at every level. Hart’s attorneys have submitted this evidence gained through public records requests with an amended complaint.

“New evidence confirms what we have long known: our federal government is working directly with Big Tech to silence Americans,” said Daniel Suhr, managing attorney at the Liberty Justice Center. “The government is directing private companies to violate Americans’ free speech rights. Censorship may have started with what they call ‘COVID misinformation,’ but it opens the door for any administration to define any message they don’t like as ‘misinformation.’ This is unconscionable and illegal.”

Justin Hart is the author of Gone Viral: How COVID Drove the World Insane and founder of RationalGround.com. Over the last two years, his Facebook and Twitter accounts were suspended multiple times for sharing data and scientific research about COVID. At the time Hart’s statements and valid public health messages were censored, the facts were deemed “misinformation” by the Biden administration and Big Tech. However, much of what he shared about the detrimental effects of masking, lockdowns, and school closures are now widely accepted as true.

“The depth of the collusion between Big Government and Big Tech is alarming and reveals a sinister plot to undermine the rights of Americans by fully removing certain ideas and people from public discourse,” said Justin Hart, author and plaintiff. “The government does not have a monopoly on truth. By directing and pressuring social media companies to censor Americans, our government is silencing critical discussions and, most importantly, violating our most sacred rights.”

New evidence proves that prior to Justin Hart’s deplatforming in July 2021, the federal government and Big Tech coordinated regularly:

  • Facebook offered the federal government, and it accepted, $15 million in free COVID-19 public health advertising to promote its public health message on the Internet.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Biden administration officials coordinated its COVID “misinformation” response with Facebook and Twitter by holding regular “be-on-the-lookout” meetings and by providing examples of the types of messages that contradicted the government’s message and it wanted censored.
  • Facebook used proprietary tools to monitor social media posts that contradicted the federal government’s COVID-19 narrative and reported such posts to the federal government.
  • Facebook adjusted its policies and algorithms to align with misinformation policies set by the federal government.

The lawsuit, Hart v. Facebook, was filed Aug. 31, 2021, and is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. Case filings are available here.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

We Will Be Challenging Any State’s Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement to Attend School

BY AARON SIRI – INJECTING FREEDOM – 10/20/2022

The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee unanimously voted a few hours ago to add the Covid-19 vaccine to the CDC’s routine childhood vaccination schedule. Immediately following the vote, I received a call from Del Bigtree, ICAN’s founder and host of The HighWire, to tell me that ICAN will support a legal challenge to any state that imposes a Covid-19 vaccine mandate to attend school.

We look forward to bringing those challenges to protect the individual right of every American, especially the youngest among us, as we successfully did when challenging the San Diego School District’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate. Everyone should be free to get numerous shots because that is freedom.  And everyone should be free to reject any unwanted shot because that, too, is freedom.

While most post-March 2020 mandates have been successfully challenged or rescinded, we must never forget that the repressive arm of government is just behind a curtain, waiting to strangle our rights. That is why we must fight, always fight, to push back against that oppression. It is not a war that is won. It is an endless battle with one side pushing the needle toward eliminating individual rights and the other side that must never stop pushing back – because once it swings too far, we will not easily regain our rights.  Power seized is rarely returned.

The next battle front is the body of every child in this country whose parents do not want them to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. A product for which you cannot sue the manufacturers for harm. A product whose clinical trial for children was underpowered, not properly controlled, and that did not review safety for a sufficient duration.  But even in the absence of these issues, corrosive rights-crushing mandates should never exist.

We look forward to, with ICAN’s support, challenging any state’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for school.

P.S. Note that the CDC’s action of adding the Covid-19 vaccine to its routine childhood vaccine schedule does not automatically make it mandatory in all states for attending school. In most states, the state itself needs to take action to make it mandatory. The expectation is that some states will seek to do just that.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

‘Gearing Up to Fight Biological Weapons?’ White House Launches $88 Billion National Biodefense Strategy

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 20, 2022

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new $88 billion national biodefense strategy that outlines the government’s plans for how to respond to future pandemics, public health emergencies and biological threats.

The launch of the “National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan for Countering Biological Threats, Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness, and Achieving Global Health Security” included the signing of National Security Memorandum-15 (NSM-15).

Key elements of the new strategy include the rapid production and distribution of vaccines and diagnostic tests, and enhancing global health security.

The strategy also includes a new framework for the federal government’s role during a future crisis, which places the White House at the center of any such response, coordinating the actions of multiple federal agencies.

The White House said the new strategy adopts lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with The Defender, University of Illinois international law professor Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., a bioweapons expert who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, said:

“It appears that the enormous amount of money here, $88 billion over five years, when you add it on to well over, I would say, maybe $130 billion [in biodefense spending] since Sept. 11, 2001, means that they are gearing up to fight biological weapons warfare around the world.”

Boyle told The Defender that between October 2001 and October 2015, the federal government spent $100 billion “on biological warfare purposes.”

“To put that into perspective,” he said, “in constant dollars, the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was $40 billion.”

Plan calls for development, distribution of new vaccines within 130 days

Biden’s new biodefense strategy includes the rapid development and deployment of new vaccines and diagnostics that it foresees in response to any future “biological threats.”

According to the White House’s plan, these “biological threats” may be “naturally occurring, accidental [or] deliberate,” “with the potential to significantly impact humans, animals (domestic and wildlife), plants, and the environment, and to negatively affect health, the economy, society, and security.”

According to STAT, the plan’s targets include:

  • Being able to test for new pathogens within 12 hours.
  • Making rapid tests available to the public within 90 days.
  • Repurposing existing drugs within 90 days.
  • Developing vaccines within 100 days.
  • Manufacturing enough of the new vaccine for the entire U.S. population within 130 days and “for the high-risk global population” within 200 days.
  • Developing new treatments within 180 days.

In justifying the new strategy, an unnamed senior Biden administration official quoted by The Hill said:

“We … know that the risk of another pandemic as bad or worse than COVID is a real threat. The new National Biodefense Strategy therefore outlines a bold vision … towards a world free of pandemics and catastrophic biological incidents.”

According to Defense One, other goals contained within the plan include “detecting the spread of pathogens before patients even begin to show symptoms like fever” and “scaling up the number of diagnostic test kits by tens of thousands within a week.”

A further element of the plan is “restoring community, the economy and the environment after a pandemic or biological incident,” The Hill reported.

The Biden administration’s plan also includes provisions for preparedness against the “accidental release of biological agents, and threats posed by terrorist groups or adversaries seeking to use biological weapons.”

Noting that COVID-19 “has highlighted that the United States and the world are vulnerable to biological threats, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate,” the plan states:

“It is a vital interest of the United States to prepare for, prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from biological threats at home and abroad.

“Therefore, countering biological threats, advancing pandemic preparedness, and achieving global health security are top national and international security priorities for the United States.

“Moving forward, the United States must fundamentally transform its capabilities to protect our Nation from biological threats and advance pandemic preparedness and health security more broadly for the world.”

According to STAT, an unnamed senior Biden administration official said Tuesday, “One of the important things that COVID has taught us is that we need to be able to move much faster to counter pandemic threats, and we also need to be prepared for completely unknown threats.”

The same official said the plan includes “moonshot” targets that are not scientifically feasible presently, but potentially could be within a decade.

According to the official, these new developments can target the 26 families of viruses that infect humans, “many of which we are far less prepared for than coronaviruses.”

Will Congress fund it?

Some questioned the plan’s price tag and the willingness of Congress to approve its funding.

One of the elements of the new strategy is its connection to a March 2022 request to Congress for $88 billion in funding over five years for “pandemic preparedness and biodefense,” a request that has thus far “stalled.”

These monies are intended, in part, “to fund new research to predict outbreaks before they become pandemics,” and “accelerate rapid testing to get ahead of where viruses are moving,” Defense One said.

Some of this money will come from the baseline funding of the federal agencies involved in this strategy, but it’s unclear whether Congress has “much of an appetite for additional public health spending,” according to STAT, which noted that “Republicans in Congress have balked at recent requests for funding the ongoing monkeypox and COVID-19 responses.”

According to the White House, the new strategy “builds on USAID’s [U.S. Agency for International Development] announcement earlier this year committing $150 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to accelerate the development of life-saving vaccines and countermeasures against biological threats.”

The White House also included the $1.4 billion in “seed funding” it provided earlier this year to the “groundbreaking new Financial Intermediary Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response at the World Bank.”

Boyle described the $88 billion in projected funding over the next five years as “a dramatic escalation” with “no justification from legitimate scientific reasons.”

He noted that since 2015, the federal government has “allocated anywhere from $5 to $6 billion per year on biological warfare purposes, which, being conservative, would mean a sum total from Sept. 11, 2001, until now, of $135-$140 billion.”

In his view, this money is being allocated “into further expanding the U.S. biological warfare industry … for the purpose of waging biological warfare,” and instead “should have been spent on the public health of the American people.”

‘You find Tony Fauci behind all of it’

Part of the price tag for the new biodefense strategy appears to be directed toward “recruiting, training and sustaining a robust, permanent cadre of health workers in all 50 states,” in the words of a senior Biden administration official quoted by Reuters.

Referring to it as a “public health army,” STAT reported that this “cadre of health workers” will include “laboratory technicians, veterinarians, and community health workers — to not only better detect emerging diseases but respond to them.”

In turn, Defense One reported that the strategy “aims to boost the number of local healthcare workers” and “traditional frontline healthcare workers,” but also, many new positions “related to research and data collection,” including “expanding the CDC’s epidemiology field officer program” and “bringing more epidemiologists to every state.”

The Biden administration also said it is “committed to helping at least 50 countries strengthen their own local capacities,” “strengthening public health workforces both in the United States and globally” and “establishing international mechanisms to bolster laboratory safety,” according to STAT.

For some, “international mechanisms” may bring to mind the recent and ongoing efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a renewed “global pandemic treaty” — efforts in which the United States under the Biden administration has played a leading role.

As previously reported by The Defender, the Biden administration expressed broad support for a “pandemic treaty” and previously headed negotiations on this issue.

In his interview with The Defender, Boyle also drew connections between the Biden administration’s new strategy, and efforts to develop the “pandemic treaty.”

Referring to the Biden administration’s recently signed executive order on “advancing biotechnology and biomanufacturing,” Boyle remarked that it makes mention of “dual-use research of concern, and research involving potentially pandemic and other high-consequence pathogens.”

For Boyle, “dual-use research” refers to the development of both “offensive and defensive biological weapons of warfare,” noting that “when it comes to biological warfare, defense means offense.”

“If they are saying they are doing all this for defensive purposes, it’s because they are also planning offensive use of biological warfare weapons, with the defense to defend themselves in the event that adversaries respond in kind,” Boyle added.

This then connects to the “pandemic treaty,” according to Boyle, noting that Dr. Anthony Fauci has close ties to the WHO’s executive committee:

“If you recall, Trump pulled us out of the WHO. The first act Biden did was to put us back into the WHO … and he appointed Tony Fauci as the U.S. government’s representative on the WHO executive committee.

“So the same guy supporting this ‘dual research of concern’ … is also implementing, supervising this new WHO treaty.”

Biden’s strategy also “calls for international mechanisms that can help strengthen lab safety and biosecurity practices around the world,” especially in light of “questions about the risks and benefits of research into potentially dangerous viruses,” including the COVID-19 Wuhan lab-leak theory.

This may indicate that Biden is seeking to expand gain-of-function research globally. As recently reported by The Defender, facilities conducting such research — including a facility where a purportedly “more lethal” strain of the COVID-19 Omicron variant was developed — are currently being expanded in the U.S.

Gain of function refers to the “manipulation of pathogens to make them more dangerous,” in the hope of “getting ahead of a future outbreak.”

As part of the new strategy, a “policy coordination structure for biodefense among government agencies with oversight by the White House” was signed, Reuters reported.

According to The Hill, this memorandum “outlines the coordination structure for biodefense across federal agencies, directs agencies to prioritize biodefense, directs the intelligence community to track evolving threat landscapes and ensures the government is continuously reviewing and adjusting priorities.”

Boyle, an outspoken critic of gain-of-function research, said it appears such research will be an integral part of the Biden administration’s new biodefense strategy. He told The Defender :

“It’s clear in the language that they are going full steam ahead on abusing DNA, genetic engineering, gain-of-function, synthetic biology, gene splicing, CRISPR-Cas9, to develop biological warfare weapons.”

He said that the proposed WHO pandemic treaty includes language on “measures to provide oversight and report on laboratories that do work to genetically alter organisms in order to increase pathogenicity and transmissibility.”

For Boyle, “this means gain-of-function work, using and abusing DNA engineering, synthetic biology, CRISPR-Cas9. That’s in the WHO treaty.”

“It all ties up,” Boyle added. “The executive order, the biodefense strategy, the WHO treaty. You find Tony Fauci behind all of it.”

Boyle added:

“When you add all this up together, it seems to me they’re gearing up to prepare to wage offensive biological warfare and preparing for the defense, for other states to respond with biological warfare weapons.”

Plan calls for coordination across federal agencies under White House control

The administration’s new biodefense strategy will utilize more than 20 federal agencies, while “oversight for the strategy will be at the White House, under the national security advisor.”

According to a  senior Biden administration official, the new strategy “directs the U.S. intelligence community to monitor for threats and ensure the United States ‘continuously adapts to this evolving threat landscape’ by holding annual exercises,” to “prevent epidemics and biological incidents before they happen,” Reuters reported.

This may bring to mind exercises and simulations that took place just prior to the COVID-19, monkeypox and anthrax outbreaks, which appeared to predict, with remarkable similarity, what was to follow.

According to Biden’s new strategy, the heads of the relevant federal agencies “shall implement the Biodefense Strategy, as well as related strategies such as the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy, and include biodefense-related activities … within their strategic planning and budgetary processes.”

Federal agencies also will be expected to coordinate with each other and with non-federal agencies on matters pertaining to “the biodefense enterprise.”

Is new strategy a ‘moonshot,’ or ‘pie-in-the-sky’?

In addition to questions about funding, some also questioned the feasibility of the new plan.

Defense One wrote that meeting some of the “moonshot” goals of the strategy “will require scaling up data-collection efforts at research facilities around the globe,” in addition to significantly ratcheting up a host of other research-related efforts, noting that the administration “did not specify exactly what technologies they will invest in.”

According to Defense One, “new approaches to RNA research” to “ease pandemics” may need to be developed, in addition to “new forms of plant-based vaccines” that could “allow for the scaling up of vaccine production by orders of magnitude.”

An unnamed senior Biden administration official quoted by Defense One acknowledged that the “moonshots” foreseen by the plan “are not possible today, but these capabilities can be achieved and are within our reach with the right resources over the next five to 10 years.”

Hiring more health workers may also prove challenging for the Biden administration due to a shortage of nurse practitioners that is expected to grow by 2025, along with looming “shortages of other healthcare workers.”

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Aortic Dissection after COVID-19 Vaccination

Some Injuries are for Keeps

By Dr. Peter McCullough & John Leake | Courageous Discourse | October 21, 2022

Yesterday I met a 42-year-old optometrist who six days after the second mRNA COVID-19 vaccination suffered a distal aortic dissection. He was healthy and was physically fit. He knew something was wrong when back pain and leg weakness developed resulting in severe effort intolerance on vacation. He rushed home, was hospitalized and underwent the appropriate diagnostics to determine the presence of an aortic aneurysm or widening of the aorta and then a discrete tear which blood flow now goes through the true lumen and a false lumen created by the dissection. This occurs in the outer third of the media or the muscular layer of the blood tube.

In his mind this catastrophic event is due to the COVID-19 vaccine, and I agree. The mRNA and Spike protein produced by the mRNA circulates in blood on average two weeks, so it is freely able to deposit in the lining of blood vessels and the vascular media of major vessels.[i] [ii] Once present, the Spike protein damages cells and incites inflammation which is a destructive process driven by white blood cells, cytokines, and complement. It is known that the second injection is approximately 80-fold more reactogenic with fever, pain, myalgia, etc. As part of that response, there can be a major surge in blood pressure due to release of catecholamines or stress hormones.[iii] This increase in the change in pressure over the change in time for each heartbeat is the driving force to initiate the tear in the aorta. Once this happens, there is no turning back, the rip goes down the major blood tube and threatens the blood supply to the spinal cord, vital organs, and legs. Each patient is different, with some having external rupture resulting in death. Others require emergency surgery or endovascular stenting to restore blood flow to vital organs. In the case of the optometrist, he was managed conservatively with medications to control blood pressure. Data from the International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection (IRAD) indicates he faces a 22% 3-year mortality rate and this is increased by his history of prior aortic aneurysm (HR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.03 to 4.59; P=0.04).[iv] It is exactly this complication for which I have always advised patients with prior aortic abnormalities (aortopathies) to avoid COVID-19 vaccination.  If you know someone who has died shortly after vaccination and they had antecedent back pain or a prior aneurysm, ask the family if there was an autopsy. This is important since aortopathies can be familial and other family members could be screened with imaging and genetic testing. This man’s life is indelibly changed because COVID-19 vaccination was for “keeps.”

October 21, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

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