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Digital IDs could easily turn into a dystopian social credit system

By Rachel Marsden | RT | January 28, 2022

The idea of a digital identity and wallet for citizens residing within the European Union may date back to 2020, but pandemic-era restrictions have shown the extent to which governments can shut off access to everyday life, should they so choose – and with ever-changing criteria that can be difficult to appeal when something goes wrong. That’s a frightening prospect when considering how much of one’s life the supranational European government wants to connect to a new system that it’s set to roll out.

As the Covid-19 pandemic shot around the world, the first public utterances of a Europe-wide digital identity system started emerging from EU think tanks and officials. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech in September 2020 that “the Commission will soon propose a secure European e-identity. One that we trust and that any citizen can use anywhere in Europe to do anything from paying your taxes to renting a bicycle. A technology where we can control ourselves what data and how data is used.”

At the time, anyone suggesting that one day EU member countries would implement systems of QR codes for access to everyday venues, contingent on a government-dictated number of injections and linked to a larger EU passport system – on which travel around the bloc would be dependent – would have been dismissed as a conspiracy theorist.

So, it’s hardly difficult to see how the QR code system ushered into place due to government health mandates now has the potential to transform into something else more lasting, widespread, and possibly nefarious.

Already, anyone here in France who has logged into the government services website to retrieve their “vaccine mandate” QR code has noticed how that account is already linked with all sorts of data unrelated to health. One can log in using a tax account number that’s normally reserved for accessing your tax returns and assessments, or with a government-approved facial recognition application that associates your face with your pre-existing national ID.

But what if there’s a glitch or a bug? Or someone steals your ID? We’ve already seen during the pandemic what can happen when the government’s system gets overwhelmed by a pre-long-weekend rush to validate and download QR codes, and those with booked flights are forced to cancel or postpone their plans because they lack a scannable form of the pass. Speaking of which, how about the poor folks whose smartphone simply malfunctions or runs out of battery juice at the moment of boarding or venue access?

Now imagine if such a QR code digital ID system is expanded, as the EU plans to do, to include access to university applications, hotel check-ins, car rentals, bank account opening and access, public services, or bank loan applications. While many of these already have digital components, they’re piecemeal, decentralized, and not linked to a single government-run entity. When factoring in that cybersecurity researchers have reported that “89% of EU government websites” employ trackers meant to “associate web activity with the identities of real people,” it’s not a stretch to imagine how your online activity profile could be used – in addition to your financial documents – to approve or deny your bank loan application from your digital ID.

And what happens when things go really wrong in ways that many of us still can’t even imagine? For instance, according to a report published this month by the EU’s own Agency for Cybersecurity, “foolproof” digital IDs, even those that use facial recognition, are rife with susceptibilities that include photo attacks, video of user replay attacks, 3D mask attacks, and deepfake attacks.

Yet another report published by the same agency just two days earlier evokes the need for decentralizing such IDs.

It’s a tacit admission that perhaps governments – which constantly whine about being susceptible to cyberattacks by both state and rogue actors – aren’t really best placed to be encouraging citizens to upload and entrust as much of their life as possible to them under the guise of convenience and so-called ‘security’.

For now, it’s all optional, or so we’re told. Completely voluntary and opt-in. Right – and we’ve already seen exactly how that kind of pledge has panned out amid the pandemic. There is no ‘obligation’ here in France to possess a valid QR code, for example, because restaurants, gyms, your chosen profession, trains, and planes are all ‘optional’.

Is there any doubt that when the EU decides to go full throttle to on-board control over your entire life, you’ll then be fully dependent on their competence or lack thereof? The most incompetent panopticon in human history seems keen to welcome us all aboard a voyage into dystopia.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Australian state of Victoria demands removal of online police body cam footage

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 28, 2022

Rebel News journalist Avi Yemini is having to defend himself after deciding not to remove an online video the police in Australia’s state of Victoria want taken down.

Yemini revealed that he had a letter, signed by a Victoria Police Crime Squad detective sergeant, sent to his home, threatening that unless he complied and deleted the video, he could end up serving two years in prison.

The journalist published photos of the letter, which notified him of committing an “apparent” breach of the Surveillance Devices Act.

The letter asserts that information protected under this act appeared in a video Yemini uploaded to his YouTube channel in September, under the title, “Police bodycam proves the mainstream media is HIDING the truth.”

The police letter further states that knowingly publishing information obtained from police bodycams is an offense, and demands that he immediately remove the video from all public forums, or face charges.

If found guilty, Yemini could be sent to prison for two years maximum, be forced to pay a fine, defined as “240 penalty units maximum” – or both.

But Yemini, who says he has previously been arrested, assaulted, and intimidated by the police for his work, has decided to fight back, as another letter, this one penned by his legal representative, shows. It reads that under a subsection of the act the police refer to as being violated, the footage used in the report was already in the public domain.

“In a free country, that would be the end of it. In fact, in a genuinely free country, I never would have received that threat letter from the police in the first place,” Yemini writes.

But the journalist doesn’t expect this outcome, and is instead ready to engage in a legal battle with the Victoria police, whom he says have “unlimited resources to bully anyone who doesn’t submit to them.”

“We’ve never lost a case yet, and I’ve never removed a story, even when a gangland lawyer tried to sue me. With your help, I promise not to cower in 2022 either,” Yemini concludes.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Reuters has finally dropped the misleading ‘Houthi rebels’ narrative

By Omar Ahmed | MEMO | January 28, 2022

After several years in being at the forefront of Western mainstream media’s coverage of the war on Yemen, describing it as being between the Saudi-led coalition and the “Iranian-backed Houthi rebels”, the news agency Reuters appears to have stopped using this phrase, and even ceased referring to the Houthis as “rebels” altogether.

With the exception of some image captions, the last time the news agency used the phrase in a body of text was as recent as a month ago, with subsequent articles now referring to the group as the Iran-aligned “Houthi movement“(formally the Ansar Allah). Though they have on occasion previously referred to the group as such, throughout the course of the seven-year war the dominant narrative has been that of troublesome “rebels”. Reuters, of course, is not alone in this regard as a plethora of news sites and agencies continue with this slant, including the Associated Press. Leading news services such as Reuters influence other news organisations and therefore how we perceive events, in effect acting as “wholesale news providers”.

While this slight editorial amendment may not seem like that much of a big deal, for those of us who have been monitoring the developments of the conflict over the years, including its coverage in the media, this is quite a significant step forward in how members of the international community perceive and understand the war in Yemen. Crucially, this also could be a nod towards the eventual recognition of the Houthi-led National Salvation Government (NSG), which has been the de facto revolutionary government for most of the densely populated north of the country since it was established in 2016.

The shift away from the framing of the Ansar Allah movement as a rag-tag bunch of rebels is important, because contrary to what has often been stated, the conflict wasn’t sparked by the mere seizing of the capital Sanaa by Houthi militiamen alone in 2014. They had the support of most of Yemen’s armed forces – once long-time former foes following six round of wars since 2004 when the Houthis were indeed a rebel faction. Many of these armed forces were loyalists to the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh and have remained in this alliance despite Saleh’s demise at the hands of Houthis over attempts to return to the Saudi fold.

This event, the fall of Sanaa, is referred locally and popularly at least in the north, as the September 21 Revolution and itself was ignited by the failures of the so-called Gulf Initiative whereby President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was to serve as an interim leader for two years (which was extended to the present after he won an uncontested election), and the fateful decision by Hadi to cut fuel subsidies, which the Houthis and other oppositionists united against in mass protests.

This was actually the region’s sole genuine “revolution” in so far as post-Arab Spring political upheavals are concerned, despite being incomplete and not supported in the south, which has its own complex history and political aspirations. The potent mix of military support and alliances with the majority faction of political elites of the old order belonging to Saleh’s former ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party has helped explain and maintain the Houthis’ hold on power over the capital and elsewhere in the north, with most of the media attention focused on an exaggerated role of Iran, which recognises and supports the NSG authorities.

However the fact that Yemeni armed forces are fighting against the Saudi-led coalition and its disparate mercenary and militia forces on the ground is more often than not overlooked or omitted from reports by press agencies who tend to simplify the conflict as being one between the Saudi-led coalition – which was called upon by the Saudi-based, exiled President Hadi – against an Iranian-backed rebel group. While it could be that the average consumer of these reports are not looking for in-depth, political analysis, which of course can be found elsewhere, it certainly doesn’t help in our comprehension of who is who, and therefore obscures the political reality and helps prolong the conflict.

The obfuscation caused by painting the joint military and Houthi “popular committees” forces as mere “Houthi rebels” in the mainstream media is an issue I have raised and have written about on several occasions since writing for MEMO and it is promising to finally see this being corrected.

What really caught my attention recently on this change, was a Reuters explainer piece on the war in Yemen, which has also been republished on the MEMO site. It states: “In late 2014, the Houthis seized Sana’a with help from pro-Saleh army units, initially forcing Hadi to share power, then arresting him in early 2015”, which as far as I’m aware is the perhaps the closest the agency has come to acknowledging the Yemeni military’s role in the revolution.

It has only been a month since Reuters has dropped the “Houthi rebels” trope and is still early days, but there is a chance that discontinuing this unhelpful and inaccurate narrative will be replicated in other news sites and international organisations. The recent retaliatory attacks against coalition partner the UAE – an important global hub, by Yemen’s Houthi-aligned armed forces, has brought the world’s attention back onto the movement and their increasingly sophisticated military capabilities. They are clearly being taken more seriously, with further warnings that the Dubai Expo could be targeted if the Emiratis continue their war efforts against Yemen, which includes occupying Socotra and backing the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC). Strategically and a major escalation for the Houthis, the UAE is also supporting the formidable Giants Brigade forces who have been undermining the Houthi advance onto Marib city, the last pro-Hadi stronghold in the north.

This all contributes to the renewed interest in the Houthis, who they are and where they stand in this war. As the NSG wields the most power and authority in the country, and most of the armed forces are fighting with the Houthis against foreign aggressors amid continued war crimes and a humanitarian crisis, it becomes more imperative than ever for the world to be more informed and at least get a better idea of the conflict. Moving on from the idea that this is a war against a group of rebels is a start in the right direction, albeit long overdue.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Blinken’s response to Russia NATO demand is frankly disturbing

By Marcus Stanley | Responsible Statecraft | January 27, 2022

Yesterday the U.S. State Department submitted written responses to Russian negotiating positions in the ongoing U.S.-Russia negotiations over the Ukraine crisis. The exact text and details of the responses are confidential. However, Secretary of State Blinken’s statement regarding the content of the U.S. response is disturbing. At a press briefing, Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. refusal to engage with the core Russian position that the Ukraine should not be permitted to enter NATO, adding that in the written response “we make clear that there are core principles that we are committed to uphold and defend — including Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances.”

This is problematic from several perspectives. At the most basic level, it indicates that the U.S. is refusing to seek compromise regarding what Russia believes to be a core national security interest, namely that the U.S. should not make an alliance commitment to the military defense of Ukraine. Russia views Ukraine as a strategically critical nation due to its location directly on the Russian border and deep historical and cultural ties to Eastern Ukraine.

As Secretary Blinken must understand, NATO membership is not a decision made by Ukraine alone, and his claim that NATO membership is simply a matter of the Ukraine’s “right to choose” its own security arrangements is deeply misleading. NATO membership involves a two-way commitment, not simply the free choices of the entering member. Current alliance members must commit to mutual defense of the new member. Since the U.S. has by far the largest and most effective military forces in NATO, the most vital element of NATO membership is the American commitment to defend member borders. So Russia’s negotiating position is directed at a potential American commitment to defend Ukraine. Rather than engage honestly with the question of whether such an American military commitment really makes sense, Blinken deflects and reframes it as a matter of “core principles” around Ukraine’s choices and sovereignty.

In the long term, this indicates an unwillingness to grapple with the question of how to align American military commitments and resources with our long-term strategic interests, and whether Ukraine represents a core interest which justifies the placement of many tens or even hundreds of thousands of new troops in Europe and risking a major war with another nuclear power.

More importantly in the short term, it digs the U.S. into a position “on principle” that no compromise whatsoever is available on the critical question of Ukrainian membership in NATO. This is particularly confusing because the Biden Administration has been clear that it is currently unwilling to directly commit the U.S. military to the defense of Ukraine – which is precisely what would be immediately required if Ukraine became a NATO member. A credible defense for Ukraine would require a massive increase in U.S. forces in Europe, possibly approaching Cold War level ground and air forces. It is hard to see any domestic appetite for expending this level of resources, and internationally an immediate beneficiary would be China.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

One third of Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists

By Gideon Polya | Dissident Voice | January 27, 2022

The US became increasingly Zionist subverted in the 1960s after Apartheid Israel gained nuclear weapons and after the assassinations of JFK and Robert Kennedy. Support for Apartheid Israel (and hence for  the repugnant crime of Apartheid) is now a pillar of US politics, with anti-racist critics of Israeli Apartheid ferociously attacked, side-lined, and falsely defamed  as anti-Semitic. However Zionist control and hubris are now blatant: 32 percent or about one third of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists and the remainder are moderate Christian Zionists.

(a). Jewish Americans are an astonishing 17-fold over-represented in the Biden Cabinet. Jewish Americans total 6.4 million people, or  1.9% of the total US population of 333 million. However Jews represent 8 of the 25 people in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet (including Joe Biden himself) or 32% of the Cabinet. If we consider people who are Jewish or have Jewish spouses we must add Kamala Harris to get 9 out of 25 or 36% of the Cabinet. Thus Jews are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by an astonishing factor of 32%/1.9% = 16.8-fold. The sine qua non of US politics is fervent support for theism, America first, neoliberalism and Apartheid Israel (and therefore for Apartheid) — accordingly the non-Jewish 68% of the Biden Cabinet fervently support Apartheid Israel, albeit as moderate Christian Zionists as opposed to the ferocious, Biblical literalist, and genocidal evangelical Christian Zionists who support Trump. If we realistically assume that 50% of Jewish Americans are anti-racist and reject the genocidal racism of Zionism and Israeli Apartheid, then Zionist Jewish Americans are 34-fold over-represented in the Biden Cabinet.

(b). African Americans are about 2-fold  over-represented in the Biden Cabinet. African Americans total 46,936,733 or 14.2% of the total US population, but comprise  6 out of 25 or 24% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus African Americans are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a  factor of 24%/14.2% = 1.7-fold.

(c).  Hispanic and Latino Americans are equitably represented in the Biden Cabinet. Hispanic and Latino Americans total 65.3 million or 19.5% of the overall US population, but comprise 4 out of 25 or 16% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus Hispanic/Latino Americans are under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by an unexceptionally modest degree of 16%/19.5% = 0.8-fold i.e. their representation in the Biden Cabinet is a modest 0.8 times less than expected.

(d). Asian Americans are equitably represented in the Biden Cabinet.  Asian Americans (mainly  Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans but also notably  including  Korean, Vietnamese, Afghan, Arab and Japanese Americans) total 24 million or 7.2% of the US population, but comprise 2 out of 25 or 8% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus Asian Americans are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by an unexceptionally modest factor of 8%/7.2% = 1.1-fold. Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans total 5 million, 4.3 million, and 4 million people, respectively, or 1.5%, 1.3% and  1.2% of the total US population.

(e). Indigenous Americans are equitably represented in the Biden Cabinet. Indigenous Americans total 9,666,058 or 2.9% of the total US population, but comprise 1 out of 25 or 4% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus Indigenes are over-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a modest factor of 4%/2.9% = 1.4-fold (the lowest figure possible short of having no Indigenous people in the Biden Cabinet).

(f). Non-Jewish and non-Latino White Americans are 2.5-fold under-represented in the Biden Cabinet. Thus from the 2020 US Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were White alone, and 71.0%, or 235,411,507 people, were White alone or combined with another race. Non-Latino White Americans totalled roughly 191,697,647, or 57.8%. White Latino Americans totalled about 12,579,626, or 3.8% of the population. Non-Jewish and non-Latino White Americans total 191,697, 647 – 6,400,000 = 185,297,647  or 55.6% of the US population, but comprise only 6 out of 25 or 24% of the Biden Cabinet. Thus non-Jewish and non-Latino White Americans are substantially under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a significant degree of  24%/55.6% = 0.4 fold i.e. their representation in the Biden Cabinet is 0.4 times less than their “fair share.” However the even more remarkable thing about these 6 non-Jewish and non-Latino White members of the Biden Cabinet is that they are all Catholics. Of the 17 non-Jewish members of the Biden Cabinet all but 5 (i.e. 12) are Catholics.

(g). Female Americans are slightly under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a factor  of 0.9.  Thus females represent 50.5% of the American population, but comprise 11 out of 25 or 44% of the Biden Cabinet. Women are thus slightly under-represented in the Biden Cabinet by a factor of 44%/50.5% = 0.9.

(h). Catholic Americans are 3-fold over-represented in the Biden Cabinet. The US has the world’s largest Christian population. About 48.9% of Americans are Protestants, 23.0% are Catholics, and 1.8% are Mormons. In 2016, 74% of Americans identified as Christians while 18% claimed no religious affiliation. However, all (100%) of the 6 non-Jewish and non-Latino White members of the Biden Cabinet are Catholics. Of the 17 non-Jewish members of the Biden Cabinet, 12 (71%) are Catholics, i.e. while Catholics are 23.0% of the US population they are 71% of the non-Jewish members of the Biden Cabinet, and thus are disproportionately over-represented by a factor of 71%/23% = 3.1-fold.

(i). Protestant Americans are 2–fold under-represented in the Biden Cabinet. While Protestants are  48.9% of the US population, a maximum of only 6 out of 25 (24%) of the members of the Biden Cabinet are Protestants i.e. they are 48.9%/24% = 2.0-fold under-represented in the Biden Cabinet.

(j). Republicans, Pentecostal Christians (Evangelical Christians), and Racist Religious Right Republicans (R4s) are totally absent from the Biden Cabinet.  Not surprisingly there are no Republicans in the Biden Cabinet, and despite its representational inequities, the Biden Cabinet is blessed by the absence of Biblical literalist and genocidally pro-Zionist Pentecostal Christians (Evangelical Christians), and of Racist Religious Right Republicans (R4s) in general. Biblical literalists are simply nuts.

(k). All of the members of the Biden Cabinet are fervently theist, nationalist, neoliberal, pro-market, pro-One Percenter, anti-socialist, pro-nuclear terrorism, pro-US hegemony, pro-militarism, pro-US interventionism, pro-Apartheid Israel (and hence pro-Apartheid) and pro-Zionist. To state the obvious, American politicians have to observe the sine qua non pillars of US politics of theism, capitalism, nationalism and support for Apartheid Israel (and hence for Apartheid).

America portrays itself as a “democracy” but this assertion is highly flawed because of differential representation and influence as illustrated here, neoliberal One Percenter domination, and entrenched lying by commission and omission by mass media journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes. A Zionist-subverted and obscenely neoliberal US has transmuted from a one-person-one-vote democracy to a kleptocracy, plutocracy, Murdochracy, lobbyocracy, corporatocracy, and dollarocracy in which Big Money purchases people, politicians, parties, policies, votes and hence more political power and more private profit. The support for Apartheid Israel and hence for Apartheid by the non-European members of the Biden Cabinet is particularly disgusting.

This Zionist perversion and subversion of America is deadly serious because 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year from “life-style choice” and “political choice” reasons, and since 9/11 about 33 million Americans have died thus in this ongoing American Holocaust. The long-term accrual cost of the War on Terror has been about $6 trillion. About 32 million Muslims have died from violence, 5 million, or from imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity. Thus Zionist-subverted America has committed $6 trillion to killing over 30 million Muslims abroad instead of trying to save over 30 million American lives at home. For a very detailed and documented analysis see Gideon Polya, “Zionist-subverted America: Jewish Zionists Are One Third Of The Biden Cabinet,” Countercurrents, 27 January 2022. Wake up America!

Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Russia comments on risk of war with West

RT | January 28, 2022

With tensions running high between Russia and the US, Moscow’s top diplomat has insisted that his country does not want a full-blown conflict to break out, but also warned it will not stand aside and watch well-flagged security concerns be ignored.

Speaking to news outlets as part of a broadcast interview on Friday morning, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked whether fighting could break out after talks over guarantees that NATO will not expand ended in deadlock.

“If it is up to the Russian Federation, there will be no war,” he declared.“We do not want wars,” he went on, stressing, however, that officials “will not allow our interests to be brutally attacked or to be ignored either.”

According to Lavrov, Washington’s response to Moscow’s proposals is “almost a model of diplomatic decency.” However, he said that NATO’s answer to the two Russian draft documents “is so ideologized, it breathes the exclusivity of the Alliance, its special mission, its special purpose.”

Lavrov went on to add that if the US is not willing to reconsider its stance on security matters, then Moscow is equally not prepared to make any compromises on its demands. “If they insist that they won’t change their position, we won’t change our position either,” he declared.

The comments come shortly after Moscow received long-awaited answers to its requests for security guarantees, including a pledge that Ukraine will not be admitted to the bloc.

On Thursday, Lavrov said that “there has been no positive response” to Moscow’s core concerns in the document provided by the American side following weeks of talks with their counterparts.

“The main issue is our clear position on the unacceptability of further NATO expansion to the East and the deployment of highly destructive weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation,” Lavrov explained.

The Kremlin also poured scorn on the response, arguing that the requests from Moscow’s officials had not been fully taken into account by Washington and the US-led military bloc.

At the same time though, according to Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, “there are and should always be prospects… for further dialogue.”

“But as for the substantive dialogue on the draft documents, there are issues of a different nature, but I will not get ahead of myself,” he said.

Last month, Russia handed over two draft treaties, one addressed to Washington and the other to NATO, which it says are aimed at reducing the risk of conflict on the European continent.

Moscow requested that the bloc refrains from any military activity on the territory of the former Warsaw Pact states that joined after 1997, following the fall of the Soviet Union. The US-led military bloc’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said it would unacceptable to create a “two tier” system that prevents it from engaging in activity with some member states.

A separate clause also demanded that Kiev’s ambitions to join the US-led bloc should not be granted. Ruling out NATO expansion closer to Russia’s borders has been a key demand from the country’s officials, with Peskov arguing that it is a question of “life or death.”

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Big War CEOs: There’s chaos in the world and our prospects are excellent

By Eli Clifton | Responsible Statecraft | January 28, 2022

According to chief executives of the top taxpayer-funded weapons firms, their balance sheets will benefit from the U.S. engaging in great power competition with Russia and China, the recent escalations in the Yemen war, and the potential for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But at least one CEO didn’t want to give the impression that weapons firms are simply merchants of death, claiming that her firm, the third largest weapons producer in the world, “actually promote[s] human rights proliferation.”

Those comments were all made on quarterly earnings calls this week, at which executives for publicly traded companies speak to investors and analysts who follow their industries and answer questions about their financial outlook.

The occasion brings out a degree of candor about companies’ fundamentals and their business interests that aren’t always disclosed in marketing materials and carefully worded press releases.

For example, CEOs from both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon outright acknowledged that a deteriorating state of global peace and security and an increase in deadly violence are very much in the interest of their employees and investors.

Lockheed CEO James Taiclet assured investors that the $740 billion defense budget — twelve times the budget provided to the State Department to conduct diplomacy — could continue to grow in 2023, a critical metric for weapons contractors, the ultimate recipient of nearly half of all defense spending.

Taiclet said:

But if you look at [defense budget growth] — and it’s evident each day that goes by. If you look at the evolving threat level and the approach that some countries are taking, including North Korea, Iran and through some of its proxies in Yemen and elsewhere, and especially Russia today, these days, and China, there’s renewed great power competition that does include national defense and threats to it. And the history of [the] United States is when those environments evolve, that we do not sit by and just watch it happen. So I can’t talk to a number, but I do think and I’m concerned personally that the threat is advancing, and we need to be able to meet it.

Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes took a cruder approach, appearing to celebrate a potential war over Ukraine and Houthi drone attacks on the UAE as good indicators for future weapons sales, responding to an analyst’s question about increased demand for weapons “from international countries just given the rising tensions.”

Hayes said:

… [W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.

But in a moment of rare self-awareness in the calls, Northrop Grumman’s CEO attempted to distance herself from the celebration of increased global conflict by making the bold claim that the world’s  fifth largest weapons manufacturer — and a trainer of Saudi troops accused of war crimes in Yemen — is a promoter of “global human rights.”

Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said:

I do want to be clear. We are a defense contractor. And so we are supporting global security missions, largely in areas of deterrents, but also inclusive of weapon systems. And we expect to continue in those businesses because we believe they actually promote global human rights proliferation, not the contrary. But with that said, we have evaluated some portions of our portfolio that I’ve talked about in the past like cluster munitions. And today, making the confirmation that we plan to exit depleted uranium ammo as parts of the portfolio that we no longer wanted to support directly.

No doubt, their departure from the cluster munitions and depleted uranium ammunition business is a positive step for human rights, but the idea that one of the world’s biggest producers of missiles, bombers, drones, and nuclear weapons “promote[s] global human rights” tests the limits of credulity. Time and time again, the earnings calls spotlight the true interests of the weapons industry: an increase in global insecurity and violence leads to an increase in governments’ demands for lethal weapons, which in turn produce an increase in profits for investors in arms production.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Cancer patients sue company behind Fukushima radiation

RT | January 28, 2022

Six people were children living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant at the time of the 2011 disaster, when the facility was heavily damaged in an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

The plaintiffs have since developed thyroid cancer, blaming radiation that seeped from the power plant for their condition.

“Some plaintiffs have had difficulties advancing to higher education and finding jobs, and have even given up on their dreams for their future,” the group’s chief lawyer, Kenichi Ido, told AFP.

The plaintiffs, now aged between 17 and 27, are seeking compensation from the Fukushima operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO). They demand the company pay a total of 616 million yen ($5.4 million). The plaintiffs have experienced prejudice against thyroid cancer patients, with the illness heavily affecting their lives, one of the group members – identified only as a woman in her 20s – has said.

“I decided to come forward and tell the truth in hopes of improving the situation for nearly 300 other people also suffering like us,” she stated.

The lawsuit has become the first class-action against TEPCO over health problems allegedly linked to the Fukushima disaster. Establishing a solid link between thyroid cancer and the meltdown is likely to become a focal point of the case, since no relationship between cancer cases and the disaster was recognized by an expert team previously established by the regional government. At the same time, radiation exposure is a well-proven risk factor for developing such type of cancer.

Over 290 people who lived in the area at the time of the meltdown have been diagnosed with or are suspected of having thyroid cancer. Some 266 of them were found during a provincial health survey of people aged 18 and younger at the time of the disaster, which affected some 380,000 residents.

The plaintiff’s legal team argues that such rates – 77 per 100,000 – are significantly higher than the usual one to two cases per one million people. Regional authorities and experts, however, have blamed the unusual rates on excessive screening and over-diagnosing.

The Fukushima power plant got crippled following the 2011 9.0-magnitude Tohoku earthquake and a subsequent devastating tsunami. The plant suffered a major meltdown, which became the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl incident. The catastrophe prompted an evacuation order for nearby towns and villages, which has been gradually lifted over the past few years. The last deserted settlement – the town of Futaba located in an immediate vicinity of the damaged plant – is expected to welcome residents willing to return later this year.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Nuclear Power | | Leave a comment

Registered nurse Nicole Sirotek shares what she saw on the front lines in NYC

January 25, 2022

Nurse Nicole Sirotek testified before the House regarding the way the medical establishment is mistreating COVID patients, who aren’t dying from COVID but, instead, die from medical malpractice, including the insistence on vaccines and Remdesivir and the refusal to provide safe, affordable therapeutics.

January 28, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

How About A Pilot Project To Demonstrate The Feasibility Of Fully Wind/Solar/Battery Electricity Generation?

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | January 25, 2022

At this current crazy moment, most of the “Western” world (Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia) is hell bent on achieving a “net zero” energy system. As I understand this concept, it means that, within two or three decades, all electricity production will be converted from the current mostly-fossil-fuel generation mix to almost entirely wind, solar and storage. On top of that, all or nearly all energy consumption that is not currently electricity (e.g., transportation, industry, heat, agriculture) must be converted to electricity, so that the energy for these things can also be supplied solely by the wind, sun, and batteries. Since electricity is currently only about a quarter of final energy consumption, that means that we are soon to have an all-electric energy generation and consumption system producing around four times the output of our current electricity system, all from wind and solar, backed up as necessary only by batteries or other storage.

A reasonable question is, has anybody thought to construct a small-to-moderate scale pilot project to demonstrate that this is feasible? Before embarking on “net zero” for a billion people, how about trying it out in a place with, say, 10,000, or 50,000, or 100,000 people. See if it can actually work, and how much it will cost. Then, if it works at reasonable cost, start expanding it.

As far as I can determine, that has never been done anywhere. However, there is something somewhat close. An island called El Hierro, which is one of the Canary Islands and is part of Spain, embarked more than a decade ago on constructing an electricity system consisting only of wind turbines and a pumped-storage water reservoir. El Hierro has a population of about 11,000. It is a very mountainous volcanic island, so it provided a fortuitous location for construction of a large pumped-storage hydro project, with an upper reservoir in an old volcanic crater right up a near-cliff from a lower reservoir just above sea level. The difference in elevation of the two reservoirs is about 660 meters, or more than 2000 feet. Here is a picture of the upper reservoir, looking down to the ocean, to give you an idea of just how favorable a location for pumped-storage hydro this is:

The El Hierro wind/storage system began operations in 2015. How has it done? I would say that it is at best a huge disappointment, really bordering on disaster. It has never come close to realizing the dream of 100% wind/storage electricity for El Hierro, instead averaging 50% or less when averaged over a full year (although it has had some substantial periods over 50%). Moreover, since only about one-quarter of El HIerro’s final energy consumption is electricity, the project has replaced barely 10% of El Hierro’s fossil fuel consumption.

Here is the website of the company that runs the wind/hydro system, Gorona del Viento. Get ready for some excited happy talk:

A wind farm produces energy which is directed into the Island’s electricity grid to satisfy the population’s demand for electricity. The surplus energy that is not consumed directly by the Island’s inhabitants is used to pump water between two reservoirs set at different altitudes. During times of wind shortage, the water stored in the Upper Reservoir is discharged into the Lower Reservoir, where the Wind-Pumped Hydro Power Station is, to generate electricity from its turbines. . . . The diesel-engine-powered Power Station only comes into operation in exceptional circumstances when there is neither sufficient wind or water to produce the energy to meet demand.

Over at the page for production statistics, it’s still more excitement about tons of carbon emissions avoided (15,484 in 2020!) and hours of 100% renewable generation (1293 in 2020!). I think that they’re hoping you don’t know that there are 8784 hours in a 366 day year like 2020.

But how about some real information on how much of the island’s electricity, and of its final energy consumption, this system is able to generate? Follow links on that page for production statistics, and you will find that the system produced some 56% of the electricity for El Hierro in 2018, 54% in 2019, and 42% for 2020. No figures are yet provided for 2021. At least for the last three years of reported data, things seem to be going quite rapidly in the wrong direction. I suspect that that’s not what you had in mind when you read that the diesel generators only come into operation in “exceptional circumstances” when wind generation is low. And with electricity constituting only about 25% of El Hierro’s final energy consumption, the reported generation statistics would mean that the percent of final energy consumption from the wind/storage facility ran about 14% in 2018, 13.5% in 2019, and barely 10% in 2020.

So why don’t they just build the system a little bigger? After all, if this system can provide around 50% +/- of El Hierro’s electricity, can’t you just double it in size to get to 100%? The answer is, absolutely not. The 50% can be achieved only with those diesel generators always present to provide full backup when needed. Without that, you need massively more storage to get you through what could be weeks of wind drought, let alone through wind seasonality that means that you likely need 30 days’ or more full storage. Get out your spreadsheet to figure out how much.

Roger Andrews did the calculation for El Hierro in a January 2018 post on the Energy Matters website. His conclusion: El Hierro would need a pumped-storage reservoir some 40 times the size of the one it had built in order to get rid of the diesel backup. Andrews provides plenty of information as to the basis of his calculations and his assumptions, so feel free to take another crack at his calculations with better assumptions. But unfortunately, his main assumption is that the pattern of wind intermittency for any given year will be just as sporadic as it was for 2017.

Then take a look at the picture and see if you can figure out where or how El Hierro is going to build that 40 times bigger reservoir. Time to look into a few billions of dollars worth of lithium ion batteries — for 11,000 people.

And of course, for those of us here in the rest of the world, we don’t have massive volcanic craters sitting 2000 feet right up a cliff from the sea. For us, it’s batteries or nothing. Or maybe just stick with the fossil fuels for now.

So the closest thing we have to a “demonstration project” of the fully wind/storage electricity has come up woefully short, and really has only proved that the whole concept will necessarily fail on the necessity of far more storage than is remotely practical or affordable. The idea that our political betters plow forward toward “net zero” without any demonstration of feasibility I find completely incomprehensible.

January 27, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

New wave of Stasi censorship likely reveals the next phase of Pharma’s playbook

Pfizer and Moderna set to ask the FDA & CDC to grandfather in their reformulated coronavirus vaccines with almost no data

By Toby Rogers | January 27, 2022

I just got another 30-day suspension from Facebook. It’s always interesting to see which posts set off the Stasi. The purpose of censorship is to delete any facts that contradict the Pharma narrative. So every time they censor one of my posts it tells me that this content was directly over the target.

Many of my previous suspensions were in the weeks leading up to key FDA and CDC decisions on mRNA vaccine applications. I was highly visible on social media sharing information about why the risks of these shots outweigh the benefits. It seems that Pfizer and Moderna just put out the word that they want to get the approval across the line and the Stasi get to work banning anyone with data or analysis that might hurt their application. They ban me about three weeks before the FDA/CDC decision, get the approval they seek, and then my suspension expires.

And that seems to be the case again here.

In this instance, Facebook suspended me for a post from two months ago. They never explain their decision and never point out any factual errors in my post. But ask yourself, why did this particular post trigger the Thought Police?

November 28, 2021

Guys and gals listen up. The battle ahead is this: both Pfizer and Moderna have announced plans to develop new multivalent mRNA shots within 100 days to address new variants. They will argue to the FDA and CDC that these new shots (now the fourth dose of a failed product) should be grandfathered in without further clinical trials because they are similar to the existing (deadly toxic junk) product. If that happens, then all future doses of this product, whatever the formulation, will never go through clinical trials of any kind.

I am hard-pressed to imagine a more apocalyptic scenario — injections, for most everyone in the developed world, every six months, forever, with no clinical trials, and no idea of what is in the vial. It’s a eugenicists’ dream.

We must begin pushing now to tell every elected official and every regulator that there must be new clinical trials or they will be prosecuted at Nuremberg 2.0.

Republicans hoping to take back the Congress in 2022 must be on record as demanding new clinical trials.

Existing trials are terrible but they give us a chance to see how these companies rig the data and they give us a point of comparison (to show that they lied) when real world data comes in. We have very little data on new variants but Pfizer and Moderna’s plans to proceed without clinical trials are a possible extinction-level event for humanity.

Updated to add: the message to elected officials has to be simple — Any new formulation needs a proper new clinical trial (50,000 participants, at least 2 years follow up, conducted by an independent 3rd party).

My assertions in this post are based on years of studying the Pharma playbook. Is there any evidence that anything I said in this post is incorrect? Pharma is going to try to get these reformulated coronavirus vaccines grandfathered in without further regulatory scrutiny.

To the extent that there are any clinical trials — they will be these sham trials like the recent third dose Emergency Use Authorization applications. As you will recall, the Moderna third dose “trial” had 149 participants in the treatment group and the Pfizer “trial” had 200 participants total. I wrote about that (here). These “trials” were so bad that the top two vaccine safety regulators at the FDA quit rather than approve this worthless toxic junk under political pressure from the Biden administration. Indeed these “trials” were so bad that the hand picked Yes-men (and women) on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee rejected the applications (16 to 2) — so Janet Woodcock just pushed the applications through under her signature, against their advice.

The fact that FB censored this two-month old post out of the blue suggests that this is exactly what Pfizer and Moderna are about to do — they are going to bum-rush these reformulated coronavirus vaccines through the rotten FDA and CDC and start injecting them into billions of people with no data on safety or effectiveness.

These reformulated vaccines are ostensibly to address the Omicron variant — although a new variant will have already taken its place by the time these reformulated vaccines are available. So once again these vaccines are likely to have zero or negative efficacy against the virus and produce unknown levels of harm including iatrogenic injury and antibody dependent enhancement. The introduction of reformulated vaccines is also likely to accelerate the evolution of new variants.

This is why we need a revolution. This is why we must overthrow the existing regime. Common carriers and most bourgeois institutions in the U.S. work for the Cartel. And the Cartel is engaged in democide throughout the developed world because democide is very profitable and this is now their business model.

January 27, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Justin Trudeau Ducks the Great Trucker Revolt

BY JEFFREY A. TUCKER | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | JANUARY 27, 2022

The resistance reveals itself always in unexpected ways. As I type, thousands of truckers (numbers are in flux and are in dispute) are part of a 50-mile-long convoy in Canada, headed to the capital city of Ottawa in protest against an egregious vaccine mandate imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They will be joined upon arrival by vast numbers of protestors who are defying the restrictions, closures, and mandates of the last nearly two years.

The triple-vaccinated Trudeau, meanwhile, has decided that he has to go into deep hiding because he was exposed to Covid. A clean, ruling-class, fit, and fashionable lefty like him cannot be expected to face such a pathogen directly. As a member of the vanguard of the lockdown elite, he must never take risks (however small) and must keep himself safe. It is merely a matter of coincidence that he will be locked away in hiding as the truckers arrive together with hundreds of thousands of citizens who are fed up with being treated like lab rats.

Previously, Trudeau had said nearly two years ago that the truckers were heroes. On March 31, 2020, he tweeted: “While many of us are working from home, there are others who aren’t able to do that – like the truck drivers who are working day and night to make sure our shelves are stocked. So when you can, please #ThankATrucker for everything they’re doing and help them however you can.”

It’s true. Like many “essential workers” in the US, these truckers bravely faced the virus and many already gained natural immunity, which Canadian law does not recognize. Trudeau decided that they needed to be forced to get the vaccine anyway. Keep in mind: these are the people who get food to the stores, packages to homes, and all products that keep life moving. If they don’t drive, the people don’t eat. It’s that simple.

Few events in modern times have revealed the vast chasm that exists between the ruled and rulers, especially as it pertains to class. For nearly two years, the professional class has experienced a completely different reality than the working class. In the US, this only began to change once the highly vaccinated Zoom class got Covid anyway. Only then did we start seeing articles about how there is no shame in getting sick. It appears that in many countries, the working class that was forced into early confrontation with the virus are saying that they aren’t going to take it anymore (and many are playing that song to make the point).

It’s a massive workers’ strike but not the kind of communist dreams. This is a “working class” movement that stands squarely for freedom against all the impositions of the last two years, which were imposed by an overclass with almost no consultation from legislatures. Canada has had some of the worst, much to the shock of its citizens. The convoy is an enormous show of power concerning who really keeps the country running.

The convoy is being joined by truckers from all over the US too, rising up in solidarity. This is easily the most meaningful and impactful protest to emerge in North America. It is being joined by as many as half a million Canadian citizens, who overwhelmingly support this protest, as one can observe from the cheers on the highway along the way. Indeed, it’s likely to break the record for the largest trucker convoy in history, as well as the most loved.

Trudeau, meanwhile, has dismissed the whole thing as a “small fringe” of extremists and says it means nothing to him and will change nothing. This is because, he says, these truckers hold “unacceptable views.”

This is setting up to be one of the most significant clashes in the world in the great battle between freedom and those governments have set out to crush it.

Meanwhile, I’m looking now for information on this in the mainstream media. It is almost nonexistent outside social media. Fox is covering some of it but that’s about it. The Epoch Times is a wonderful exception, as we’ve come to expect in recent months. It’s not being covered in any depth in Canadian papers and TV. All the usual subjects in the US have completely ignored this mighty movement. It’s almost like these venues have created an alternate version of reality, one that denies the astonishing reality that anyone can see outside the window.

Yes, I know that we have all come to expect that the corporate media will not cover what actually matters, and much of what it does cover it does only with a strong bias toward narratives crafted by ruling elites. Even so, it seems to stretch credulity beyond any plausible extent for the major media to pretend that this isn’t happening. It is and it has massive implications for the present and the future.

This is not really or just about vaccine mandates. It’s about what they represent: government taking possession of our lives. If they can force you to get an injection in your arm over which you have doubts, all bets for freedom are off. There must be evidence that you complied. The phone app is next, which gets tied to your bank account and your job and your access to communications and your ability to pay your rent or mortgage. It means eventually 100% government control over the whole of life. The technology already exists. Everything going on now with these passports is driving to this point.

This is why the truckers are striking this way. It is an act of bravery but also of desperation. Once the tyranny of health passports arrives, there will be no escape. The window of opportunity to do something about this will have closed. So this is the moment. There might not be another one. Something needs to be done to fight for human rights and freedom, and put in place systems that make lockdowns and mandates impossible in the future.

This is the largest and latest example of the revolt and one that could make the biggest difference yet. But it is only one sign among many that the ruling elites in most countries have overplayed their hand. They have arrogantly imposed their plans for everyone else based on the opinions of only a few and without real consultation with experts with differences of opinion or with the people whose lives have been profoundly affected by the pandemic response.

In the US the revolt is taking many forms. There was the rally in DC this past weekend. It was impressive. Also the latest polls on political alliances show that the Democrats have lost a major part of their base. Virginia right now points to where this is headed. The party lost vast amounts of its political power in elections last year and now Republicans rule the state with great popularity.

Meanwhile, I’m looking at Biden’s latest poll numbers. I almost cannot believe my eyes. We are talking about an overall 14-point split between approve and disapprove. If this is an indication of what happens to the pro-lockdown political elite, it stands to reason that Trudeau should be worried.

In the Vietnam War, many Americans fled the draft by going to the safe haven on the northern border. That’s one way that Canada had earned its long reputation for being delightfully normal, peaceful, and mercifully boring. Pandemic policies in Canada changed that, with some of the longest-lasting stringencies in the world.

No one asked the workers. Now they are rising up. Nor does it matter that 90% of the Canadian public is vaccinated. Possessing that status alone does not mean that people no longer feel resentment for being forced to accept what they do not believe they needed and did not want in the first place. The vaccinated do not automatically give up their longing to be free and to have their human rights recognized.

The resistance to tyranny in our times is taking many unexpected forms. There will be many confrontations on the way, and there is still a very long way to go. At some point, and no one knows when or how, something has to give.

January 27, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

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