MEMO | June 13, 2022
A new political action committee (PAC) plans to unseat Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib over her clear support for the people of occupied Palestine, the Intercept revealed on Friday. The committee claims that it is “dedicated to empowering urban communities to narrow the wealth gap between Black and White Americans.”
More than 40 Black business and civic leaders launched the Urban Empowerment Action PAC in October. According to the Intercept, the committee “has picked its most prominent and first incumbent target this cycle: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.”
It has labelled the challenge against Tlaib as its “premier race” and plans to spend at least $1 million to unseat her, arguing that Detroit, a city with a majority Black electorate, should be represented by a Black person in Congress. The PAC is backing candidate Janice Winfrey, Detroit’s city clerk, who slammed Tlaib’s vote against last year’s bipartisan infrastructure package and her criticism of US military funding to Israel, which Winfrey supports.
This particular PAC is primarily funded by billionaire hedge fund investor and philanthropist Daniel Loeb. Its founder remains unknown.
Tlaib is facing her second primary as an incumbent in August. She has secured $15 million for local community projects in this year’s House budget bill, made efforts to extend the child tax credit and secured the fifth-largest amount of Covid-19 aid allocated for America’s major cities.
“Her public scrutiny of unchecked US funding for Israeli occupation forces has made her a target of pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [of which Loeb is also a donor]… and Pro-Israel America, which endorsed Winfrey in March,” the news organisation pointed out. “If they manage to unseat Tlaib, conservative Democrats would score a monumental win.”
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | June 13, 2022
In what is obviously a tit-for-tat response to the Pentagon’s role in ginning up the Russia-Ukraine war, Nicaraguan officials have announced that they have invited Russian troops to visit the country for “humanitarian”and “training” purposes. They are saying that the visit will be “routine,” but there is actually nothing routine about it.
It will be fascinating to see how the Pentagon and its loyal supporters within the mainstream press respond to the announcement. So far, there have been no Pentagon reaction and no mainstream press editorials or op-eds coming to the defense of Nicaragua’s “right” to enter into a military alliance with Russia.
Don’t forget, after all, that that is the root cause of the crisis in Ukraine — the “right” of Ukraine to join NATO, the old Cold War dinosaur. If NATO ends up absorbing Ukraine, the Pentagon will be able to fulfill its longtime aim of installing nuclear missiles pointed at Russia’s cities along Russia’s border with Ukraine.
For its part, Russia has long made it clear that this was a “red line” that it would not permit to be crossed, just as U.S. officials refused to permit Soviet nuclear missiles to be installed in Cuba in 1962. That’s what precipitated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the attempt to establish Russia’s control over the Ukrainian regime in order to prevent the Pentagon from fulfilling its longtime aim through NATO to install nuclear missiles along Russia’s border.
The U.S. mainstream press, which oftentimes acts like an American Pravda, has been vociferous in its defense of Ukraine’s “right” to join NATO. It’s an independent country, they have repeatedly pointed out, and, therefore, it has the “right” to join any military alliance it wants.
Okay, fair enough. But then what about Nicaragua? Isn’t it just as independent as Ukraine? Given such, why doesn’t it have the same “right” to enter into a military alliance with Russia or, for that matter, China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, or Vietnam?
Why are the Pentagon and its mainstream press acolytes remaining quiet about those questions?
Wouldn’t it be darkly ironic if the Pentagon’s NATO machinations with Ukraine ended up producing blowback in the form of a permanent Russian military base in Nicaragua? Wouldn’t it be darkly ironic if Russia accepted an invitation from Nicaragua to establish nuclear missiles in Nicaragua?
What then would be the response of the Pentagon and its mainstream-press acolytes? Would they opine that while Ukraine has the “right” to join NATO, which would enable the Pentagon to install its nuclear missiles on Russia’s border, Nicaragua has no “right” to enter into a similar military alliance with Russia (or China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, or Vietnam)? If they were to take that position, would not their evil NATO machinations and hypocritical two-faced policies be on open display for all the world to witness?
Of course, none of this had to be. If the old, rotten Cold War dinosaur NATO had been dismantled at the end of the Cold War, which it should have been, the Pentagon could not have used it to engage in its Cold War machinations that ultimately have led to the deadly and destructive Russia-Ukraine war.
And now we are witnessing blowback from the Pentagon’s NATO machinations in the form of a possible Russia military base in Nicaragua or, even worse, another Cold War crisis similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
As I point out in my new book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, President Kennedy was able to circumvent and nullify the Pentagon’s Cold War machinations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and everyone in both Russia and the United States was better off for it. Unfortunately, however, as everyone knows, President Biden is no John Kennedy, and therefore, it is impossible to predict how this latest crisis will be resolved.
Purchase An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story at Amazon: $9.95 Kindle version; $14.95 print version.
Samizdat – 13.06.2022
“This war will be won on the battlefield”, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said in April while announcing an additional 500 million euros in EU military assistance to Kiev. In May, the diplomat complained that the bloc had run out of hardware to provide Ukraine and urged the EU to boost its defence capabilities.
Russia and the EU are bound by the confines of geography and must coexist and talk to one another, the EU’s foreign affairs chief has indicated.
“Russia will continue to exist after peace negotiations, and it is necessary to define clearly how we intend to coexist with the country. It will be very difficult after what Russia has done in Ukraine… but we still have to try to coexist with the Russians on this continent”, Borrell said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche.
The diplomat assured that the channels of communication with Russia “were never closed”, pointing to Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s recent visit to Moscow, African Union Chairman Macky Sall’s trip to Sochi, and visits of United Nations envoys to Russia to discuss Ukraine’s grains exports. “We must continue to talk with Russia”, Borrell emphasised.
Asked about the fate of EU weapons aid to Ukraine, and whether they were achieving the results on the ground that Brussels was hoping for, Borrell characterised the arms deliveries as “war, not a picnic on the grass”, and that Russia was bombing the convoys. He admitted that over the past 100 days, the EU “used a lot of our capabilities in service of Ukraine and it is imperative that our stocks be renewed”.
Asked whether Brussels should help Ukraine directly militarily, Borrell stressed that he doesn’t “engage in theology”, and reiterated the need for EU aid to reach Ukrainian forces as quickly as possible, “because they are not waging a conflict with banknotes but with guns”.
“Having said that, all conflicts end with a ceasefire and negotiations, and it is necessary for Ukraine to be able to approach this phase from a position of strength”, the diplomat said.
The EU high representative for foreign affairs’ comments mark a stark contrast with sentiments he expressed in April about to need to “win” the conflict in Ukraine “on the battlefield”, and to tailor weapons deliveries to Kiev’s needs. “We need to continue to increase our pressure on Russia. We have imposed massive sanctions already but more needs to be done on the energy sector, including oil… Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger. And the EU will continue to stand by you, ever step of the way”, he promised at the time.
A month later, Borrell complained that the EU had run out of weapons to send, blaming “past budget cuts and underinvestment”.
The EU has committed to send over two billion euros in aid for the Ukrainian military, on top of roughly 4.1 billion euros to support Kiev’s economy. Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed providing Ukraine with an additional nine billion euros in fiscal support, to be paid back at the end of the year.
Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Washington and Brussels have provided Ukraine with tens of billions of euros’ worth of military assistance and economic loans. But assistance has come with conditions, including requirements that the country open its markets, and carry out painful reforms aimed at liberalising its economy. Aid has also occasionally been tied to political preconditions, with then-former Vice President Joe Biden boasting in a 2018 panel meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations on how he had threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan to Kiev unless Ukraine’s president fired a prosecutor investigating the activities of a gas company working with his son Hunter.
Samizdat | June 13, 2022
France will adjust its six-year military spending plan in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday.
Macron said he instructed the government to “carry out a reassessment of the military spending program in the coming weeks, in the light of the geopolitical context.”
France “has entered into a war economy in which I believe we will find ourselves for a long time,” he said during the opening of the Eurosatory arms expo in Paris. The French president said that Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine created “an additional need to move faster and become stronger at a lower cost.”
“As for anyone doubting the urgency of these efforts, we only need take another look at Ukraine, whose soldiers are in demand of quality weapons and are entitled to a response from us,” Macron noted.
France and other NATO members are supplying Kiev with weapons, including armored vehicles, missiles, and drones.
Macron said Europe needs “a much larger defense industry” and should not rely on procuring weapons from elsewhere. The current program entails spending €295 billion ($308 billion) between 2019 and 2025 on modernizing the French military. The annual military budget is set to reach €41 billion ($43 billion) this year and €50 billion ($52 billion) in 2025.
Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe would boost its defense in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. She said EU countries had announced increases of their defense budgets to an additional €200 billion ($209 billion) in the coming years.
Russia attacked Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | June 11, 2022
Yesterday Sky News and the Huffington Post and several other outlets all flared up near-identical headlines warning that …
Covid Infections Increase For First Time In Two Months
The HuffPo goes on to explain in more detail…
The jump is thought to have been caused by increases in cases compatible with the original Omicron variant BA.1 and the newer variants BA.4 and BA.5, according to the Office for National Statistics.
All the articles cite the Office of National Statistics (ONS) talking about Omicron and seem to consider this an explanation.
None of them mentions the fact the UK’s Health Security Agency (UKHSA) literally changed the definition of a Covid “case” back in February, making it almost inevitable cases would go up.
It’s all detailed in this post from the UKHSA site, helpfully titled “Changing the COVID-19 Case Definition”.
The article explains that the UKHSA will be moving on from the traditional meaning of “cases”, and instead counting what they call “case episodes”.
Meaning that, up until now, one person repeatedly testing positive for “Covid” throughout the pandemic was considered one “case”:
Until now, COVID-19 cases have been reported at the individual level: every positive test taken and reported by one person has been considered part of a single case record, initiated by their first positive test.
But from now on different positive tests of the same person will be considered separate “cases” as long as they are 90 days apart:
Positive test results that are 90 days apart (regardless of negative tests in between) will be considered as a separate episode of infection, and therefore the person is counted as a case more than once.
The supposed justification for this decision is “waning immunity” and the Omicron variant causing spikes in “reinfections”:
Although reinfections were initially very rare, we have seen the number rising slowly over the last two years, as immunity from prior infection wanes and new variants emerge. During the Omicron variant wave, the number and proportion of people being reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 has increased.
However, the inevitable consequence of this decision will be to make the case numbers go up. The press not including this in their story about the rising case numbers is – at best – astonishing incompetence.
In fact, making case numbers go up is literally the only impact it will have.
The UKHSA goes out of its way to point this out, highlighting that the change will have no effect at all on how they monitor infections, since they already treat new positive tests as new cases for the purpose of contract tracing, and have been doing so all along:
contact tracing has undertaken a very safe practice of following all positive cases, regardless of whether they were possible reinfections or cases of prolonged infection.
So, in short, whether or not the change is scientifically justified, it is a purely aesthetic one that will have no impact on anything, except to make case numbers look bigger.
And, of course, it’s not scientifically justified.
They have already stretched the meaning of “cases” well past its breaking point by defining anyone who tests positive as a “Covid case” whether or not they have any symptoms.
Now every single person who, over the past two years, tested positive on the useless PCR tests and was declared a “case”, can test positive again on the same useless PCR and be declared a new case.
Of course, messing with language to inflate statistics has been the modus operandi since the beginning of the “pandemic”. “Fully vaccinated”, “herd immunity”, “cause of death”, “vaccine”, “case” all have been subject to “updated” definition.
Clearly, this further torturing of statistics is about maintaining the flagging “pandemic” narrative.
Allowing people to become more than one “case” means the ever-increasing numbers of people rejecting the vaccines, masks and hysteria can be countered by the steadily dwindling number of NPCs who still religiously take Covid at face value.
It’s a desperation move. One that, hopefully, people will see right through.
By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | June 13, 2022
THE BBC has been accused of institutional alarmism about climate change in a report published by Net Zero Watch. It reveals the BBC’s persistent exaggeration and false information when it comes to climate and weather-related news.
The study, written by me, reveals that the BBC has been forced to correct a dozen items of false claims and fake news in climate-related coverage after receiving complaints in recent years.
It shows that it has become common practice for BBC reporters to publicise exaggerated and often misleading weather-and climate-related stories in order to hype up the potential risks from global warming.
Persistent misrepresentation by BBC journalists in climate news coverage is fuelling the corporation’s institutional alarmism.
Institutional alarmism is a form of hyped and exaggerated news reporting that is deeply embedded in the BBC. It manifests itself as unbalanced, one-sided coverage of climate risks that go uncorrected by the BBC’s in-house fact checkers.
In 2020, the BBC’s director general warned that the problem posed by disinformation online was increasingly serious and that the BBC would need to work harder than ever to expose fake news and separate fact from fiction.
Since then the corporation has set up a team of fact checkers, a BBC-wide Anti-Disinformation Unit and a Climate Misinformation team. Yet none of these teams of fact checkers noticed or addressed the long list of false news stories that were corrected by the BBC only after lengthy and protracted complaint procedures.
The dossier includes the following examples of fake news:
• The three complaints upheld last year against the BBC’s Climate Editor, Justin Rowlatt, two of which concerned a Panorama episode devoted to global warming;
• Claims that the number of floods around the world has increased 15-fold since 2005;
• A BBC News report that the population of African penguins was declining rapidly because of climate change;
• Repeated claims that new onshore wind farms were ‘banned’ in the UK;
• False statements about ‘record’ temperatures;
• A BBC Two broadcast, which wrongly alleged that the reindeer population in Russia was declining because of climate change;
• Repeated claims that hurricanes were becoming more frequent and powerful;
• A World at One broadcast which asserted that sea levels in Miami were rising at ten times the global rate.
Most of the claims were so obviously and ridiculously false that it is hard to see how they made it through the BBC’s editorial process. This of course raises further questions. Is the BBC so entrenched in its own version of climate change that it believes its own propaganda, just as the Soviets did? Or do the editors and various layers of management simply not care whatever lies are published?
The above list is merely the tip of the iceberg. Many other falsehoods occur without being challenged, or where complaints are simply ignored, such as news items about how weather is getting more extreme, Victoria Falls drying up, droughts in California, starving polar bears and many more. One BBC News report baldly stated that the number of weather disasters had increased five-fold in the last 50 years – a patently absurd claim, which the organisation responsible for the database explains is actually due to better data reporting.
One of the most egregious examples of bias came in Sir David Attenborough’s documentary three years ago, Climate Change – The Facts. Despite the title, the hour-long programme had little to do with facts, more to do with propaganda. It made several highly questionable assertions, such as that ‘storms, floods, heatwaves and sea level rise are all getting rapidly worse as a result of climate change’. The documentary provided no data to back up these claims, nor did it offer the views of scientific experts who do not agree.
Often BBC reports are just outright propaganda, with the opinions of Greenpeace, WWF and the Green Party being given prominence but with very little mention of alternative views. Last year’s coverage of the proposed Cumbria coal mine by Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s Environmental Analyst, was a classic example of this.
At other times, the reporting is just silly. For instance, last summer the BBC gave prominent coverage to a report which claimed that the impact of global warming was likely to lead to ‘impaired’ performances at the Tokyo Olympics. This flew in the face of the fact that many Olympics in recent years have taken place in much hotter climes, such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Athens.
The sheer weight of evidence presented in this paper suggests that bias is now endemic in the BBC’s climate reporting. All the factual errors noted could easily have been avoided with a bit of basic research. Is this carried out and the results ignored if they don’t agree with the BBC’s agenda? Or is the corporation’s output just made up and printed anyway without checks? Either way, this is journalism at its shoddy worst. Who is editing this fake reporting? Why are they not insisting on accurate reporting? Where are the highly paid executives who let all of this continue?
The topic of climate change, Net Zero and the total transformation of society which is demanded to achieve it is of crucial importance for the future of the country. The public deserve all the facts, not just the warped version offered by the BBC.
You can read the report, ‘Institutional alarmism – the BBC’s disastrous climate complaints’, here.
Free West Media | June 12, 2022
Apparently the stance against doctors who work according to their Hippocratic oath and the medical code of ethics is being tightened internationally.
The enforcement of masks is an important goal in order to be able to continue the pandemic, as is known from internal protocols of the Israeli Ministry of Health or statements by the Austrian Director of Public Health. Masks have become a sign of submission while at the same time renouncing fundamental rights.
Even in Switzerland, which is known to be more liberal with the measures and had already lifted many random measures in mid-February, completely disproportionate action was taken against doctors. On social media, users likened the raid to how police would normally respond to a terror threat.
This is already happening in Germany, as the criminal judgment against Dr. Ronald Weikl showed. In Germany, such an act would be less surprising in view of the many house searches, even against judges who had issued “unwanted” judgements, also in connection with masks for children.
The regional court of Passau, Germany is expected to pass a verdict against the “mask doctor” Weikl for writing blank exemption certificates against the mask requirement.
“Whether it was a matter of issuing false health certificates, which is punishable under §278 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), as alleged by the prosecution, or only of medical certificates, for which §278 (StGB) does not apply at all,” noted the Children’s Health Defense Fund.
Weikl acted in the best interest of his patients, his lawyer explained and this should not have led to an indictment due to the lack of a criminal act on his part. The legal principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege applies, which means that one cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law – showing concern for his patients and especially children.
The law in Switzerland expressly provides for exceptions to the mask requirement. However, some authorities and the public prosecutor’s offices obviously do not care. For months there has been a veritable witch hunt against doctors who are critical of the measures.
Like Weikl, the Bern psychiatrist Dr. medical Ruke Wyler had issued mask certificates for her patients. The practice of the psychiatrist, who had only fulfilled her medical duty, was stormed in a heavy and a completely disproportionate police operation.
The scientific network Aletheia reported on the raid on the doctor’s practice. Critical doctors who question Corona measures to protect their own patients are being addressed and sanctioned, both abroad and in Switzerland.
Under the supervision of armed police officers wearing bulletproof vests, her computer hard drive was confiscated and patient files were taken away. People who wanted to support the doctor were asked to leave the building under threat of violence.
The Aletheia network said they were extremely concerned about these developments. Doctors who had issued mask certificates for the benefit of their patients did so because, after a thorough study of the data, they had come to the conclusion that wearing masks would be of no benefit, would be only harmful, first and foremost for children.
The medical certificates issued by the doctor could in no way be deemed to be incorrect since there has been no examination by the police or the public prosecutor’s office; this is a matter for medical expertise and the professional code of conduct for physicians. Medical professionals are free from directives, especially from non-physicians.
The vast majority of Corona measures are based on the narrative of the epidemiologically relevant asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which has long been refuted. This means that all non-pharmacological measures that go beyond hygiene and self-isolation for sick people (antisocial distancing, masks in public spaces, isolation, quarantine, contact tracing, school closures and curfews) are ineffective and harmful for asymptomatic people who were previously considered healthy.
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | The Palestine Chronicle | April 8, 2011
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told NNC Pierce Morgan on March 18, 2011 that he might agree to a Palestinian state through negotiations. And he added, “We will make territorial concessions although it is very painful to do that in our ancestral land.” Netanyahu was not talking about Poland where his ancestors lived. He was talking about Palestine where generations of its indigenous population ancestors lived, cultivated the land and are buried.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Zionism created a new Jewish identity of blood and soil. To mobilize their followers and supporters and appeal to their emotions, the Zionists created myths. Zionism started as a tribal religion without god, but in order to fulfill its function as a unifying force, Zionism required external religious and race symbols, not inner content. Its leaders regarded metaphysical religious belief and purity of race as having value in itself. They created a divine paradisiacal state of merger with the gods. Despite his non-religious ideology, Herzl’s writings were replete with religious references. The Jews should settle in Palestine because, in his words, “the Temple will be visible from long distance, for it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together”.
The Zionists and their supporters have invested tremendous financial and scholarly resources to work within the Hebrew Bible historical narratives to affirm the links between the intrusive Zionist population and the ancient Israelite past, and by doing so assert the right of that population to the land. The political end-game shaped the investigation and the outcome. Tracing the roots of Israel’s ethnic state in biblical antiquity is effectively to silence the indigenous Palestinian claim to the past and therefore to the land. The Biblical scholarship employs a bewildering array of terms for the region: “the Holy Land”, “the Land of the Bible”, “Eretz Israel”, “the Land of Israel”, or “Judah and Samaria.” To the casual reader these names appear interchangeable, but they all imply connection to ancient Israel.
Biblical narratives or poems that cannot be supported by archeology and common sense are treated by the Zionists and their supporters as historical language. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
Aletho News 