By Dr. Joseph Mercola | September 20, 2022
Just when you thought the U.S. Food and Drug Administration couldn’t possibly get any worse, they prove you wrong. Here are two recent COVID booster campaign messages tweeted out by the FDA:
“It’s time to install that update! #UpdateYourAntibodies with a new #COVID19 booster.”1 “Don’t be shocked! You can now #RechargeYourImmunity with an updated #COVID19 booster.”2
FDA Now Pushes Transhumanist Pipe-Dream
That’s right. The FDA now wants you to believe that your immune system is something that needs to be “recharged,” as if it were a battery, or “updated” with mRNA injections like a piece of software.
This is transhumanist lingo that has no bearing on real-world biology or physiology, and proves beyond doubt that the FDA is fully onboard with the transhumanist ideas of technocracy pushed by the globalist cabal. The human body is basically viewed as nothing more than a biological platform equipped with genetic software that can be altered and updated at will.
The problem, of course, is that your body doesn’t work that way. You cannot turn your body into a “bioreactor”3 or an internal “vaccine-production facility”4 and expect it to work as intended. The massive increase in disability and sudden death among COVID jab recipients is a testament to the fact that allowing Big Pharma to play God is a bad idea.
Transhumanism as a whole is a pipe-dream, as it fails to take into account just about everything that actually makes us human, including the nonlocality of consciousness, which they irrationally believe can be uploaded to a cloud-based system and merged with AI, or downloaded into an artificial body construct, such as a synthetic body.
False Advertising
The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for addressing fraudulent advertising. According to law, an ad must be “truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.”5 The FDA itself also requires drug ads to be “truthful, balanced and accurately communicated.”6
“Balanced” refers to promotional materials that include efficacy and benefit claims, which must include a balance between benefit information and information about risks. In my view, the FDA’s most recent COVID booster ads are clear examples of false advertising, because:
Was No-Test Drug Approval the Plan All Along?
While I cannot prove it, I suspect Operation Warp Speed (OWS) — devised in the spring of 2020 by a dozen top officials from then-President Trump’s health and defense departments to expedite the development of a COVID-19 vaccine8 — may have been intended to normalize the approval of drugs without proper testing.
Even if the normalization of expedited drug approval wasn’t originally intended, it certainly has been used and abused to that aim since. In June 2022, the FDA quietly implemented a “Future Framework” scheme9 to speed up the delivery of COVID boosters. This is what allows for the authorization of reformulated COVID shots without human trials.10,11,12
The FDA basically rewrote the rules on the fly, deciding that mRNA gene therapies are equivalent to conventional influenza vaccines and can be updated and released without testing.
The idea here is that the safety of the mRNA COVID shots has already been proven by the original shots, which they claim have harmed or killed no one. Hence, safety is a given, and the effectiveness of reformulated boosters can be assessed simply by checking the antibody levels in a few mice, which is what Pfizer and Moderna did.
In reality, however, millions of people around the world have been harmed and killed by the original shots, the human trials for those shots were riddled with fraud, antibody levels tell us nothing about the jab’s ability to protect against infection, and the two technologies (conventional flu vaccines and mRNA gene therapy) have no common ground.
I have no doubt this “Future Framework” will also, over time, be widened to include other vaccines and drugs that drug makers may want to tinker with. It may even lower standards for drug trials in general, which historically have required at least 10 years of multiphase testing.13 The dangers of this trend really cannot be overstated.
Analysis of US Booster Policy
In a September 12, 2022, article, Kaiser Health News raised several questions about the FDA’s authorization of the new bivalent COVID boosters:14
“… in the real world, are the omicron-specific vaccines significantly more protective — and in what ways — than the original COVID vaccines so many have already taken? If so, who would benefit most from the new shots? Since the federal government is purchasing these new vaccines … is the $3.2 billion price tag worth the unclear benefit? …
The FDA could have requested more clinical vaccine effectiveness data from Pfizer and Moderna before authorizing their updated omicron BA.5 boosters. Yet the FDA cannot weigh in on important follow-up questions: How much more effective are the updated boosters than vaccines already on the market? In which populations?
And what increase in effectiveness is enough to merit an increase in price (a so-called cost-benefit analysis)? Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, perform such an analysis before allowing new medicines onto the market, to negotiate a fair national price …
As population immunity builds up through vaccination and infection, it’s unclear whether additional vaccine boosters, updated or not, would benefit all ages equally … The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices considered limiting the updated boosters to people 50 and up, but eventually decided that doing so would be too complicated.”
Shocking Jab Study Decimates Safety Claims
In related news, a shocking risk-benefit analysis15 looking at the impact of booster mandates for university students concluded that:
That means mandating a third COVID shot for university students will result in “a net expected harm.” The authors also stress that “Given the high prevalence of post-infection immunity, this risk-benefit profile is even less favorable.” The authors go on to state that “University booster mandates are unethical because:”16
“1) no formal risk-benefit assessment exists for this age group;
2) vaccine mandates may result in a net expected harm to individual young people;
3) mandates are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given the modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission;
4) U.S. mandates violate the reciprocity principle because rare serious vaccine-related harms will not be reliably compensated due to gaps in current vaccine injury schemes; and
5) mandates create wider social harms. We consider counter-arguments such as a desire for socialization and safety and show that such arguments lack scientific and/or ethical support.”
Government Study Reveals COVID Jab Problems
A small observational study17,18 led by neurology researchers at the National Institutes of Health also brings bad news, as they found “a variety of neuropathic symptoms” occurring within three to four weeks of COVID injection:
“We studied 23 patients (92% female; median age 40 years) reporting new neuropathic symptoms beginning within 1 month after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. 100% reported sensory symptoms comprising severe face and/or limb paresthesias, and 61% had orthostasis, heat intolerance and palpitations …
Biopsies from randomly selected five patients that were evaluated for immune complexes showed deposition of complement C4d in endothelial cells. Electrodiagnostic test results were normal in 94% (16/17). Together, 52% (12/23) of patients had objective evidence of small-fiber peripheral neuropathy …
This observational study suggests that a variety of neuropathic symptoms may manifest after SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and in some patients might be an immune-mediated process.”
FDA Refuses to Release Key COVID Jab Safety Analyses
In July 2022, The Epoch Times asked the FDA to release “all analyses performed by the agency for the COVID-19 vaccines using … Empirical Bayesian data mining, which involves comparing the adverse events recorded after a specific COVID-19 vaccine with those recorded after vaccination with non-COVID-19 vaccines.”19
The FDA has so far refused, claiming the data is tied to “internal discussions protected by law.” September 10, 2022, The Epoch Times reported:20
“According to operating procedures laid out by the agency and its partner in January 202121 and February 2022,22 the FDA would perform data mining ‘at least biweekly’ to identify adverse events ‘reported more frequently than expected following vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines.’ The agency would perform the mining on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
In a recent response, the FDA records office told The Epoch Times that it would not provide any of the analyses, even in redacted form. The agency cited an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act that lets the government withhold inter-agency and intra-agency memorandums and letters ‘that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.’
The agency also pointed to the Code of Federal Regulations, which says that ‘all communications within the Executive Branch of the Federal government which are in written form or which are subsequently reduced to writing may be withheld from public disclosure except that factual information which is reasonably segregable in accordance with the rule established in § 20.22 is available for public disclosure.’
It’s not clear why the FDA could not produce copies of the analyses with non-factual information redacted. The Epoch Times has appealed the determination by the records office.”
CDC Also Refuses to Release Its Safety Analyses
According to the VAERS standard operating procedures cited above, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also required to perform data mining analyses, using Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining. PRR23 measures how common an adverse event is for a specific drug compared to all the other drugs in the database.
When The Epoch Times asked the CDC to release its results, it too refused. According to The Epoch Times, the CDC “has also twice provided false information when responding to questions”:24
“The agency initially said that no PRR analyses were done and that data mining is ‘outside of th[e] agency’s purview.’ The agency then said that it did perform PRRs, starting in February 2021. Later, the agency acknowledged that wasn’t true.
The agency did not begin performing PRRs until March 2022, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times. Roger Andoh, a records officer, gave the initial response, citing the CDC’s Immunization and Safety Office. Dr. John Su, a CDC official, gave the second response.
It remains unclear with whom the information originated. The Epoch Times has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for internal emails that may provide answers.”
So far, the FDA has insisted the data show no evidence of serious adverse effects from the COVID jab. The only possible signal they’d found through April 16, 2021, was for raised body temperature. In the article, The Epoch Times cites several papers in which the FDA and/or CDC claim their data mining efforts have come up empty handed.
But if that’s true, why the reluctance to release the data? Don’t they want us to be reassured that these shots are as safe as they claim them to be? Why sit on exculpatory evidence? Unless, of course, the data proves the FDA and CDC have been lying all along.
Senators Calling for Special Grand Jury
In other related news, naturopath Henry Ealy and two Oregon state senators, Kim Thatcher and Dennis Linthicum, have been trying since March 2022 to compel the impaneling of a special grand jury to investigate decisions by federal officials that “significantly compromise[d] the accuracy and integrity of COVID-related data.”25
According to the March 7, 2022, petition,26,27 filed in Portland, Oregon, the 30 defendants manipulated statistics to create “a significant hyperinflation of COVID-19 case, hospitalization and death counts,” which in turn resulted in $3.5 trillion in fraudulent taxpayer expenditures.
Defendants specifically named28 are former CDC director Robert Redfield and current CDC director Rochelle Walensky, former Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Alex Azar, HHS director Xavier Becerra, and National Center for Health Statistics director Brian Moyer.
As explained by Ealy in the video update above, the defendants were given 60 days to reply to the March 7 petition. As it happened, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, Scott Asphaug, was assigned by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to be the defending attorney — an interesting choice, considering Ealy, Thatcher and Linthicum had in 2021 asked Asphaug to investigate the listed defendants, which he refused to do.
Asphaug immediately filed for an extension, which gave them another 60 days. The defendants now had until August 26, 2022, to respond. Suddenly, July 13, the DOJ reassigned Asphaug to Nairobi, Kenya. Asphaug resigned from his post as U.S. attorney, effective July 17, at which point U.S. Attorneys Natalie Wight and Dianne Schweiner took over the CDC’s defense.
When the defendants missed the August 26 deadline, Ealy, Thatcher and Linthicum filed for default judgment.29 Two days later, August 29, Wight and Schweiner opposed default judgment.30
Schweiner’s excuse for missing the deadline was that she’d been busy caring for her acutely sick dog. As noted by Linthicum in his newsletter,31 “no self-respecting sci-fi editor would allow something this outlandish past his desk when trying to make a story about integrity and transparency sound believable.”
Ealy is now convinced the CDC is feeling the heat, and urges Americans to sign Stand for Health Freedom’s petition to convene a special grand jury to investigate the CDC’s conduct during COVID-19.
The more signatures there are on this petition, the stronger the argument that the court must order a grand jury investigation, as it demonstrates that this investigation is important to the American public, and isn’t just some pet grievance by Ealy, Thatcher and Linthicum.
As noted by Ealy, the CDC has committed criminal data fraud. There are laws prohibiting data manipulation by federal agencies, and laws meant to prevent it from happening in the first place.
The CDC violated those laws, not just once, but repeatedly, and those in charge must be held accountable. We cannot have a public health agency flouting data laws in order to justify harming the public. So, please, add your name to the grand jury petition.
Sources and References
Eric Peters Autos – September 15, 2022
Everyone knows – well, everyone has heard – that EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeeeee are the vehicles for solving what is said to be the “climate crisis” – which is an interesting thing to say, given the EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeees being produced are much more powerful than they need to be to get people from A to B. That requires huge batteries, to store all the electricity needed to make them go very fast, very quickly.
You’d think that would be discouraged – even banned – if there is a “crisis” looming that is being caused by the “emission” of carbon dioxide. After all, more of the latter is being “emitted” than necessary by the utility plants that generate almost all of the electricity that powers over-powered EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeees.
Does anyone need to get 60 in 2.9 seconds? Or even six? If there is a “crisis,” that is. Yet practically every EeeeeeeVeeeeee on the market is designed specifically to use up more power than is needed for bare-minimum or even economy-car-equivalent basic transportation needs.
This tells you something about the true nature of the “crisis” – and those who say it is one. If a ship on the open sea has sprung a leak and is sinking, do you open more holes below the waterline?
There are some other things about EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeees they aren’t telling you about as well.
You can’t “fast” charge an EeeeeeeeeVeeeeee at home –
Practically every article gushing about EeeeeeeVeeeeeees will report on the fact that it is possible to “fast”charge an EeeeeeeeeeeVeeee in about 30 minutes. Some will gushingly report that – soon! – you’ll be able to do it in less than 15 minutes. What they never tell you is that you cannot do this at home. Because private homes do not have the capability to “fast” charge an EeeeeeVeeeee. The very “fastest” you can charge an EeeeeeeeeeVeeee at a private home is in around eight-nine hours, on a 240 volt (dryer-type) outlet.
You will never be able to “fast” charge an EeeeeeeeeVeeeee at home. Not without completely rewiring the home to commercial-grade capacity. This means you will always have to drive to wherever the “fast” charger is – and wait there. This means spending time getting to (and from) the “fast” charger. Which means spending more time “fast” charging. Thirty minutes to “fast” charge” ends up being that plus however long it took to drive there, plus the wait there.
And that “15 minutes” – soon! – they also gush about? They do not tell you that while it might be “faster” it is less. As in, not a full recharge. Just enough to get going again. But not very far – before you’ll need to stop (and wait) again.
Speaking of which . . .
A “fast” charge is never a full charge –
Whenever you read an article gushing about EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeees and the miracle of taking at least five times as long to “fast” charge it vs. the five minutes it takes to refuel a non-EeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeee, you will never encounter the disclaimer that the “fast” charge is only 80 percent charged. In other words, you end up with 20 percent less charge than a full charge, which means 20 percent less range . . . which means having to stop (again) 20 percent sooner.
The reason why you cannot – well, should not – “fast” charge an EeeeeeVeeeee to fully charged is because it is hard on the battery, which is the most expensive part of an EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee. There is also an increased fire risk. So EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees (and “fast” chargers) are set up to deliver 80 percent charge “fast” – and the rest, slow.
This 20 percent loss of charge-range – assuming you don’t have time to wait for a full (slow) charge – is probably not a huge big deal if you aren’t going far or have the time to stop and wait (again). But if you’re on a long trip, you’ll be stopping – and waiting – more than you’ve been led to believe you will be.
Speaking of that . . .
The farther you drive, the shorter the service life –
If you drive an EeeeeeeeVeeeeee to the limit of its range, you will have heavily discharged its battery pack. If you want the battery pack to last you should avoid doing this, because regularly discharging a battery is likely to reduce the life of the battery. Meaning, its capacity to hold the charge (and so, deliver the range) it advertised when new. This is why hybrid cars are designed to always keep the battery partially charged. Even so, a hybrid car’s battery pack eventually loses its capacity to hold charge and must be replaced.
But EeeeeeeeeVeeeeees have no gas engine on board to keep the battery from being heavily discharged. This presents a paradox: If you use the EeeeeeeeeVeeeeee’s advertised range you are reducing the battery pack’s service life. Put another way: The EeeeeeeeVeeeeeee’s advertised range is functionally about 30 percent less-than-advertised, if you want to avoid having to spend 30-50 percent as much as the EeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee itself cost you on a replacement battery pack before it is time to replace the EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee, itself.
You have probably not heard about this, either. But you really ought to know about it, if you’re thinking about buying an EeeeeeeeVeeeee.
There are some other things to know about EeeeeeeeVeeeees, too.
If you don’t have a garage, where will you plug in your EeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeee? Will you be able to run an extension cord from inside your house – or apartment – to wherever the EeeeeeeeVeeeeee is parked?
Did you know that leaving an EeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeee garaged outside – in the cold – will result in the EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeee’s range when you parked it being less when you get up the next day to drive it? This is because EeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees burn power even when they aren’t being used – because EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees have powered heating (and cooling) systems that are always on – to keep the battery from getting too cold (or too hot). That means needing to keep the EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeee plugged in, to avoid loss of charge while it’s just sitting – especially if it is sitting outside, in the cold (or heat).
Finally – for those who are considering an EeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeee because they believe that they are thereby reducing their “carbon footprint”: You are probably increasing it. For two reasons.
One, EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees do not last as long as non-EeeeeeeeeeVeeeeees – because EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeee battery packs do not last as long as non-EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeees do and cost more than it’s worth to replace them when they can no longer power the EeeeeeeeVeeeee. That means a new EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeeee sooner. Which means new raw materials (and carbon dioxide “emissions”) to make the new EeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee – which will be just as prematurely disposable as the old EeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee.
Two, because EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeees are energy hogs. Even the small ones like the Tesla 3 – which is a compact-sized car comparable to a Honda Civic sedan – has more than 1,000 pounds of battery pack, which it uses to deliver the speedy 0-60 times it touts. But that entails a probable doubling of the size of the battery pack that would otherwise be needed to deliver adequate (rather than “ludicrous”) speed – and also uses twice (or more) the power needed to keep it charged up. Almost all of that power – especially the commercial-grade power available at “fast” chargers – produced by combusting lots of natural gas, oil and coal. Resulting in lots of carbon dioxide “emissions.”
So, why aren’t the people hard-selling EeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees telling people these things? Well, for the same reason the same people didn’t tell the people about the “vaccines” – until after they’d been injected with them.
By Larry Johnson | A Son Of The New American Revplution | September 19, 2022
Nope, I did not know that. But thank God we have retired General Dave Petraeus to clue us in. He wrote the following 10 days ago:
Turns out that General Dave experienced premature military orgasm. It is true that the Russians retreated from Izyum, but they were not surrounded. Putin has never claimed the “grandiose vision for capturing the entirety of Ukraine.” He has been quite clear–as recently as the press conference this week at the SCO–Russia is going to secure the Donbas. What about growing dissent in Russia about the SMO? Putin, based on his recent news conference at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, could give two shits about the feelings of “the Russian milblogger and Russian nationalist communities.”
I am citing Petraeus not because I respect his alleged military “genius.” I do not not. General Dave had the reputation at West Point as the consummate sychophant. The other cadets said he would marry the Commandant’s homely daughter just to get ahead. Guess what? He did. I cite Petraeus because his views are emblematic of the Washington national security establishment who are totally committed to lying about the reality in Ukraine. No matter what the actual situation is on the ground, Ukraine is winning, Russia is losing and it is just a matter of time before Russia implodes. This theme has been trotted out and paraded around the internet almost every month since March by Ukraine’s western enablers.
The Hill just published another installment of this delusional analysis by Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet. Let’s meet the boys:
Mark Toth is a retired economist, historian and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing and global commerce. He is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, and has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world, including London, Tel Aviv, Augsburg and Nagoya.
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2752375324738/hey-russia-it-s-putin-stupid?noAds=1&_f=app_share&s=i3
Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14, working with NATO partners in the Black Sea and Baltics.
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2752375324738/hey-russia-it-s-putin-stupid?noAds=1&_f=app_share&s=i3
I do not know if their article is the result of ignorance, willful blindness or if they were paid to push propaganda. Regardless of the motive, Toth and Sweet join the Petraeus club and push the objective lie that the tenacious Ukrainians are defeating the Russian army:
it is Ukrainian soldiers, equipped and trained by English-speaking countries, alongside their allies who have opened fresh cans of whoop-ass and are inflicting a beatdown of Putin’s military forces in the Donbas. . . .
There has been one constant since Putin’s illegal invasion began in February: Russia’s military forces have been forced to retreat and regroup, time and time again. . . .
Putin has been exposed as an “emperor with no clothes,” forced to rely upon haggling with Iranian and North Korean surrogates to purchase drones and, according to the New York Times, “millions of artillery shells and rockets.” Saturating social media with disinformation and excuses about why Russian ground forces are failing cannot mask the images of abandoned equipment and reports of Russian soldiers surrendering.
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2752375324738/hey-russia-it-s-putin-stupid?noAds=1&_f=app_share&s=i3
Do you remember that incredible defeat of the Russian army in Mariupol when the Ukrainians surrounded the Russian troops and forced the surrender of 2500 combatants? Neither do I. That is what Russia did to the Ukrainian AZOV battalion.
How about the Russians fleeing in terror ahead of the Ukrainian blitzkrieg around Kherson? Nope. Another dry hole. The Russians pushed that attack back and inflicted catastrophic casualties on the Ukrainians.
What about the Luhansk People’s Republic? Ukraine held on to that and crushed the Russian backed militia. Right? Wrong!! Luhansk was secured and the same process is underway now in the Donetsk People’s Republic.
Why do western political, military and media leaders embrace demonstrable lies? I think it reflects a deeper sickness that afflicts the west. This self-delusion is not an isolated phenomena. Biden, his military commanders and the mainstream media also insist that men can be women and become pregnant, that inflation is zero, that Biden is popular, and that pedophiles are not bad people. Oh yeah, one more–the southern border of the United States is secure.
The time is coming when reality will intrude and destroy the fantasies. It happened to Baghdad Bob, who insisted there were no U.S. tanks in Baghdad in March 2003, and will happen to General Dave, Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet. Seven months into the Russian “Special Military Operation,” Putin and his Generals have committed only a small fraction of their military forces to the conflict. They seem content to destroy Ukrainian units and equipment with artillery, missiles and mortars and force NATO to keep supplying Ukraine so that it can send its troops, armed with new equipment, to the front to be destroyed.
Yet NATO’s European members do not have the industrial capacity to replace the donated military equipment and are facing a bleak winter with scant energy resources needed to power manufacturing plants. The United States also is depleting its stockpile of weapons. Raheem Kassam has provided a very useful summary of what the United States has sent to Ukraine (read here). For example, the United States has provided Ukraine in six months more Javelins than it can produce in one year. So far the number stands at more than 8500, which is more than one-third of the U.S. total arsenal.
And how many Russian tanks have the Ukrainians destroyed with these Javelins? We do not know. The U.S. intelligence community does not know. U.S. intelligence is relying on Ukraine to report the good news and the Ukrainians simply say, “lots.” In theory, U.S. intelligence analysts have the ability to use satellite imagery to count disabled and destroyed tanks. But I am told that has not happened.
What we do have is a lot of social media video showing the Russians capturing hundreds, if not thousands, of javelin ATGMs. And we have videos of Russian tanks being hit with a javelin but continuing to operate. The javelin is not turning out to be the wonder weapon it was promised to be.
Let me reiterate one very important point–the so-called intelligence on Russian casualties in terms of personnel and equipment, is being provided solely by the Ukrainians. The United States has not taken any steps to independently verify the Ukrainian “intelligence.” That is a recipe for disappointment once the truth comes out that Ukraine is guilty of exaggerating.
By Vladimir Kornilov – RIA Novosti – September 20, 2022
And here comes Bucha 2.0: Another provocation where Ukraine has allegedly discovered “mass graves of victims” shortly after Russian troops have withdrawn.
This time in Izium. What it amounts to is clear evidence that along with the development of the military conflict in Ukraine, the informational “special” operation against Russia is intensifying.
It’s not even about Kiev’s reaction – officials there concoct primitive fakes against our state and the army non-stop, around the clock.
The indicator here is the way in which this provocation was immediately picked up by Western politicians, who are already urgently calling for an “international tribunal” to punish Russia. Meanwhile, the West’s media, in a united push, is putting unfounded statements about “mass executions and torture in Izium” on its front pages.
This fakery is crass and easily refuted. But it is clear from this unanimous reaction of the West that no one there cares at all how and when the people buried in the cemetery died. The culprit has been appointed in advance – and it has to be Russia. Because only this verdict fits into the overall strategy of the current campaign in Ukraine.
Which, as we can see, has nothing to do with Ukraine. The West is completely indifferent to whatever happened to the Ukrainians, whoever killed them (even if it was Kiev’s own army or foreign mercenaries) and no matter how many of them died. Because it is not fighting a war on this territory for the Ukrainians, and especially not for Ukraine.
We must speak frankly and openly: the West is waging a fierce war against the Russian state, using local forces as proxies. And this is covered by the fig leaf of “defending democracy.” However, what they really want is for Russia to be destroyed. Forever! Irrevocably!
Janusz Bugajski, a leading expert, recently published his book “Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture.” It is worth highlighting that the work is not a reaction to the Ukrainian conflict, instead it is a logical continuation of all that this ‘Kremlinologist’ has been publicly talking and writing about for years.
Back in early 2019, three years before the current crisis started, he published a feature article in the influential Washington newspaper The Hill, entitled ‘Managing Russia’s Dissolution.’
This was not just a forecast or theoretical speculation by some dreamer, it was a direct call to action by an outspoken Russophobe. Suffice it to recall that Bugajski then openly urged the White House to promote regional and ethnic self-determination within the Russian Federation. At the same time, he was speculating which regions of the state destroyed by the West should receive independence and which should be given to Ukraine, Finland, Japan and even China.
It cannot be said that Bugajski’s article was the only theoretical work on the disintegration of our state. But other reports (at least in the public domain) still sought to veil direct calls for the forced break-up of Russia with arguments about the need to weaken our state. This was the case, for example, with a sensational study by the US intelligence corporation RAND commissioned by the US Department of Defense in 2019.
Now the masks are being thrown off and the cadre of Russophobes can openly articulate their long-held dreams. The Daily Telegraph recently featured the former NATO commander in Europe, General Ben Hodges, in a high-profile article about preparing for Russia’s disintegration. Hodges, who is employed by CEPA – a lobby group bankrolled by US arms contractors and NATO – is arguably one of the most active ‘talking heads’ about the Ukrainian crisis on Western television right now.
The general hopes the collapse of our state will be fueled by our ethnic diversity and he hopes that Western economic sanctions will create a situation in which it will be impossible to feed 144 million people. The American has clearly not thought how these arguments could also be applied to his home country, which has been torn apart by racial divisions in recent years.
Below Hodges, the idea has been cheerfully picked up by less well-known figures operating on the ideological field of Russophobia. The Polish magazine New Eastern Europe published an article about deconstructing Russia and reconstructing the “post-Russian space,” calling it a risky but inevitable scenario. The authors called on the West to lead the process of our state’s disintegration right away.
This is echoed by the Canadian-British professor Taras Kuzio on the pages of the Atlantic Council, a NATO-aligned pressure group and the main mouthpiece of Western Russophobes. He, too, cheerfully declares that the process of “the collapse of Putin’s Russian empire” has begun.
Hodges’ theses are repeated almost word for word by Estonia’s top Kremlinologist Vladimir Yushkin on the pages of the website of the International Centre for Defence and Security. However, he adds nonsense about the allegedly developing “colonization of Siberia by the Chinese” – which tells us he doesn’t know how to use statistics.
All these “prophecies” have been brought into the political realm by Estonian President Alar Karis. Opening the NATO Military Committee conference in Tallinn last Friday, he openly admonished the Chiefs of Staff of the US-led bloc to give up their “fear of destabilizing the situation in Russia.”
This is not some retired general, nor a private person with a professorial rank – it’s the official head of a NATO member country. And he is not shying away from calling on the high command of the alliance to pursue a deliberate policy of creating a situation of instability in Russia.
So, what more proof does anyone need of what the collective West is hoping to achieve?
The ideological touchstone of European liberals, The Economist magazine, has devoted its latest issue to how the West should ensure Ukraine’s victory over Russia. Apart from the traditional advice on further arming the Kiev regime, the magazine explicitly demands that the West must try to drive a wedge between the Russian government and the Russian people. To do this, leaders are urged to bet on Russian liberals who have moved abroad, who in these circumstances can be safely called traitors back home.
They are now in a situation where Russia’s enemies are openly talking about using them to carry out an unrealistic plan to dismember our common motherland!
Thus, we can safely say that the collective West has already moved from talk to action and is openly challenging the very existence of the Russian Federation.
It’s ideologues and a number of top politicians make no secret of the fact that by exploiting the conflict in Ukraine, they are deliberately helping to create an existential threat to our state. The sooner we ourselves officially acknowledge this, the more effectively we will be able to move to a different stage in both relations with our neighbors and the military operation in Ukraine itself.
We still adhere to certain gentlemen’s rules of the game, which were adopted after the end of the Cold War. But now the stakes have been raised too high.
To be clear, I am not calling for us to copy the criminal actions of Ukraine. We, unlike them, do not deliberately kill children, torture prisoners of war, or exterminate civilians.
But in the face of increasing threats to Russian citizens, we are left with no choice but to act much more forcefully against military infrastructure, even if it’s also used by civilians, in the direction of decision-making centres, and towards those individuals directly responsible for terror and murders wherever they are located, as well as tackling states that pursue hostile policies.
After all, we should not forget that when an existential threat to Russia arises, we need to present a tough response.
Those who threaten our homeland should be constantly reminded of this.
Samizdat – 20.09.2022
Western countries slapped Russia with several new rounds of sanctions this year in response to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine. Since, these countries have faced surging inflation, electricity and fuel prices, partly prompted by their own sanctions.
The world is undergoing a transformation, transitioning toward a multipolar order, which becomes the dominating vector of development, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated as he greeted new foreign ambassadors who had arrived in Russia.
The president noted that the only states which oppose this transition are the ones that want to preserve their hegemony and control the world.
“As for Russia, we will not deviate from our sovereign course. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, we intend to further promote a unifying international agenda, contribute to the resolution of numerous challenges and threats of our time, and help with the settlement of acute regional conflicts. This will be Russia’s key talking point at the opening of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly,” Putin said.
Putin added that the poorest countries were hit the hardest by their hegemonic policies, as well as sanctions that the western countries impose. He noted that the obstacles for energy, grain and fertilizer shipments created by the West’s sanctions negatively affected “innocent” developing and poor countries.
“In this light, it’s highly cynical of the West to ignore our offer […] to transfer free of charge 300,000 [tons] of Russian fertilizers blocked in European ports due to sanctions to countries in need,” Putin said.
The West too was hit hard by its sanctions politics, the president noted.
The western countries experienced a surge in inflation, especially in fuel and energy prices, after they imposed sanctions against Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine. This surge added to the woes of western consumers, who had seen shop prices rise since the end of 2021.
Press TV – September 20, 2022
Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi says Western powers have impeded the growth and progress of other countries through their culture of domination and by exploiting international entities to their own benefit.
President Raeisi made the remarks on Monday on the closing day of the three-day Transforming Education Summit at UN Headquarters in New York.
“Unfortunately, the culture of hegemony has defined [West’s] interests in holding back other countries,” he said. “They have impeded other countries’ growth and progress by creating an unfair world order, abusing international organizations, and drawing up schemes to impose their own cultural and intellectual views.”
“Cultural domination and confinement of knowledge are the worst kinds of oppression and injustice,” he added.
Raeisi also urged international entities to respect countries’ cultural and educational sovereignty, noting that it is impossible to transform the education system without taking into account values such as family, equality, and spirituality.
“International organizations are expected to respect countries’ educational and cultural sovereignty and protect them against cultural invasion,” he said.
“The history of Iran’s civilization began with science and knowledge; the Islamic culture elevated it and established its pillars on heavenly reflections,” he said.
Raeisi added that Islam invites humanity to acquire knowledge with the aim of achieving equality, spreading spirituality, and bringing prosperity and development.
“Making progress is a matter of significance for almost all countries, and while governments have implemented international recommendations in this regard, serious challenges have been imposed on national and indigenous cultures simultaneously,” he said.
A development that lacks spirituality and morality won’t last long and will result in societal collapse, the president argued.
Moral values such as respecting the family, protecting the environment, establishing equality, denouncing violence and extremism, promoting internet safety, and encouraging healthy online habits must be among the priorities for transforming education, he said.
The president also took a swipe at the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, criticizing its approaches as “one-dimensional” and “secular,” and saying that the Islamic Republic has drawn up its own educational agenda based on Iranian-Islamic principles.
Iran’s newly set-up educational system is now shifting from rote learning to a system relying on research, creativity, skill-training, and commitments to cultural and religious values, he concluded.
Raeisi left Tehran for New York on Monday morning to take part in the UN General Assembly.
The Transforming Education Summit was convened in response to a global crisis in education. The crisis, which is often slow and unseen, is said to have a devastating impact on the future of children and youth worldwide.
By Aneela Rashid – Samizdat – 20.09.2022
Pakistan has a young and growing entrepreneurial population, with English as the main language for business, but inflation, as well as the recent political turmoil and devastating floods, are making it difficult for industries to flourish.
Tension among Pakistan’s business community is on the rise following unprecedented inflation caused by multiple factors, including COVID-19, monsoon floods and political instability.
Despite recent improvements in the business environment, many problems remain an issue for companies operating in Pakistan. Pakistan had previously climbed 28 places to 108 out of 190 countries ranked on the ease of doing business by the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business report.
Considering that the country has a young population, with English as the main language for business, there are plenty of opportunities due to the expanding middle class which has a keen eye for imported goods and services.
Foreign retail and franchise outlets are also spreading rapidly in urbanized cities and the country has a natural endowment in agriculture and minerals.
The country’s most developed industries – cotton textile production and apparel manufacturing – account for about 66% of exports and almost 40% of the employed labor force, as stated in the report Pakistan Market Insights 2021.
Other major industries include cement, fertilizer, edible oil, sugar, steel, tobacco, chemicals, machinery, and food processing.
As such, the economic outlook of Pakistan presents many opportunities, but also many challenges, particularly in the long-term, which are harming the country’s industries and business opportunities.
Annual inflation in the country increased to 27.3% in August, the highest since May 1975, according to a report by Trading Economics. Inflation is causing panic amongst both urban and rural dwellers.
Transport prices recorded the biggest increase of nearly 65%, due to high fuel prices that have seen a 94.4% increase in urban areas and almost 100% in rural areas. Meanwhile, housing and utilities have seen a 27.6% rise, with electricity charges rising a whopping 123.4%. Food and non-alcoholic beverages also jumped in price by a record level of 29.5%.
The Pakistan rupee is expected to trade at 242.06 to the US$ by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts’ expectations. As Pakistan experiences economic disorder with fast-depleting foreign reserves, historic depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar and soaring inflation, the country’s industries and business community are taking a big hit.
Some 40,000 industries in the port city of Karachi alone are unable to continue production, according to a report by Bloomberg. Karachi’s power utility, K-Electric Ltd., warned that it may start widespread power cuts in the city of 20 million, which could include prolonged rationing to industrial zones for the first time in 11 years.
“These current conditions are severely hindering KE’s ability to procure fuel, causing a permanent curtailment of power generation that translates to as much as 10 hours of planned blackouts for some parts of the city,” Sadia Dada, a spokesperson for K-Electric was reported as saying by Bloomberg.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Mian Nauman Kabir said that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) is doing great harm to the economy of Pakistan. “I am receiving messages from the industrialists every day, who say they are shutting their industrial units due to high electricity bills,” he said.
However, many of the country’s leading industrialists refrain from expressing their frustrations to the media, anxious not to land on the wrong side of current or future political leaders. However, there are some who are not afraid to voice their concerns.
An unnamed businessman told the Dawn newspaper, “If politicians fail to resist the temptation to take their conflict out of parliament it can make the country drift towards anarchy. Yes, we are worried for our businesses, but we are more concerned about the safety and security of our family and the future of this country.”
Similarly, businessman Musadaq Zulqarnain said that Pakistan needs a sustained growth of 7-8 per cent for several years. According to him, this continued growth needs to be powered by an increase in exports, if the country is to come out of its economic troubles.
A few other business leaders also expressed their frustration with the lack of clarity in politics and were critical of “mismatched priorities of successive governments.”
Meanwhile, a prominent member of Pakistan’s business community, Mian Muhammad Mansha, believes that the country needs to tell the untold story of its rich, untapped business opportunities, and change the world’s perception about itself. In an interview with Dawn, the billionaire industrialist said that it is vital to convince foreign investors to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to shore up foreign currency reserves and boost economic growth.
“Our problems will be solved only when foreign investors start to invest here. You can’t build foreign reserves with exports alone. India has accumulated reserves of $650 billion mainly by attracting FDI,” stated Mansha.
His advice to the government was to borrow the needed money to stabilize the economy and then move towards rapid growth. “Once the economy starts growing, it will yield a lot bigger tax revenue than you can hope to collect by boosting the tax rates. The deficit will not matter any longer. We mustn’t just look at the budgets; these are just a small part of the economy. The bigger economy exists outside the budget and the public sector; we should grow that and tap the hitherto untapped potential of the country and opportunities it offers,” he further said.
On August 29, the IMF’s executive board approved almost $1.2 billion for Pakistan. Antoinette Sayeh, IMF deputy managing director and acting chair, criticized Pakistan’s government policies that caused “uneven and unbalanced growth,” saying that the country must implement “corrective policies and reforms” to regain economic stability, and sustainable growth.
In a recent interview with Reuters, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Miftah Ismail noted that the country was awaiting $4 billion for budgetary and other financial support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the World Bank. He said that around $1.5 billion was expected to be disbursed to Islamabad next month from the ADB as a “countercyclical support facility”.
However, some reports suggest that this funding may not be enough to pull Pakistan out of its deep economic crisis. The floods alone are estimated to have caused more than $10 billion in damages, and these are just preliminary estimates. With Pakistan’s agricultural output brought to a standstill and 80% of the country’s crops destroyed, the food shortages will only exacerbate.
The concerns voiced by the business community echo the pleas of common Pakistanis, who are desperately waiting for the debilitating economic stress to ease off in the nearest future.
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 20, 2022
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Samarkand on September 16 after the SCO Summit turned into a media scandal. The Western media zeroed in on six words culled out of context in the PM’s opening remarks — “today’s era is not of war”— to triumphantly proclaim that India is finally distancing itself from Russia on Ukraine issue, as the US and European leaders have been incessantly demanding.
Of course, this motivated interpretation lacks empirical evidence and is, therefore, malicious. Besides, Modi also spoke with a rare interplay of emotions by underscoring the quintessence of the Indian-Russian relationship, and his two decade-long association with Putin.
The steamy part cooked up by the US media shows the desperation on the part of the “Collective West” to isolate Russia at a time when even western leaders have candidly admitted that the bulk of the non-western world does not identify with the western narrative on Ukraine and refuses to roll back their relationship with Russia.
Many countries are, in fact, stepping up their cooperation with Russia —Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, for example. Curiously, even western companies are loathe to leave the highly attractive Russian market where business returns are high. A report in the Atlantic Council magazine on September 18 highlights that although something like 1,000 multinational corporations had announced that they would be leaving Russia in the wake of the western sanctions, “the unfortunate reality is that… three-quarters of the most profitable foreign multinationals remain in Russia.” Thus, statistically, while 106 western companies exited the Russian market, over 1,149 internationals still remain and simply keep silent about it.
The giant Sakhalin-2 oil-and-natural-gas project in the Russian Far East is a celebrated case where two big energy Japanese investors Mitsui and Mitsublishi, with government support, simply refused to quit, as the Russian project supplies 9 percent of Japan’s energy needs. The G7 has no option but to exempt Japan from the purview of sanctions when it comes to Sakhalin-2!
Again, the West continues to import fertiliser from Russia and to that end, lifts the restrictions on shipping, insurance, etc. But the restrictions continue against Russia’s exports of food grain and fertiliser to the non-Western world. Russia has now offered to distribute the fertiliser held up in European ports free of charge to the poorest countries in Africa if only the restrictions for exports are waived, but Europe would rather use it for their own needs.
It has recently been exposed that the brouhaha about a “global food crisis” (which India too mouthed) was basically a cheap hoax perpetrated by the Biden Administration to get Russia to allow the sale of wheat held up in Ukrainian silos to the European market by American companies, who have apparently bought up Ukraine’s farm lands and control that country’s grain trade! Only a fraction of the grain shipments from Ukraine went to poor countries threatened by famine. Suffice to say, the US and the European Union pressure on India’s purchase of Russian oil was nothing but bullying.
That said, India should know that in a situation where Russia faces an existential threat to its security, it will not be deterred in firmly, decisively responding, no matter what anybody says. Will India be deterred if any foreign country gets agitated over state repression in Kashmir? Violence and bloodshed are abhorrent features of the contemporary world situation and is a painful reality all over the world.
That is why, PM Modi’s awkward reference to war and peace in his initial remarks to Putin at Samarkand was way out of place in what turned out to be a “wonderful” meeting otherwise. There was simply no need to have characterised, at PM’s level, the Ukraine conflict as a “war”. It betrayed ignorance, since the whole world knows that what is going on is a proxy war between the US and Russia that had been simmering through the past quarter century ever since NATO began its eastward enlargement with an agenda to encircle Russia. Moscow seriously erred by tolerating the US interference in Ukraine so long until NATO finally appeared on its doorstep. It is doubtful if India would have shown such strategic patience.
Against such a complex backdrop, the litmus test of India’s “neutrality” will, perhaps, lie in EAM Jaishankar at least speaking up on the NATO’s eastward expansion, the US stoking the fire of conflict by pumping tens of billions of dollars worth weaponry into Ukraine, and the Biden Administration’s diabolical role in undermining nascent peace moves between Moscow and Kiev.
If Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and Hungary’s Viktor Orban can speak up, although NATO leaders, why can’t India’s EAM? But, never mind, there is no question of Jaishankar even remotely embarrassing Biden.
From the Kremlin readout, Putin actually acknowledged right at the outset of the conversation with Modi that Russia and India are not on the same page on Ukraine. To be sure, Putin must be knowing that India’s behaviour is guided by its narrowly defined self-interests and conditioned by an itch to do cherrypicking. But Moscow has never been and will never be a demanding partner. Mutual interest and mutual respect are the hall marks of Russian diplomacy toward India. Despite own reservations over what India was doing by splitting Pakistan into two halves, when the crunch time came in 1971, Moscow not only stood by India but even despatched its warships and submarines to guard Indian waters from a potential US military intervention against India. It is, therefore, all the more reason for us to be discreet.
Ironically, India must be one of the few countries that benefits out of the Ukraine conflict. Aside oil, coal and what not at low prices, paradoxically, even the rupee has taken baby steps to commence its indeterminate journey to become a “world currency.” No patriotic Indian will criticise the Modi government for such sophistry. However, confusion arises when morality is injected into all this with a contrived attitude of indignation, when there is really no need for it.
The meeting in Samarkand took place in the context of the SCO’s annual summit. The summit was not about Ukraine but about the profound issues that have surfaced in its wake that will shape the contours of the world order. This SCO summit was special, as it took place amid large-scale geopolitical changes, triggering a rapid and irrevocable transformation of the entire complex of international ties, relations, policies, economy, when a new model based on the real multi-polarity and dialogue is being built.
Everyone understands that the SCO, which represents half the world’s population, will help forge the new world order. Unlike the case with NATO, where all decisions are made in Washington and imposed on America’s “allies”, there is no Pied Piper in the SCO tent. Modi could easily have played a meaningful role at the summit instead of meandering his way aimlessly through the pandemic, supply chains, et al, at a juncture when such profound issues were being discussed by his peer group in Samarkand.
The word “multipolarity,” which was on everyone’s mind in Samarkand, didn’t even figure in Modi’s speech at Samarkand. Whoever drafted the speech must have done it with an eye on Washington. Therefore, don’t blame the US media. They happened to notice all these aberrations and decided to cull out those six sharply-etched words to put India on the mat, mocking it for doublespeak and rank opportunism, and all that hand-wringing by the apologists of our government cannot wash away that stain.
Samizdat | September 20, 2022
The US Department of Justice would like Congress to amend laws governing asset forfeiture, so money confiscated from Russian “kleptocrats” can be given to Ukraine, the head of the interagency sanctions task force Andrew Adams told the Senate on Tuesday while testifying at a hearing called “Tightening the Screws on Russia.”
Adams, formerly a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), is the head of the interagency Task Force KleptoCapture, a sanctions enforcement outfit created in February. The “scope, intended impact, and international alignment” of the anti-Russia sanctions are “without precedent,” he told senators.
Among the proposals he listed at the hearing was a pitch for Congress to amend the existing US asset forfeiture laws, in order to allow the government to “remediate harms caused to Ukraine by Russia’s war of aggression,” as Adams put it.
The departments of justice, treasury and state would like the ability to give the funds seized from Russia and Russians to the government in Kiev, but doing so “requires amendments to multiple statutes governing the use of forfeited funds,” he said.
Earlier in his testimony, Adams mentioned that the measures implemented by the US and its allies “have included immobilizing the Russian Central Bank’s assets, held in coffers around the world.” It was not clear, however, whether these funds would fall under the scheme to transfer money to Ukraine – something the government in Kiev has demanded for months, both of the US and of the EU.
Asset forfeiture is a controversial practice in US law, which proponents have defended as a “key tool” for weakening organized crime and funding law enforcement. Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have called it “policing for profit” and described it as “egregiously at odds with our due process rights.”
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By Damian Lataan | February 7, 2012
As the West prepares to march off to yet another war in the Middle East, we should perhaps remind ourselves of who is giving the West their marching orders.
In February 2003, just weeks before the US and their allies launched their attack on Iraq and her peoples, a delegation of US congressmen, together with the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, a well known pro-Zionist and neoconservative war-hawk, were in Israel at the invitation of the Israeli government then led by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Addressing the congressmen, Sharon told them ‘that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq’. Later, Sharon told John Bolton ‘that Israel was concerned about the security threat posed by Iran, and stressed that it was important to deal with Iran even while American attention was focused on Iraq’. … continue
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