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New Information Confirms Fauci and NIH Misled the Public on Lab Leak Theory

… to no one’s surprise

By Ian Miller | Unmasked | January 26, 2023

Turns out that the possibility of COVID originating from a lab leak was not a conspiracy theory after all.

“Experts” dictated many inexcusable and destructive protocols during the pandemic, from pushing ineffective mask mandates to promoting lockdowns and school closures.

But one of their most sinister actions was the almost immediate attempt to shut down debate over the lab leak hypothesis.

This likely emanated from the wrong people noticing the bizarre coincidence of a novel coronavirus beginning to spread in Wuhan, just a few miles away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab dedicated to studying viruses and how they spread.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton was one of the first prominent individuals to suggest the lab could have been partially responsible. Former President Donald Trump did as well.

That meant that politically motivated “experts” and media outlets such as the Washington Post immediately rushed to label any discussion of the hypothesis as a debunked conspiracy theory.

However, over the past year and a half, the discussion finally shifted towards taking the possibility seriously. That shift has even more abruptly accelerated in recent days.

The Intercept just published newly unredacted emails showing that the same “experts” who had attempted to undermine competing narratives, actually believed it was probable the virus came from the lab.

Scientists like Dr. Fauci, the UK’s Jeremy Farrar, and multiple others repeatedly sent each other messages during the early days of the pandemic suggesting that they harbored substantial doubts about the possibilities of a natural origin.

However, when they realized the implications of that possibility, they rapidly and dramatically switched positions.

Lab Leak Was Initially Deemed Possible

Naturally Dr. Fauci was one of the ringleaders of the early discussions.

When one expert, Kristian Anderson explained that there was a possibility that the virus had been “engineered,” he leapt into action.

Fauci was so concerned that he believed this information might need to be reported to the FBI and MI5

“He should do this very quickly and if everyone agrees with this concern, they should report it to the appropriate authorities. I would imagine that in the USA this would be the FBI and in the UK it would be MI5,” he wrote.

International experts quickly organized a conference call to discuss, and Fauci famously emailed one of his top employees, Hugh Auchincloss, that he would urgently need to speak with him.

“It is essential that we speak this AM. Keep your cell phone on. … You will have tasks today that must be done,” Fauci said.

During a recent deposition, he gave quite an unsatisfactory explanation for the motivations in that email.

He claimed in one answer that he “wanted to be briefed on the scope of what our collaborations were and the kind of work that we were funding in China. I wanted to know what the nature of that work was.”

Except, of course, that doesn’t explain what “tasks” said employee would be required to complete. Explaining the scope of their work and connection to the Wuhan lab would explain why it was “essential” to speak. But what tasks were so imperative that Auchincloss “must” do?

Fauci is, of course, no stranger to deflection when it comes to full and complete explanations for his behavior or statements.

Dr. Fauci Was Finally Asked Difficult Questions, And Unsurprisingly, He Lied

Multiple “experts” on that conference call repeated in writing that they believed the lab leak required strong consideration.

One was described as being “70:30” or “60:40” in favor of an “accidental-release.” Another said he essentially couldn’t imagine the virus occurring naturally.

“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. … it’s stunning.”

Many of those involved then collaborated to write an article just over a month later. It was famously published in Nature, and stated that those who signed didn’t believe “any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

That article was released quickly, despite the concerns, thanks in large part to Fauci.

One of the other scientists involved in the email chain, Dutch scientist Ron Fouchier, had suggested waiting for more information to emerge before taking a public position.

But Fauci was more concerned about protecting reputations, egos, money and his organization. So he pushed for immediate action.

“I agree that we really cannot take Ron’s suggestion about waiting,” Fauci emailed. “Like all of us, I do not know how this evolved, but given the concerns of so many people and the threat of further distortions on social media, it is essential that we move quickly.”

Jeremy Farrar concurred, replying, “Critical that responsible, respected scientists and agencies get ahead of the science and the narrative of this and are not reacting to reports which could be very damaging.”

Self-Protection

Farrar implying that it could be “very damaging” if the lab leak hypothesis was deemed credible is likely the explaination for the rapid mobilization.

Experts didn’t want the wrong people, or those in the media, to seriously consider the possibility that the lab could have potentially “engineered” the virus in some capacity.

Another email from Fouchier was even more obvious.

Lab leak discussion “would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular,” Fouchier said.

The emails make it clear that no one involved really had a definitive answer either way.

But instead of telling the truth about their uncertainty while acknowledging the need for more information, they moved to quickly shut down debate.

Informing the public about the possibility of the lab leak may have led to additional government oversight, or in a more catastrophic outcome, awareness that scientific research may have gone too far, resulting in a loss of funding.

So with no further justification, they rapidly coalesced and organized into “debunking” the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory” spokesmen in order to ensure that the proper channels closed ranks around their perspective.

And how right they were. Media outlets and “fact checkers” rushed to label anyone who discussed the lab leak hypothesis. They fanatically defended Fauci and patronizingly dismissed legitimate concerns.

All to protect themselves and their field.

The Intercept quoted Sergei Pond, a virologist from Temple University, on these unredacted emails. He pointed out that they show how poorly conducted their process was, once they determined that it could be damaging for their profession.

“It started out being a fairly careful discussion, with anomalies being aired out and people saying multiple times that there is simply not enough data to resolve this,” he said. “But at some point, I think there was such strong pressure that they went from ‘Let’s just wait to get more data’ to ‘Let’s publish something that has a very strong opinion favoring one explanation over another without acquiring any new data.’”

David Relman, another expert professor of microbiology, immunology, and medicine at Stanford University, agreed.

“When I first saw it in March 2020, the paper read to me as a conclusion in search of an argument,” he said. “Among its many problems, it failed to consider in a serious fashion the possibility of an unwitting and unrecognized accidental leak during aggressive efforts to grow coronaviruses from bat and other field samples. It also assumed that researchers in Wuhan have told the world about every virus and every sequence that was in their laboratories in 2019. But these [unredacted emails] actually provide evidence that the authors considered a few additional lab-associated scenarios, early in their discussions. But then they rushed to judgment, and the lab scenarios fell out of favor.”

Par for the course

Multiple investigations have suggested that COVID was “most likely” due to a lab leak, yet many of those involved in these initial discussions have refused to take responsibility.

Their dismissals shaped the national and international conversation for months, if not years. Yet they were intentionally misleading, as is now almost universally acknowledged.

In particular, Anthony Fauci is guilty of revisionist history, as he so often has been.

The emails clearly show his intention was always to protect his profession, his agency and the scientific community by shutting down debate.

Yet recently he’s claimed to have an “open mind” about the lab leak.

“I have a completely open mind about that, despite people saying that I don’t,” Fauci told Meet the Press.

He made this laughable assertion despite the truth; he didn’t approve of the open discussions taking place daily on social media.

This would be the same social media he claims he never uses.

“I don’t have a Twitter account. I have never had a Twitter account. I don’t intend on having a Twitter account. And I have had nothing to do with Twitter,” Fauci told Neil Cavuto recently.

Intellectually honest people with nothing to hide would have apologized, admitted why they had misgivings, and worked to regain the public’s trust.

But as has been publicly displayed over the past few years, there are evidently few intellectually honest people in the fields of epidemiology or virology.

The unredacted emails reveal what should have been obvious from the beginning. The lab leak was the possible, if not likely explanation for the start of the pandemic.

Yet politics and self-protection took over, and open debate was crushed by the expert-media industrial complex.

Like so many other aspects of COVID debates, Fauci did his best to ensure that he, his methods and his allies were never questioned.

U.S. Involvement in Wuhan Lab Wasn’t Properly Monitored

Fauci’s rush to discredit the lab leak hypothesis was also due in part to what he likely learned from Auchincloss. Namely, the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars of grant money from the U.S. government had been sent to the Wuhan lab.

And not just by the U.S. government, but agencies he was directly involved with.

The National Institutes of Health, under former leaders like Dr. Francis Collins and Fauci, gave grant money to the EcoHealth Alliance, a “scientific research” group that works to prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases.

EcoHealth received this money ostensibly to study how best to identify and control pandemics. They then redirected funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where bat viruses were being studied.

The same Wuhan Institute of Virology which may possibly be the source of the pandemic.

NIH Didn’t Ensure Lab Compliance With Requirements

The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services recently conducted an audit of NIH and EcoHealth and found that they failed to ensure compliance with grant requirements.

“Despite identifying potential risks associated with research being performed under the EcoHealth awards, we found that NIH did not effectively monitor or take timely action to address EcoHealth’s compliance with some requirements,” the report read.

Essentially, NIH sent grant money to EcoHealth Alliance with certain limitations on what kind of research it could fund. EcoHealth then sent money to the Wuhan lab, which was conducting risky experiments, and neither the agency or the company effectively monitored the work that was actually being performed.

If that sounds like a major problem, that’s because it is.

Although the investigators said that the lab did cooperate for a time, after the start of the pandemic, they immediately stopped.

“Although WIV cooperated with EcoHealth’s monitoring for several years, WIV’s lack of cooperation following the COVID 19 outbreak limited EcoHealth’s ability to monitor its subrecipient,” it read.

In a stunning turn of events, after the initial outbreak that they may have played a role in starting, the Wuhan lab declined to cooperate with efforts to uncover what happened.

Who could have possibly predicted that? Certainly not those in charge of NIH who distributed grant money and then essentially turned a blind eye to what it was used on afterwards.

Massive Mistakes

The importance of this inexcusable decision making can’t be overstated.

The U.S. government essentially handed over taxpayer money to the Wuhan lab, with little knowledge of how it was being used.

And then scientists involved in funding and advancing this research used their credentials and status to label anyone who pointed out the connection.

Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, Peter Daszak and an international community of experts organized to write a paper claiming to debunk the lab leak, all while being fully aware that the lab had been experimenting with little oversight or accountability.

Their emails show that they had been reliably informed that the virus could have been “engineered,” and that it seemed impossible for it to have occurred naturally.

NIH had little to no awareness of how their grant money was being used, yet its leaders collaborated with the company who could not or would not give them answers.

While it’s extremely disturbing, it’s not remotely surprising.

At this point, it’d be more of a surprise if an investigation uncovered that they had actually been telling the truth.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

HHS Office of Inspector General Maneuvers to Throw Fauci Under Bus Without Hurting Him

Audit finds lax oversight of EcoHealth grants for “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs)”

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | January 27, 2023

Three years after SARS CoV-2 broke out, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) just issued a dry-as-dust report on its audit of the NIH grants to EcoHealth Alliance “totaling approximately $8.0 million, which included $1.8 million of EcoHealth’s subawards to eight subrecipients, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).”

The auditors concluded that:

Using its discretion, NIH did not refer the research to HHS for an outside review for enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs) because it determined the research did not involve and was not reasonably anticipated to create, use, or transfer an ePPP. However, NIH added a special term and condition in EcoHealth’s awards and provided limited guidance on how EcoHealth should comply with that requirement. We found that NIH was only able to conclude that research resulted in virus growth that met specified benchmarks based on a late progress report from EcoHealth that NIH failed to follow up on until nearly 2 years after its due date.

In plain English, the NIH financed a company conducting dangerous and illegal research that likely resulted in or contributed to a viral pandemic that inflicted incalculable damage on the entire human race. Note the Orwellian sleight of hand trick of using the term “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens ePPP” instead of the “Gain-of-Function,” which the public now understands to be illegal.

And what does the OIG recommend be done about this? Its recommendations are written in such toothless and boring prose that the average reader will likely fall asleep before reaching the end of the paragraph.

We recommend that NIH ensure that EcoHealth accurately and in a timely manner report award and subaward information; ensure that administrative actions are appropriately performed; implement enhanced monitoring, documentation, and reporting requirements for recipients with foreign subrecipients; assess whether NIAID staff are following policy to err on the side of inclusion when determining whether to refer research that may involve ePPP for further review; consider whether it is appropriate to refer WIV to HHS for debarment; ensure any future NIH grant awards to EcoHealth address the deficiencies noted in the report; and resolve costs identified as unallowable as well as possibly unreimbursed costs.

The OIG report suggests that the HHS is now maneuvering to throw retired NIAID director Anthony Fauci under the bus for these “regrettable indiscretions,” while giving the appearance of taking corrective action. Fauci will enjoy his retirement, only occasionally interrupted by theatrical Congressional hearings that will result in zero disciplinary action. EcoHealth Alliance will continue receiving generous grants like the $3 million it was just awarded, and its officers will continue pocketing much of the money for themselves. Business as usual in the Land of the Racketeers will continue.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | 1 Comment

Bill Gates — After Reaping Huge Profits Selling BioNTech Shares — Trashes Effectiveness of COVID Vaccines

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 27, 2023

Bill Gates, long recognized as one of the world’s foremost proponents of vaccines, raised some eyebrows at a recent talk in Australia when he admitted there are “problems” with current COVID-19 vaccines.

Speaking at Australia’s Lowy Institute as part of a talk entitled “Preparing for Global Challenges: In Conversation with Bill Gates,” the Microsoft founder made the following admission:

“We also need to fix the three problems of [COVID-19] vaccines. The current vaccines are not infection-blocking. They’re not broad, so when new variants come up you lose protection, and they have very short duration, particularly in the people who matter, which are old people.”

Such statements came as a surprise to some in light of Gates’ longstanding support of — and investments in — vaccine manufacturers and organizations promoting global vaccination. However, they were the latest in a string of developments in recent weeks that have increasingly called the COVID-19 vaccines, in particular, into question.

‘This is a grift’: Gates’ investments in mRNA vaccines reveal ‘conflict of interest’

Several analysts and commentators were critical of Gates — but not due to disagreement with the statements he made in Australia. Instead, they argued that he had previously heavily invested in mRNA vaccines at the same time he encouraged a global COVID-19 vaccination campaign and supported mandatory vaccination.

Speaking Jan. 25 on The Hill TV’s “Rising,” co-hosts Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave addressed Gates’ statements. Soave initially agreed at face value with Gates’ criticism of current mRNA vaccines, saying:

“He really nails it on the issues that we’re having: the short duration of protection, not a significant discernable impact on the transmission of cases … not a massive benefit for a lot of otherwise healthy and younger people.”

However, Soave — who on Jan. 19 revealed “Facebook files” indicating the CDC significantly influenced content moderation and censorship on the platform pertaining to COVID-19 vaccines — then pointed out Gates’ prior investments that contributed to the development of mRNA vaccine technology.

Soave said, “Bill Gates was a major proponent of mRNA technology … he was an investor in BioNTech, which developed the mRNA vaccine for Pfizer.”

“We were just doing some digging,” continued Soave, “[and] we saw that he sold a lot of those shares at … how much profit was that?”

“10x,” replied Gray. “He invested $55 million in BioNTech back in 2019 and it’s now worth north of $550 million. He sold some stock … at the end of last year, I believe it was, with the share price over $300, which represented a huge gain for him over when he invested.”

Soave then unleashed critical comments directed at Gates:

“Let’s follow that trajectory: [Gates] invests heavily in BioNTech, ‘mRNA vaccines are great, this is the future,’ he talks about the vaccine timeline and how we can develop it faster, ‘we might have to cut some corners on safety’ … All in … sells it … makes a huge amount of money … but now it’s ‘yeah, it’s okay, it could be better, but what we really need is this breath spray.’”

Soave was referring to a statement Gates made during his recent talk in Australia, immediately prior to his remarks regarding the mRNA vaccines, where he said:

“We think we can also have, very early in an epidemic, a thing that you can inhale that will mean that you can’t be infected, a blocker, an inhaled blocker.”

Gray raised the issue of conflicts of interest between individuals such as Gates who hold significant positions with drug and vaccine manufacturers, and the federal government’s spending of large sums of taxpayer money to purchase these products. She said:

“This is a grift. These companies are extracting money, taxpayer money as it were, to pay for medical treatments that are not indicated by medical professionals and are less useful than what we already have.

“At the same time, the Biden administration is opening its doors, revolving doors, to people from these various industries like Jeff Zients, who is the new chief of staff for Joe Biden … who has spent his entire career at the kinds of companies, investing in the kinds of companies, that have been overcharging the government for Medicare and Medicaid payments and exact kinds of overpayments. It is an enormous grift and one that is incredibly common.”

Zients was formerly the Biden administration’s “COVID czar” and publicly pushed for universal vaccination.

Soave then said that Gates’ statements, and the broader issue of conflicts of interest between drug and vaccine proponents and the federal government, give credence to the assertions long made by “anti-vaxxers and the like.” He said:

“For there not to be more interrogation of his conflict of interest here by the mainstream is deeply disturbing, and for people who have been skeptical of this aspect of Pfizer and the drug development around COVID and who have been shot down in the media as kooks, anti-vaxxers and the like, I frankly think that this issue of pharmaceutical corruption and people pushing various interventions, having an investment in profit, should have been an issue that the left was leading on.

“We have to be more transparent about the fact that people who are having input in what the government policy is going to be, what’s going to be required people, the Biden administration tried to require people to get this, shouldn’t it be known at least when there are hundreds of millions of dollars of financial interests at stake for the people advising this? And their tune changes as it follows the money!”

Investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel also had scathing remarks following Gates’ statements in Australia, writing on his blog:

“Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who served as one of the architects of Covid hysteria and had more of an impact than any other individual on the disastrous global pandemic policies, has finally acknowledged that the mRNA shots he’s been promoting for two years are nothing more than expired pharma junk.

“Translation: Gates admits that the shots are impossible to align with rapidly developing variants, they expire in lighting speed, and they don’t stop transmission. And they don’t work for the only at-risk portion of the population.”

Schachtel called this “an incredible reversal from the man who once advertised the shots as the cure to the coronavirus,” drawing upon Gates’ previous statement: “everyone who takes the vaccine is not just protecting themselves but reducing their transmission to other people and allowing society to get back to normal.”

In 2021, Gates described the mRNA vaccines as “magic,” saying they would be a “game changer” in the next five years.

Gates warns about ‘next pandemic,’ praises lockdowns, calls for more pandemic simulations

As reported by the Daily Mail Jan. 23, Gates’ talk in Australia was notable for some additional statements he made.

Gates “called for greater global cooperation using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of how countries could improve on their response if they worked together,” arguing that “political leaders needed to set aside their differences and work together to prepare for the next virus.”

He also praised Australia’s strict lockdown policies, saying:

“Some of the things that stand out are that Australia and about seven other countries did population scale diagnostics early on and had quarantine policies.

“That meant you kept the level of infection low in that first year when there were no vaccines.”

Gates also called for more “pandemic simulations” to assist world leaders in dealing with “future pandemics.” He said:

“The one thing that still hangs in the balance is will we have the global capacity and at the regional and country levels that would mean that when an (infectious disease) threat comes up we act in such a way that it doesn’t go global.

“We need to be doing every five years a comprehensive exercise at both country and regional levels of pandemic preparedness and you need a global group that’s scoring everybody.”

As part of such preparedness, Gates called upon countries to have “standby tools,” including vaccines, in place for the next pandemic:

“So there’s a class that’s got measles in it, a class of flu, a class of coronavirus, and a fourth class, all of which we need to have standby tools, both antivirals and vaccines that can deal with those. It’s very doable. So on the tools front, we can be far more prepared.”

Schachtel noted that Gates was a sponsor of Event 201, a simulation conducted Oct. 18, 2019, which “predicted” a global coronavirus pandemic. One of the sponsors of Event 201 was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

The BMGF is a partner of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and holds a seat on its board. In turn, Gavi closely collaborates with the ID2020 Alliance, a strong proponent of “vaccine passports,” as previously reported by The Defender. Microsoft and the BMGF are founding members of ID2020.

According to the same report by The Defender, the BMGF in September 2022 pledged $1.27 billion in support of “global health and development projects.”

And as previously reported by The Defender, the BMGF previously committed, in June 2020, $750 million toward the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine at Oxford University, and conditional funding of $150 million to the Serum Institute of India — the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold.

The Serum Institute also received a $4 million grant from the BMGF in October 2020 to support research and development as part of the COVID-19 response, while in August 2020, the Serum Institute, in partnership with the BMGF and Gavi, agreed to produce up to 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.

In a posting on his official blog in December 2020, Gates wrote that his foundation “took on some of the financial risk” for the vaccine, so that if the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was not approved, the Serum Institute wouldn’t “have to take a full loss.”

Gates’ remarks latest in a string of negative press for COVID, mRNA vaccines

Gates’ remarks in Australia — and the attention they received from the press — represent the latest in a series of less-than-flattering media portrayals about COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines in recent weeks.

On Jan. 22, the Wall Street Journal published a highly critical editorial regarding the FDA’s non-disclosure of data pertaining to the efficacy of the COVID-19 bivalent boosters. Allysia Finley, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, wrote:

“Federal agencies took the unprecedented step of ordering vaccine makers to produce them and recommending them without data supporting their safety or efficacy.”

She also accused vaccine makers of “deceptive advertising.”

On. Jan 13, during a live television appearance on the BBC, cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra “truthbombed” the network when he made the “unprompted” suggestion that mRNA vaccines pose a cardiovascular risk.

An undercover video released by Project Veritas released Jan. 25 showed Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer’s director of research and development, strategic operations, admitting the pharmaceutical company is “exploring” mutating COVID-19 “ourselves” via “directed evolution,” to then “preemptively develop new vaccines” against them.

A follow-up video showed Walker assaulting Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe when confronted with the recording of his statements.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Thursday called for a Congressional investigation against vaccine manufacturers and the COVID-19 vaccine approval process, in response to the Project Veritas revelations.

“Federal health agencies have been captured by Big Pharma and grossly derelict in their duties throughout the pandemic,” said Johnson.

“It’s time for Congress to thoroughly investigate vaccine manufacturers and the entire COVID vaccine approval process,” he added.

And today, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in response to the Project Veritas videos, stating:

“I write in response to troubling reports on Pfizer’s intention to mutate the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) virus through gain-of-function, or ‘directed evolution,’ as detailed by Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Jordan Walker.

“As has been proven time and time again, attempts to mutate a virus, particularly one as potent as COVID, are dangerous. If the claims detailed in the video are true, Pfizer has put its desire for profit over the concern of national and global health and must hold itself accountable.”

Statements made by cartoonist Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame regarding the COVID-19 vaccines also garnered attention. In a video dated Jan. 22, Adams said, “The anti-vaxxers clearly won, you’re the winners!” due to their distrust of the government and corporations.

And Elon Musk, owner and CEO of Twitter, responding to separate comments made by Adams about the significant prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse events, tweeted: “I had major side effects from my second booster shot. Felt like I was dying for several days. Hopefully, no permanent damage, but I dunno.”

Musk followed up with a second tweet, stating: “And my cousin, who is young & in peak health, had a serious case of myocarditis. Had to go to the hospital.”

Several comments from journalists tweeted in response to Musk’s statements anecdotally referred to increasing numbers of individuals experiencing such COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

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

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

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

The 600 influential Russian Twitter bots narrative was pushed by mainstream media. Twitter executives knew it was false.

But kept quiet.

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | January 27, 2023

New  Files revelations show that the Twitter accounts on a list from the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) that were supposed to be of Russian bots were far from it. While Twitter had evidence to prove that the accounts weren’t Russian bots, employees kept quiet, afraid to go against mainstream media narrative.

The ASD describes itself as an organization that comes up with “strategies for government, private sector, and civil society to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on foreign state actors’ efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions.” Its advisors are the likes of Michael Chertoff, who worked in the George W. Bush administration as Secretary of Homeland Security, Mike McFaul (who worked in the Obama administration as US Ambassador to ,) commentator Bill Kristol, and Hillary Clinton advisers Jake Sullivan and John Podesta.

ASD said that Hamilton 68, the name of a dashboard that’s supposed to monitor Russian bots on Twitter, was monitoring 600 Russian bots on the platform.

The idea of the 600 Russian bots listed on the dashboard was widespread throughout mainstream media.

“What makes this an important story is the sheer scale of the news footprint left by Hamilton 68’s digital McCarthyism. The quantity of headlines and TV segments dwarfs the impact of individual fabulists like Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass,” wrote journalist Matt Taibbi of Racket, who today released evidence about Twitter employees’ decision to keep quiet the fact that the information pushed by the mainstream media was false.

“Hamilton 68 was used as a source to assert Russian influence in an astonishing array of news stories: support for Brett Kavanaugh or the Devin Nunes memo, the Parkland shooting, manipulation of black voters, ‘attacks’ on the Mueller investigation…” Taibbi added.

“These stories raised fears in the population, and most insidious of all, were used to smear people like Tulsi Gabbard as foreign ‘assets,’ and drum up sympathy for political causes like ’s campaign by describing critics as Russian-aligned.”

Taibbi highlighted how even “fact-checkers” used the dubious source for their own reports: “It was a lie. The illusion of Russian support was created by tracking people like Joe Lauria, Sonia Monsour, and Dave Shestokas. Virtually every major American news organization cited these fake tales— even fact-checking sites like Snopes and Politifact.”

The reports, widely pushed by the mainstream media, were untrue and Twitter executives, who had access to more information about what was going on behind the scenes with the Twitter accounts, didn’t want to disrupt the narrative for fear they would receive negative reporting.

“In layman’s terms, the Hamilton 68 barely had any Russians. In fact, apart from a few RT accounts, it’s mostly full of ordinary Americans, Canadians, and British,” Taibbi wrote.

Taibbi published email evidence that shows Twitter’s controversial former Trust and Safety chief, Yoel Roth, realizing the list was incorrect.

The dashboard “falsely accuses a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts of being Russian bots,” he wrote. “I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is…

“I think it may make sense for us to revisit the idea of more actively refuting the dashboard. It’s a collection of right-leaning legitimate users that are being used to paint a polarizing and inaccurate picture of conversation on Twitter.”

But despite Roth’s clear realization about the inaccuracy about one of the biggest narratives of the last few years, he ultimately stayed quiet, Taibbi notes.

“We have to be careful in how much we push back on ASD publicly,” said one company official.

Taibbi noted how the false narrative made its way into the heart of US politics: “Perhaps most embarrassingly, elected officials promoted the site, and invited Hamilton ‘experts’ to testify. Dianne Feinstein, James Lankford, Richard Blumenthal, Adam Schiff, and Mark Warner were among the offenders.”

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Impending US ICD Vaccine Passport and Its Unconstitutionality

By Harvey Risch | Brownstone Institute | January 26, 2023

The CDC recently codified International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes for Covid-19 vaccine status. ICD codes are extensively used in medical records, medical insurance data and health research to classify precisely disease states as well as injuries from exogenous agents such as accidents, medication and medical device injuries, toxic chemicals, etc. Vaccination status is not a disease or an injury state, yet CDC has rationalized creating ICD codes for it. The coding is set to become effective on April 1, 2023.

As described by Dr. Robert Malone, “The ICD classification system is run by the World Health Organization, not the US government.” The vaccine status ICD codes were developed by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) some nine months ago, and CDC is implementing them.

The coding scheme, Z28.xxx, includes both vaccination status and possible reasons for the status. However, there does not appear to be a code for “fully vaccinated,” only for various states of “not fully vaccinated.”

  • The code Z28.0 means “immunization not carried out because of contraindication.”  Z28.1 means “immunization not carried out because of patient decision for reasons of belief or group pressure.”
  • Z28.2 means “immunization not carried out because of patient decision for other and unspecified reason.”
  • Z28.8 means “immunization not carried out for other reason” which because of code Z28.2 must refer to reasons not attributable to patient decisions.
  • Finally, Z28.39 means “other underimmunization status,” including “Delinquent immunization status” and “Lapsed immunization schedule status.”

However, a potential contradiction arises because code Z28.310 means “unvaccinated for COVID-19.”

In order to reconcile this, the Z28 codes in the previous paragraph must refer to vaccines other than for Covid-19. The only other Covid-19 code is Z28.311 which means “partially vaccinated for COVID-19,” where “partial” refers to the CDC definition for “fully vaccinated” at the time when the patient visits the health-care provider who records the vaccination status in the medical chart.

It is apparent that the details of reasons for patient choices for vaccine status are not specified in codes for Covid-19 vaccines, but the CDC has some two months to fix this. There are no specific codes yet for “refused to divulge COVID-19 vaccination status” or “unknown COVID-19 vaccination status,” but these codes are likely to be added at some point.

What is the usage for which this information is planned? There is certainly a public health rationale for agencies to be able to monitor population vaccination status. Personal health information is routinely analyzed by public health agencies, insurance companies and health researchers, but in anonymized and grouped formats. The identifiable information is recorded in the databases, however HIPAA and other laws strictly protect identifiable health information and regulate how such information may be used for analyses.

In theory, vaccination status could be no different. Medical records already know your age, gender and race, where you reside, about your obesity, diabetes, your smoking and alcohol usage and your HIV status. Some of this information could be stigmatizing if released publicly, but at present there are no politicized or other circumstances to force unwanted choices on members of the public based on this compiled personal information.

Imagine, however, that one day, government agents are pounding on your door at 6am, telling you that you are required to take smoking cessation medications, under penalty of forced residence in a “smoking-cessation hotel” until you submit to the government’s requirement.

The medications have built-in transmitters that are activated when exposed to stomach acid, so taking them is recorded. After all, 500,000 Americans die every year from smoking-related diseases and their end-of-life medical care is an expense for which the government no longer wants to pay. Your smoking is economically hurting the medical care that grandma needs. Or something.

But Covid-19 and its vaccination are different. The Covid vaccines and their boosters were created under emergency-use authorization (EUA) protocols and are not fully licensed. The Biologics License Application (BLA) versions, e.g., Comirnaty, are not generally available in the US. This licensing chicanery has not gone unnoticed by the American public and a substantial fraction of people find the vaccines controversial.

Many people have seen their multiple-vaccinated friends and relatives get Covid, some multiple times. Many have also seen friends and relatives harmed by the vaccines, and most people know of the incessant daily deaths of healthy athletes, deaths discussed as caused by “coincidence.” People have seen the vaccines touted as solutions to the pandemic, yet utterly fail across the population to suppress transmission of the infection.

And, people have been bombarded with daily narratives for two solid years that the vaccines are “safe and effective” and that they must be taken, and that unvaccinated people are “bad,” “selfish,” demonized as doing damage to society, and should be shunned.

That is, personal vaccination status today is the most stigmatizing personal data of modern times, surpassing having AIDS. As such, any government compilation must be “bulletproof” against hacking and misuse. As well, the government must be trusted to maintain the data for use only as other personal medical data have been used.

Given the two-plus years of massive government propaganda about the vaccines, about their adverse effects, about Covid, about early Covid treatment, and the government collusion with social media companies in suppression of valid dissenting medical and scientific opinions and data, there is no empirical reason to support trusting the government with such sensitive, stigmatizing data.

There is no reason to believe that the government will not release the status information to insurance companies or other companies doing large business with the American public. Further, there is no recourse should the government actually release such confidential data. Thus, nothing may stop such companies from restricting activities based on the stigmatized data. For example, public travel could be blocked; bank accounts could be blocked; purchasing could be blocked.

The free pursuit of happiness is enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. The government cannot lawfully interfere with normal transactions of everyday life. But private companies working at the government’s behest, with government-supplied personal status information, could very well do it.

As has been seen from the FOIA documents, hundreds of government employees have spent the pandemic years doing exactly this unconstitutional behavior in getting social media companies to suppress Americans’ freedom of speech.

Furthermore, there is now no rational government interest in compiling vaccination status at all. At a time when vaccination was generally thought (incorrectly) to reduce Covid-19 transmission across the population, there might have been a rationale for doing so.

However, on August 11, 2022, the CDC stated publicly that the Covid-19 vaccines do not work as a public health measure to control virus transmission. They said, “Receipt of a primary series alone, in the absence of being up to date with vaccination* through receipt of all recommended booster doses, provides minimal protection against infection and transmission (3,6).” “Being up to date with vaccination provides a transient period of increased protection against infection and transmission after the most recent dose, although protection can wane over time.”

The fact that such benefit is “transient” and wanes implies that after some short period, boosters fail to reduce risk of transmission and thus that vaccine mandates are invalid.

The only government interest in mandating Covid vaccines, and thus in compiling personal information about vaccination status, is that the vaccines reduce transmission. They don’t.

Secondly, the CDC’s August 11th policy guidance does not distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in any way for any policy. There is thus no compelling government purpose in defining people as vaccinated or unvaccinated. It would be like the government compiling personal information on hair color, except that hair color is not stigmatizing and vaccination status is extremely stigmatizing.

The government itself—through the CDC—has determined that vaccination status is not of policy importance. There can thus be no compelling interest for the government to forcibly collect this information against the wishes of the population, even were it not stigmatizing. So much more so after the government has spent the last two years publicly demonizing unvaccinated people for their rational and legitimate personal health choices.

Harvey Risch, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a physician and a Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine. His main research interests are in cancer etiology, prevention and early diagnosis, and in epidemiologic methods.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Expert: Seizure of Russian Funds Could Make EU No-Go Investment Area for Rest of World

Sputnik – 27.01.2023

The European Commission’s plans to seize frozen Russian assets and use them to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine will make the European Union a “no-go investment area” for other non-Western countries that will be scared away by these measures, geopolitical expert Charles Gave told Sputnik.

“I believe that Europe would become a no-go investment area for the non-Western world the day Europe seizes the assets of the Russian sovereign state… there is no legal base for seizing the assets of a foreign state,” the expert said.

In November, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed the creation of a special structure to manage the frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank and private assets to support Ukraine. On Thursday, a senior EU official said that the possible use of Russia’s frozen assets in the EU was accompanied by complex legal issues, with various EU institutions continuing discussions on the matter.

Gave, who is also a fund manager and investor, criticized another idea of the commission — to use Russia’s frozen funds to generate interests that could be confiscated and then allocated to provide infrastructure help to Ukraine — as he called this step “ridiculous” and “illegal.”

The expert gave the example of a situation where EU or G7 states could seize the interest generated by German bonds that belong to the Russian Central Bank and are deposited at the Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany. In this case, out of 3.4 billion euros ($3.7 billion) invested, the bloc would get only 340 million euros in interest over a year at a rate of 1%, Gave estimated, adding that this would not be enough for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

“It would take years to generate a substantial revenue from European investments of confiscated Russian assets. The G7 has no authority to decide anything. It would be a colossal abuse of power,” the expert added.

Gave also stated that the revenue from the interest of Russia’s assets would be low and it would divert the focus of the EU from the real issues, including the current excessive debt of member states, which could be difficult to repay once inflation falls.

The geopolitical expert said that the issue of Ukraine’s reconstruction should be discussed once the conflict was over. There has to be a negotiated settlement between the two sides, and only then the EU and other Western nations could start rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, Gave concluded.

The European Commission estimates the damage caused by the military operation that Russia launched in Ukraine a year ago at 600 billion euros. The West has blocked 300 billion euros worth of Russian Central Bank reserves and 19 billion euros in Russian businessmen’ assets, according to von der Leyen. Once sanctions are lifted, these funds “should be used so that Russia pays full compensation for the damages caused to Ukraine,” she said last year.

For its part, Moscow has warned that any attempts to confiscate frozen Russian assets fall under the definition of expropriation of property in violation of the European Constitution and international law, pledging to take measures in response if the West goes through with the move.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , | 4 Comments

German FM under fire over ‘war with Russia’ comment

RT | Jaqnuary 27, 2023

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has faced a wave of criticism after claiming at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that Germany is at war with Russia. The comment led opposition politicians to question whether she is fit for the job.

“A statement by Baerbock that Germany is at war with Russia shows that she is not suited for her job,” Sahra Wagenknecht, a German MP and the former head of the Left Party’s faction in the Bundestag, wrote on Twitter on Friday. A foreign minister should be a “top diplomat” and “not act like an elephant in a China shop,” the lawmaker added, accusing Baerbock of “trampling” on Germany’s reputation.

During the Tuesday debate, Baerbock said European nations were “fighting a war against Russia” and must do more to defend Ukraine.

Germany needs a foreign minister who is capable of acting “as a responsible diplomat and not a firebrand” amid conflict in Europe, said Alice Weidel, the co-chair of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AFD) faction in the Bundestag.

Weidel accused Baerbock of being incapable of acting on the diplomatic stage, saying Berlin needs a top diplomat who represents Germany’s interests exclusively.

Meanwhile, a regional lawmaker from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the president of the German-Hungarian association, Gerhard Papke, accused Baerbock of being “completely politically insane” for making such a statement.

Left MP Selim Dagdelen demanded Chancellor Olaf Scholz provide an “immediate” explanation on whether Baerbock had his government’s mandate “for her declaration of war” and suggested the minister was a threat to the security of German citizens.

Neither Baerbock, nor Scholz, have responded to the criticism so far. Germany’s Foreign Ministry maintained Berlin is not a party to the conflict between Kiev and Moscow in a statement to the Bild tabloid.

“Supporting Ukraine in exercising its individual right for self-defense… does not make Germany a party to the conflict,” it said, pointing to the UN Charter. It said Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine is “a war against the European peace and order” and this is what Baerbock had meant.

In the wake of Baerbock’s Tuesday statement, Moscow said that the German minister’s words only show that the West had been planning this conflict all along for years.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Israel advocates push ABA to adopt anti-Palestinian definition of antisemitism

The American Bar Association will vote on February 6 whether to promote a newly created definition of antisemitism that has been used “consistently (and nearly exclusively) not to fight antisemitism, but rather to defend Israel and harm Palestinians

This has been done “at the cost of undermining and dangerously chilling fundamental rights of free speech, freedom of assembly and protest, and academic freedom

“The ABA’s embrace of the definition would legitimize this infringement on core democratic rights as well as undermine the ABA’s own ability to engage on issues related to Palestinian rights…”

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | January 26, 2023

For 20 years, Israel and its partisans have worked to embed a newly fabricated, Israel-centric definition of antisemitism in governments and institutions around the world. The latest iteration is known as the IHRA definition.

Now there is an effort to push the American Bar Association to promote this definition to “federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments in the United States.”

At its upcoming national meeting (which begins on February 1), delegates will be voting on resolution 514 on Monday, February 6.

Numerous groups have written letters opposing the ABA’s use of this definition, pointing out that it would be used against Palestinian rights, would infringe on freedom of speech, and would interfere with academic freedom.

Israel has a long, thoroughly documented history of violating Palestinian human rights, of an apartheid-like system. and of violent attacks on Gaza and the West Bank. It was founded through a war of ethnic cleansing.

For more information see:

Resolution 514 is co-sponsored by:

Juan Thomas, Chair
Mark Schickman, Senior Advisor
Paula Shapiro, Director
ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice

Hon. Benes Z. Aldana (Ret.), Chair
Skip Harsch, Director
Ann Breen-Greco
ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Twanda Turner-Hawkins, Chair
Selina Thomas, Director
ABA Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice

Priya Purandare, Executive Director
Navdeep Singh, Interim Policy Director
Wendy Shiba, Past President, ABA Delegate
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association

James L. Schwartz, Chair
Richard M. Leslie, Chair-Elect
Jack Young, Delegate
Senior Lawyers Division

Marcos Rios, Chair
David Schwartz, Chair-Elect
Michelle Jacobson, Policy Officer
ABA International Law Section

This is what opponents of Palestinian rights enable:

Daily Life in Occupied Palestine from If Americans Knew on Vimeo.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | 4 Comments

Global warming – an obvious fact?

By Ivor Williams | TCW Defending Freedom | January 25, 2023

You might argue that to say the world is warming is an obvious fact. ‘But,’ as Sherlock Holmes remarked to Dr Watson*, ‘there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’

The meteorological fraternity tell us that as emissions keep growing the temperature of our earth will keep rising. Some of the effects, they say, can be seen in extreme weather such as floods, droughts and storms. However, research has shown the apparent escalation of this kind of event is far more likely to be due to a greater facility for reporting every incident over the last fifty years. Even more doubt lies in the fact that we have been widely recording weather details for about 150 of the 11,000 years since the last ice age. Any claims of records being broken can refer only to that brief period.

Assessing the rate of global warming, then, and any decision as to whether there is a climate ‘emergency’, rests almost entirely on measurement of the global temperature. This is always given as a difference relative to a previous period, and not only to tenths of a degree (which is how it is measured at every recording station), but to hundredths of a degree.

The UK Met Office’s global temperature for 2021 was 0.76 ± 0.04 deg C above the 1961-1990 average. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the year was about 1.11 ± 0.13 deg C warmer than the 1850-1900 average. First worrying thought: why was such a precise measurement prefaced by that word ‘about’?

The Met Office’s figure for 2022 was 0.80 ± 0.04 °C above the 1961-1990 average and 1.16 ± 0.08 °C above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 average. The World Meteorological Organisation  uses six international data sets to provide an authoritative assessment of global temperature change. They report that ‘2022 was about 1.15 (1.02 to 1.27) °C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels’. There’s that curious word again.

The climatologists claim to be measuring the temperature of the earth, over land and sea, night and day, for a whole year, and giving us the result to a second place of decimals, with a tolerance of only a few hundredths of a degree Celsius. That is unbelievable.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website does admit that ‘the concept of an average temperature for the entire globe . . . may seem like nonsense’. It certainly does. It would be difficult to measure the average temperature of a small garden for a whole year to that level of accuracy, unless there were thermometers recording maximum and minimum every day in each square metre.

Why is it always a difference measurement? The NOAA website explains: ‘Because [the scientists’] goal is to track changes in temperature, measurements are converted from absolute temperature readings to temperature anomalies – the difference between the observed temperature and the long-term average temperature for each location and date.’

Subsequent paragraphs shed more light on the data, and are worth quoting at length (my italics). ‘Across inaccessible areas that have few measurements, scientists use surrounding temperatures and other information to estimate the missing values . . . climatologists average data from individual stations with data from other stations in the area. When combining observations, the values for each station are mathematically weighted to account for the fraction of the averaging area they represent.’

Those four words ‘estimate’, ‘average’, ‘combining’ and ‘weighted’ all cast serious doubts on the final two places of decimals. Then there is the obvious question: how well are the recording stations covering the land and sea areas of the earth?

For measurements taken on the earth’s surface, the WMO says there are ‘well over 10,000 manned and automatic surface weather stations . . . 7,000 ships, 100 moored and 1,000 drifting buoys’.

The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia confirms that its global temperature series (CRUTEM5.0) uses data from only 8,000 of the land-based weather stations because the others ‘did not have sufficient data to estimate a 1961-1990 mean’.

The land area of the earth is 148,300,000 km2. The 8,000 recording stations would therefore each represent a huge 18,500 km2 chunk of the earth’s land surface. But they are not uniformly spread. According to the CRU, ‘coverage is denser over the more populated parts of the world, particularly the United States, southern Canada, Europe and Japan. Coverage is sparsest over the interior of the South American and African continents and over Antarctica’.

The sea area of the earth is 361,700,000 km2. The number of ships and buoys (8,100) means that each represents around 44,600 km2 of the sea surface, and even then the accuracy of the data largely depends on where the ships (moving steadily) and buoys (drifting slowly) happen to be. Additionally, the buoys and ships are measuring sea water temperatures, not that of the air over the sea: how exactly are pre-industrial temperatures of the sea calculated for comparison?

Every year several very well-known climatological and scientific institutions tell us the earth’s annual average global temperature. The world waits anxiously for their pronouncements. But even the first decimal place is doubtful, let alone the second. The accuracy has been generated solely by way of mathematics: first the average of each station’s daily maximum and minimum is calculated, then the weekly and monthly average which is converted to an anomaly for the station, mathematical weighting is carried out if necessary, estimations added for missing values, and only then is the final annual figure achieved for that particular station over the last twelve months.

(The process is actually even more complex: see, for instance, NASA’s ‘Raw Truth on Global Temperature Records’.)

Presumably all the station annual average figures, around 16,000 for both land and sea for the whole world, are then added and a grand average figure is produced. It is that final averaging that can produce as many decimal points as you want. But by then it is meaningless.

For such a vast area of land and sea, and over such a long period of time, it is surely impossible to determine a sensible average temperature, let alone one given with such apparent accuracy. They must be right, we are supposed to think, because they are given to the nearest hundredth of a degree Celsius.

The Met Office has already forecast this year’s (2023’s)global average temperature to be between 1.08 °C and 1.32°C (with a central estimate of 1.20 °C) above the average for the pre-industrial period (1850-1900). Here are the two decimal places again, with a tolerance of a fifth of a degree Celsius, for a year that has hardly started.

All these supposedly carefully measured temperatures are surely open to some considerable doubt, but unfortunately they are treated as the ultimate and unequivocal proof of rapid climate change.

If these figures are indeed of dubious authenticity, and if bouts of extreme weather may or may not indicate any change in our climate, then how much do we really know for certain?

* The Boscombe Valley Mystery

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | 4 Comments

Who really killed RT France

The French establishment media took on the role of political commissars, making sure the outlet was not allowed to operate

By Matthieu Buge | RT | January 26, 2023

After a year of censorship, RT has now had to officially stop its activities in France. But would the French authorities have made this move without the influence of some prominent French journalists who put aside their ethics for the occasion?

From the very beginning, RT France had been a target of the French authorities and the mainstream media. In a notorious 2017 press conference, Emmanuel Macron, standing next to Vladimir Putin, said RT and Sputnik were “organs of influence and false propaganda.” At the time, RT France had already been working as an online media outlet for some years, and was merely criticized by other media for being financed by Moscow. But the accusations became more and more frequent and harsh as Macron took the lead of the country and RT France was about to launch its channel from studios in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris. In 2018, the work of RT journalists during the Yellow Vest protests was the most exhaustive coverage by any media. This has been widely acknowledged, and the audience of the channel received a considerable boost. The Russian outsider annoyed the establishment media more and more when star television host Frédéric Taddeï started collaborating with RT and stated that it was the only channel that gave him carte blanche in an informational landscape where real debate had totally disappeared.

Although Taddeï is a very knowledgeable man, he forgot to underline that every outlet is in essence propaganda. The word comes from the Latin verb propagare (to spread) and was first used in the denomination of a Vatican department, the Propaganda Fide, dedicated to the propagation of the Catholic faith. Anything written or spoken for an audience is propaganda. Advertising is propaganda. Hollywood is the biggest propaganda machine in the world. Political rallies are propaganda. Even a good debate with friends at the bar is propaganda, as one tries to persuade others to agree with his views and understanding of the world. Taddeï’s show on RT France “Interdit d’interdire” (Forbidden to forbid) had this very open-minded spirit. Its name, though, was perhaps like a rabbit on a boat, a bearer of misfortune.

Four years later, on 27 February 2022, three days after the beginning of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, the non-elected president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared that RT and Sputnik were to be banned in the European Union. The attack on free speech was unprecedented. But in order to appease the worried journalist unions, the logic of this attack was such: RT France had its license revoked, but its reporters could keep working. RT France went on to appeal the ban to the European Court of Justice. On 27 July the court rejected the appeal, arguing that the ban did not infringe on free speech. Give an artist the right to paint, but not to exhibit his work. Give a baker the right to make bread, but not to sell it. They will then turn to the black market – in RT France’s case, the internet. Its team of remaining journalists kept working in difficult conditions and broadcasting on Odysee.

I personally know most of them and must say that their attitude, in such a context, has been remarkable. They are not tied to Russia. Some of them aren’t even interested in Russia – they simply wanted to tell the French public about French issues, an opportunity they weren’t given by other French-language media. They know that the world is complex and understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. While their management struggled (and managed) to keep paying their salaries, they kept on working, in a state of utter uncertainty and job insecurity, knowing that it would be almost impossible to find new jobs as journalists in France. They are young French men and women who dedicated all these years to only one thing: giving French-speaking audiences another point of view. That was apparently too much for their colleagues in the mainstream media.

On 18 January 2023, “the General Directorate of the Treasury decided to freeze RT France’s bank accounts, making it impossible to continue our activity,” said the president of the channel, Xenia Fedorova. What’s interesting about this new development is that it wasn’t so much a push by the French authorities, who for a while have shown an indifference to the idea of free speech. The French authorities knew that RT France was still operating and did not care, believing it had lost its visibility anyway. The establishment media, however, were not going to just let it slide.

It was a sudden shootout. On 6 January, the major left-wing newspaper Libération published an article titled: “Forbidden RT France remains reachable and keeps on producing its Russian propaganda.” On the 14th, one of the country’s top newspapers, Le Monde, published an article on the issue: “The counterattack of pro-Russia media.” Both articles went on to show how RT was still operating, its journalists working, and their reports being broadcast and reachable through VPNs. Then came (for anyone who knows French affairs) the ultimate verdict. On the 16th, the influential journalist Patrick Cohen talked about this issue live on TV. He criticized people who gave interviews to RT France, including a French member of the European parliament who thinks the EU needs to engage in diplomacy and dialogue with Moscow. Commenting with sarcasm on these views, he added: “It is not surprising, but we are talking about a channel which is forbidden to operate.” As said previously, RT France was not forbidden to operate; it only lost its license. Moreover, Cohen was commenting on this issue in front of one of his guests, Nicolas Tenzer, one of the most prominent pro-US figures in France, who once declared that NATO never harassed anyone. Two days later, the Treasury made its move. Cohen is the journalist who in 2013 famously called some guests of Frédéric Taddeï’s talk show “sick-brains”. That was the beginning of the end for Taddeï in the mainstream media. Now, Cohen has again pronounced a ruling on who could and who could not talk. RT France had to share Taddeï’s fate.

Governments’ decisions and interests are one thing. The influence of journalists behaving like political commissars is another. Propaganda is one thing. Enforcing propaganda is another.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Poland expands offer of tanks for Ukraine

RT | January 27, 2023

Poland is ready to send 60 more tanks to Ukraine to help fight Russia, besides the 14 German-made Leopard 2 vehicles already pledged, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said.

“If we don’t want Ukraine to be defeated, we have to be very much open and brave in supporting Ukraine,” Morawiecki told Canada’s CTV News broadcaster on Friday.

According to the prime minister, Poland is trying “to lead by example,” showing its allies what should be done to help Kiev.

“Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession,” he said.

Morawiecki also noted that last year Warsaw provided about 250 of its modernized Soviet-era T-72 tanks to the Ukrainian military.

Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky, confirmed on Telegram on Friday that 60 more Polish tanks will be heading Ukraine’s way. According to Podolyak, the shipment consists of PT-91 Twardys, upgraded Soviet T-72M1 main battle tanks. “Thanks to our allies,” he wrote.

Morawiecki did not specify when the additional tanks will be supplied.

On Thursday, Poland’s Deputy Defense Minister Wojciech Skurkiewicz said Warsaw plans to provide 14 Leopard 2s to Kiev after Ukrainian troops finish training with them, which could happen in “several weeks.”

The delivery of Leopard 2s by Poland to Ukraine became possible on Wednesday after Germany officially approved the supply of 14 tanks from its own stocks to Kiev, and allowed other countries to re-export the German-made weaponry to the Zelensky government.

On the same day, the US agreed to supply Kiev with 31 of its M1 Abrams main battle tanks. Earlier this month, the planned delivery of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine was announced by the UK.

Russia’s deputy envoy to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Maksim Buyakevich, warned on Thursday that arming the Ukrainian military with Western tanks “is a straight path into a full-blown conflict in Europe.”

Earlier this month, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov insisted that German, US and British military hardware will not change the outcome of the conflict, and that the tanks will “burn” if they arrive on the battlefield.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Jaxen Report – The Highwire 1/19/23

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | January 19, 2023

More damning data supporting the claim that the Covid mRNA vaccine causes potentially deadly heart inflammation.

ARE COVID-19 VACCINES CAUSING STROKES?

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | January 19, 2023

The CDC and FDA have sounded an alarm of an increased risk of strokes for over 65’s after their mRNA booster shot. Still no transparency with the data as the public forced yet again to take the word of agencies with rapidly waning integrity and trust.

January 27, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 1 Comment