Ninth Circuit Spikes Berkeley’s Gas Ban
By Robert Bryce | April 18, 2023
Three federal court judges just rescued your gas stove and other gas-fired appliances from the nanny state.
Yesterday, in a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the nation’s first ban on natural gas, put in place by the City of Berkeley in 2019, violates federal law. The three judges found that the city’s ordinance was preempted by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which prohibits the implementation of regulations that favor one type of fuel over another.
The first report I saw on the court’s ruling was here on Substack by my friend, Ed Ireland. There’s no doubt that the decision is a huge win for consumers, businesses, and energy security. Indeed, the ruling in California Restaurant Association vs. City of Berkeley, has ramifications that go beyond California and the Ninth Circuit. It should invalidate the dozens of gas bans that have been enacted across the country over the past four years. It may also mean that plans by federal authorities, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to ban, or restrict, the use of gas stoves, gas furnaces, and other gas-fired appliances, are kaput.
About 47 million American homes have gas stoves and lots of chefs, and consumers, including Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, like cooking with gas. The Department of Energy’s own numbers show that heating homes with gas is far cheaper than heating with electricity. Despite these facts, a group of lavishly funded activist groups have been pushing electrify everything mandates that would prohibit the use of gas in homes and businesses and require consumers to rely almost exclusively (including energy for electric vehicles) on our already-shaky electric grid. The electrify everything claque got a boost in January after Richard Trumka Jr., who sits on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, told a Bloomberg reporter that gas stoves are a hazard and that “any option is on the table,” including, presumably, a ban.
Trumka’s comments sparked a storm of criticism. Within hours, the White House issued a statement saying that President Joe Biden doesn’t support a ban on gas stoves.
What has since been dubbed the “gas stove culture war” was ignited in July 2019, when Berkeley became the first municipality in the country to ban the use of gas. Since then, as I explained in January, (See: “The Billionaires Behind The Gas Bans”), several NGOs, including Climate Imperative, the Sierra Club, and Rocky Mountain Institute, as well as Rewiring America, have spent untold (and undisclosed) millions of dollars campaigning and lobbying at the local and national levels to ban the direct use of natural gas in homes and businesses. And thanks to remarkably friendly (and largely unquestioning) coverage from legacy media outlets, they’ve had undeniable success.
The Sierra Club, which operates on an annual budget of about $180 million, says 74 communities in California have “adopted gas-free buildings commitments or electrification building codes.” But that number doesn’t include the most recent ban. On April 13, the Irvine City Council, again according to the Sierra Club, adopted measures mandating that all new buildings be all-electric “on or after July 1, 2023. That puts the number of California communities that have banned gas at 75. The group isn’t just pushing for restrictions in its home state. Last August, it asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ban natural gas appliances at the federal level.
In September, the California Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of all gas-fired space heaters and water-heating appliances in the state by 2030. New York City and Seattle have banned the use of gas in new construction. Massachusetts is also rolling out a measure that will allow up to 10 communities to ban gas.
As I reported last month (See: “California Screamin’”), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District recently approved regulations that will ban the use of residential and commercial natural gas-fired water heaters and furnaces. The regulation, which only applies to new appliances, prohibits residents in the Bay Area from buying or installing gas water heaters starting in 2027. Also last month, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, said she is working on a “climate friendly” building code that will hamper or––in the words of the Boston Globe, “discourage”––the use of hydrocarbons in new buildings in Boston.
Following the proliferation of gas bans requires following the money. The Sierra Club has been a prime beneficiary of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has pledged $500 million to the Beyond Carbon project. In 2019, the pledge was considered the largest ever “philanthropic donation to combat climate change.” The Sierra Club is now getting about $30 million per year from Bloomberg.
For several years, the Rocky Mountain Institute, a group that took in $115 million in 2022, has been ginning up bogus studies that claim gas stoves are a threat to human health. And like the Sierra Club, it is getting big money from super-rich donors. In 2020, the Bezos Earth Fund gave RMI $10 million. RMI said the cash from the group, which, of course, came from Amazon founder and multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, would help fund its “work with a coalition of partners in key states. The project will focus on making all U.S. buildings carbon-free by 2040 by advocating for all-electric new construction.”
In January, numerous national news stories were published after RMI issued a paper claiming that 12.7 percent of childhood asthmas are due to gas stoves. One of the authors of that paper, Talor Gruenwald, works at RMI. Gruenwald is also a research associate at Rewiring America, a San Francisco-based outfit that calls itself the “leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses, and communities.” Rewiring America is funded entirely by dark money. It doesn’t publish its budget or file a Form 990. Instead, it is a sponsored project of the Windward Fund, a 501c3 non-profit that does not disclose its donors. Nor does the Windward Fund reveal how much it is giving to Rewiring America.
The January RMI paper didn’t stand up to even modest scrutiny. The definitive analysis of indoor air pollution and gas stoves was published in 2013 in Lancet Respiratory Medicine. It studied half a million schoolchildren in 47 countries over a multi-year period and relied on questionnaires that were filled out by the mothers of the children. It concluded, “We detected no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.”
Furthermore, just a day or two after the RMI paper came out, the group walked back its claim about asthma, with one RMI official telling the Washington Examiner that the study “does not assume or estimate a causal relationship” between childhood asthma and natural gas stoves.
Disasters report features ‘crudely manipulated data’
Global Warming Policy Foundation – April 17, 2023
London – The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to withdraw its fatally flawed 2022 Disasters in Numbers report.
The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), together with the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), recently published their 2022 report on “Disaster in Numbers.”
On its front cover, the report deceptively suggests that the 387 reported disasters, the loss of 30,704 lives, affecting 185 million individuals and causing economic damage of $223.8 billion are due to “climate in action” – although the report also covers earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and wildfires.
The annual review of disasters of all kinds has been examined by extreme weather expert, Dr Ralph Alexander, who has published a strongly worded critique at his website.
Dr Alexander notes that:
* data has been crudely manipulated to suggest that there may be a hidden underlying increase in weather-related disasters
* false claims are made on the basis of statistically invalid comparisons.
GWPF director Dr Benny Peiser said:
“Dr Alexander has shown that the authors of the latest ‘Disasters in Numbers’ report are bending over backwards to provide support for the narrative of climate doom, when the data and trends of weather-related disasters are pointing in the opposite direction.
The Catholic University and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) should be ashamed of what is appearing in their name. This publication is fatally flawed and should be withdrawn.”
More information:
* Ralph Alexander: CRED’s 2022 Disasters in Numbers report is a disaster in itself
* 2022 Disasters in Numbers
Climate Change Scandal in Australia Heating Up
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 17, 2023
Further significant doubts have been cast on the accuracy of global surface temperature results following the discovery that electronic thermometers in Australia have read up to 0.7°C higher than traditional mercury glass units. The Australian dataset is a major component of global compilations since it provides an important guide to one of the largest land masses in the southern hemisphere. After many years of trying, local freedom of information requests from scientists have forced the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to release comparative information from the two measuring devices around Brisbane airport. It shows that automatic readings are higher 41% of the time, compared with 32% when the temperatures were the same.
Electronic temperatures devices have been in general use in Australia since 1995. The guidance of the World Meteorological Organisation suggests averaging temperatures over a minute to remove corruptions caused by temporary effects such as a sudden gust of hot air. But the BoM records highs for just a second, something that basic mercury thermometers cannot do. For years, the BoM has refused to release comparative instrument data.
The Australian journalist Jo Nova takes a sceptical view as to why the BoM has been so stubborn. Potentially, the electronic sensors “offer a bonanza of propaganda headlines for the Green Blob to pick from, especially when ‘coldest ever days’ get ignored by the media”. The sensors are offering many more headlines of records for heat, heatwaves, hottest nights, more days over 35°C, she continued, adding, “there are many cherries to be picked here”.
The use of highly sensitive measuring equipment to produce temperature records and hence whip up climate emergency fears is common throughout the world. Last year In the U.K., the Met Office promoted a ‘record’ high of 40.3°C halfway down the runway at RAF Coningsby on the afternoon of July 19th. Admittedly, the record was declared to have stood for longer than a second – 60 seconds to be precise. To this day, the Met Office has refused to answer a number of Daily Sceptic enquiries about possible non-climatic causes of this widely promoted record. In the light of the Australian disclosures, we wonder if the Met Office should re-examine the way it declares heat records and compare the results of its measuring devices with those produced by basic mercury thermometers.
Dr. Jennifer Marohasy analysed the three years of Australian data that was eventually squeezed out of the BoM and found significant differences between the two measuring devises. In the most extreme cases, the modern probe was 0.7°C hotter than the mercury reading. She said it contradicted claims by the Bureau’s director Andrew Johnson that measurements from the two instruments are equivalent. Marohasy estimates the BoM holds data for a total of 38 different locations across Australia. The small Brisbane airport cache is thought to be the first public release of this data.
The former Liberal MP and noted climate sceptic Craig Kelly was merciless in his condemnation of the BoM actions. Noting the Bureau’s decision to reduce the size of protective Stevenson screens, which he said was known to artificially increase temperature recordings by up to 1°C, he concluded that Australia’s temperature records “have been cooked to artificially manufacture ‘hottest day ever’ headlines in the media”. Heads must roll, he demanded, but with the new Labor Government protecting this “malfeasance” at the BoM “they’ll get away with it”.
The Australian weighed in by suggesting that the Brisbane revelations raised some “difficult questions” about the BoM’s ability to claim new temperature records are being broken. “Given that new records are claimed on the basis of readings that are only a tiny fraction of a degree warmer, the problem is obvious,” it said in an editorial. The lengths to which the Bureau has gone not to cooperate with FOI requests, it continued, “gives the impression of an organisation with something to hide”. The newspaper said it was “truly astonishing” that the Bureau should suggest that understanding the effect of instrumentation was of no public interest. “This is particularly so given the Bureau was simultaneously publishing reports and giving media interviews claiming that a temperature increase of 1.5°C would have devastating consequences for the planet,” the editorial said.
The BoM information from 38 sites is of more than academic interest, noted the newspaper. This is because much of it eventually finds its way into what becomes the international global temperature record, on which climate change policy is based. The information is the property of the public, it states, and all the parallel records “should be made immediately available alongside all of the other data the Bureau prides itself on making public”.
These disturbing revelations about temperature gathering in Australia add to the numerous concerns that are mounting about the entire global surface temperature record. The Daily Sceptic has covered this story in great detail (see here, here and here). In this case, it seems that modern gauges have been used to establish new ‘records’, compared with the old mercury recordings. In addition, there may be a slight warming bias over the last 30 years, and if confirmed this will add to further corruption of global results. The BoM claimed its new electronic sensors were adjusted in light of mercury readings, but the Brisbane release suggests otherwise. It is particularly disturbing when public officials refuse to release scientific figures for no apparent good reason. The example of Climategate shows that when activists and scientists refuse to release basic data, it is time to start counting the spoons, if not undertaking an audit of the whole canteen.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Nürnberg Health Dept. issues novel outdoor mask recommendation to combat … climate change-enhanced hay fever
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | April 17, 2023
Now that everyone has returned to his ordinary state of not caring what public health mandarins think about anything, the Nürnberg Health Department has decided to make a desperate pitch for continued relevancy and grab some headlines by asking the weary German public to dust off their masks once again:
It’s hay fever season, and one in five Germans suffers from a pollen allergy. To alleviate the symptoms, the Nürnberg Health Office is now advising people to wear masks outdoors. This is because FFP2 masks, as well as homemade ones, are good at blocking the small particles that cause allergies, which prevents the pollen from being absorbed via the airways.
Hay fever is the most common chronic disease in all industrialised nations and is associated with the blossoming of trees and woody plants … Many people are allergic to pollen and react with runny nose, scratchy throat, fatigue, shortness of breath and other allergy-related complaints. Climate change is extending the pollen season for some trees, grasses and other plants. This increases the length of time that people are exposed. Climate change also causes significant increases to the concentration of pollen earlier in the year.
You should think about masking to combat allergies now, even though you never did before, because of climate change, or something. That’s how stupid this is. It’s all based on the ravings of an allergist at Berlin Charité named Karl-Christian Bergmann, who is probably not smart enough to be a deep-cover mask sceptic secretly committed to depriving community masking of all credibility, and is in all likelihood issuing his obnoxious opinions on the continued use of public face coverings in all sincerity.
The recommendation comes just six weeks after the publication of a literature review in Heliyon, which surveys the existing experimental evidence to find that wearing a face mask for more than five minutes can increase the carbon dioxide concentration of inhaled air to as much as 3.2% – fully 80 times the concentration in fresh air, and perhaps ten times the toxicity threshold for chronic exposure. But, Bergmann and the Nürnberg public health lunitards think it might save you some sneezing, so really it’s all upside.
Restoring Some Vaccination Choice in Mississippi
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | April 18, 2023
Like every American state government, the Mississippi government pressures parents to ensure their children take a slew of vaccination shots as a condition for the children to attend school. But, unlike most states, Mississippi law does not recognize the right of parents to refuse, based upon philosophical or religious objections, to follow the state-imposed childhood vaccination schedule.
Instead, the only exemption Mississippi parents have had available is a medical exemption that has turned out for almost all parents to be the same as having no exemption at all. I wrote about this in an April of 2015 article:
The New York Times reported in February how extremely restricting vaccination mandate exemptions causes a significant increase in vaccination rates, pointing to Mississippi as an example. Mississippi has among the strictest vaccination requirements in America — barring philosophical and religious exemptions and allowing only a medical exemption for students in both public and private schools. In the 2013-14 school year the Times reports that only 17 out of 45,179 kindergarten students in the state were exempt from the state’s vaccination mandate.
The medical exemption could more accurately be called the mirage exemption. In contrast, philosophical and religious exemptions can allow much greater ability for parents to refuse government pressure to have their children subjected to each and every state-mandated shot at each and every state-mandated time in a child’s life.
Since I wrote that article in 2015, California and New York, two of the largest population states, have joined Mississippi by eliminating all exemptions other than the medical exemption. Three additional states — Connecticut, Maine, and West Virginia — also recognize only the medical exemption.
Some good news came for Mississippi parents this week. The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) has announced that on Monday a federal court “ruled that the First Amendment requires that, by July 15, 2023, the State of Mississippi afford its residents a religious exemption for their children to attend school without one or more state mandated vaccines.” ICAN, which has supported the lawsuit that led to the court’s ruling, provides more information in a legal update at its website.
Hopefully, religious and philosophical exemptions, in addition to medical exemptions, will soon be exercisable by parents in all states.
Scotland’s new First Minister refuses to call Israel an apartheid state even though he has family in Gaza
First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf on April 17, 2023 at Caird Hall in Dundee, Scotland [Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images]
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | April 18, 2023
Scotland is one of the smallest countries in the world but you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that last month Humza Yousaf became the first Muslim to be elected as a leader in Western Europe.
You’d also have to live somewhere very remote to be unaware his political party, the Scottish National Party (SNP), was plunged into chaos within hours of his appointment as Police Scotland conducted a raid on the home of his predecessor, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as the party’s headquarters in Edinburgh.
Her unexpected resignation as the leader of the Scottish Government was widely reported around the world but the speculation over her departure gave way to euphoria in large parts of Scotland’s vibrant Muslim community who support the country’s independence movement.
However, one of the most powerful Muslim political pressure groups in the UK reckons his appointment is not a cause for celebration. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, MPACUK has accused Yousaf of wanting “to break Scotland away from England’s chains, yet denies the same right for Palestine”.
In a damning article on its website, MPACUK wrote: “As the new leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, he is supposed to embody their mission objective, ‘a fair society where no-one is left behind’. But if Yousaf is not willing to call out an unjust society when he sees one, it calls into question either his integrity or his intelligence; whichever is found to be deficient, it spells poor leadership from the new First Minister.”
The unjust society referred to by the group is Israel which has also been called an “apartheid state” by US President Jimmy Carter as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and Israeli-run B’Tselem .
Researchers in the group unearthed media claims going back to May 2014 in which Yousaf publicly stated “Israel is not an apartheid state.” Two months later Israel massacred over 2,100 Palestinians in one of its many wars in the Gaza Strip. Thanks to the silent complicity of politicians like Humza Yousaf the story barely made headlines in Western media.
I should declare an interest at this stage as I was a member of the SNP back then and shared platforms with Yousaf and Sturgeon to promote the case for independence. Back in 2021 I left, disillusioned, to join the ALBA Party formed by another former First Minister Alex Salmond whose Palestinian supporting credentials have been well documented by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).
And so, returning to Yousaf’s unseemly support for Israel, he is quoted as saying: “I can give you the Scottish Government’s vow that it is our policy not to boycott Israel…” and he went on to admit the SNP’s position on the Middle East “doesn’t vary much from the UK Government.”
I did write to him at the time and warned him that Palestinian supporters in the SPSC would never forgive or forget what they saw as a betrayal of the Palestinian people.
I do wonder if he has changed his position since then, and, if so, then he must tell us. The change could’ve been influenced by his second wife, Nadia El-Nakla, who is also an SNP politician and a local councillor, who just happens to be Palestinian. She is undoubtedly proud of her Palestinian roots and her family still resides in Gaza.
Humza certainly found his voice when the Zionist State launched a brutal bombardment on Palestinians in Ramadan of 2021. In newspaper articles he was critical of the violence which threatened the lives of his in-laws in Gaza and said he would “pray and hope they are alive in the morning” – that hope specifically being that “the international community intervenes and actually tackles the root of this conflict.”
This statement incurred the wrath of MPACUK which demanded: “Intervenes how, Yousaf? Tackle what root of the conflict? You have already indicated you will not hold Israel accountable. You refuse to stand for Palestine – can you really be trusted to stand for Scotland?”
Mick Napier, co-founder of SPSC, said: “As a first step, we urge the new First Minister to reaffirm the 2014 call from the Scottish Government, repeated in 2015, for an arms embargo on Israel.”
“He also needs to recognise that all major human rights groups have created a situation where sticking to his denial that Israel is an apartheid state will cut him off from progressive currents in Scotland. He will find that he can never placate the pro-Israel lobby except by praising Israeli crimes and condemning those who resist its barbarism against the Palestinian people. He can easily find out the depth of depravity of Israeli crimes but if he’s too busy he can just call his family in Gaza and get them to point their phones at the drones above, grey warships patrolling the shore, or the wall with robot machine guns keeping them under constant surveillance.”
Napier’s and MPACUK’s cutting observations will pile on more pressure on the under-fire First Minister who stands accused of supporting the oppressive state and, even worse, to the detriment of his own family. He won the leadership contest in a closely fought battle with female politicians Kate Forbes and Ash Regan under the ticket of being the “continuity candidate”.
But as critics have already pointed out, as long as Humza Yousaf is viewed as an ally to Israel, he cannot be a champion of independence.
Russian envoy slams Die Welt over ‘kill Putin’ quote
RT | April 18, 2023
Germany’s Die Welt daily “hit rock bottom” in its anti-Russian zeal last week, the Russian ambassador to Berlin, Sergey Nechaev, said on Monday, in response to an interview with American columnist Fred Kaplan in which he said the “easiest way” to end the Ukraine conflict is for someone to “kill Putin.”
Die Welt has left “this de facto call for murder” unredacted and uncommented on and even used it as a headline, Nechaev wrote in a damning post published on the embassy’s Telegram account. The envoy was apparently referring to Die Welt’s Twitter account, which used the “killing” quote to draw attention to the interview with Kaplan on its social media.
“It is unfortunate that some German media keep crossing all the lines and hitting rock bottom,” the ambassador said, adding that “although this is outrageous, it is no longer surprising.”
Kaplan made the statement in response to Die Welt’s question about the “most plausible scenarios” of ending the military conflict between Moscow and Kiev, which has now been ongoing for morethan a year.
“The easiest way for this to end is for someone to kill Putin,” Kaplan stated, adding that a “new leader” could then come to power, who would declare Russia’s military operation in Ukraine “a folly” and gain the support of the Russian elites to end the conflict. The American journalist and political scientist said he does not believe that Moscow will prevail, adding that otherwise the conflict could last “for years” and potentially end with an agreement that would involve the US and China as “guarantors.”
The US columnist also admitted that Kiev is fully dependent on US aid and that a halt to this assistance might force the Ukrainian government to “strike a deal” with Moscow. “Without the US assistance, it [Ukraine] would not last long,” he said.
Die Welt’s choice of a quote has also been met with criticism on social media. One person accused the outlet of being “no longer above … an incitement to murder.” “Is it a call for murder?” another person asked, warning that killing the Russian president could also bring “hardliners” to power in Russia, potentially putting the world on the brink of a nuclear war.
The German media outlet has not commented on the criticism so far. Neither the text of the interview nor the Twitter post has been altered in any way as of the time of this writing.
Just how many US troops and spies do we have in Ukraine?
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | April 18, 2023
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has flooded the docket in recent months with resolutions designed to get U.S. troops out of overseas missions he believes have not been approved by Congress, is now demanding that Biden tell the American people just how many American military personnel are operating in Ukraine today.
His new Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, which forcing Biden to notify the House of the exact number of U.S. military inside Ukraine and to hand over “copies of any and all documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine,” comes a week after leaked Pentagon documents showing previously unreported U.S. Special Forces inside the war zone.
According to the document there were 97 special forces from NATO countries operating in Ukraine as of March, including 14 U.S. special forces. When asked by the Guardian newspaper for confirmation/clarification, the Department of Defense said, “We are not going to discuss or confirm classified information due to the potential impact on national security as well as the safety and security of our personnel and those of our allies and our partners.” The Pentagon has not denied the authenticity of the documents, however.
While “14 special forces” sounds like a drop in the bucket, these revelations are a drip-drip of other pieces of information over the last year that, when added up, leave more questions than answers, and the bottom line is that the American people have a right to know, says (Ret.) Lt. Col. Daniel Davis.
“It is entirely appropriate that the American people know, authoritatively, whether any U.S. troops are engaged in military operations within Ukraine — and to demand a change if we don’t like the answer,” Davis told me yesterday when I asked him about the Gaetz resolution.
“American history is rife with too many examples of presidents secretly employing U.S. troops without the consent or knowledge of our people. It almost always goes sideways when presidents go covert with our troops.”
We know from reporting last year, beginning in June 2022, that the CIA had a strong presence in Ukraine, engaging a network of commandos and spies among European partners set up to provide critical weapons and military intelligence to Ukraine. According to the New York Times, “even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces.”
Ken Klippenstein and Jim Risen reported in October 2022 that “there is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel and resources in Ukraine” than publicly known. They reported for the Intercept that several former and current intelligence officers told them that the covert operations were being conducted “under a presidential covert action finding,” for which only a handful of Congressional lawmakers have been notified.
In November, the administration announced it was sending a team of military “weapons inspectors” into Ukraine to keep track of weapons shipments, but that they would be away from the fighting. Also that month, the DoD confirmed that it would be setting up a new joint forces command called the Security Assistance Group Ukraine, or SAGU, based out of U.S. Army Europe and Africa headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany and led by a 3-star general to “handle weapons shipments and personnel training.”
In February of this year, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon wanted to revive pre-Ukraine war orders that would allow them to insert commandos in the form of “control teams” to direct Ukrainian operatives to counter Russian disinformation and monitor troops movements on the ground. This would require the U.S. personnel to be in Ukraine or in a neighboring country. Washington had been operating such teams in Ukraine under Section 1202 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act until the invasion last year.
Nick Turse, who has written extensively about U.S. covert operations in other parts of the globe, said the recent leak showing special ops forces in Ukraine “is hardly a surprise. ”
“U.S. Special Operations forces deploy throughout the world, often with next to no transparency or real oversight,” he said when asked about the Gaetz resolution. “Under little-known authorities, special operators conduct shadowy missions — sometimes indistinguishable from combat — unbeknownst to the American people and most members of Congress.”
What we don’t know much about is how many trainers and intelligence personnel might be working under contract for the U.S. government on the ground in Ukraine. There have been hints that they are there. Of course, some American experts, like Alexander Vindman, who are frustrated that the U.S. military is not more directly involved, have been calling on Biden to send contractors into the fight from the beginning.
Others have said “operational contractors” should be inserted into Ukraine, not to fight, but to help the Ukrainians train and operate the sophisticated weaponry Washington is sending over there. Are they there now? It is hard to tell. We know there are plenty of private military contractors in Ukraine today from all over the West working in extraction, training, and humanitarian aid, but they are, as far as we know, freelancing, not on the U.S. dole.
The use of contractors, whether they be Americans or third party, has been widespread since the U.S. launched a Global War on Terror after 9/11. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of the end of 2022, there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD throughout the US Central Command’s area of responsibility.
“It is highly probable that contractors are a significant part of the U.S. personnel presence in Ukraine,” speculated Ted Carpenter, who wrote about the topic recently for Responsible Statecraft.
“My expectation is that they would be used for the operation and maintenance of the more advanced (and twitchy?) weapons systems that NATO has given to Kyiv,” he shared on Monday. “Another interesting question is how many DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and Pentagon personnel, as well as contractors, might be helping Ukraine with targeting information for attacks on Russian forces. Some of the operations have seemed far too sophisticated for the known capabilities that Ukraine possessed when the invasion began.”
Responsible Statecraft has put in a request to the DoD press office to ask just how many contractors might be in Ukraine today. In the meantime, Gaetz said in a statement he will press on with his own quest for a clear number of U.S. troops there. “There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine.”
Lula supports de-dollarization on his trip to China, but that is not enough
By Lucas Leiroz | April 18, 2023
Lula’s trip to China was marked by several signals about what may be his foreign policy in his third term. In his speeches, Lula suggested that he will continue to bet on partnerships with the global south and emphasized his criticism of organizations linked to or controlled by the US. Lula’s trip was well received by Chinese partners and brought new hope to bilateral and intra-BRICS relations.
Undoubtedly, the most prominent point in his pronouncements was his support for the de-dollarization of international economic relations. Lula questioned the need to use the dollar as a global commercial currency and expressed his support for the “idea” of creating a currency for the BRICS – or starting to trade in national currencies.
“Why can’t we do trade based on our own currencies? (…) Who was it that decided that the dollar was the currency after the disappearance of the gold standard? (…) Why can’t a bank like that of the BRICS have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other countries? It’s difficult because we are unaccustomed [to the idea]. Everyone depends on just one currency”, he said during a press conference.
With this, Lula reiterated what he had mentioned previously, during a trip to Argentina, in which he proposed the creation of a currency for Mercosur and another for the BRICS, both with the aim of advancing economic de-dollarization. To his supporters, this sounds like a big sign that Lula is distancing himself from the US and turning towards greater participation in building a multipolar world. However, this seems like an overly optimistic analysis.
De-dollarization is part of the multipolar world, but it is not its essence. Many countries, even US allies, have been seeking to de-dollarize their international transactions in recent years. Japan, for example, has traded with Beijing without the dollar since 2011, as well as Australia since 2013. Also, the EU has traded with Iran without the dollar since 2020. France recently started its de-dollarization process and Switzerland will certainly start this process soon, as it began to get rid of some of its dollar reserves.
In fact, economic de-dollarization is a technical and pragmatic measure, whose purpose is much more to generate economic benefits than to operate any geopolitical transition. In Brazil, the measure has even been supported on a large scale by businessmen and parliamentarians linked to the agribusiness sector, which is the main segment of the Brazilian economy and whose biggest partner is precisely China. Recognizing the Chinese interest in de-dollarization, there is internal pressure from the Brazilian business community for Lula to de-dollarize the economy. Therefore, it is a technical and pragmatic issue that does not mean much for Lula’s foreign policy agenda.
It is also necessary to emphasize that before traveling to China, Lula repeatedly stated that the main subject of his meeting with Xi would be to discuss the Ukrainian crisis. He planned to show his “peace club” proposal to the Chinese president and garner support, but apparently this was not a relevant topic in the talks. Both presidents limited themselves to generic declarations of support for peace and negotiations, without any more emphatic mention of Lula’s “peace club” project.
Considering that Lula planned the terms of his project in advance with American and European politicians, having even signed a joint statement with Biden condemning the Russian special military operation, it is most likely that Xi has refrained from giving any deep support to the Brazilian president. China and Russia are at their closest moment in history, with unlimited cooperation in all areas. Certainly, Xi would not agree to participate in a “peace club” supported precisely by the states that are waging war against Russia. Therefore, the Ukrainian subject ceased to be the main topic of the tour.
Furthermore, Lula signed interesting agreements with China in the field of space cooperation. A memorandum of understanding was also made in the semiconductor sector. The balance of the trip was positive for Brazil and advanced the de-dollarization agenda, but it did not significantly change the analyses that point out that Lula is closer to the West in this third term. In the same sense, Lula also did not revoke his support for prioritizing the EU-Mercosur agreement over the China-Mercosur agreement, which shows that his position of ambiguity remains.
It seems that Lula plans to continue maintaining this ambiguity. He develops his foreign policy based on a merely multilateralist, not a multipolar, mentality. Lula and his team are acting as if the current world scenario were the same as in his first terms, when there was no possibility of contesting the US unipolar geopolitical order, with the emerging countries only seeking greater economic development through multilateralism.
This reality has absolutely changed, and it is now possible to build a really polycentric system, where emerging countries also have a political role, not merely focused on economic and commercial development through multilateral cooperation. It is hoped that Lula’s team will realize this in time and take more relevant measures towards multipolarity, ignoring American pressure.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
US Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Force Biden to Provide Data on Ukraine Aid, Conflict
Sputnik – 17.04.2023
WASHINGTON – US Congressman Matt Gaetz said in a statement that he has introduced a resolution to force the Biden administration to relay information about plans for US military assistance to Ukraine, as well as about the number of US servicemembers operating in the country.
“Today, US Congressman Matt Gaetz introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, forcing President Joe Biden to transmit to the House of Representatives copies of any and all documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine. Additionally, the resolution directs Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to disclose the number of United States Armed Forces, including special operators, deployed to Ukraine without Congressional authority,” the statement said on Monday.
Biden and Austin would be required to provide the requested information within two weeks of the bill’s adoption, the statement said.
Documents leaked in recent months that appear to show classified US military information revealed that at least 14 members of the US special forces were deployed in Ukraine.
There is a small US military element in Ukraine, but no servicemembers engaged in combat operations, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Monday. However, US officials have declined to comment on the veracity of the seemingly leaked materials.
“The Biden Administration and other allied countries have been misleading the world on the state of the war in Ukraine. There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine,” Gaetz’s statement said.
The resolution would better inform Congress and the country on the “true state” of the US military’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, the statement added.
Why are Western media suddenly praising Russian electronic warfare capabilities?
By Drago Bosnic | April 18, 2023
Electronic warfare (EW) is one of the most important aspects of modern military capabilities and is often the litmus test of how advanced the state and its armed forces are. It’s part of the “invisible” and yet extremely intense battle that we usually cannot see directly. However, its impact is wholly undeniable. Russia is among the world leaders in EW and its warfighting capabilities in this regard are a source of pride for the Eurasian giant, but also fear for its adversaries. Russian dominance in EW on the frontlines of Ukraine is so comprehensive and massive that it’s one of the few things the mainstream propaganda machine never dared to question or ridicule. Even Russian strategic thermonuclear capabilities were subjected to propaganda attacks at times, but its EW capabilities – never. And for good reason.
And yet, as with everything concerning the mainstream propaganda machine, we must tread carefully. This is especially true when it comes to the media citing the Pentagon “leaks” as their primary source of information. Needless to say, an actual leak would require an inadvertent release of classified information and most intelligence experts agree it’s extremely unlikely there was anything inadvertent about it. However, this is not to say that all information connected to the “leak” is false. On the contrary, its relatively elaborate nature implies that much of it is indeed true, but it can be difficult to discern what exactly. One of the few “leaked” facts we can surely believe concerns precisely Russian EW capabilities. Still, this begs the question – why?
To answer that, we should first dissect and specify the claims of the mainstream propaganda machine. The “leaks” include a massive amount of information, including the claim that US-made JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs are failing in Ukraine due to successful Russian EW measures. The “leak” documents not only review the use of Russian countermeasures to make JDAMs ineffective, but also indicate that in some cases this results in failure to even detonate. It seems this includes the JDAM-ER (Extended Range) bombs that the troubled Biden administration sent to the Kiev regime in order to provide certain battlefield advantages to its forces. A futile effort, it would seem now, although the documents suggest that at least a thousand JDAM kits have been sent so far.
Politico claims that “Russia is using GPS jamming to interfere with the weapons’ targeting process, according to the slide and a separate person familiar with the issue who’s not in the US government”. The report further states that “American officials believe Russian jamming is causing the JDAMs, and at times other American weapons such as guided rockets, to miss their mark”. Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and retired CIA officer claims: “I do think there may be concern that the Russians may be jamming the signal used to direct the JDAMs, which would answer why these munitions are not performing in the manner expected and how they perform in other war zones.”
This was quite an unpleasant surprise for the Kiev regime as it expected the JDAMs to be a “game changer” providing key tactical advantages that Russia supposedly “couldn’t match”. However, it’s not just that this completely false sense of security fell apart as a result, but it turns out that the performance of other much-touted NATO-sourced weaponry is little more than PR optics. The “leak” suggests that even the M270 and HIMARS rockets are being successfully countered by Russian GPS jamming tactics. Many documents consistently show that the Kiev regime forces are generally beset by chronic munitions and advanced weapons shortages, and having Russian EW capabilities preventing precision targeting is exacerbating this exponentially, despite countless billions in weapons provided by the political West.
This is where we come to the “solution” the American Military Industrial Complex (MIC) may come up with. So, how does the world’s largest cartel of arms producers solve the issues with the precision of their weapons? Well, more weapons! With the Kiev regime potentially acquiring thousands of additional JDAMs, obviously by using funds provided by the political West, since the Neo-Nazi junta itself is “financially dead”, as Hungarian President Viktor Orban accurately assessed, US MIC contractors get even more billions of American taxpayers’ dollars. The contract to alter and/or upgrade thousands of JDAMs and other munitions would provide long-term contracts to the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE Systems, etc. This could be one of the few logical answers to the question of why the mainstream propaganda machine suddenly felt the urge to tell the truth for once.
However, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking this has anything to do with altruistic motives or even the desire to make the Kiev regime a more effective fighting force. The main goal primarily revolves around causing as much death and destruction as possible, particularly to civilian infrastructure in the Donbass and other areas of former Ukraine. This has twofold advantages for the US. First, Russia is left with destroyed buildings and infrastructure that need to be renovated and second, the mainstream propaganda machine can portray the destruction as caused by Russia. This also explains why the Neo-Nazi junta continues using Western weapons that keep missing and hitting civilian areas. Perhaps the only positive aspect in all this is that the sheer magnitude of corruption and cronyism in both the political West and Kiev may very well accelerate Russian victory.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Featured Video
No More Ukraine Proxy War? You’re a Traitor!
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
Bill Francis on Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate… Sheree Sheree on I was canceled by three newspa… Richard Ong on Czech–Slovak alignment signals… John Edward Kendrick on Colonel Jacques Baud & Nat… eddieb on Villains of Judea: Ronald Laud… rezjiekc on Substack Imposes Digital ID Ch… loongtip on US strikes three vessels in Ea… eddieb on An Avoidable Disaster Steve Jones on For Israel, The Terrorist Atta… cleversensationally3… on Over Half of Germans Feel Unab… loongtip on Investigation Into U.S. Milita… loongtip on Zelensky’s Impossible De…
Aletho News- How Policies From The Bi-Parisian Foreign Policy Establishment Led To Trump’s Venezuela War
- No More Ukraine Proxy War? You’re a Traitor!
- Sexual Blackmail Makes the World Go ‘Round
- Powerful Israeli Strikes on South Lebanon and Bekaa
- UAE-backed militia in Yemen reaches out to Israel for alliance against ‘common foes’: Report
- The UAE’s reverse trajectory: From riches to rags
- Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate Speech” Laws Linking Censorship to Terror Prevention
- Majority of Belgians oppose theft of Russian assets – poll
- Czech–Slovak alignment signals growing dissatisfaction with Brussels’ authoritarianism
- Colonel Jacques Baud & Nathalie Yamb Sanctioned: EU Goes Soviet
- If Americans Knew
- Amnesty: ‘Utterly preventable’ Gaza flood tragedy must mobilize global action to end Israel’s genocide
- Israel Propagandists Are Uniformly Spouting The Exact Same Line About The Bondi Beach Shooting
- Ha’aretz: Free the Palestinian Activist Who Dared to Document Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank
- Garbage Is Poisoning Gaza
- Palestinian journalist recounts rape and torture in Israeli prison
- Gaza is crumbling, but its people persevere – Not a Ceasefire Day 69
- Pro-Israel billionaire Miriam Adelson green-lights a Trump 3rd term
- Australians Being Massacred Shouldn’t Bother Us More Than Palestinians Being Massacred
- Garbage, stench, sewage, and rats plague Gaza – Not a Ceasefire Day 68
- The Zionist Billionaire Circle Hiding in Plain Sight
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
- The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
- New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
- Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
- Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon Challenges The Climate Consensus … It’s The Sun, Not CO2
- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
- Greenland Petermann Glacier Has Grown 30 Kilometers Since 2012!
- New Study: Temperature-Driven CO2 Outgassing Explains 83 Percent Of CO2 Rise Since 1959
- Climate Extremists Ordered By Hamburg Court To Pay €400,000 In Damages
- More Evidence NE China Is Not Cooperating With The Alarmist Global Warming Narrative
Aletho News 