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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Running For President in 2024

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | April 5, 2023

For the last three years, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been one of America’s strongest voices in defending our Constitutional Republic from public health officials and politicians wielding emergency power. In a series of rousing speeches reminiscent of his father’s famous University of Capetown address in 1966, RFK, Jr. has articulated why we should never allow our constitution to be compromised by fallible men who promise to keep us safe. Today, April 5, 2023, he filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for President of the United States in the 2024 election.

Mr. Kennedy was an environmental activist thirty years before it became fashionable. For decades, he worked as an attorney to protect the natural world from corporate industrial polluters. He has been especially troubled by the contamination of our waterways such as the Hudson River with hazardous waste, including mercury. In 2005 he became concerned about a mercury compound used as a preservative in childhood vaccines, which prompted him to conduct a thorough investigation of vaccine safety in general. He found it especially alarming that the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act granted vaccine manufacturers immunity from all civil and criminal liability for injuries or deaths caused by their products.

In the absence of legal liability, he realized that the only thing likely to regulate their conduct is scrutiny from a public figure, and because no other public figures were stepping up to do it, he himself assumed the responsibility. No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes. Mr. Kennedy’s critical scrutiny of vaccine makers (coining billions while bearing zero product liability) has not been met with debate, but with vitriolic, ad hominem attacks and accusations of being a conspiracy theorist. Implied in these attacks is that no one should dare even question the safety of vaccines.

In 2021, he published his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, meticulously cataloguing the corruption, cronyism, and abuse of power rampant in the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex in which Dr. Fauci has played a key role. Every statement in Mr. Kennedy’s book is documented with a citation of primary sources including federal agency documents, peer reviewed medical literature, and public records. Any reader can easily evaluate these sources. The Kindle edition features hyperlinks to the documents.

The sixty-nine year-old Kennedy was educated at Harvard College and the London School of Economics, graduating from Harvard in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in American History and Literature. He went on to earn a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia and a Master of Laws from Pace University.

It seems to me that even Republicans and dedicated Donald Trump supporters should welcome this momentous event. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly demonstrated his dedication to preserving the U.S. Constitution and the American way of life it sustains. More so than any public figure with presidential ambitions, he has fought to protect individual American citizens from federal mandates and other acts of state overreach. He may be the only Madisonian classical liberal left who has an affiliation with the Democratic Party. Against the Republican contender in 2024, Mr. Kennedy would be an honorable and worthy opponent.

Readers of this Substack are encouraged to register on his TEAM KENNEDY website, which will soon announce the details of his campaign kickoff ceremony in Boston on April 19.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Environmentalism, Solidarity and Activism | | Leave a comment

China issues correction to US and NATO over Ukraine

RT | April 6, 2023

NATO, not China, is responsible for the crisis in Ukraine and has no moral standing from which to criticize Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a press conference on Thursday.

“The US and the military bloc of NATO shoulder unshirkable responsibilities on the Ukraine crisis,” Mao continued, arguing that NATO “is in no position to criticize or pressure China” to take its side.

“On the Ukraine crisis, China upholds an objective and just position. We have been advocating a political settlement of the crisis and working for talks for peace,” she explained, claiming that this was a strategy “supported by the vast majority of countries in the world.”

“History will tell who is truly standing on the right side upholding justice.”

On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned China to curtail its “growing alignment” with Moscow, accusing Beijing of “prop[ping] up Russia’s economy” and “refus[ing] to condemn Russia’s aggression.”

Supplying weapons to NATO’s arch-nemesis, Stoltenberg added, “would be a historic mistake, with profound implications.”

Beijing has repeatedly denied having any plans to provide lethal aid to Russia, which has likewise denied reports that it has requested military equipment from the Chinese.

The two nations have grown closer over the past year, vowing to “further deepen mutual military trust” after last month’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping at the Kremlin.

However, Putin more recently clarified that there was no “military alliance with China” on the horizon, merely “cooperation in the sphere of military-technical interaction.” The West, he argued, was merely projecting its fantasy of a new axis similar to the fascist enemy of World War II onto its chief geopolitical rivals.

The US has nevertheless sanctioned several Chinese companies for allegedly supplying parts used in Iranian drones, which Washington claims are being used by Russia in Ukraine.

The US Treasury announced new sanctions on five Chinese companies and one individual said to be “responsible for the sale and shipment of thousands of aerospace components” to Iran, including parts that could be used to make drones. Iran, too, has denied providing weapons to Russia for use in the Ukrainian conflict.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Yemeni FM berates Biden for faking ‘concern’, says US complicit in war, siege

Press TV – April 5, 2023

Yemen’s foreign minister says the United States is bent on whitewashing its complicity in the Saudi-led aggression against the impoverished Arab country by pretending to be concerned about achieving peace there.

Hisham Sharaf was cited by the Yemeni Saba news agency as making the remarks on Tuesday, two days after US President Joe Biden released a statement on the anniversary of the start of an UN-sponsored ceasefire in Yemen and stressed Washington’s “support” for all efforts aimed at reaching a comprehensive peace in the war-ravaged country.

Underlining that the US was “trying to evade its responsibilities” as a party responsible for the Saudi-led war and was profiting from it, Sharaf challenged Washington to “prove” its sincerity in wanting peace in Yemen by taking “concrete steps on the ground” and condemning the actions of the Saudi-led coalition.

“The countries that claim to be keen on achieving peace in Yemen should be sincere in their intentions by condemning the aggression and siege on Yemen for the ninth year in a row, stopping the supply of weapons and military experts to aggression countries, and putting pressure on the aggression countries,” Sharaf said.

The top Yemeni diplomat said Biden’s statement and the concern he showed regarding achieving permanent peace in Yemen are “not commensurate with what America is doing in reality by providing cover for the aggression countries.”

“The United States of America is trying with such a statement to evade its responsibilities as a party that participated in the aggression and siege on Yemen, which caused the largest humanitarian crisis in contemporary history, and to present itself as a dove of peace,” he added.

Emphasizing Yemen’s call for a just peace, Sharaf concluded by expressing Sana’a’s readiness to defend the Yemeni people through all legitimate means and the country’s ability to meet the legitimate demands of the Yemeni people.

Omani-hosted talks between the sides in the protracted conflict have been ongoing for the past several months, with the Iran-Saudi rapprochement having increased hopes that an end to the war could be imminent.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — the closest allies of the US in the region after the Israeli regime — have been waging the war on Yemen since March 2015.

The invasion has been seeking to change Yemen’s ruling structure in favor of the impoverished country’s former Riyadh- and Washington-friendly rulers and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement. The Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives.

The war, which has been enjoying unstinting arms, logistical, and political support on the part of the United States, has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemen’s defense forces, which feature the country’s army and its allied Popular Committees, have, however, vowed not to lay down their arms until the country’s complete liberation from the scourge of the aggression.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainization is Destroying American Politics

Sputnik – 06.04.2023

The persecution of former US President Donald Trump takes a page out of the Zelensky regime’s playbook, Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk wrote in a commentary for The Other Ukraine Telegram channel.

Judge for yourself: the US government declares that it is ready to finance the war in Eastern Europe forever and indefinitely.

Of course, the American people have questions about why the country needs this war, why it has no end, and where the voters’ taxes are actually going. The American voter is not interested in funding a war on the other side of the globe because they see serious problems at home. Against this backdrop, the politics of peace becomes attractive to the American voter and is destined for a quick victory.

And now watch the hands. The country’s justice system is politically violated, and a peacekeeper is declared a criminal without any serious evidence, based solely on political desires. All this has already happened in Ukraine. First of all, we accuse politicians who stand for peace of crimes that do not exist. But it is impossible to stop here, as the Ukrainian experience shows. Next, the “wrong” media and parties with a pro-peace agenda must be shut down, churches that preach peace must be persecuted, the “wrong” political movements must be banned, and active citizens who advocate peace must be thrown in jail. And call all this a victory for democracy. This is what the American disciples did in Ukraine. But as far as the US is concerned, all this can only lead to a large-scale war, which Trump warns of in every speech.

All this means one thing: the much-praised Ukrainian “democracy” imposed by the United States in Ukraine has crawled into America and will destroy the state institutions of this country, just as Ukrainian statehood was destroyed before.

This is what Trump warns of: “We are in many ways a third world country. We are a country whose economy is floundering, whose supply chains are broken, whose stores are not full, whose deliveries are not coming in, and whose education system is at the bottom of every list…” And recently, he said, “Our country is going to hell.”

And here it is impossible not to agree with him, because Ukraine is already in hell, and it is dragging the US with it. Ukrainian students have surpassed their American teachers and have become teachers of legal chaos themselves. It only remains to add that Ukraine was pushed into a hell of lawlessness and arbitrariness by American policies, and today it is reaping the fruits of its own actions. As the saying goes, “God will repay each one according to his deeds.”

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Why Most of the World Isn’t on Board with the NATO-Russia War

By Weimin Chen | Mises Wire | March 28, 2023

As the war in Ukraine drags on into its second year, protest demonstrations have been taking place in major European cities. They express the growing sentiment that the people are tired of the protracted conflict and fearful of what could come should the war continue even longer. Memories of the catastrophic world wars that ravaged Europe in the first half of the last century and the terrible threat of nuclear annihilation that divided the continent in the second half of the century form the traumatic foundation from which Europeans are voicing their aversion to this conflict, which has the potential to spiral out of control and bring a major war to Europe and the world again.

Broad Opposition to War

There have been protest demonstrations occurring in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Albania, Moldova, and others. European protests surrounding the anniversary of the start of the conflict notably span the Left-Right spectrum in opposing US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) imperialism as well as the economic hardships that have befallen ordinary Europeans against the backdrop of sanctions on Russia and the funding of Ukraine.

Italian port workers aligned with the Left protested in Genoa specifically to resist the use of Italian ports to supply arms deliveries to Ukraine. Meanwhile in France, demonstrations organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party in various locations across the country called for France’s withdrawal from both NATO and the European Union.

In all cases, the people on the streets at these events identify involvement in the war as harmful to general economic well-being and have been expressing frustration with their countries’ acquiescence to these intergovernmental and supranational organizations in fueling the violence while simultaneously discouraging dialogue. Feelings of skepticism toward NATO, the European Union, and the United States have become increasingly vocal in Europe due to the way that western countries are handling the war. In the minds of many Europeans, their governments are recklessly following the will of Washington, which could lead them into a serious escalation to a wider war.

German Memory

Germany suffered tremendously during the two World Wars and continued to endure the pressures of division and foreign occupation during the Cold War. A century of pain and turmoil brought about by militarism and intervention still informs the collective consciousness of the country. As part of the anniversary protests, thousands of people gathered around the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin for an event called the “Uprising for Peace,” organized by prominent Left party member Sahra Wagenknecht and the feminist journalist Alice Schwarzer. The rally was a show of support for a “manifesto for peace,” which had already received well over half a million signatures by the time of the rally. It calls for the end of military exports to Ukraine and for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. Demonstrations have also taken place in Nuremberg (in response to the German government’s plan to send tanks to Ukraine), in Munich (during the Munich Security Conference), and outside of the prominent US air base in Ramstein where important matters regarding the Ukraine conflict are discussed among Western leaders.

At the rally in Nuremberg, one demonstrator recalled the historical record, explaining that if Germany gets involved in another war with Russia, then “based on history, it is the worst sign that we can send.” He emphasized that “no war must go through Germany, neither with arms deliveries nor anything else, because otherwise, Germany will be in the middle of it again.”

The last time war broke out in Europe between the two countries, it was one of the most catastrophic events in human history. This view echoes the glimmer of hope from just a few months before the start of Russia’s invasion that the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could have strengthened ties and prevented conflict in Europe, especially with regard to Russia and Germany. Of course, the mysterious destruction of Nord Stream a year later and the report by Seymour Hersh identifying US and allied hands in the sabotage mission completely turned that hope on its head. Those who strive for peace and an end to the bloodshed are understandably disheartened, yet they are motivated to vocally speak out to European leaders to push for peace.

Across the Atlantic and Beyond

These gatherings have run parallel to the Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington, DC, where Americans protested against the US’s funding and arming of Ukraine as well as the diplomatic negligence in preventing the negotiation of an end to the fighting. Those speaking and demonstrating against US involvement in Ukraine have parallel grievances toward their government and echo those in Europe.

Voices spanning the political spectrum from socialists to libertarians have found common ground in opposing the many rounds of weapons packages and financial aid to Ukraine, as well as the lack of diplomatic responsibility on the part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken in communicating with his counterpart, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Since the rally, President Joe Biden has included $6 billion in Ukraine and NATO funding as part of his $842 billion defense-budget request for 2024. Meanwhile, Blinken met briefly with Lavrov on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in New Delhi with no tangible progress on the subject of ending hostilities in Ukraine. While hopes from the American side remain dim, perhaps the protests in Europe may influence decisions at the levels of leadership in their respective countries.

The West’s commitment to Ukraine has also struck opposition from other regions. At this year’s Munich Security Conference, leaders from non-Western countries expressed the necessity of finding peaceful solutions. Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Viera called upon the world to “build the possibility of a solution,” while Colombia’s vice president Francia Marquez said, “We don’t want to go on discussing who will be the winner or the loser of a war. We are all losers, and, in the end, it is humankind that loses everything.”

Namibia’s prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila stressed the waste of money and resources in the name of hostility which “could be better utilized to promote development in Ukraine, in Africa, in Asia, in other places, in Europe itself, where many people are experiencing hardships.” China went so far as to outline a political settlement to the Ukraine crisis on the anniversary of the invasion.

These statements and efforts show their acknowledgment of the much poorer state of affairs the world finds itself in as the war drags on. The Russian war in Ukraine must come to an end one day, and more people around the world are demanding a solution now.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

F-35 readiness rates get in way of NATO war planning

By Drago Bosnic | April 6, 2023

Last year, NATO officially declared that Russia is its primary adversary, officially restarting the Cold War. Since then, the belligerent alliance’s war machine has started revamping its strategic posturing towards Moscow, but after decades of numerous wars of aggression against relatively helpless opponents, NATO’s conventional fighting capabilities have atrophied significantly. This seems to be affecting all branches of major NATO militaries, including their air forces, particularly those operating the deeply troubled F-35 JSF (Joint Strike Fighter), a pan-Western effort to unify all NATO and NATO-aligned countries into “a well-oiled joint fighting force with near flawless coordination and battlefield information sharing”. At least that was the original idea.

However, the reality is much different. Publicly, the Pentagon is quite happy with “the best fighter jet ever made”. Privately, the situation is starkly different. For at least a decade, numerous reports on the F-35’s countless flaws have turned out to be not only true, but even overoptimistic, as the actual scale of issues plaguing the program is much worse. This has resulted in repeated delays in deliveries, as well as serious issues with modernization efforts. By the time many of the reported issues are resolved, the US Air Force already has new mission requirements that essentially nullify all the previous work and force the developers “back to the drawing board”. In short, the F-35 has proven to be unable to adapt to new threats despite being devised (and marketed) to do exactly that.

According to various sources, over 900 F-35s have been completed and delivered by April this year, but the fleet is still suffering from many of the same issues as when the jet was inducted into service nearly a decade ago. A plethora of maintenance issues and performance defects are causing disastrous availability rates. Back in February, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed that the F-35 fleet not only failed to meet the requirements for improving readiness, but has even managed to make them a lot worse than in previous years. Availability rates for both the conventional F-35A and STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing) F-35B fell by 11% in 2022, with only the naval F-35C variant making small improvements in this category.

“Between 2021 and 2022, F-35As’ availability fell by 11 percentage points, from 65 to 54”, CBO stated in a report, adding: “F-35Bs’ availability also fell, by 7 percentage points, from 61 to 54, while F-35Cs’ availability rose by 5 percentage points to 58.”

And yet, even these reports turned out to be overoptimistic as Lockheed Martin once again resorted to using semantics to make the performance of its products seem better than they actually are. According to Bloomberg, the percentage of F-35s capable of flying any mission at any given moment, otherwise known as full mission-capable rates, was just over 29%, manager of the program Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt said in written testimony for the March 29 hearing of the House Armed Service Committee’s aviation subcommittee. This is nearly 10% less than the full mission-capable readiness in 2020, which stood at 39% at the time. Such a drop effectively nullified possible advantages provided by deliveries of new jets.

“This is unacceptable and maximizing readiness is my top priority,” Schmidt said in his prepared remarks, adding: “[Our] goal is to increase readiness rates by at least 10% in the next 12 months.”

This is just the latest in a series of now well over a hundred scathing reports issued over the years by both military and civilian US officials. As there are currently close to 540 F-35s in service with the US military, the latest readiness figures indicate that no more than 160 are fully mission-capable, meaning it’s among the very lowest, “bested” only by the F-22 “Raptor” jets and the atrociously maintenance-heavy B-2 strategic bombers. Ironically, F-35s were designed to have low maintenance requirements and operational costs to replace F-16s and A-10s for USAF, F-18s for USN (Navy) and AV-8Bs for USMC (Marines). The jet’s many issues resulted in a spending “death spiral”, as the program’s overall cost is getting ever closer to the staggering $2 trillion.

A major issue with the F-35 is its troubled F135 engine prone to overheating, resulting in issues with its ability to fly supersonic, a feat considered standard practice for fighter jets ever since WWII. Defense Secretary under the Trump administration, Christopher C. Miller, was so frustrated with the jet that he referred to it as “a monster” and “a piece of… (well , you get the idea)”.  Even the late John McCain, well known for anything but enmity towards the US MIC (Military Industrial Complex), called it “a textbook example of our broken defense acquisition system”, stating in one of his Senate briefings that “the F-35 program’s record has been both a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance”.

US vassals and satellite states have also found numerous issues with the F-35. For instance, during 18 months of operational testing (from January 2021 to June 2022), South Korea reported findings about nearly 250 critical flaws in the jets it acquired from the US in 2019. As late as December, Israel (one of the first F-35 operators) had to ground its entire fleet during preparations for a possible war with Iran. Others, such as Japan and the UK, have also suffered similar issues, even resulting in crashes and deaths. However, while the F-35 has certainly been a disaster, it might prove to be a major contributor to improving global security, as diminishing the political West’s ability to wage war is by far the best way to preserve peace across the world.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Estonia cracks down on Russian media

RT | April 5, 2023

Estonia has blocked access to 53 websites that were used to watch banned Russian TV channels, the Baltic country’s Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) said on Wednesday.

The regulator added that the crackdown was conducted in accordance with the EU sanctions on Russian media.

TTJA Director General Kristi Talving cited a poll commissioned by the Estonian government, which found that the trust of Russian channels has fallen from 40% to 18%. “Based on these numbers, we can say that the work to protect the Estonian information space has been effective,” Talving said.

Nearly 40% of people living in Estonia speak Russian, according to the official census. The country has had a sizable Russian minority from the time that it was part of the Soviet Union.

The EU banned the broadcasting of content from multiple Russian news organizations, including RT, in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, which was launched in February 2022. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, accused the news outlets of spreading disinformation.

Estonia separately banned six Russian TV channels in February 2022. The next month, the TTJA blacklisted seven outlets, including Channel One and news agency TASS.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has described the ban on the country’s news organizations in the EU as an act of censorship aimed at “purging the information space of the presence of any media that is an alternative to Western [media].”

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Paris votes to ban rental e-scooter ‘nuisance’

RT | April 4, 2023

Nine out of ten Parisians have voted in favor of banning rental electric scooters from the city’s streets. Once seen as a pioneering form of green transport, the vehicles rapidly became a scourge as users flouted traffic laws and caused crashes and injuries.

Voters chose to ban the scooters by 89% to 10% in a “public consultation” on Sunday organized by Mayor Anne Hidalgo. Though the vote was non-binding, Hidalgo has vowed to implement the ban from September onwards.

The measure covers scooters rented to tourists and visitors by companies such as Lime, Dott, and Tier. These three firms own nearly 15,000 e-scooters, which users book via smartphone apps. The ban will not affect privately-owned scooters.

Hidalgo welcomed scooter rental firms to the city in 2018, claiming that the motorized two-wheelers would relieve traffic congestion and lure people out of carbon-emitting cars. More than a dozen companies moved into the rental market, but residents soon complained about riders weaving precariously in between traffic, mounting sidewalks, and abandoning the scooters on roads, in parks, and even in the River Seine.

A rider was hit by a car and killed in Paris’ first e-scooter accident in 2019. Last year saw 34 people killed and 600 others seriously injured across France while riding e-scooters or similar mobility devices, according to France’s national road safety agency. Pedestrians have suffered too, with an Italian woman killed in 2021 after she was hit by a scooter carrying two passengers.

In the five years since she opened Paris up to the scooter rental companies, Hidalgo has changed her tune. “Self-service scooters are a source of tension and worry” for locals, she told the AFP last week, claiming that a ban would “reduce nuisance” on the streets.

Following the vote, Paris will become the first EU capital to ban rental e-scooters entirely. Copenhagen outlawed the devices in 2020, but allowed them to return the following year with some stiffer restrictions. After a string of accidents in 2021, Moscow authorities imposed a 15kph (9mph) speed limit on e-scooters in the center of the Russian capital.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

France prepares to take militarization measures

By Lucas Leiroz | April 6, 2023

France is preparing for a conflict in the near future. The country is about to implement a new measure to raise the age of military reservists. The expansion of the number of active troops is also supposed to be announced at any moment. The declarations come amid a serious moment of internal crisis in France, with protests and police violence being reported every day due to the unpopular and authoritarian policies of the Macron government. At the same time that Paris could be seeking to improve its defense capacity in the midst of a world in tensions, the action could also be aimed at resolving the effects of the critical domestic scenario.

According to Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Paris will raise the maximum age for military reservists to 70 years. He also told an important French media outlet that “certain specialists” will be allowed to remain as reservists until the age of 72 – without, however, specifying in detail which would be such particular cases. The measure represents a radical change, since more than ten years are added to the current age limits. Lecornu believes that the current law is an unnecessary limit and that it prevents qualified professionals from contributing to the French forces for a longer time.

“A lot of people of quality find themselves ejected because of this age limit, which makes no sense (…) We will increase the age limits (…) People will be able to be a reservist in the French military until they are 70 years old and until they are 72 years old for certain specialists”, he told RTL during an interview.

Currently, professionals up to 60 years old can be reservists, with some special authorizations for people up to 65 years old. As we can see, it is therefore a large-scale reform, which will have a wide impact, as ten years are added to the age limit. It is estimated that with this it will be possible to double the number of reservists, jumping from 40 thousand soldiers to more than 80 thousand ones. However, this is just one of the militarization measures involved in an apparent interest on the part of Paris to focus on military matters at the current time.

New substantial defense spending is expected for the future. As previously announced by President Emmanuel Macron himself, the government plans to raise the military fund to 69 billion euros a year by 2030 – currently such spending is estimated at an amount of 43 billion euros a year. Lecornu believes that these actions are essential for his country to deal efficiently and effectively with the “threats” and “challenges” of the contemporary world.

“There are several objectives with this unprecedented budget package: to continue to repair what has been damaged, a certain number of budget cuts have affected our army model (…) and we have a succession of threats that are all adding up,” he told media.

In fact, there are a series of factors to be analyzed in order to understand the decisions being taken by the French government. First, the measure meets NATO’s recent demands for combat readiness in the entire alliance. France is one of the most relevant military powers of the bloc and its combat strength is extremely important for the alliance to have its objectives achieved in a conflict scenario. So, in a way, it is possible to say that Paris is fulfilling Western war plans when it implements militarization measures.

But this is certainly insufficient to entirely understand the case. On the domestic scenario, France is absolutely chaotic. Recently, a social security reform that increases the retirement age in the country was illegally implemented, which generated a serious crisis of legitimacy. By ordinary procedure, the reform should not have taken place, as it did not receive sufficient legislative support, however it was adopted with the government resorting to legal maneuvers and distorted interpretations of the national constitution in what appeared to be a kind of “internal lawfare”.

The popular reaction to these maneuvers is being manifest through mass protests in main French cities. The country’s chaos can be easily seen in the newspapers as well as with videos circulating on the internet showing clashes between demonstrators and police. Law enforcement forces have acted repressively and abusively against ordinary citizens, who are simply protesting against the government’s illegal actions.

What few analysts seem to understand is that these measures also serve NATO’s war interests. France has already sent large sums of money and arms packages to Kiev since the beginning of the special military operation, both on its own initiative and through the European fund, to which the country actively contributes. Obviously, the more money that is used to support NATO’s war machine, the more money the public reserves will lack to pay its own pensioners, which create the demands for reforms. Hence, not just in France but throughout the entire West, the trend is for neoliberal reforms against pension systems to become even more common.

The case thus reflects the contemporary Western inclination of neoliberal militarization. The aim is to reduce labor and social guarantees and increase military spending to make the Atlantic alliance an anti-Russian war machine, prepared for a world conflict, while ignoring the necessities of ordinary citizens. Specifically with regard to France, there is also the rhetorical use of the narrative about the security “threats” to try to distract the population and convince citizens to accept that their rights are diminished.

It remains to be seen whether the French will really adhere to the official rhetoric and abdicate their claims for social rights, or whether they will continue to protest in the streets.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The Viral Delusion – Episode 4: ‘AIDS, The Deadly Deception’ (2022)

 21WIRE | April 3, 2023

AIDS. It was the defining epidemic of a generation. But it was also the coming of age for many leading scientists and doctors who came to realize that blaming the illnesses known as AIDS on a virus was not only unsupported by science, it was downright nonsensical. What were the true causes of the many illnesses labelled AIDS around the world? How many suffered from their misdiagnosis? The prescription of repurposed AZT drugs arguable did more harm than good for vulnerable patients. As it turns out, some familiar suspects like Dr. Anthony Fauci were in key gatekeeping positions back then. How the scientific establishment fell into a deadly HIV-AIDS delusion is crucial to understanding other so-called ‘global pandemics’, and what it means to be healthy’ in the eyes of the medical industry today. Watch: 

Bitchute link

Run time: 1 hrs 46 min

Production: Paradigm Shift Pictures (2022)

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Le Pen tops French presidential poll

RT | April 5, 2023

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen would comfortably defeat President Emmanuel Macron if France’s 2022 presidential election were held today, a poll published on Wednesday found. Macron is currently facing a torrent of public anger over his efforts to raise the retirement age for most French workers.

The BFMTV poll found that Le Pen would emerge from a first electoral round with 31% of the vote, ahead of Macron with 23% and leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon with 18.5%. Such a result would be an eight-point improvement for the National Rally leader, who finished the first round last year with 23% to Macron’s 28%.

French presidential elections take place over two rounds if no one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, with the top two candidates from the first round advancing. This has always been the case under the Fifth Republic, and 2022 saw Macron defeat Le Pen by 59% to 41% in the head-to-head runoff.

Today, however, Le Pen would dispatch Macron by 55% to 45%, the poll found. While Macron counted on Republican, Green, and some leftist votes to win the second round last year, far fewer of these voters would switch to backing the president today. For example, while 68% of Green candidate Yannick Jadot’s supporters voted for Macron in the second round last year, 52% would do so today.

Furthermore, 27% of Macron’s voters in 2022 would either abstain or vote for Le Pen if given a rerun, the poll found.

Macron’s government invoked special constitutional powers to pass a controversial pension reform bill without a parliamentary vote last month. The bill raised the retirement age for most French workers from 62 to 64, and its passage triggered a nationwide wave of protests and riots. The largest demonstration saw more than a million people take to the streets across the country, and hundreds were arrested in a single day in Paris for lighting fires and clashing with police officers.

Raising the retirement age has long been one of Macron’s key goals, with the president describing the move as a “just and responsible” way to keep France’s social security system afloat. Le Pen, who is best known for her opposition to Islamic immigration, focused her 2022 campaign on opposing the pension reforms and hammering Macron for France’s rising cost of living.

Le Pen has continued to oppose the reforms, while condemning some acts of vandalism by protesters. France, she told the AFP news agency last week, “has been governed against its wishes. The way [Macron] is ruling will enable political forces with the exact opposite approach to his to gain power.”

April 5, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Trump Is Being Politically Persecuted To Prevent Him From Brokering Peace With Russia

By Andrew Korybko | April 5, 2023

Former US President and leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is facing 34 felony charges related to allegedly falsifying business records, which ordinarily would have just been a slew of misdemeanors had the prosecutor not “bumped them up” on a shadowy pretext. The domestic political context extends credence to criticisms that this is actually a persecution that’s also partially being carried out to galvanize the Democrats’ base, but there’s a crucial international dimension to all this too.

The argument can be made that the real reason why this witch hunt and all prior ones were commenced against him is due to his envisaged policy of brokering peace with Russia through a series of mutual compromises that can be referred to as a “New Détente”. It was this grand strategy that he campaigned on in 2016 and which prompted his opponent Hillary Clinton to concoct the Russiagate conspiracy theory falsely misportraying him as “Putin’s puppet”.

What Trump and his team had in mind wasn’t treasonous but pragmatic from the perspective of the US’ objective interests in that there’s a reasonable logic to de-escalating tensions with Russia in Europe so as to more effectively “contain” China in the Asia-Pacific. To that end, he sincerely wanted to compel Kiev into implementing the Minsk Accords but ultimately failed because influential figures in his country’s military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) were opposed to this.

These individuals and their European counterparts are unofficial members of the cult known as liberal–globalism, which preaches that their Western way of life – particularly its radical liberal variant thereof – must be imposed onto the rest of the world “for their own good”. Due to a combination of ideological and strategic reasons, they believed that the US should prioritize “containing” Russia over China, hence why they united to sabotage Trump’s well-intended plans that were explained above.

The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine that began last February when Moscow was forced to resort to military means for protecting the integrity of its national security red lines after this US-led bloc clandestinely crossed them there could in theory have been prevented had Trump still been in office. At the same time, however, his prior capitulation to the “deep state’s” demands to impose more sanctions on Moscow challenges this prediction, but it’s still worth considering in any case.

Despite the aforesaid skepticism, Trump recently doubled down on his envisaged pragmatic approach towards Russia by proclaiming that he’d broker peace with it and Kiev through a deal that he hinted would recognize the ground realities by legitimizing Moscow’s control over former Ukrainian territory. While the felony charges against him were already being pursued behind the scenes before this, there’s no doubt that his policy reaffirmation gave his opponents an urgent impetus to derail his re-election bid.

The former leader’s socio-economic and domestic political platform undoubtedly goes against the interests of the US elite, but they likely wouldn’t have discredited themselves by so openly persecuting him in the way that they’ve since done had he not so powerfully challenged their international interests. The reader should be remembered that ideological and strategic drivers are behind their obsession with “containing” Russia over China since the influential military-industrial complex still benefits either way.

The indisputable desperation with which his opponents are trying to derail his re-election bid exposes their true intentions in politically crucifying him all these years. They regard him as the greatest threat to their liberal-globalist cult not just because of his polar opposite socio-cultural policies at home, but because his grand strategy prioritizes reaching a “New Détente” with Russia, which the “deep state” considers to be the embodiment of everything that their belief system is against.

By hook or by crook, whether in the open or in the shadows, they’ll stop at nothing to prevent Trump from regaining the presidency during next year’s elections and fulfilling his vision. The stakes have never been higher for the liberal-globalist cult since that outcome could discredit their fellow travelers in the EU and thus possibly bring about the unraveling of their transatlantic ideological project with time. Trump must therefore be stopped at all costs, which explains his present political persecution.

April 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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