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No Jab, No Education? Big Pharma’s influence on Irish and British schools

By Gavin O’Reilly | OffGuardian | October 5, 2023

Last Thursday it was announced that the southern Irish state would roll out Flu jabs to all schoolchildren under its jurisdiction, despite the fact that children are an age group at absolute minute risk of becoming seriously ill from seasonal illnesses such as Flu and colds.

This comes less than three months after an effectively identical announcement was made by the British government, regarding the rollout of the Flu jab to upwards of three million children in English schools.

A similar announcement was made by the British government in October 2019, however that plan was scrapped due to lack of supplies.

AstraZeneca, the manufacturer of the nasal-spray that was to be given to schoolchildren in England, blamed this on a hold-up of an analysis of that year’s Flu season by the WHO, which was to be then given to pharmaceutical firms in order to determine how many products were to be developed.

The timing of this announcement in 2019, and the new announcements that Flu jabs would be rolled out to schoolchildren in Ireland and Britain, arouses suspicion.

On the 18th of October 2019, the same day it was announced that plans had been scrapped to provide schoolchildren in England with Flu jabs, Event 201 was held in New York. Organised by John Hopkins University, in conjunction with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum, Event 201 was a simulation exercise which envisaged a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe, the effects of which could only be mitigated by even greater integration between the public and private sector worldwide, including giving social media outlets sweeping powers to deal with what the exercise termed ‘disinformation’ amidst the hypothetical pandemic .

In what can only be described as an outstanding coincidence, less than a month later, the world’s first case of the alleged ‘COVID-19’ virus was discovered in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s central Hubei province. In even further coincidence, Wuhan was home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based NGO with links to the Gates Foundation, was conducting research on the transmission of coronaviruses from bats to humans, using funds granted by Anthony Fauci’s  National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Several months later in March 2020, the WHO, an organisation with a history of corruption and undisclosed ties to pharmaceutical giants, announced the official beginning of the ‘COVID-19 Pandemic’. What followed next was unprecedented.

Vast swathes of society were closed down across the world, ostensibly to protect the sick and vulnerable from an alleged virus, the mortality rate of which made it no more dangerous than the seasonal illnesses which coincidentally disappeared for two years in all countries following WHO procedures, only to be ‘replaced’ by a ‘virus’ with the exact same symptoms.

In reality, lockdowns would do far more to flatten small businesses than to save lives, with the dependency on corporate outlets created as a result of these measures leading to the upwards transfer of more than $1tn in wealth.

In yet another coincidence, this example of governments and the private sector working in lockstep bore a striking similarity to what was outlined in Event 201, and also aligned perfectly with the WEF’s Great Reset initiative, launched in June 2020, which again reiterated that the only way to mitigate the effects of the ‘Covid Pandemic’ was to give the corporate class even greater sway over public life worldwide.

One of the key facets of the Great Reset is the introduction of a Digital ID, one which would give the government-corporate alliance an authoritarian level of control over its citizens should it be made mandatory, which during the ‘Covid Pandemic’, is effectively what happened.

Following the announcement of the ‘Covid Vaccine’ on the first business day after the 2020 US Presidential election (again, more coincidental timing), 2021 would see multiple countries around the world introduce legislation requiring their citizens to have been jabbed before they could participate in everyday life. To implement this, the standard practice was to place a QR code on their smartphone once they had been jabbed, one which would grant them access to restaurants, bars, gyms and other amenities prohibited to those who had chosen to not take part in a global medical experiment.

Essentially, this was a dry-run for the rollout of a mandatory digital ID, using an alleged ‘Pandemic’ as the pretext.

The introduction of jab passports however, would lead to a worldwide protest movement in defence of human rights. In response, the corporate media would begin a demonization campaign against these protesters, labelling them as ‘far-right’, and WEF-aligned governments would launch a brutal crackdown; perhaps most notably in Canada, where the government of WEF ‘Young Global Leader’ Justin Trudeau would attack demonstrators with teargas and mounted Horses, and freeze their bank accounts using emergency legislation.

The impact of this global protest movement likely played a part in the sudden collapse of the ‘Pandemic’ media narrative in early 2022, shortly after the WEF’s Davos Agenda virtual event. The Russian operation that began in Ukraine shortly after, following almost nine years of western provocations, would serve as a convenient cover story by the mainstream media for the global inflation caused by lockdown measures.

However, with lockstep announcements that Britain, under the rule of WEF member Rishi Sunak, and the southern Irish state, overseen by WEF ‘Young Global Leader’ Leo Varadkar, will be rolling out a product to schoolchildren, for an illness that poses an absolute miniscule risk to their age group, it may only be a matter of time until the ‘Pandemic’ narrative is repeated for schoolchildren in both countries, with it being made mandatory for them to have a Flu jab before they are granted an education.

Gavin O’Reilly is an Irish Republican activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism; he was a writer for the American Herald Tribune from January 2018 up until their seizure by the FBI in 2021, with his work also appearing on The Duran, Al-Masdar, MintPress News, Global Research and SouthFront. He can be reached through Twitter and Facebook and supported on Patreon.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Germany Has Thrown Away or Donated 242 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses – 50 Million More Than it Has Used!

BY ROBERT KOGON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 5, 2023

An interesting article in the German online magazine Multipolar on the many German COVID-19 vaccine ‘profiteers’ (BioNTech of course, but also lipid-suppliers Merck and Evonik, the Strüngmann brothers, the city of Mainz etc.) also contains some interesting observations on Germany’s own COVID-19 vaccine orders.

Author Karsten Montag notes that Germany has ordered some 672 million Covid vaccine doses: 557 million already at the height of the pandemic under then German Health Minister Jens Spahn and another 115 million under his successor Karl Lauterbach. But Germany has only in fact used 192 million doses (as can be seen here at the Ministry of Health’s handy ‘Vaccine Dashboard’).

Montag calculates that at the current relatively paltry vaccination rates in Germany, perhaps another one million doses will be used altogether by the end of this year. But what then about the remaining 479 million doses that have been ordered?

Well, not all of them have in fact been delivered. But Montag notes that in response to a question from the member of the German Bundestag Thomas Dietz, the German Government has now admitted to discarding 114 million COVID-19 vaccine doses which had reached their date of expiration by August 31st and of donating another 128 million to other countries.

This gives a total of 242 million COVID-19 vaccine doses which the German government has either discarded or donated – 50 million more than it has used!

Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X.

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

Anatomy Of A Protection Racket

Money, Medicine, And Madness

By David Marks | Report From Planet Earth | October 5, 2023

Few who consider the recent history of medicine are surprised by the heavy-handed tactics of health regulatory agencies and the attempt by international organizations to dominate the formation of medical policies.

Recent developments are a culmination of practices implemented over many years, that have been and continue to be — strikingly apparent.

The ethos of modern healthcare is exemplified in an anecdote about Dr. Max Gerson when he first came to the United States. Dr. Gerson was a respected physician in Europe, who had great success in treating arthritis, tuberculosis, and cancer with diet. He escaped from Nazi Germany just as his knowledge and techniques were being hailed as effective and revolutionary. Dr. Gerson’s reputation preceded him, and many doctors were seeking his opinion and assistance — until he was confronted by the mentality of the American medical establishment.

Dr. Gerson was called to New York as a consultant for a wealthy industrialist who had arthritis. He had successfully treated the patient’s brother-in-law in Europe. In a Park Avenue penthouse, he joined the house physician and another consulting specialist to see the patient. After the examination, the three physicians retired to discuss the case. Dr. Gerson proceeded to explain the treatment for arthritis he had so successfully used in Europe, then described the manner in which he expected the patient to recover. There was an awkward pause. Finally, one of the other doctors said, “Dr. Gerson, you don’t understand. This man is a wealthy member of the W.R. Grace family. They own steamship lines, banks, chemical companies, and so on. You don’t cure a patient like this, you treat him.”

This simple, insidious message drives most aspects of the medical world. The motivation to keep people healthy is completely undermined by the permeation of profiteering throughout a deeply corrupted industry that depends on the vulnerability of the suffering.

Dr. Gerson’s conclusion that most illness is related to poor diet — and thus correctible, particularly in the early stages of disease — continues to be minimized and ridiculed.

The Confidence Game

There are certainly well-meaning and brilliant physicians; some nobly struggle to practice outside the constraints of conventional wisdom and financial incentives. Most attempt to do the best they can for their patients. But most are thwarted by the theft of their moral compass; their compassion has been hijacked by the greed of corporate interests that have taken healthcare into a destructive realm.

Practitioners and clinics are cornered into using a narrow set of profitable, yet ineffective treatments in changing the course of disease.

Doctors with the best motivation are powerless against the assault from corporate forces. Even if they have the will to cure someone, the structure of the business manipulates them into seeing patients as their source of income. An inextricable relationship with pharmaceutical companies provides an endless supply of products that treat symptoms rather than supporting immunity and good health.

Discussions of the true causes of illness and what is needed to cure them are outlawed. Anyone who strays outside the corporate guidelines is deemed dangerous and a quack — and threatened with losing their license to practice medicine.

Within this restricted environment, all traces of fair compensation have disappeared from healthcare. There is no other service or product that doesn’t provide some estimate of pricing in advance; a model for compensation has no equal. Those with acute or chronic conditions enter the doors of a doctor’s office or hospital without a clear opportunity to ask what they will need to pay. And this happens — with no guarantee that they will be helped — while defenseless against a hurried and fearful dynamic.

The integrity of any healthcare system can be evaluated by whether or not it takes advantage of those who are suffering — and further appraised by the devotion of the necessary time and effort to give lasting support to individual patients.

Suffering Means Profits

People with illness or pain are hostages to the medical establishment. Most who are in physical or mental agony easily give up their autonomy to authorities who apply symptomatic solutions that often suppress illness.

Pharmaceutical interests and government agencies have steadily displayed how their merger has little to do with the well-being of individuals. The muted reaction of the public to this damaging corruption exposes the culmination of a conditioned response that has been developing for decades.

The ability to choose one’s preferred methods of prevention and treatment had been diminishing long before the global efforts to enforce isolation, masking, and vaccination. The doctor-patient relationship has been manipulated and defiled by the same, increasingly powerful economic and political forces.

This ethical depravity of modern medicine has become more apparent in recent years. The increasingly restrictive economic structure that doctors work within is a symptom of this degradation — most obvious during a public health crisis.

Those who dominate the sales of drugs rely on a simple concept: The greater the threat of severe symptoms or death, the narrower the scope of treatment is deemed appropriate and viable, with more potential for profits.

This skewed prioritization has allowed the largest part of gargantuan healthcare profits to be pocketed during the last few weeks of a patient’s life.

Whether for acute, chronic, or infectious diseases, the general public blindly embraces the orders of agencies and doctors who inform them of their vulnerability and the need for medicine. They are simply threatened; drug protocols must be strictly followed, or pandemonium will ensue. Seemingly incontestable facts and decrees overwhelm any personal discretion.

This unprecedented plethora of harmful actions causes incalculable damage to society. A consortium of drug pushers and authoritarian leaders have created an endless war on disease, coercing physicians to peddle their potions — while lifting them from pedestals to the pulpit of supreme medical arrogance.

Poison

Long before the advent of vaccine injuries, an untold number of medical problems were caused by prescribed drugs. These iatrogenic disorders continue to be a leading cause of suffering, hospitalizations, and death.

Within any medicine chest in America, a hideous picture is revealed. The addiction to pharmaceuticals is so entrenched that a good diet, fresh air, balanced living, and restful sleep are minimized and overwhelmed by bogus and suppressive products.

The height of this dehumanizing sales effort has been the description of some narcotics as non-addictive; causing the deaths and destruction of millions of lives.

The flagrant marketing of noxious medications to the ill is only surpassed by the mandating of untested drugs for healthy people. No hawking is necessary; vaccines are hailed as an unassailable defense against sickness and death. Whereas other medications require patients to be diagnosed to sell a product, vaccines can be dispensed to those who have no symptoms, merely using the threat of disease to push inoculation. The government has ensured that while they are experimental, liability is diminished.

That they are described as free is a staggering lie. The inverse is true; inoculations have a special status as a commodity with unrivaled profitability as they can be forced on anyone, particularly when distributed by governments — whose revenues come from taxpayers.

This corruption is relentless. The marketing of vaccines to those who receive no benefit and are likely to suffer subtle or life-changing damage has no limitations. Without the restraint of any truth, the definitions of vaccine and adverse reaction have been changed to maximize proceeds and diminish liability.

This boundless world of profiteering has allowed the vaccination of healthy infants and children; an unmatched, abominable, unforgivable crime.

The illicit behavior of the heavy-handed forces in the medical establishment only becomes more apparent. The recent escalation in threats to streamline and mandate public health policy overtly confirms the blind faith that has been given to an industry that has lost the ability to care for patients and nurture self-healing.

The same foundations, corporations, and organizations that pretend to have humane priorities have consistently promoted poisonous pharmaceuticals and repressed all forms of natural and alternative medical care. This is simply because preventative and remedial methods have minimal cost and lasting effects — and return responsibility for good health to the individual.

The eradication of personal medical autonomy has been a priority of the forces of pharmaceutical interests and corporate medicine for well over a century. The dispensing of poisonous medications is a critical element of this disastrous scheme.

Conclusion: This Is Organized Crime

It is no secret that money is the primary driver of the pharma and medical industries; monopolizing healthcare is the priority of investors. This obvious defect of modern medicine in facing human suffering and disease is rarely discussed. Within the ceaseless debate about overhauling the healthcare bureaucracy, few dare to mention how orientation toward profits has completely corrupted the ethics of medicine.

Almost every challenge and crisis in healthcare has been engendered by the relentless effort to diminish the availability of rival products or treatments. An industrial competitive mindset has been applied to promoting lucrative symptomatic drugs and therapies. The profits from a vast range of prescribed pharmaceuticals that impact symptoms rather than causes — are only exceeded in damaging effects by unnecessary and dangerous inoculations — distributed by the same criminal racket.

As the proceeds of the medical and pharmaceutical industries increase directly with the threat or escalation of disease, complicit authorities show no concern for engendering a healthy world.

Although personal health and general welfare are invoked as reasons to follow medical orders or join the cult of the vaccinated, there is a spurious insistence to accept instructions without question or doubt. This militaristic state of healthcare remains unchecked. Rather than providing safeguards and supporting wellness, ultimatums demanding toxic treatments are sabotaging the vitality of those who fearfully obey coercive dictates.

Reasons for compliance are explicitly described by the enforcers — you need our protection, or else — anyone who doesn’t obey is threatened, degraded, and ridiculed for not surrendering to the edicts of the mafia-like, medical-industrial complex.

The abhorrent means of extortion of an organized crime protection racket are now the standard practices of the pharmaceutical industry and their cronies; government agencies and doctors are their enforcers. This reckless atmosphere allows associated criminal activity, including the engendering of disease through negligent oversight of toxic causes and experimentation with pathogens.

The insidious machinations of a criminal consortium reveal the pernicious influence of money on medical policy and practice. Until this primary failure in providing support for the suffering is recognized and addressed, human health will continue to deteriorate.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Fifth Circuit Expands Injunction Against Government Online Censorship To Include CISA

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | October 4, 2023

A ruling on Tuesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit marks a leap for the safeguarding of free speech within the social media arena. This decision sees the addition of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to a preliminary injunction in the ongoing legal contest of Missouri v. Biden.

Initially, a host of prominent agencies, including the White House, US Surgeon General’s office, CDC, and the FBI were barred from manipulating social media platforms in a manner that obstructs constitutional freedoms of speech.

The fight against censorship is far from novel, with the tale of Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty, and Ms. Jill Hines circulating in the public domain for several years. Their experiences of being censored and throttled on social media platforms form an integral part of a broader governmental agenda to curb free speech for independent thinkers and intellectuals.

This latest ruling by the Fifth Circuit punctuates a series of preceding actions, including its September 8 ruling upholding an earlier order by District Judge Terry Doughty. Doughty’s order on Independence Day caused shockwaves by banning government officials from using their offices to manipulate social media companies into surrendering the First Amendment rights of citizens.

This persistent governmental interference has been described by Judge Doughty as perhaps “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” Indeed, it beautifully mirrors a dystopian reality, where a government body, akin to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth, suppresses intellectual discourse and emulation.

The suppression campaign under the Biden administration is far from prejudiced; it has methodically targeted any view conflicting with government narratives. Subjects like natural immunity to Covid-19, vaccine efficacy, origins of the virus, and the effectiveness of mask mandates have become taboo, leading to a wilful silence of experts and common citizens alike.

Such tactics have seen CISA act as a bridge between third parties, flagging potentially problematic content. Having regular interactions with social media platform representatives, they have exploited their authoritative position by pushing them to adopt practices aligned with their censorship agenda.

This has led the Fifth Circuit Court to reassess their previous position. Contrary to their September ruling which stated that communication between CISA and social media companies was constitutional, they now acknowledge that CISA had crossed the line of mere information sharing and actively influenced content moderation policies, leading to the demotion and removal of posts.

While the court order stands, a 10-day stay allows the government to seek permission for a review of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Group Behind ‘Disinformation Dozen’ Has Ties to Hollywood, Corporate Dems

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 3, 2023

The latest series of revelations by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker concerning the organization responsible for creating the list of the “Disinformation Dozen” confirm connections to more dark money sources and to key political and Hollywood figures.

In an article published Monday in Tablet Magazine and on his Substack, Thacker also revealed the organization — a nonprofit called Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — received anonymous donations of upwards of $1 million and hired a lobbying firm.

Prior to coming up with its “Disinformation Dozen” list, Thacker said, CCDH was part of a campaign to silence independent media and prominent political opponents.

CCDH has since turned its attention to attacking X (formerly Twitter) and its owner, Elon Musk, and supporting the recent passage of a sweeping new censorship bill in the U.K.

According to Thacker, the influence of CCDH and its founder and CEO, Imran Ahmed, on the Biden administration, policymaking circles and mainstream and social media is disproportionately large for a small organization founded and managed by a non-American — raising questions about who, or which entities, are backing CCDH.

Those questions led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to subpoena CCDH in late August. Jordan gave CCDH until Sept. 29 “to produce its communications with the executive branch related to content moderation, the accuracy or truth of content, and the deletion or suppression of content.”

CCDH responded to the subpoena on Sept. 29, claiming it “produced all documents and communications” which were requested. Notably, the letter came on the letterhead of a law firm representing CCDH, instead of from the organization directly, while the publicly viewable online version of the letter does not include the accompanying documents.

‘Disinformation Dozen’ list led to censorship of Kennedy, others

In March 2021, CCDH drafted a report and accompanying list of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen,” which included Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman on leave of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Dr. Joseph Mercola, and Ty and Charlene Bollinger, founders of The Truth About Vaccines and The Truth About Cancer websites.

The report claimed, “Just twelve anti-vaxxers are responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media platforms,” and concluded social media “platforms must act” against these individuals.

The White House and social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook used the report to censor the individuals on the list.

In one example, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki cited the CCDH report during a July 2021 press briefing to pressure Facebook into censoring the accounts in question. “There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” Psaki claimed.

Legacy media outlets such as NPR, The Guardian and others also cited the report, in an attempt to discredit the people on the list.

Thacker, writing for Tablet, said Twitter specifically took action against Kennedy after it received the “Disinformation Dozen” list — and was subjected to White House pressure:

‘“COVID-19 misinfo enforcement team is planning on taking action on a handful of accounts surfaced by the CCDH report,’ a Twitter official wrote on March 31. One account they eventually took action against belonged to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now running against Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.”

CCDH provides White House with ‘powerful weapon to use against critics’

“What, then, do we know about the CCDH?” Thacker wrote Monday in Tablet. “In effect, it seems, the organization provides the White House with a powerful weapon to use against critics including RFK Jr. and Musk, while also pressuring platforms like Facebook and Twitter to enforce the administration’s policies.”

“While few journalists have bothered to investigate the opaque group, the available evidence paints a picture that is likely different from what many in the public would expect of a ‘public interest’ nonprofit,” Thacker added.

As part of his July investigation leading to the release of the CCDH-related “Twitter Files,” Thacker was unable to discover who funds and supports the organization. He told The Defender in July that he believed CCDH was a “dark money” group.

Kennedy, testifying at a July 20 hearing organized by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, also called CCDH a “dark money” group.

A subsequent investigation by GreenMedInfo’s Sayer Ji was able to trace some of the organizations that financially support CCDH, including several U.K.-based nonprofits affiliated with legacy media organizations, the U.K. government and major philanthropic organizations such as the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation.

Yet, unanswered questions about CCDH and Ahmed remained for Thacker, who wrote on Substack:

“How did some guy from London with no D.C. political experience get noticed by the White House and attract so much media attention? Where does he come from? What’s his background? Where does he get his money? Who is behind this?”

As part of his latest investigation, Thacker wrote that he “lucked into finding a critical, anonymous donor who dropped $1.1 million into CCDH’s coffers.”

A search of the 2021 tax filings of the Schwab Charitable Fund — a donor-advised fund that allows anyone to donate anonymously — revealed a $1.1 million donation to CCDH.

This represented “around 75% of all the funds they took in that year,” Thacker wrote on Substack.

Writing for Tablet, Thacker added, “According to tax records, Ahmed began to run CCDH from D.C. in 2021, and CCDH took in $1.47 million in their very first year operating in the United States.”

‘CCDH functions as an arm of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party’

This was not the only interesting insight into CCDH’s operations. Thacker also discovered CCDH’s chairman is Simon Clark, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP).

According to Thacker, CAP is a “D.C. think tank aligned with the corporate arm of the Democratic Party.” It was founded by John Podesta, who chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Donald Trump. And yes, CAP has close ties to the Biden administration,” Thacker wrote.

Clark was also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab, Thacker wrote in Tablet. In a previous “Twitter Files” release, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi reported that the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab was funded by various U.S. government agencies and defense contractors and “remains a central piece in the ‘censorship-industrial complex.’”

Thacker quoted Mike Benz, a former U.S. State Department official who runs the Foundation for Freedom Online, a free-speech watchdog. Benz told Thacker the Atlantic Council is “one of the premier architects of online censorship” and has, in recent years, “had seven CIA directors on its board of directors or board of advisers.”

“One might conclude that CCDH functions as an arm of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, to be deployed against the perceived enemies of corporate Democrats, whether they come from the left or the right,” he added.

CCDH spent $50,000 to lobby Congress on COVID ‘misinformation’

Thacker also uncovered ties between CCDH, Ahmed and Hollywood.

“Go a little deeper and you find the other members of the [CCDH] board,” Thacker wrote on Substack, adding, “The one who caught my attention is Aleen Keshishian.”

Keshishian, who is also an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, lists clients including actor Mark Ruffalo, who according to Thacker, “tweets support” for CCDH.

Her other clients include Jennifer Aniston, Selena Gomez and Natalie Portman.

“Ahmed’s connections to Hollywood actors could account for some of the money he has raised from anonymous sources, as wealthy celebrities sometimes wish to keep their political donations hidden from fans,” Thacker wrote in Tablet.

Unusual for a nonprofit, CCDH also hired a PR and lobbying firm, Lot Sixteen, to work on its behalf.

“Very few activist groups have the financial means to hire private lobby shops — even those with an established presence on Capitol Hill — but during a few quarters of 2021 and 2022, CCDH paid Lot Sixteen $50,000 to lobby congressional offices on COVID-19 misinformation and ‘preventing the spread of misinformation and hate speech online in social and mainstream media,’” Thacker wrote.

Thacker told The Defender that even large and well-established nonprofit groups such as Greenpeace and Public Citizen have not hired PR firms to work on their behalf.

“None of those groups that I’m aware of, the longest-established groups in D.C., have ever had the money to hire a private lobby shop like CCDH did. It’s just bizarre,” he said, adding that this is because CCDH is “a political campaign designed to look like a grassroots public-interest organization.”

Thacker said he contacted Lot Sixteen and “asked them how they confirmed that Imran Ahmed was compliant with FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act],” noting that “This guy’s a foreigner. No one knows where his money comes from. How do they know his money’s not coming from overseas and he’s not in violation of foreign lobbying laws?”

“They didn’t get back to me,” Thacker said. “My guess is they didn’t do due diligence.” He also told The Defender that while CCDH “lists only four or five employees” on its website, “if you go on LinkedIn, there’s about 20 other people working for him.

“What nonprofit does not list all their employees? It’s just bizarre,” Thacker said.

CCDH ‘rarely disclose funders’

According to Thacker, CCDH and associated groups have operated in secrecy and under multiple identities for several years.

“Ahmed’s history is hard to track,” he wrote for Tablet. “The two groups he has run — Stop Funding Fake News [SFFN] and CCDH — seem to pop up out of nowhere, switch addresses, rarely disclose funders, omit naming all employees, and feature websites that change names or disappear from the internet.

“While Ahmed eventually acknowledged in 2020 that he helped launch both [groups] … his involvement remained hidden for some years. Stop Funding Fake News started in February 2019 claiming to be a ‘social movement’ too frightened to name its own grassroots activists,” Thacker added.

Thacker said that by searching archived versions of CCDH’s website on the Internet Wayback Machine, he was able to find out more information about the organization.

“One of the first things I ran across was reports about CCDH incorporating in the U.K. back in 2018,” said Thacker who looked up their filings in England to find their address and who was on their board. “One of CCDH’s first directors is a guy named James Morgan McSweeney,” he wrote on Substack.

According to Thacker, McSweeney “is a power broker in UK politics, and a top staffer to Keir Starmer, who is now the head of the British Labour Party. So CCDH is not really some disinterested, public nonprofit, it’s a political campaign by British Labour.”

Writing for Tablet, Thacker said that CCDH “registered in late 2018 in London, first as Brixton Endeavours Limited” and when it incorporated, its “only director was a staffer for Keir Starmer.” The group also “shared an address with an organization that supported Starmer,” while Damian Collins, a member of the Tory Party, later joined as an officer.”

Thacker wrote on Substack that CCDH, SFFN and Ahmed have often operated as “political operative[s] for conservative members of the British Labour party,” including on behalf of Starmer, to help “destroy the Left in the United Kingdom.”

Starting in 2019, SFFN “claimed some very sizable left-wing scalps in London, mostly by lobbing vague accusations of fake news at political enemies. The group helped to run Jeremy Corbyn out of Labour Party leadership while tanking the lefty news site Canary, after starting a boycott of their advertisers,” Thacker wrote in Tablet.

In one instance, SFFN claimed that they convinced 40 major brands, including Adobe, Chelsea FC, eBay and Manchester United, to stop placing their advertisements on the websites of such news outlets, a tactic SFFN called “demonetizing.” They also claimed that they were “educating” advertising agencies.

“Essentially, SFFN and [CCDH] were front groups created by conservatives in Labour for an internecine battle against leftists in their own party. The Canary reported that CCDH’s address linked the group back to Keir Starmer’s people,” Thacker wrote on Substack. SFFN reports were also cited in the British Parliament.

Having accomplished this, SFFN “became moribund, rarely tweeting from their social media account,” Thacker wrote in Tablet, noting that this did not matter as Ahmed “pivoted his focus” to the U.S., where his list of “‘disinformation’ targets just happened to be critics of the Democratic Party establishment” — including Kennedy.

“Just as he had done for the Labour Party, Ahmed used the CCDH to attack as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘anti-vaxxers’ various critics of the Biden arm of the Democratic Party,” Thacker wrote.

Association with Democrat-affiliated groups helped CCDH’s ‘unusual’ ascent

According to Thacker, CCDH now primarily operates in the U.S., based out of a virtual office that hundreds of D.C. nonprofits list as their residence. This is despite the fact that CCDH is still based in the U.K.

The site lists CCHD as a broad nonprofit devoted to “Civil Rights, Social Action, Advocacy / Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis (NTEE).” It lists Ahmed as CEO with a 2021 base salary of $126,333 and Simon Clark from the Center for American Progress, the think tank of the corporate Democrats, as chair of the board.

According to Thacker, the prominent ascent of CCDH and Ahmed in U.S. policy and media circles is unusual.

“I want to point out how odd it is that a British political operative is now running a partisan campaign in the United States. This rarely happens,” Thacker wrote on Substack. “For a variety of complex reasons, British political operatives don’t come to the United States, Americans go to England [and other countries].”

“It doesn’t happen,” Thacker told The Defender. “That was my question from the beginning. This guy is quoted from the White House podium, has all these Congressmen sending letters on his behalf, who has appeared in front of Congressional hearings run by Democrats when they had the House of Representatives.”

“Probably what it is, is Simon Clark from the Center for American Progress,” Thacker said. “That’s the think tank for the corporate Democrats. That’s probably his entryway.”

Writing for Tablet, Thacker said, “One rumor that came up often in the dozen or so conversations” he had “with people who have observed Ahmed for years, is that he works for British intelligence,” although this has not yet been confirmed.

Thacker told The Defender that Ahmed and CCDH have played “the same game” in the U.S. and U.K., except that “instead of it being directly ‘Republicans are bad, these people are good,’ they find some way that they can say, ‘aha, hate!’ So, it’s taking this idea and rebranding it for political purposes.”

Writing in Tablet, Thacker said that “Ahmed’s story is critical to understanding the new push for censorship under the guise of combating hate.”

‘Obsession’ with Kennedy, Musk, vaccines

Having become fully embroiled in U.S. politics, Thacker said that Ahmed and CCDH have developed an “obsession” with figures such as Kennedy and with issues such as COVID-19 vaccines — receiving broad media coverage in the process.

Writing for Tablet, Thacker said, “After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he was running against Biden for the Democratic nomination and appeared on Joe Rogan, Ahmed told the BBC, “He’s working really hard to keep people from knowing he’s a hardcore anti-vaxxer.”

Thacker told The Defender that “every one of these ‘disinformation experts’ out there — I don’t care if they’re a fact-checker, a think tank, a journalist, an academic, they’ve all done work on elections and on vaccines. So, they’re all election ‘experts’ and vaccine ‘experts.’ How you become an expert in both, I don’t know, but that’s what they are.”

“It’s a complete and total obsession,” Thacker added. “There’s not a single ‘disinformation’ expert out there who I’ve not seen do something on vaccines. They’re obsessed … why, out of all the things that you can target, why do you target vaccines? I can only think that there’s some kind of funding behind it, where that funding comes from, what it’s about. That’s the only reason that makes sense to me.”

Thacker also said “it’s just bizarre” that someone like Ahmed can come in and be obsessed about vaccines and not have a single tweet criticizing Pfizer or Moderna. “He’s not found any problems with the Biden administration’s vaccine policies. Not one … Ahmed appears where the corporate Democrats need expertise.”

Musk recently became a new target for CCDH and Ahmed. Writing in Tablet, Thacker said, “Ahmed is now trying to drive away Elon Musk’s advertisers on X, this time based on dubious claims that the … site is a playground for racists,” including claims made in interviews with The New York Times, the Financial Times and The Guardian.

“Once again, these efforts have been uncritically amplified in the press and in a letter to Musk from House Democrats that reiterates Ahmed’s claims, and cites him and CCDH,” Thacker wrote in Tablet.

These attacks led Musk and X to sue CCDH and Ahmed in July, accusing them of making false and misleading claims about hate speech on the platform, and illegally accessing the computers of Brandwatch, a company that works with Twitter — a potential violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

In response, MSNBC published an Aug. 1 op-ed by Ahmed, claiming CCDH “has been at the forefront of cataloging and reporting on the hate proliferating on the platform owned by Elon Musk.”

“All of his targets just happen to be the people who the corporate Democrats don’t get along with, so that’s Elon Musk right now,” Thacker told The Defender, noting that Ahmed and CCDH have not targeted other social media platforms to the same extent.

Yet, Ahmed continues to enjoy a platform in the establishment media. Thacker told The Defender this is “because none of those reporters have bothered to look into his background in the U.K. or to look at where his money’s coming from, or to look at what’s inside the [Musk/X] lawsuit against him. It plays into their weird obsession with Musk.”

In parallel, CCDH board member Damian Collins “led a series of inquiries” in the British parliament “into ‘disinformation’ and ‘fake news’ on social media,” helping promote the “Online Safety Bill,” intended to purge online “disinformation,” Thacker wrote in Tablet.

“When Collins held hearings on the bill — which was passed into law just weeks ago — the first person to give testimony in support of online bans was Imran Ahmed,” Thacker added.

On Substack, Thacker previewed more reports about CCDH and Ahmed he will soon release, including regarding ties “to Peter Hotez, an American physician, an ardent proponent of Anthony Fauci and cheerleader in the national media for vaccines and Biden administration pandemic policies.”

“I hope this helps people understand how to do their own digging into dark money groups,” Thacker wrote on Substack.

In Tablet, he wrote that Ahmed has “been a servant to the power of political parties who deployed him and the CCDH to weaponize the charge of hate speech and misinformation against their enemies.”

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

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

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | 1 Comment

UK Police arrest British journalist for posting ‘malinformation’ about Ukraine, Justin Trudeau under Online Safety Act

By David Krayden – Human Events – 10/02/2023

In a story that has virtually been ignored by the global media, UK police arrested an independent journalist for posting “malinformation” and misinformation about Ukraine.

Under the new UK censorship law called the Online Safety Act, the government can order the arrest or detention of anyone said to be “hateful” or judged by fact checkers to be posting “misinformation.”

Warren Thornton was literally in the midst of streaming an edition of his podcast The Real Truth on Sept. 24 when Bristol police officers came to his front door and demanded he speak with them.

The Liberal government of Canada is preparing its own version of this legislation that will target “disinformation” on the internet without even defining what disinformation is.

Thornton is a critic of NATO’s escalation of the war in Ukraine and has posted several videos about Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilians and the secret existence of biolabs in Ukraine. He was also quick to report how a former Waffen-SS Nazi soldier was allowed to sit in the Canadian House of Commons Gallery during a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Yaroslav Hunka acknowledged plaudits from former House Speaker Anthony Rota and waved as all Members of Parliament rose from their seats and gave the 98-year-old SS veteran a standing ovation.

Thornton had just broadcast news of Canada’s international embarrassment when the police arrived.

Thornton was interviewing guest Fiona Ryan when the host just “vanished” about 20 minutes before the program was expected to end, she told The People’s Voice.  Ryan was conversing with Johnee, who hosts the Café Revolution, a YouTube channel that reports from the front of the Russia-Ukraine War in Donetsk.

Ryan discovered in a WhatsApp exchange that Thornton had been arrested by the police.

At the police station, Thornton said the officers became “flustered” during his interrogation because they were unable to say exactly what video posts led to his arrest, according to The People’s Voice. Thornton soon had his lawyer on-scene who ‘ripped them to bits’. He added that his lawyer told them to “charge him or release him.”

Thornton, after spending a night in jail, was released Monday. The police decided not to charge him.

In a post on Rumble, Thornton described his ordeal with police as “jolly interesting” and said he asked if he was being charged with anything except spreading “malinformation.” The police said he was not.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s backers blinded by Russia hate – top analyst

RT | October 5, 2023

Kiev’s globalist and neo-conservative supporters in the West are so driven by their hatred of Russia that they completely disregard the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are dying in a futile effort to defeat Moscow’s forces, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued.

Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the breakup of the Soviet Union, made his comments in an interview posted on Thursday by US podcast host Andrew Napolitano. Asked how the US and its NATO allies can ignore the catastrophic destruction of Ukraine while prolonging the conflict and making false claims of battlefield successes, Sachs said they are “blinded” by their hatred of Russia.

“They are not counting the Ukrainian dead,” the analyst said. “They have lied to the public all along about the military situation . . . . They want so much to fight Russia and have someone else do the fighting and the dying that they want another massive recruitment of the remaining Ukrainian young men that can be grabbed off the streets and be thrown into the killing fields.”

More than 83,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed during a Donbass counteroffensive that began in June, according to an estimate released by the Russian Defense Ministry last month. Despite knowing that the Ukrainians have no chance of making major gains on the battlefield amid Russia’s air superiority and artillery dominance, Kiev’s benefactors have shown a “grotesque” disregard for the heavy casualties, Sachs said. He argued that the UK, in particular, has championed the counteroffensive because of London’s centuries-long and deeply embedded desire to crush Russia.

Sachs, now a UN adviser and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, has argued that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe helped trigger the current crisis. He said Washington and its allies missed many opportunities to avoid the current conflict, then kept it going by discouraging Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky from finalizing a peace deal with Russia in March 2022.

Responding to claims by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that critics of Washington’s Ukraine policy are “siding with” Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sachs argued that he’s showing concern for the Ukrainian people. “I don’t want Ukraine to be completely destroyed by these neocons, by their fantasy world, by their desire to throw Ukrainians by the hundreds of thousands to their deaths,” he said. He added, “This isn’t siding with Putin or siding with anybody. This is trying to protect Ukraine from American zealots.”

Sachs claimed that US President Joe Biden must reach out to Putin to negotiate an end to the bloodshed, which would involve ruling out adding Ukraine to NATO, as well as addressing Russia’s legitimate security concerns. “We have stoked so much provocation in this, so much anxiety, overthrowing governments, starting multiple wars, pushing NATO enlargement, abandoning nuclear agreements, and then saying, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to negotiate,’” the analyst said.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | 1 Comment

German city residents protest construction of weapons factory to equip Kiev

By Ahmed Adel | October 5, 2023

Residents of a German city in Saxony protested the construction of a factory to produce ammunition to supply Ukraine, The New York Times reported. According to the article, Grossenhain residents want to live in peace with Russia and disapprove of Germany’s aid to Ukraine.

The New York Times highlighted that government leaders in Saxony thought that the plans of Rheinmetall, Germany’s most prominent arms manufacturer, to construct a new munitions factory would lead to an economic boom.

“Some in the chosen city of Grossenhain, with a population approaching 20,000, saw it differently. Sixteen of 22 members of the City Council signed a letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz urging him to block the project,” the article reported.

Opposition to the factory is widespread along the political spectrum, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a Far-Right political party, holding a rally in June against arms sales to Ukraine, while residents signed a petition circulated by the Left Party.

“We reject a further economic-military use after years of military use,” the petition read. “We do not want to be involved in wars all over the world in a roundabout way.”

According to the article, resistance to the factory in Grossenhain signals that the Germans are concerned about the commitments made by the country to arm Ukraine.

“Perhaps easily dismissed as small-town politics, the revolt in tiny Grossenhain in fact reveals far larger unease among some Germans,” the author writes, adding: “Many Germans still hold a deep aversion to war and to defence spending in a country whose Nazi past has made it reluctant to invest in military power.”

Grosssenhain is not the only city in Germany with residents critical of support for Ukraine. As recently as October 3, thousands of residents of the capital, Berlin, took to the streets to demand Scholz’s resignation, speak out against economic policy, and call for a diplomatic resolution to the Ukrainian conflict and the resumption of cooperation with Russia.

In the same light, retired German colonel Wolfgang Richter warned that more important than Ukraine losing weapons is its loss of human potential, a consideration Berlin is not taking into account as it prefers to follow blindly Washington’s interests rather than its own.

Despite the possibility of reducing military assistance to Ukraine, much more important is that, in perspective, the country may lose its human potential, Richter said in an interview with ZDFheute media when commenting on Slovakia’s possible reduction of military assistance to Ukraine. According to Richter, in the short term, the lack of assistance from Slovakia will not significantly affect Ukraine’s defence capability. Instead, prolonging military actions will lead to more serious problems.

“Factors other than armament must be taken into account,” he said. “Ukraine’s personnel reserves will be depleted in the long term, and there is a risk of high demographic losses.”

His comments came as American magazine Newsweek reported that Ukraine risks being left without military assistance from two NATO allies – Slovakia and the USA. It is worth noting that the head of the White House, Joe Biden, signed a law approved by Congress on temporary government financing that does not provide for allocating funds for Ukraine’s needs, making Germany’s insistence on building an unpopular factory in Grossenhain even more bizarre.

It is recalled that the Joint Economic Forecast, commissioned by Berlin and published twice a year, announced on September 28 that Germany’s economy is set to hit a slump in 2023. The Joint Economic Forecast expects a downswing in Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) of 0.6% this year after initially predicting in their spring report growth of 0.3%. The revision comes as official numbers showed stagnation in the second quarter of 2023.

The new Joint Economic Forecast confirms the International Monetary Fund’s earlier year forecast that Germany’s economy is set to shrink in 2023. Across the European Union, the European Commission currently predicts 0.8% growth, putting Germany well below the bloc’s average.

According to German economists, skyrocketing energy prices in 2022 — linked to sanctions on Russia — halted post-pandemic economic recovery and is also why the German economy is struggling in 2023. Yet, a small town in Saxony is being forced to host an armaments factory it does not want under the justification of bringing economic prosperity. Rather, the quickest way to economic prosperity for all of Germany is to end its self-sabotaging policy of arming and funding Ukraine in a futile war it cannot win and end the sanctions on Russia.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Russia not looking for ‘new lands’ – Putin

RT | October 5, 2023

The conflict with Ukraine is not the result of a territorial dispute, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech at the Valdai International Discussion Club on Thursday.

Putin stressed that Russia is already the largest country in the world and therefore is not seeking to obtain new territory.

He noted that Russia still has a lot of work to do in developing Siberia and the Far East.

“This is not a territorial conflict and is not even the establishment of a regional geopolitical balance,” the president said. “This question is much broader and more fundamental. We are talking about the principles of a new world order.”

The Russian leader insisted that a lasting peace can only be established when “everyone feels safe and knows that their opinion is respected.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Putin said that Russia was not the one that initiated the conflict in Ukraine, but is instead trying to put an end to it.

“We were not the ones who organized a bloody coup in Kiev; it wasn’t us who intimidated the Crimeans and Sevastopol residents with purges; we weren’t the ones who tried to force the Donbass to obey and threatened violence against those who wanted to speak their native language. It is the Kiev regime that has been waging war on Ukraine for the past ten years,” Putin said.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

McCarthy’s Ouster Signals US ‘Preparing Populace at Large’ to Defund Ukraine

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 05.10.2023

Kevin McCarthy lost the House speakership this week after his GOP colleague Matt Gaetz tabled a motion to remove him over alleged “side deal” talks with President Biden and the Democrats on Ukraine funding. The shock ouster comes amid growing weariness among Americans over the proxy war, and possible preparations to dump Kiev, experts told Sputnik.

The fallout over Kevin McCarthy’s historically unprecedented removal as speaker of the House of Representatives continues to send shockwaves of confusion and dread across the furthest reaches of the American empire, including in Ukraine.

“We are freaking out. For us it is a disaster,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker responsible for lobbying Kiev’s efforts to join the European Union, told US media, commenting on the threat of Washington cutting off its military and financial support.

“We are interested in getting things sorted out so American democracy can function, and so we can restore the bipartisan consensus on supporting their own national interest by supporting Ukraine,” Klympush-Tsintsadze emphasized. Apparently, to the politician, a “functioning” American democracy seems to mean continuing to pump tens of billions of additional dollars into Kiev, which faces a looming debt crisis, and is now dependent on Washington and its allies for some 70 percent of all government expenses, as Western creditors prepare to collect dividends on their “investments.”

“There is nothing good, but, objectively, we have simply become hostages of their internal politics,” Ukrainian parliament finance committee deputy chairman Yaroslav Zheleznyak complained, referring to last week’s budget deal showdown – in which Republicans threatened to force a shutdown if the budget included billions in additional funding for Kiev.

The Zelensky government estimates that Kiev still has access to about $1.6 billion in US defense support and $1.23 billion in budgetary assistance. The Pentagon says some $5.4 billion in cash also remain in Presidential Drawdown Authority funds –allowing for weapons stocks from American armories to be sent to Kiev. However, senior Biden administration officials, including the president himself, have expressed fears that “only weeks remain” before a lack of additional funding will start becoming “a serious battlefield concern” for Kiev.

“It does worry me,’ Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday, when asked about the possibility of funds drying up. “But I know there are a majority of members of the House and Senate in both parties who have said that they would support funding Ukraine,” he added. “I’m going to make the argument that it’s overwhelmingly in the interest of the United States of America that Ukraine succeeds.”

“Obviously, time is of the essence,” an administration official stressed, warning of the risks of Congress sitting on its hands without appropriating additional cash to Kiev before the current short-term spending package runs out in mid-November.

Preparing the Public for Bad News?

“I have difficulty thinking of Ukraine as a primary issue for American politicians,” Dr. Nicolai Petro, an international politics professor at the University of Rhode Island, told Sputnik, commenting on the role played by Ukraine funding in the chaos in Washington over the past week.

“I think it is more of a symbolic issue and that their primary interest is not voting up or down on Ukraine aid,” but “what that symbolizes and how it can play out in the American political process.”

Pointing to the deeply murky nature of US spending on Ukraine and the “hide the ball” approach to appropriations, Petro predicted that the Biden administration will likely be able to squeeze out more cash from already appropriated funding for some time even if additional Congressional funding dries up.

The growing debate in Washington over Ukraine has also rippled across the Atlantic to Britain – the second-staunchest supporter within NATO of continuing the proxy war. Even there, Petro pointed out, a debate seems to be gaining strength over just how much more money can be lifted from taxpayers’ pockets and transferred to Kiev.

“London and Washington seem to be on the same wavelength here. We’re both at the same time ramping up production and are not sure how much we have and how much is even needed. Last month, for example, the new UK defense minister said London would deliver tens of thousands of new artillery shells. Three weeks later, it’s ‘we’ve given away as much as we can afford’. This sort of flip-flop is very convenient when you’re preparing the populace at large for a transition of policy from ‘we’ll do whatever it takes as long as it takes’ to ‘no we really need to be thinking about the cost.’ That’s a very different argument to make,” the academic emphasized.

This shift in rhetoric is related to the fact that the US and some of its allies are approaching crucial elections, with “all the polls and the recent elections [in Europe] suggest[ing] that this NATO proxy war in Ukraine is extremely unpopular. And that in and of itself it is going to at least affect the narrative between now and several key elections,” Petro said.

Dems Shoot Themselves in the Foot

McCarthy was ousted Tuesday by an extremely narrow margin of 216 in favor to 210 opposed, with only eight Republicans – led by rebel Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, supporting his removal alongside Democrats.

“My biggest question going forward is, is this going to be the right move for Democrats?” independent US journalist Rachel Blevins told Sputnik.

“Because they may have just shot themselves in the foot a little bit by getting rid of someone like Kevin McCarthy, who was trying to work with them, you know, maybe promising a separate vote to ensure funding for Ukraine and all that. Well now it could end up being that the next Republican speaker does not want to work with them whatsoever,” the observer pointed out.

The ouster could have repercussions for Ukraine going forward. While interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry has repeatedly supported Congressional votes on Ukraine funding – apart from last week’s attempt to roll assistance into the government funding bill, several candidates vying for the speakership have expressed opposition to further aid, including Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, Oklahoma Representative Kevin Hern, and Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.

What a Difference a Year Makes

“I know that Joe Biden is not happy right now,” Blevins emphasized. “He’s probably the most furious with all of this, because he was expecting McCarthy to get that funding through. He was not happy that it was not there in that bill to keep the government open.”

“What was interesting was to see that back and forth” over Ukraine, the observer added. “Because in the Senate, they had at least $6 billion for Ukraine, which is a lot of money to the average person, obviously. But when it comes to Ukraine, that’s just enough to keep it rolling for a few months. So they come up with $6 billion. Then in the House, they basically put Democrats in a position where they said, ok, here’s a funding bill to keep the government open. If you say you’re against it, it’s literally just over Ukraine funding. So that’s on you. And you have to answer to your constituents and saying that you wanted a government shutdown just so that you could fund a country that most Americans can’t find on a map,” the observer said.

“Also notable is the latest polls show that half of the American public doesn’t think Congress should keep continuing to approve funding for Ukraine. And so whenever those members of Congress go in there, they’re going to have to find a better justification for it than now, because it’s something that at least half of Americans don’t say is a priority. And that’s certainly not where Congress was even just one year ago when they were passing unprecedented funding and there was no fight about it whatsoever,” Blevins summed up.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO member suspends military aid to Ukraine

RT | October 5, 2023

Slovakia is halting military aid to Ukraine due to opposition from political parties currently negotiating to form a new government, the Dennik N news outlet reported on Wednesday, citing presidential spokesman Martin Strizinec.

The official told the outlet that the Slovak head of state, President Zuzana Caputova, pointed out that there is the need to “respect the results of democratic elections.” The victorious Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) party has promised voters “not a single round [of ammunition] for Ukraine.”

“It would not be a good precedent to decide to provide military equipment in such a situation when there is a change of political power after any election,” Strizinec said.

After winning the parliamentary election on Sunday, SMER-SD leader Robert Fico, a former prime minister, told journalists that “Slovakia and the people of Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine.”

He added that if his party successfully forms a government, it would still be open to helping Ukraine, but only in a humanitarian way.

Last week, Kiev hosted the International Industries Defense Forum with participants from 30 countries, where Ukrainian officials went on a “charm offensive directed at weapons-makers,” Politico reported. An unnamed European official told the agency that there was no way to “keep giving from their own stockpiles” because they had already sent Ukraine everything that does not endanger their own security.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Ukrainian government will be unable to pay civil servants if the US Congress fails to approve continued financing for Kiev.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Gitmo detainees continue to be tortured by CIA physically, mentally: Attorney

By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | October 4, 2023

Torture has always existed at Guantanamo Bay in different forms and the inmates there continue to be tortured physically and psychologically, says a US-based human rights attorney.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Alka Pradhan, who has represented Guantanamo Bay detainees as well as victims of US drone strikes, described various forms of torture prevalent at the notorious American detention facility, also known as Gitmo, in southeastern Cuba.

“In the early days, it took the form of beatings and forced nudity, starvation and force-feedings, and other terrible techniques,” said Pradhan, referring to the institutionalizing of torture at Gitmo.

“Now, decades of arbitrary detention, and lack of family visits and medical care – including botched or substandard procedures carried out by poorly qualified staff – continue to torture these men psychologically and physically.”

Pradhan, one of the leading human rights lawyers in the US, is currently Human Rights Counsel at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions. She was previously Counter-Terrorism Counsel at Reprieve US, where she represented several Guantanamo Bay detainees.

She also conducted advocacy and litigation on behalf of civilian victims of US drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan and has advised the US government on compliance with international legal obligations.

Last week, Pradhan was invited to the European Parliament to speak on Gitmo human rights abuses amid growing calls from human rights advocates to shut down the notorious US detention center.

She is an attorney representing Ammar al-Baluchi, an Iranian citizen, who has suffered high-degree torture at the hands of the CIA and even denied medical care by the White House.

“Ammar, an Iranian citizen, was brutally tortured for 3.5 years at the “black sites” – the CIA’s secret prisons all over the world – before he was rendered to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006,” Pradhan told the Press TV website.

“According to CIA records, CIA personnel used him as a human experiment, bashing his head against a wall over and over again for hours, to obtain their interrogator certifications. They also tortured him using water, shackling his wrists over his head, beatings, forced nudity, and forced starvation. For most of his time at the black sites, he was sleep-deprived, first with ear-splitting music, and then with 24/7 fluorescent lights,” she hastened to add.

Ammar, the American human rights attorney, said is 46 years old today and suffers from multiple brain injuries because of CIA torture as well as severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), inability to sleep normally and cognitive decline, denied proper medical care by the US government.

“They will not allow medical histories to be taken that discuss the causes of his ailments (torture), the DoD (US Department of Defense) will not allow independent doctors to treat him, and according to the Chief Medical Officer, they do not have the ability to provide complex medical care or do proper surgeries here,” she said.

“Despite entreaties, the White House and DoD have absolutely refused to either implement a proper medical and torture rehabilitation program here or conduct humanitarian transfers of the remaining men to places where they can receive the care they need.”

Pradhan also spoke about the Guantanamo military commissions set up by the US government that have only exacerbated the miserable conditions of Gitmo inmates.

These military commissions, she said in a conversation with the Press TV website, were built to “benefit from CIA torture while hiding as many details of the torture program as possible.”

“The US government made a conscious decision after 9/11 to torture men abroad instead of bringing them to court for prosecution. Once they could no longer hide them in secret prisons, it was too late to prosecute them in real US courts because of that torture,” Pradhan said.

“The Military Commissions Act was written to allow the government to use torture-acquired evidence (the bulk of their evidence against these men), but also to prevent them from giving the defense the information we require about exculpatory or mitigating factors – like the men’s torture in CIA black sites,” she added.

The US-based attorney said the US government has “continuously invaded attorney-client privilege, with listening devices in our meeting rooms and the FBI attempting to place an informant on one defense team”, noting that the corruption in the military commissions “precludes any justice.”

On why the US government chose a detention facility in Cuba, away from the mainland, to detain people after the 9/11 attacks, Pradhan said the decision was taken so that the US “exercises complete control” and international and domestic laws do not apply.

“To this day, the US refuses to apply the Constitution in the military commissions, or the full provisions of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to the remaining detainees. And the detainees themselves have no real legal remedies – they are not allowed to file lawsuits in the United States, and no country will sanction the US for its illegal treatment of these men,” she stated.

The international calls for the closure of the notorious detention facility have grown louder, but the Joe Biden administration, like previous administrations, has adopted the policy of dilly-dallying.

Pradhan said the strength of the US propaganda campaign around Guantanamo at the beginning, “labeling all of the men here the “worst of the worst” and categorizing them all as some sort of combatant against the United States, has proven impossible to reverse.”

“Despite the fact that no one should ever have been held at Guantanamo, that most were sold to the US for bounty payments, and that only a handful have ever been charged, most Americans still believe that Guantanamo detainees are all terrorists,” she told the Press TV website.

“President Obama had the ability to tell the truth about the men at Guantanamo, even when Congress stopped him from closing the facility, but he did not. The enduring misinformation about the detainees means that many countries do not want to accept them and that Congress has banned any transfers of the men to US territory.”

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

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