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New York’s Proposed Minor Consent Law ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Misleading,’ Critics Say

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 12, 2024

New York state lawmakers are weighing legislation that would allow any child or teen under 18 to seek out and consent to medical treatment — including vaccines, dental procedures, hospitalization and even surgery — without parental consent, as long as the minor appears to have the mental capacity for making that decision.

Assembly Bill A6761, introduced by New York Assemblymember Karines Reyes (D-Bronx), also would allow Medicaid funds to pay for procedures and drugs administered to children.

Proponents of the legislation, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of New York, say the measure is about ensuring all youth have access to quality care.

But critics, including John Gilmore, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Autism Action Network, said the bill is dangerous.

“The bill’s biggest problem,” Gilmore told The Defender, “is that it allows any medical procedure to be done to children of any age without parental knowledge or consent. That’s the kicker.”

Gilmore said the bill has another problem, too: The “active summary” statement on the official New York Assembly website says it “allows homeless youth to give effective consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services.”

But Gilmore said that statement is “deliberately misleading” because the bill’s text applies to more than just “homeless” youth seeking “certain” services.

The bill states:

“Any person, including a minor, who comprehends the need for, the nature of, and the reasonably foreseeable risks and benefits involved in any contemplated medical, dental, health, and/or hospital services, and any alternatives thereto, may give effective consent to such services for themself, and the consent of no other person shall be necessary.”

“Albany is lying” about the bill, according to Autism Action Network.

Michael Kane, a New York resident and founder of Teachers For Choice, agreed. “It’s a complete lie to say the bill applies only to homeless children or runaways — and it’s a dangerous one,” Kane told The Defender. “It’s imperative that legislators understand what the bill really does,” Kane said.

With New York lawmakers considering close to 10,000 bills, legislators may rely on a bill’s one-sentence summary — rather than reading its full text — for deciding how they vote, according to Gilmore.

The bill has a companion in the Senate (S8352), introduced Jan. 19 by state Sen. Rachel May (D-Syracuse). The bills share identical text.

Unclear how practitioners would assess minor’s ‘capacity to comprehend’

According to the latest version of the bill, a minor could consent to:

  • General medical, dental, health and hospital services.
  • Mental health outpatient services.
  • Substance abuse treatment.
  • Immunizations.
  • Family planning services.
  • Sexually transmitted disease (STD) diagnosis and treatment.

The bill states that a practitioner may administer a vaccine if “they have reason to believe that a person in parental relation to the child … objects to the immunization.”

It also states, “A child who may give effective consent [to various medical interventions] … may give such consent to their own immunization, and the consent of no other person shall be necessary.”

The bill allows minors under 16, in certain circumstances, to access psychotropic drugs or psychotherapy without parental consent.

Psychotropic drugs include a host of pharmaceutical products, including medications for depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Current New York law allows minors 16 or older residing in a hospital to agree to psychotropic medications without parental consent if any of the following conditions are met:

  • A parent or guardian “is not reasonably available” and the physician determines “the minor has the capacity”; or
  • requiring parental consent “would have a detrimental effect on the minor”; or
  • the parent has refused consent, providing that two physicians (including a psychiatric doctor who does not work for the facility) agree the medications are in the minor’s best interests.

A6761/S8352 would allow minors under 16 in these circumstances to do the same, as long as the youth “comprehends the need for, the nature of, and the reasonably foreseeable risks and benefits involved.”

The bill does not include detailed information on how medical practitioners would assess a minor’s capacity to comprehend the potential risks of a potential treatment.

It does, however, define “capacity” as follows:

“The minor’s ability to understand and appreciate the nature and consequences of the proposed treatment, including the benefits and risks of, and alternatives to, such proposed treatment, and to reach an informed decision.”

Children’s Health Defense General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg told The Defender that informed consent is a “serious” thing, but this legislation devotes “little attention to how to determine if a child can truly exercise informed consent, how to obtain that consent and why true informed consent is critically important.”

Who is a ‘minor’?

The bill does not provide a clear definition of “minor” that applies across all amended laws. However, some sections of the law define or describe the age thresholds related to minor consent:

  • In the amendments to the mental hygiene law section 9.13(a), anyone under 16 would still need parental/guardian consent to be admitted as a voluntary patient to a hospital.
  • In amendments to mental hygiene law 33.21(a)(1), a “minor” is defined as a person under 18, excluding some special cases like emancipated minors or minors who are parents.
  • In amendments to section 2305 of public health law, treatment for STDs without parental consent is allowed for those under 21.

However, earlier sections of the bill do not specify any age range for minors, suggesting even young minors could consent as long as they demonstrate appropriate “capacity.”

Even infants?

It appears the bill’s sponsors may believe that even an infant can give consent. That’s because section 18 of public health law omits previous language stating that children older than 12 can determine who gets access to their medical records.

This deletion suggests that a child of any age no longer “may” but “shall be notified of any request by a qualified person to review their patient information” and deny access to it if they so desire.

The bill states that an infant can choose to withhold information from its parents, without explaining how that would be possible:

In summary, there isn’t one definition of “minor” in the bill, but it seems for most purposes “minor” refers to anyone under age 18.

Minor consent bills bulldoze’ over decades of laws honoring parental rights

The U.S. has a strong legal history going back many decades that honors parental rights and recognizes that the state should step in only where parents are unfit to care for their children, Rosenberg said.

“Minor consent bills bulldoze over those longstanding decisions,” she said. “They try to exclude parents from medical decision-making and take over the parenting role.”

Rosenberg said she’s seen more bills like this recently being introduced in other states, such as Vermont. “We [CHD] successfully stopped one in the District of Columbia and are fighting laws and regulations elsewhere,” she said.

Kane called the bill “just horrendous” because it “completely eradicates parental control over what happens medically to our children.”

Meanwhile, a staff member for Reyes’ office who chose to remain anonymous told The Defender she disagreed, saying the bill was primarily about ensuring all kids have “access to care” and that it included “guardrails” to ensure that not all parental consent was stripped away in all situations.

For instance, the bill explains that a minor must “knowingly and voluntarily” seek care, the staff member said.

But Rosenberg said she’s concerned about the legal ramifications of the bill’s broad language — which appears to erase parental consent for “any contemplated medical, dental, health, and/or hospital services, and any alternatives thereto.”

Rosenberg told The Defender the bill was “rife with problems too numerous to address in brief remarks.”

The bill makes clear, she said, that minors can consent to vaccinations without their parents’ knowledge or consent — and that medical staff and insurance companies must hide that vaccination information from the parents unless the child permits them to share it.

Children “literally may inadvertently take their lives into their own hands” if they make serious healthcare decisions without parental involvement, Rosenberg said.

For example, children frequently don’t know their own health history — let alone their family health history — which may put them at an increased risk for an adverse reaction to a medication or treatment, she explained.

Rosenberg said:

“The legislators supporting these bills need to ask themselves what they would do if a child or grandchild of theirs consented to a surgical procedure of whatever kind requiring anesthesia and the child suffered death or irreversible harm if they had a reaction to the anesthesia.

“Is that a phone call they’d like to receive?”

‘Not a chance’ bill’s sponsors unaware of misleading statement

New York already has a law on the books about homeless youth giving consent for certain services.

Passed in 2022, A09604/S08937 allows “runaways and homeless youth under the age of 18 who are receiving approved crisis or support services to consent to medical, dental, health and hospital services.”

Gilmore, who has done legislative analysis in New York for 23 years, said, “Both Rachel May and Karines Reyes voted for the bill that was passed in 2022.”

So why would they talk about homeless youth in the summary of the new measure they introduced?

A staff member for Reyes’ office told The Defender a bill’s summary statement is written by lawyers — not by the legislator who introduces the bill.

It’s plausible the lawyers chose that language since the bill amends the same section of public health law (2504) that was amended earlier in the law about homeless youth and runaways, the staff member said. However, the staff member confirmed that the present bill does pertain to all minors.

The Defender also reached out to May’s Legislative Director Eric van der Vort, but he did not respond by our publication deadline.

Gilmore said he contacted legislators, too, but didn’t get a straight answer. When he asked van der Vort about the summary language, “he simply refused to address it in any way,” Gilmore said.

Reyes’ Chief of Staff Justin Westbrook-Lowery confirmed for Gilmore that the bill applies to all minors in New York but didn’t explain why the summary statement talked about homeless youth.

Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), who chairs the Assembly Committee on Health and co-sponsored the bill, “has a large staff and they’re very good at what they do,” Gilmore said. “There’s not a chance that they aren’t quite aware” that the bill’s summary statement doesn’t match what the bill would do.

Kane said he’s heard from New York legislators and staffers that they believe the bill affects only homeless children.

“There’s a lot of people in the Assembly starting to co-sponsor the bill, which is scary,” he said. “We don’t want this thing passed so that we end up litigating against it for the next five years.”

The Defender asked May’s media relations staff what May would like to tell parents concerned about being excluded from medical decision-making regarding their child’s health, but did not receive a response by our publication deadline.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa.

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.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

WHO’s Fooling Who? The one who gives the orders is the sovereign.

Tedros slams us for lies but it’s all projection: here’s the documentary proof it is the WHO that is lying

BY MERYL NASS | FEBRUARY 12, 2024

The WHO lawyers are trying to play us, saying the nations are sovereign because they still make the laws. What the WHO omits saying is that under the Treaty and proposed IHR Amendments, nations will be forced to pass the laws that the WHO tells them to pass. Examples of this and other word games below.

First the treaty tells you that unhindered, timely access to information is a general principle. Then it adds the caveat that transparency means open access to “accurate” information.

Then a few pages later the treaty demands that nations perform “infodemic management”—which requires not only censorship, but also surveillance of everyone’s social media footprint, so the nation will know who and what to censor. This violates both the First and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution.

Not only that, but the censorship should be performed with international collaboration—so all nations can target the same misinformation spreaders and there will be nowhere to hide. Finally, they want to make sure you Trust the(ir) Science.

Below, the treaty is forced to admit that the so-called sovereignty that Tedros claims we will retain— the ability to pass laws—will in fact be subject to the orders of the WHO.

The WHO treaty draft requires that every nation pass laws to legalize Emergency Use Authorizations, so that unlicensed vaccines can be given to populations during a WHO-declared pandemic. You know, like a Monkeypox pandemic. There are no standards required and the WHO Director-General can declare any pandemic whenever he wants. Then the needles come out.

The WHO also demands that nations pass the laws needed to remove all liability from these untested and potentially deadly vaccines. Who’s sovereign now?

So you see, the WHO has just played a bunch of word games and they intended for us to be the suckers and go along, ignorant. So long as the Treaty and IHR Amendments still let nations make laws, the WHO insists on calling us sovereign. But the real sovereign is the one ordering that laws be passed. That’s the real power. Why would anyone give that up to the WHO, especially when its Director-General is a puppet for Bill Gates, is not a real doctor, and has been accused of withholding food and hiding 3 cholera epidemics to kill members of competing tribes in his native Ethiopia, when he was the #3 top official there? Do you really think he cares about your health during a pandemic?

So you can wait idly by as these treaties move ahead, or you can say ‘Hell No!’ and put on your big girl panties and decide you have finally had enough. Which will it be?

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden Acts Like the Defender of Gazans, But He is the Destroyer

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | February 13, 2024

This week President Joe Biden was again talking about his ideas of how the Israel government should exercise more restraint in its war in Gaza. But, he remains all talk and no action on this count.

It is tedious to repeatedly hear the man who is, in the absence of congressional action to provide special assistance to Israel for its war, unilaterally providing the key aid including weapons and intelligence for prosecuting Israel’s war continue to insist he supports restraint while the Israel government keeps pursuing relentless devastation.

Biden, in a Monday statement he made at the White House after meeting with Jordan King Abdullah, said the following regarding impending Israel military action:

As I said yesterday, our military operation in Rafah — their — the major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan — a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there. Many people there have been displaced — displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah — exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected.

This schtick is way past its expiration date. The Israel war, now in its fifth month, continues to rack up destruction of life, health, and the physical manifestations of civilization in Gaza at an astounding pace, with the brunt of the suffering imposed on civilians. Israel is taking the actions. But, the US is the key accomplice to the atrocities because of the aid it provides.

This is Biden’s war as much as it is Israel’s war.

Biden is notoriously prone to make blunders in his public presentations. The blunder he made in his comment in his Monday White House statement is different than many. Biden quickly corrected his mention of “our military operation in Rafah” to clarify that the military operation is Israel’s. The slipup here was not that Biden had stated something false. Instead, it was that Biden had stated the truth that he and his administration are trying their best to hide.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

BBC News Arabic evacuates staff from Gaza via the Rafah Crossing

MEMO | February 13, 2024

BBC News Arabic evacuated its press crew from the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing, after the crew covered the ongoing war there for over four months.

The Egyptian authorities facilitated the crossing of the nine-member press crew through the Rafah Crossing after their families left the Strip through the crossing weeks ago.

The Rafah crossing is the gateway that connects Gaza to the world and is used for the entry of humanitarian and relief aid and the exit of individuals wounded in Israel’s genocidal war for treatment in Egypt and other countries.

On Sunday, flouting the provisional ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israel launched an air campaign on Rafah, killing more than 65 Palestinians. The city had been declared a “safe zone” by occupation forces and over a million Palestinians had taken shelter there after being forced out of their homes in the northern areas of the Strip since 7 October.

The Israeli offensive has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

The UN, Egypt, and several other countries, including the US, warned Israel against launching an attack on Rafah, as it could cause what they described as a “disaster” in the city crowded with more than half of the two million displaced civilians from across Gaza.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

GMO denounces targeting two members of Al-Jazeera team in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza

Palestinian Information Center – February 13, 2024

GAZA – The Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli targeting of the Al-Jazeera Arabic news crew for the fifth time, leading to the serious injury of the channel’s correspondent and cameraman in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza Strip.

The GMO said, in a statement on Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes targeted Al-Jazeera’s reporter Ismail Abu Omar and cameraman Ahmed Matar, stressing that “the Israeli occupation army has deliberately targeted the channel’s teams for the fifth time in a row in a complete crime in violation of the international law.”

Journalist Abu Omar has had his right leg and some fingers amputated, in addition to other various wounds. His colleague Matar sustained various injuries, as well.

The GMO pointed out that since October 7, the Israeli occupation army has killed 128 journalists, arrested 10, and injured many others, stressing that this indicates that journalists have become targets of the Israeli occupation army.

The GMO called on press unions, media agencies, and human rights groups to denounce this crime and to pressure Israel to stop targeting journalists and to halt its genocidal war against civilians.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas: Israel’s ceasefire proposal is not a serious offer

MEMO | February 13, 2024

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, said that the Israeli proposal in the context of the talks to release prisoners of war held in Gaza is a “withdrawal from the proposal that was formulated in Paris” and proves that Israel “is not serious about moving forward with the release of the captives.”

According to Hamdan, the Hamas delegation in Cairo discussed Israel’s responses to the proposal put forward in Paris. Hamdan added that Israel “is placing obstacles that make it impossible to reach an agreement.” Israel’s proposal, he explained, “does not guarantee freedom of movement, the return of refugees, or the withdrawal of its forces from the Gaza Strip and does not address the issue of opening the crossings to provide medical treatment to the wounded.”

“[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s behaviour and positions confirm that he is continuing the policy of evasion and procrastination, is not interested in reaching an agreement, and is trying to prolong the war and buy time for personal considerations related to his political future.”

He stressed that “the Hamas movement is committing to its position and was and is still keen to reach an agreement that achieves the cessation of the aggression against our people, the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip, relief for our people, the return of the people to their areas, reconstruction, lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip, and completing the prisoner exchange.”

“Netanyahu is continuing his policy of escaping reality and lying to his audience,” Hamdan said. “The truth that the whole world can see is that he is still stuck in the streets of Khan Yunis, haemorrhaging dead and wounded on a daily basis, and withdrawing destroyed vehicles.”

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Made-in-India ‘killer’ drones fly in Gaza sky as Israeli genocide rages on: Report

Press TV – February 13, 2024

An Indian conglomerate has dispatched Hermes 900 killer drones to Israel as the UAVS are extensively used in the regime’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in the Gaza strip amid the genocidal war, a report says.

The sale of more of than 20 Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs delivered by Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India Ltd to Israel was first reported on February 2 by Neelam Mathews for the defense-related website Shephard Media.

The Wire report said it has not yet been publicly acknowledged by either Tel Aviv or New Delhi.

In 2018, Israel’s Elbit Systems entered into a joint venture with Adani group with a 49% share and opened a $15-million facility in Hyderabad to manufacture UAVs for the first time outside of Israel.

The Wire said when it contacted Israel’s Elbit Systems a spokesperson responded that they could “confirm that Elbit Systems collaborates with Adani, which is a supplier to our UAS [Unmanned Aerial Systems] supply chain.”

Haaretz reported last February that the vice president of UAV systems in the Aerospace Division at Elbit Systems, Vered Haimovich, said the Hermes 900 has been Elbit System’s flagship drone, which has been operationally used by the Israeli Air Force since 2015. It has also taken part “in all rounds of conflict in recent years.”

Indian activists have criticized the Indian government for its double standards against Palestine, as on one hand, New Delhi backs the Palestinian cause while advocating for a free Palestinian state, but on the other, its actions suggest it supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.

After Israel unleashed a war on Gaza on October 7 following Hamas Operation Al-Aqsa Strom into the occupied territories, India initially expressed unconditional solidarity with Israel.

New Delhi had even abstained on a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a humanitarian pause in October 2023. However, two months later, it voted in favor of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The role of an Indian conglomerate in supplying drones, which are extensively used by the IOF for attacks in densely populated urban areas in Gaza, came as the prime minister Narendra Modi government’s official position is seeking an immediate ceasefire.

Shir Hever, the coordinator responsible for enforcing the military embargo on behalf of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, expressed his disapproval of India’s current alliance with Israel, deeming it disgraceful considering India’s extensive past under colonial domination.

“This moment is a test of the international law system, and instead of siding with Israel’s genocide and its enabling of Western powers, India should take inspiration from South Africa’s global-south leadership and end its complicity with genocide,” Hever told Middle East Eye.

He also said that ever since the International Court of Justice said it’s “plausible” Israel committed genocide in Gaza, two Japanese firms ended their MoUs with Elbit, while, a Dutch high court banned the Netherlands from continuing its export of F-35 parts to Israel, “citing a clear risk of violations of international law.”

In another such instance, on Monday, the European Union foreign policy Chief Josep Borrell called on the US to cut arms supplies to Israel due to high civilian casualties in its war in Gaza.

Adani, a 60-year-old multi billionaire and one of the richest persons in the world, was accused in a report by a US investment research firm, Hindenburg’s Research LLC, of stock manipulation and accounting fraud last year, and is seen by many as someone very close to Modi and his government.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Khan v the generals

By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | February 13, 2024

Pakistan’s election lived up to some expectations, but didn’t live up to other expectations. What was predicted was that there would be vote rigging and outright fraud as a central feature of the Pakistani generals’ plan, and there was. What was not anticipated was that former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, the PTI (Movement for Justice), would win the most parliamentary seats of any single party. It was a miraculous outcome, given the horrendous levels of repression of the PTI, and the efforts by the military establishment to prevent the party from even contesting in the election.

What we know now is that the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment, following its violence and terror campaign against the population after Khan was ousted in April 2022, is the proverbial emperor with no clothes. It stands exposed not only for its reign of terror, corruption and fraud, but also for its incompetence by failing to deliver the election results desired by domestic and foreign power centres.

In many ways, perhaps the most analogous relatively recent event was the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election. The Israelis, the Americans and the Gulf monarchies wanted to give legitimacy to their chosen occupation sub-contractor, the collaborationist and hopelessly corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) largely controlled by Hamas rival Fatah. These forces believed that they had invested enough financial and political capital to enable Fatah candidates to win an “election under occupation”. To their great surprise — and to the surprise of Hamas, to be fair — the Islamic Resistance Movement won.

Similarly, the military and political elites in Pakistan had guaranteed themselves and their patrons in Washington that the election in Pakistan was a done deal.

This narrative claimed that the appeal of the PTI had diminished, and any remaining popularity of Khan and his political party would be offset by the investment of tens of millions of dollars to buy off the military high command, politicians in all of the provinces and, crucially, the judges of the provincial high courts, as well as the Supreme Court.

The generals said that they had a plan B, and if needed, a plan C, ready in case plan A did not work. Plan A was the simple ousting of Khan from power in April 2022. It was thought that this would eradicate the “Khan virus”. To the surprise of many, including Khan himself, a massive, unprecedented outpouring of support erupted spontaneously, with rallies taking place in cities and towns in every province of the country.

So, the military elites began the charge sheet against Khan to get him embroiled in one court case after another: plan B. That failed to work, and Khan’s popularity continued to soar. Incessant reassurances were meted out from former Chief of Army Staff General Bajwa to Washington and the House of Sharif, the family in control of one of the two dominant dynastic political parties, the PML(N). Bajwa claimed that the situation was under control and that his successor, General Asim Munir, would finish the job. Bajwa was lucky. All he agreed to was to remove Khan from power, and he delivered. He was detested, but he was able to leave the political scene after a few months. Munir was not so fortunate.

Plan C needed to be activated. Public sentiment was turning so antagonistic towards the military top brass for their unashamed targeting of Khan that the “final solution” had to be implemented: assassination. Two attempts, one of which injured Khan in the shin, were unsuccessful.

There really was no plan D, and so one was concocted quickly. Khan faced the most absurd but very serious charges of terrorism and treason, and was imprisoned in complete isolation. He was charged with leaking state secrets in the now infamous “cypher-gate” case, with the allegation that he spoke recklessly about a top-secret diplomatic cable sent to the foreign ministry by Pakistan’s ambassador to the US. The cable stated, in no uncertain terms, Washington’s desire that Khan be removed from power.

Both the military elite as well as, sadly, many in the intellectual class, mocked Khan and his supporters for over a year for this “conspiracy theory” and for inventing this “fictional” cypher. Only when the The Intercept confirmed the veracity of the contents of the diplomatic cable as Khan had described them, did Munir and other senior army officers not only concede that such a cypher does exist, but that Khan would now face charges of treason for revealing its contents. This leak by the former prime minister constituted a grave threat to “national security”. In reality, it presented a palpable unmasking of the collusion of the US foreign policy establishment, Pakistani generals and Pakistani kleptocrats of the two major political parties — the House of Sharif and the House of Bhutto-Zardari – in wanting to depose the democratically-elected Khan from power.

Once the hastily assembled plan D was put in motion, the idea was that it would lead seamlessly to plan E, the ruthless repression of the PTI, so that by the time of this election there would be nothing left of Khan and his party. What the election results last week demonstrated, however, is that even though Khan’s party members could not run on their party ticket and had to run as independents, there is huge popular support for the PTI.

There doesn’t seem to be a plan F, considering the frantic responses of the army chief and the head of the intelligence agencies, or the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Munir is no longer concerned with his big picture “obligations”. He has been reduced to trying to save himself. The only party that he is trying to please at this point is the one footing the bill: the House of Sharif. The general is now arguably the most hated Chief of Staff in Pakistan’s history, and there has been no shortage of competition for that title.

What about Washington’s planners? How are they reacting? One senior State Department official commented very bluntly: “These imbeciles can’t even crush a political novice like Khan. They command one of the largest armed forces in the world, nuclear armed. What is all that for?”

The US foreign policy establishment, after the ouster of Khan, had outsourced the job of managing the old “Af-Pak” (Afghanistan-Pakistan) theatre of the “Global War on Terror” to the Pentagon. Washington believed that its Cold War framework of dealing with the generals would produce a “stable” and pliant Pakistan. There is no entity as irate at the incompetence of the Pakistani military high command as the US Department of Defence, to which both Bajwa and Munir promised the moon. Actually, though, State Department officials are equally incensed since they were tasked to prevaricate for almost two years to conceal Washington’s role, as well as that of Pakistani generals, in this entire scenario.

The State Department had denied any knowledge of the cypher, but that position began to change after the Intercept’s publication of the contents of that damning diplomatic cable. At that point, it was not so much about asserting the non-existence of the cypher, but underscoring how such communication between two governments was nothing abnormal. Washington was willing to give Islamabad a few more months to fix everything by holding faux elections that would quash Khan and his party once and for all.

And now, it seems clear that the US foreign policy establishment is looking for vengeance, and keen on punishing the generals who promised to produce an unashamedly subservient Pakistani political establishment. This is why there has been such an explosion of harsh criticism of the Pakistani army from the State Department and numerous members of Congress.

There were, undoubtedly, members of Congress, such as Representative Ilhan Omar, who wanted to express their displeasure much earlier. But they also acquiesced to their Democratic Party leadership in the White House and in Congress, who hung on by a thread to the idea that “stability” would be brought about by the traditional political and military elites. The White House maintained unceasingly that “our guys” in Islamabad would facilitate a smooth and relatively quiet transition to the post-Khan period, without ringing any international alarm bells.

Of course, now it’s become patently obvious that Washington is revising its stance radically, one that effectively tells Pakistan’s generals, “You had your chance, you failed, and now you’re making things worse.” America’s 180-degree turnaround is an attempt to salvage some respect, or at least some tolerance, from the people of Pakistan who know full well Washington’s role in the regime change operation. The generals have put Washington in a deeply embarrassing situation.

However, Washington apparatchiks may be unfair in their treatment of their clients in khaki in Pakistan. The former do not realise that it’s the political has-beens who the generals can control, not the relative new boys on the block like Khan. The old political bigwigs know the rules of the game — proper balance between the enrichment of both the political and military elites — and abide by them. The newbies are too recalcitrant to even learn those rules properly, let alone abide by them. In sum, Washington now considers General Munir a dreadful liability, after only his first year as Chief of Staff, unlike General Pervez Musharraf, who provided Washington with “stability in Pakistan” for eight years until he also became a liability in 2007.

In this entire saga, what’s been truly disappointing is the role of the Pakistani media. The country’s leading and, deservedly, most respected periodical, Dawn, suddenly began to churn out columns praising the democratic “defiance” of the people in this election. It’s a shame that the people’s defiance was not covered over the past twenty months, when apparently it was simply an expression of a cult-following, and the totalitarian and conspicuously undemocratic repression was not worth reporting. The resistance of the Pakistani people could have certainly benefited from some coverage then. Now, such voices in the media are commonplace. It’s rather sad how the Pakistani media seems to be taking its cues from the US State Department about when to cover/report, and when not to. Dawn columnists had many months to praise the democratic will of the people, but did not.

At this point, the divisions within the military officer corps have become evident. Munir and others in the top brass realise how dangerous it is to give the wrong orders to junior officers and soldiers. How many times will the Pakistani armed forces be commanded to open fire, imprison, torture and disappear their population on a massive scale? The crimes of the military establishment in the provinces of Balochistan and KPK have been bad enough.

For almost two years now, the brutal suppression by the army was meant to instil paralysing trepidation in the population. But just as the people of Gaza, of Palestine, of West Asia, have overcome a psychological sense of fear of Israel, so too have the people of Pakistan lost any fear of their national security state and its violent shenanigans. This is a major development.

Whatever political configuration emerges after the election, one thing is certain: this round has been a resounding victory for former Prime Minister Imran Khan, smiling in his wretched jail cell, as well as the people of Pakistan, regardless of their political affiliation.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Magical Thinking

By Karen Kwiatkowski | LewRockwell | February 13, 2024

In 2005, Joan Didion published “The Year of Magical Thinking” that about grieving the loss of her husband, the unavoidable instant reduction of a rich marriage to aimless solitude.

Beyond the obvious arena of modern imperial foreign policy, magical thinking is a well-known psychological concept. It is “the belief that wishes can impose their own order on the material world.” It is driven by human goals of fulfillment “without consideration of the constraints of the external world.”

We’ve been reminded of this concept in many different ways over the past few weeks. The befuddled fumbling old man in the White House insulting reporters who ask him about his memory lapses, then demonstrating his disability several times later in the press conference.

He wishes to remain President, yet he is incapable of being President. He wants that particular fulfillment regardless of its fundamental impossibility.

We see the same in many modern political leaders, no doubt Canada’s Trudeau, who was upset that Putin, in a wide ranging interview last week, mentioned the Canadian Parliament’s celebration of World War II Ukrainian Nazi Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old surviving member of the Waffen SS Galicia Division. Zelensky had just spoken, and all present sincerely wished that killing Russians was great Western tradition, habitual and just. Instead we saw the impossibility of wishes making their own reality, their own order; the impossibility of changing fact to fantasy, and fantasy to fact.

Access to the most casual and shallow history of World War II should have revealed to any one of the hundreds of educated and cosmopolitan MPs, and the media covering the event, that those killing Russians in WWII were either part of Nazi Germany, or allied with Nazi Germany. It is modern Russian intolerance for Nazis that we find to be traditional, habitual and just. The propagandized West seeks a better world through magical thinking, not through the embrace of reality.

We see magical thinking in Kiev, but somehow I suspect Ukrainians have a far better understanding of reality than do Zelensky’s American and British advisors – who seem permanently afflicted with lies becoming truth if only we all wished for it hard enough. The best example of this is our puppet in Kiev who insists on no negotiations with Russia until the popular and extremely rational “history buff” President Putin, steps down to face the Ukrainian music for his war crimes.

Yet when Tucker Carlson asked Putin what it was all about – we found simply that the protection of Russia and Russian people are a cause for which Putin is willing to fight. It is a concept that shocks the Western empire circa 2024.

We also learned that years of western actions, like withdrawing from nuclear treaties and pursuing first strike capabilities, drove Russian development of hypersonic missiles and a whole range of capabilities to survive and defeat such extreme threats coming from an increasingly unpredictable West. Meanwhile, US and NATO naval capability is underwhelming, recruitment abysmal, technology plateaued and inappropriate for offense or defense, and funds are dwindling.

We learned that while politicians and academics continue to push for ever more massive sanctions against Russia – new markets materialized and Russia’s economy adapted and thrived, as the economy of the western allies shrank and struggled.

We learned that western cultural fetishes of magic energy replacing hydrocarbons, 72 genders, modern monetary theory and unlimited immigration without cultural integration have all been rejected – rationally and straightforwardly – by Russia. The former Communist empire has become a sanctuary for Orthodox Christianity, while the West bans and abandons Christian churches and principles in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Europe and in America. It sounds unbelievable, unpredictable, a rabbit from a hat and a lady cut in half all in one show  – but it’s true.

A key advisor to Zelensky on US-UK-EU proxy war, and former UK PM Boris Johnson is an exemplar of magical thinking. He was outraged that Putin explained with evidence how the last 18 months of war in Ukraine could have been prevented, and ended peacefully, as peace talks in Turkey produced a draft treaty acceptable to both Ukrainian and Russian teams. This was abruptly canned after Boris rushed to Kiev, where he demanded the Ukrainians reject the nascent agreement. Boris, bobbing in the flotsam of magical thinking, is a liar, and yet, one marvels at the power of believing that your desires and wishes can create a new world order.

We see this in the US, in both its obsession with Julian Assange despite the utter irrationality of its pursuit of a man who exposed US lawbreaking and evil – something top politicians in the US should always be eager to correct in the name of American heroism and honor.

We see this in the continued fantasy of electoral honesty in the US, in the imperial two-tiered system of law, in the incomprehensible funding and moral support provided to Israel as it directly and systematically exterminates 2 million people, destroys their homes, hospitals, schools, and businesses, and takes their land. We see it in Israel, as it imagines what it is doing will save rather than destroy her. Magical thinking.

Joan Didion popularized the term, documenting her grief at the sudden end of a life, marriage, meaning, and purpose. Magical thinking may be part of a process by which people and institutions cope with the innate realization of irretrievable loss.

The US government, and its very federalism, is undergoing an imperial metamorphosis from rapacious caterpillar, to life in a rapidly decaying cocoon, to something entirely different and unrecognizable – life in the air, with little baggage, free, vulnerable and alive. It will own nothing and be happy. Dissolution and death of empire is a story told many times, a pattern of nature, and it cannot be stopped. Magical thinking is simultaneously necessary and futile, and Washington and many of the European capitols are deeply engaged in this phase. They are ending, ungracefully, ungratefully, undeniably.

But for the people, who live with feet on the ground, and eyes wide open, who bear the costs of the magical thinking of their governments, and the lies of their propagandists, and the waste of their wars, and the contamination of everything that was good – for us the only value is seeing the reality of things. Recognizing reality, acting upon it, rejecting even the most subtle suggestions of magical thinking and fantasy and imaginations of world orders – in this way imperial error can be stopped, and reversed.

Peace, transparency, prosperity, exchanges of goods, ideas, and many charming conversations with partners and friends around the planet – none of this is fantasy, and it doesn’t require magic. Let’s get on with it.

Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, farmer and aspiring anarcho-capitalist. She ran for Congress in Virginia’s 6th district in 2012, is a Fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, and an Associated Scholar of the Mises Institute.

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February 13, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tucker Slayed the Mainstream Media Dragon

By Ron Paul | February 12, 2024

There has been much written and said about Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. As of this writing the video on Twitter alone has been viewed nearly 200 million times, making it likely the most-viewed news event in history.

Many millions of viewers who may not have had access to the other side of the story were informed that the Russia/Ukraine military conflict did not begin in 2022, as the mainstream media continuously reports, but in fact began eight years earlier with a US-backed coup in Ukraine. The US media does not report this because they don’t want Americans to begin questioning our interventionist foreign policy. They don’t want Americans to see that our government meddling in the affairs of other countries – whether by “color revolution,” sanctions, or bombs – has real and deadly consequences to those on the receiving end of our foreign policy.

To me, however, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin was the US mainstream media reaction. As Putin himself said during the interview, “in the world of propaganda, it’s very difficult to defeat the United States.” Even a casual look at the US mainstream media’s reporting before and after the interview would show how correct he is about that. In the days and weeks before the interview, the US media was filled with stories about how horrible it was that Tucker Carlson was interviewing the Russian president. There was the danger, they all said, that Putin might spread “disinformation.”

That Putin might say something to put his country in a better light was, they were saying, reason enough to not interview him. With that logic, why have journalism at all? Everyone interviewed by journalists – certainly every world leader – will attempt to paint a rosy picture. The job of a journalist in a free society should be to do the reporting and let the people decide. But somehow that has been lost. These days the mainstream media tells you what to think and you better not dispute it or you will be cancelled!

What the US mainstream media was really worried about was that the “other side of the story” might start to ring true with the public. So they attacked the messenger.

The CNN reporting on Tucker’s interview pretty much sums up the reaction across the board of the US mainstream media. Their headline read, “Tucker Carlson is in Russia to interview Putin. He’s already doing the bidding of the Kremlin.”

By merely doing what used to be called “journalism” – interviewing and reporting on people and events, whether good or bad – one is “doing the bidding” of the subject of the interview or report?

No wonder fellow journalist Julian Assange has been locked away in a gulag for so many years. He dared to assume that in a free society, being a journalist means reporting the good, the bad, and the ugly even if it puts those in power in a bad light.

In the end, the massive success of the Tucker Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin demonstrates once and for all that the American people are sick to death of their mainstream media propagandists and liars. They are looking not for government narratives, but for truth. That’s the really good news about this interview.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Scrapping Russian gas deal would cause prices to ‘explode’ – Austrian MP

RT | February 13, 2024

Austria’s plans to end a long-term contract for Russian gas would cause energy prices to “explode” and would fuel inflation in the country, Axel Kassegger, a member of the Freedom Party of Austria, has warned.

On Monday, Austrian Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler urged for radical steps to be taken to cut the country’s reliance on Russian gas, including breaking the long-term deal that state-owned energy company OMV has with Russia’s Gazprom until 2040.

In December, the share of Russian gas in Austria’s total gas imports surged to a new record of 98%, up from 76% the previous month, according to Gewessler.

“The market and the energy companies that are part of it are not fulfilling their responsibility to reduce the dependency on Russian gas sufficiently,” the minister said. “We must prepare to exit OMV’s long-term contracts,” she added.

Kassegger, a member of the Austrian National Council, took aim at Gewessler’s plans on Monday, urging members of other political parties who have “retained any trace of economic policy common sense” to “ring all the bells” at the announcement and say a “clear no” to the idea “immediately.”

He warned that a decision to rescind the contract with Russia would result in a several-fold increase in gas prices, send inflation skyrocketing, and deprive Austrian businesses of competitive advantages.

“In her green-ideological drive, Minister Gewessler has apparently set herself the goal of causing energy prices to explode even further in the final phase of her term in office and thus driving our economy and industry completely into a wall,” he said.

Austria’s imports of Russian gas reached pre-Ukraine conflict levels last year, as the country imported almost double the amount of gas its economy needed. Stable Russian gas supplies and increased shipments allowed Vienna to become a net energy exporter for the first time in twenty years.

Kassegger said that “an end to these gas supply contracts would therefore be the next political knee-jerk that this unfortunate black-green federal government takes” in order to comply with EU sanctions, which only harm the Austrian population and economy without causing any change in Russia’s behavior.

He called for an end to the “demonization” of fossil fuels in a “hysterical” climate policy from the “ideological ivory tower,” saying that Austria needs an energy policy that pursues only the interests of its own citizens and businesses.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment