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Germany: Effort to ban AfD party faces major setback

Remix News – December 20, 2024

A motion to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is unlikely to move forward, as there is less than a week left to vote on such a ban in this legislative period, and sources involved with the effort say there is no majority in place for such a move.

The motion, originally put forward by CDU MP Marco Wanderwitz, who previously said he would retire after this term, will definitely not be put forward this term, co-signer Carmen Wegge (SPD) told the Rheinische Post.

As Remix News previously reported, it appeared as if a ban procedure would almost certianly move forward just a month ago, with 105 MPs voicing cross-party support, including from MPs like Claudia Roth and Katrin Göring Eckardt from the Greens, and Ralf Stegner and Helge Lindh from the SPD, just to name a few.

The motion will only move forward if there is a majority, but so far, the CDU and the SPD have spoken out against it. There are grave worries that such a ban procedure could take years, and in any case, with elections expected to take place in February, it could lead to a substantial boost for the AfD. Currently, the SPD and CDU also see no success with the Constitutional Court, which has the final say in such a ban procedure.

So far, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and CDU leader Friedrich Merz do not back the ban, although both have hinted that they may support such a procedure in the future.

Notably, politicians involved in the ban procedure are once again resorting to claims of protecting democracy by banning what is currently the second-largest party in the country.

“Due to the early elections, it is not yet clear whether we can put our motion to a vote in this legislative period,” said Wegge. “The AfD represents the greatest threat to our democracy.”

She claims the party’s goal is to abolish democracy, despite the AfD actually putting forward motions for direct democracy in the country, which would allow the country to make decisions via nationwide referendums — undoubtedly a purer form of democracy than what currently serves as democracy in Germany.

Meanwhile, as Remix News previously reported, the Greens are working on an alternative ban procedure which would be more gradual but which MPs of the party, and other parties, believe would have a better chance of succeeding.

Efforts to ban the AfD are certainly not helped by the fact that it is the second most popular party in the country at the moment, routinely polling between 18 and 20 percent. A move to outright ban the party would be seen as a catastrophic blow to democracy.

December 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

West has pumped over $300 billion into Ukraine – Orban

RT | December 20, 2024

The US and the EU have provided over $300 billion in financial aid and military assistance to Kiev since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.

Such a huge amount of money “could have done wonders” had it been spent to improve the lives of people within the EU, he said in an interview with Kossuth radio on Friday.

Orban highlighted the evolving military situation, noting that “the balance of power on the frontlines is shifting day by day” in Russia’s favor. He also pointed out the political changes expected in the US following Donald Trump’s return to the White House next month.

These developments call for leaders in EU capitals to embrace a more pragmatic approach to ensuring stability and economic resilience within the bloc, Orban believes. However, the prime minister argued that Brussels remains out of touch with global realities, pointing to a recent European Parliament decision to continue sending substantial funds to Kiev – a move he described as a clear example of misplaced priorities.

“During the negotiation with the Americans, I received the figure that Europe and America together have spent €310 billion so far. Those are huge numbers!” the Hungarian prime minister stressed.

He argued that the hundreds of billions of euros already spent to fund the conflict could have been used to bolster European infrastructure, to develop countries in Western Balkans to the level of the EU, or beef up military capabilities. This “enormous” amount of money could have been given to Europeans to make people’s lives much better, the Hungarian leader concluded.

Russia has repeatedly warned that no amount of Western aid will stop its troops from achieving the goals of the military operation or change the ultimate outcome of the conflict. By backing Kiev, they only prolong the conflict, Moscow has argued.

Earlier this month, Orban proposed a Christmas ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, describing it as a last-ditch attempt to mediate a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He floated the idea to Kiev and Moscow, as well as to Trump, who he personally met at his residence in Florida.

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow “fully supports Orban’s efforts aimed at finding a peaceful settlement and resolving humanitarian issues related to the exchange of prisoners.”

However, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky rejected Budapest’s offer.

December 20, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Slovakia warns of ‘serious conflict’ with Kiev

RT | December 20, 2024

Slovakia is considering retaliation against Ukraine over its refusal to continue transit of Russian gas to the EU nation, according to Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Kiev is determined not to renew a multi-year transit contract with Russia, which allowed the fuel to flow across its territory despite the armed conflict between the two nations. Slovakia is one of the recipients of the gas, which Ukraine intends to halt next year.

A “serious conflict” is possible if Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “doesn’t release our gas,” Fico wrote on Facebook on Friday. He included excerpts from his press conference in Brussels on Thursday, after he and Zelensky discussed the issue at a meeting held behind closed doors in the Belgian capital.

Bratislava is sympathetic towards Kiev’s situation and Zelensky’s predicament, the prime minister said, but Slovakia is “not at any war” either with Russia or Ukraine, and the Slovaks are not servants doing the bidding of Zelensky. Kiev is “losing decisively,” while Zelensky “absolutely rejects any ceasefire,” he said.

Fico said the proposals regarding the gas situation, which Zelensky outlined to him at a European Council meeting, seemed “absurd.” One idea was to allow the flow to continue on condition that Russia would not receive any payment until the end of the Ukraine conflict.

“What fool will give us gas for free?” Fico asked journalists.

Slovakia is helping Ukraine by providing non-military assistance, including by transferring electricity to its capacity-starved power grid, the prime minister said. Relations between the two nations cannot be a one-way street, Fico asserted, adding: “I cannot completely rule out reciprocal measures.” His government will consider its options over the next week, he said.

Kiev previously floated the idea of letting gas that is not Russian in origin to be pumped through the Soviet-built pipelines on Ukrainian territory. Azerbaijan could be the source of such supplies, according to officials.

On Tuesday, European buyers of Russian pipeline gas, including Slovakia’s SPP, warned the European Commission that the looming termination of Ukrainian transit posed significant risks to members of the EU, and urged Brussels to act.

The escalating row has been caused by Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, during his annual Q&A marathon. Russian gas giant Gazprom “can live” without the transit, he insisted.

December 20, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

No, Spending on the Ukraine War is Not Benefitting Americans at Home

Military Keynesianism, creating humanitarian disasters to stimulate economic activity, is fruitless and dangerous.

By Zachary Yost | The Daily Economy |

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, those in favor of ever-increasing US involvement in the war have tossed around numerous justifications for their dangerous and escalatory policy that is detached from American national interest. We are of course served the normal pablum about defending freedom, that the Ukrainians are fighting “them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here,” and that if not stopped the Russian army will soon be marching down the Champs-Élysées (although the Russian army, we are told, is also simultaneously full of starving demoralized conscripts forced to fight with shovels.)

Yet among the many flimsy excuses for continuing to risk nuclear escalation with Russia, few surpass the foolish argument that many billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine are actually being spent here in the US, so it doesn’t even count as foreign aid and is therefore great for the economy.

The loudest institution promoting this line of thinking has been the American Enterprise Institute, and especially Iraq War cheerleader and Bush administration speechwriter, Marc Thiessen. The Biden administration has echoed this talking point as well.

Their logic runs as follows. We have to spend money to build and/or replace the weapons we are sending to Ukraine. That money is spent at American factories employing American workers. This helps to generate prosperity and economic growth and happy American families who can pay their bills and go on vacation.

These arguments are little more than military Keynesianism, and their reasoning falls to pieces if one thinks about it for more than 30 seconds.

As the nineteenth century French political economist Frédéric Bastiat succinctly put it, “Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen and also of those which it is necessary to foresee.”

Thiessen and others are being very bad economists (assuming they are not knowingly spreading propaganda and hoping it sticks), and repeating an age-old mistake that Bastiat identified as the broken window fallacy. In short, Bastiat reflects on a hypothetical broken window at a bakery and how at first one might say that this is good, since it will stimulate demand and lead to money being spent in the glass industry. But that is merely the visible effect. The unseen effect is that now the baker will no longer be able to invest that money into improving his business by acquiring more capital goods, or even spending it on personal consumption at a restaurant, hairdresser, or shoe shop.

A broken window does not result in an increase in wealth for society and leaves the victim poorer than before.

If this were not true, then we should pray for powerful and destructive hurricanes to wreak havoc every year since they generate so much economic activity in their wake. Similarly, its proponents would have to admit that the war is great for the Russian economy, as well. Look at all the jobs and productivity generated by the conflict!

Such thinking is nonsensical.

Yet, somehow this same line of thinking can pass muster for usually economically literate people who want to justify America’s fruitless and dangerous involvement in the Ukraine War.

We are told not to fret, since many tens of billions of dollars are being spent in America. But that is merely the seen effect. What are the unseen effects? There are many.

The US is running trillion dollar deficits and at risk of a debt trap with over a trillion dollars in interest payments. All this money being spent is either being borrowed from the capital markets, meaning the government is crowding out other borrowers, or is being financed by the Federal Reserve creating money to purchase bonds, therefore fueling further inflation.

But the effects do not stop there. Even if the US was not drowning in debt, building Javelin missiles (2023 estimated cost of $197,884 a pop), 155mm artillery rounds ($3,000 a shell), and Patriot air defense missiles ($4 million per missile) requires the use of labor, time, capital goods, and resources.

These resources obviously cannot be used to supply the other wants and needs that Americans have. Someone working at the bomb factory can’t be working at the car factory. Steel used to build an artillery shell can’t be used to make girders for buildings.

As Dwight Eisenhower noted back in 1963

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities…

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people…

Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

The cost of supplying weapons to Ukraine is not limited to money alone, but also the many and myriad things that we either will not have, or will have at more expense, than we did before.

The core logic put forward by military Keynsians is essentially no different from arguing that it is great for the economy to invest billions of dollars in building luxury cars and then dropping them down the Marianas Trench. (You don’t oppose money going to hard-working auto workers do you!)

At least with that plan there is little risk of stumbling into a great power war (unless Cthulhu gets annoyed at all the Cadillacs disturbing his slumber), unlike the current proxy war in Ukraine where the Biden administration has escalated the conflict even further in the wake of his defeat in November.

People are free to argue that America should be waging a proxy war in Ukraine and risking nuclear escalation. But don’t tell us that doing so will somehow make Americans more wealthy.

December 20, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | | Leave a comment

It’s the biolabs, stupid: Is this why Ukraine murdered a Russian general?

By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | December 19, 2024

The shocking assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, reverberates far beyond the streets of Moscow. On December 17, 2024, Kirillov was killed in a brazen bombing, an act the Russian government has denounced as terrorism. While the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – Kiev’s successor to the Soviet KGB – via ‘anonymous sources’ cited in multiple media outlets, has claimed responsibility, labeling Kirillov a war criminal, the truth about his death is likely far more complex – and far more chilling.

Kirillov’s death was not just an attack on a prominent Russian official; it was an attack on the truth. For years, he had been at the forefront of investigating and exposing alleged US-funded biolabs in Ukraine, claiming they were part of a broader Western biological warfare agenda. His assassination raises a deeply unsettling question: Was this a deliberate effort to silence him and prevent his revelations from coming to light?

Kirillov and the biolabs investigation

Kirillov’s work was controversial, but his allegations deserved scrutiny. He repeatedly accused the United States of funding clandestine biological laboratories in Ukraine, purportedly operating under the guise of public health initiatives. According to Russian reports, these labs were involved in the development of pathogens that could potentially target specific populations, a claim Washington and Kiev vehemently denied.

Throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Kirillov presented what he claimed were classified documents and intercepted communications proving the existence of such facilities. He argued that the labs represented a serious threat not only to Russia but to global security. Though his assertions were often dismissed in the West as propaganda, they stirred debate and distrust among nations already skeptical of US military and scientific activities abroad.

The targeting of a truth-seeker?

The timing and method of Kirillov’s assassination are too conspicuous to ignore. A bomb concealed on an electric scooter detonated as he left for work, killing him and his assistant. The sophistication of the attack suggests involvement by professionals with substantial resources. The SBU’s admission of responsibility and Russia’s subsequent arrest of an alleged Ukrainian agent may seem to provide a tidy explanation. However, there are reasons to believe that more powerful actors had a vested interest in Kirillov’s demise.

Kirillov’s investigations threatened to unveil a shadowy intersection of science, warfare, and geopolitics. If even a fraction of his claims about the US biolabs in Ukraine were accurate, they would implicate powerful institutions in serious breaches of international law, including violations of the Biological Weapons Convention. Such revelations would have provoked outrage among non-aligned nations and could have seriously undermined the credibility of the United States and its allies.

Cui bono – who benefits?

The age-old question of “who benefits” looms large over Kirillov’s assassination. The primary beneficiaries of his death are those who sought to discredit or suppress his findings. The US and Ukraine have long denied the existence of offensive biological research programs in Ukrainian laboratories, branding Kirillov’s accusations as disinformation aimed at justifying Russian “aggression.” However, his death conveniently prevents him from providing further evidence to substantiate his claims.

Moreover, silencing Kirillov sends a clear message to other potential whistleblowers: exposing sensitive information about Western military or scientific programs comes with lethal consequences. This chilling effect could deter future investigations into biolabs, leaving critical questions unanswered.

A broader pattern of suppression

Kirillov’s death is not an isolated incident. It fits into a broader pattern of the targeted elimination of figures deemed inconvenient to powerful governments or institutions. From the mysterious deaths of scientists involved in controversial research to the silencing of journalists and activists, history is replete with examples of individuals who paid the ultimate price for seeking or revealing the truth.

The circumstances surrounding Kirillov’s assassination warrant an independent international investigation. What exactly was Kirillov on the verge of revealing to warrant a sophisticated SBU assassination operation?

The need for transparency

In the absence of transparency, conspiracy theories will inevitably flourish. Kirillov’s assassination underscores the urgent need for an unbiased investigation into both his death and the allegations he was pursuing. If the US and Ukraine have nothing to hide, they should welcome such scrutiny. Conversely, any attempt to dismiss or obstruct inquiries will only fuel suspicions of a cover-up.

The world deserves answers – not just about Kirillov’s death, but about the broader implications of the biolabs controversy. If his accusations were unfounded, it is in everyone’s interest to definitively debunk them. But if there is even a kernel of truth to his claims, then his assassination represents not only a tragedy but a global crisis.

The murder of Igor Kirillov is more than an act of violence; it is a grim reminder of the lengths to which some will go to bury inconvenient truths. Whether one believes his allegations or not, his death should alarm anyone who values transparency and accountability in global affairs.

Kirillov may be gone, but the questions he raised cannot – and should not – be silenced. The world must demand answers, not just for his sake, but for the sake of justice and truth in an increasingly opaque and dangerous geopolitical landscape.

December 20, 2024 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

How Does Congress Keep Getting Away With This?

Truthstream Media | December 18, 2024

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December 19, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Video | | Leave a comment

Pfizer mRNA ‘Vaccinated’ Children Significantly More Likely to Get COVID-19 Than Unvaccinated Peers

By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | Courageous Discourse | December 16, 2024

A new study was just published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society titled, Protection from COVID-19 vaccination and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection among children aged 6 months – 4 years, United States, September 2022–April 2023. The study combined data from three prospective cohort studies (PROTECT, CASCADIA, and CoVE) conducted in the United States from September 1, 2022, to April 30, 2023. Included 614 children aged 6 months to 4 years living in Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Arizona, and Utah.

Here are the key findings:

  1. Increased Risk with Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccination:
    • Children vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection were 159% more likely to get infected and 257% more likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated children without prior infection:
      • Hazard Ratio (HR) for infection: 2.59 (95% CI: 1.27–5.28).
      • HR for symptomatic COVID-19: 3.57 (95% CI: 1.10–11.63).
  2. Prior Infection Offers Robust Protection:
    • Children with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (unvaccinated) had a significantly lower risk of reinfection compared to unvaccinated, infection-naïve children:
      • HR for infection: 0.28 (95% CI: 0.16–0.49).
      • HR for symptomatic COVID-19: 0.21 (95% CI: 0.08–0.54).
  3. No Protective Effect from Vaccination Alone:
    • There was no significant reduction in the risk of infection or symptomatic COVID-19 for vaccinated children (Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) compared to unvaccinated children:
      • HR for infection with vaccination alone: 1.23 (95% CI: 0.69–2.16).
      • HR for symptomatic COVID-19 with vaccination alone: 1.61 (95% CI: 0.65–4.03).
  4. Boosters Show No Significant Protection:
    • Among children who received at least one bivalent booster dose, there was no significant reduction in infection or symptomatic COVID-19:
      • HR for infection with a bivalent booster: 0.74 (95% CI: 0.37–1.48).
      • HR for symptomatic COVID-19 with a bivalent booster: 1.04 (95% CI: 0.37–2.96).

In other words, these injections do the opposite of what they’re supposed to do. Instead of protecting against COVID-19, these genetic injections either fail or increase the risk. The CDC should immediately revoke their recommendations for children aged 6 months and older to receive a COVID-19 booster injection.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Why Did Trump Buckle with CIA Appointment?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 19, 2024

Before he even takes office, President-elect Trump has buckled to the CIA and its supporters in the U.S. Senate. Trump intended to appoint Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, who is married to the son of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as deputy director of the CIA. Given opposition among CIA supporters in the U.S. Senate, however, Trump has buckled and is withdrawing Fox Kennedy’s name from consideration.

But wait a minute! The office of deputy director of the CIA doesn’t require Senate confirmation. Trump has the authority to follow through with his plan and appoint Fox Kennedy to the post regardless of what any member of the U.S. Senate — or, for that matter, any member of the CIA — says.

Of course, it’s not surprising that the CIA or its supporters in Congress would fiercely oppose the appointment of any close relative of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as the CIA’s deputy director. What if one day Fox Kennedy, for example, were to send out an order stating the following: “I want to see the CIA’s files relating to George Joannides” (or any other files or records relating to the JFK assassination). What then? CIA personnel would then be forced into a position of refusing to obey an order of the agency’s deputy director to produce such records for her review.

During the 1970s, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations had reopened the investigation in the JFK assassination, with a major focus on the CIA. The CIA appointed Joannides to serve as a liaison to the House Select Committee, with the ostensible aim of assisting investigators to secure whatever CIA records they needed. As it turned out many years later, it was a standard CIA lie. In actuality, Joannides was appointed to serve as an obstacle, with the aim of preventing the House investigators from accessing CIA records relating to the assassination.

It gets worse. As former Washington Post investigative reporter Jefferson Morley discovered after the Assassination Records Review Board had gone out of existence in the late 1990s, Joannides had played a critically important role in matters relating to the assassination back in 1963. He had served as the CIA liaison to a group of Cuban exiles in New Orleans called the DRE, which the CIA was funding generously and supervising — secretly, of course.

Immediately after the assassination, the DRE sent out a press release detailing the communist bona fides of Lee Harvey Oswald, thereby quickly establishing the image that the president had been killed by a “communist.”

When former head of the ARRB, federal judge John Tunheim learned about Joannides’s secret role with the DRE, he stated that CIA has misled the ARRB and that had the ARRB known the truth about Joannides, he would have been called as a witness.

Morley fought an 11-year court battle to secure the CIA’s records on Joanndes. Why 11 years? Because the CIA fought fiercely to protect the secrecy of its Joannides records. Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary ended up ruling in favor of the CIA. To this day, the CIA fiercely protects the secrecy of its Joannides files.

Can you imagine the internal CIA uproar if Fox Kennedy issued an order to place the Joannides files on her desk? They wouldn’t have any excuse to say no, like they did with Morley. That’s because Fox Kennedy worked as a CIA official for some ten years and, thus, surely would have all the required security clearances to review the files. The CIA obviously could not let a Kennedy family member see those files.

Needless to say, it is extremely disappointing to see Trump buckle on any matter relating to the CIA before even he takes office. It would have been nice to see him stand up to the CIA and its supporters in Congress and stick with his initial plans to appoint Fox Kennedy as deputy director.

But of course this is not the first time that Trump has buckled when it comes to the CIA. The last time he was president he announced that he was going to order the release of the long-secret CIA records stretching back to the ARRB’s term in the 1990s. In the week before the scheduled release, however, Trump received a visit by the CIA director. After that visit, Trump announced that he was no longer going to release the records.

Moreover, I am confident that it will not be the last time that Trump buckles with respect to the CIA. Before his election, Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that if he were to be reelected, this time around he would order the release of those long-secret records. My prediction? The CIA will visit Trump again and oppose the release of its long secret records, at which point I predict that Trump will buckle again, release a few records to make it look good, but keep the vast majority of them secret. Assuming that Trump doesn’t indefinitely delay making a decision, we will soon find out if I am right.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Wrong, NBC News, Climate Change Isn’t Causing Rising Coffee Prices, Production Is Increasing

By Anthony Watts | Climate Realism | December 16, 2024

NBC News recently published an article asserting that climate change is driving up coffee prices by adversely affecting production titled Your daily cup of coffee could get more expensive because of climate change. Production data proves this claim blatantly false.

NBC News writes:

The price of arabica coffee beans, the high-quality beans found in most restaurants and shops, spiked this month, recently jumping to $3.50 a pound. […]

And today, experts say, climate change is to blame.

“We’ve seen significant drought in some of the key coffee-growing areas in the world, places like Brazil, which is the largest coffee exporter in the world,” said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University. […]

“We’re going to see these types of [climate] events just get more frequent into the future. And so we have to start taking this seriously and make investments in agricultural research and development to be able to mitigate and tackle the impacts of climate change on our agricultural production and agricultural system,” Ortega said.

“One impact of this is a rise in cost, which then gets translated to a rise in price for consumers,” he added.

NBC’s article attributes recent coffee price increases to climate change by pointing to specific weather events. This approach wrongly conflates short-term weather phenomena with long-term climate patterns. As discussed at Climate at a Glance, weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions, while climate denotes long-term averages and trends. Attributing isolated weather events directly to climate change without considering broader climatic data is misleading and scientifically unsound, especially when long-term weather trends show no worsening conditions in coffee growing regions.

NBC’s story also ignores substantial data demonstrating that global coffee production has increased significantly over the past four decades, a fact that Climate Realism has addressed multiple times, highlighting the fact that coffee production has been resilient and even thriving despite concerns over climate change.

Repeated analyses show that both coffee and cocoa have set production records multiple times during the recent period of slight warming, contradicting assertions that climate change is driving price increases.

For example, global coffee production has seen substantial growth over the past 40 years, as data from U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reveals, with countries like Vietnam experiencing a more than 1,500 percent rise in production between 1992 and 2022. Vietnam is not alone. Almost every coffee growing region has experienced significant growth, as the graph below shows:

This upward trend underscores the adaptability and resilience of coffee cultivation practices, even amid the gradual warming experienced globally.

NBC’s portrayal of climate change as a primary driver of rising coffee prices reflects a bias by the media outlet toward blaming nearly every bad thing that occurs on climate change. NBC wrongly aggregates short-term weather events and long-term climate trends, and more importantly, ignores the fact that coffee production has increased significantly over recent decades, regularly setting records for production. Rather than looking at actual data, NBC News relied on “expert opinion” without any factual basis. Such sloppy reporting lacks due diligence and fails to provide a comprehensive view of the factors influencing coffee prices, including economic dynamics and agricultural practices. NBC News completely failed to consider these data and variables, instead resorting to a tired and worn-out false climate catastrophe narrative.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

US Report Reveals Push to Weaponize AI for Censorship

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 19, 2024

For a while now, emerging AI has been treated by the Biden-Harris administration, but also the EU, the UK, Canada, the UN, etc., as a scourge that powers dangerous forms of “disinformation” – and should be dealt with accordingly.

According to those governments/entities, the only “positive use” for AI as far as social media and online discourse go, would be to power more effective censorship (“moderation”).

A new report from the US House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government puts the emphasis on the push to use this technology for censorship as the explanation for the often disproportionate alarm over its role in “disinformation.”

We obtained a copy of the report for you here.

The interim report’s name spells out its authors’ views on this quite clearly: the document is called, “Censorship’s Next Frontier: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech.”

The report’s main premise is well-known – that AI is now being funded, developed, and used by the government and third parties to add speed and scale to their censorship, and that the outgoing administration has been putting pressure on AI developers to build censorship into their models.

What’s new are the proposed steps to remedy this situation and make sure that future federal governments are not using AI for censorship. To this end, the Committee wants to see new legislation passed in Congress, AI development that respects the First Amendment and is open, decentralized, and “pro-freedom.”

The report recommends legislation along four principles, focused on preserving American’s right to free speech. The first is that the government cannot be involved when decisions are made in private algorithms or datasets regarding “misinformation” or “bias.”

The government should also be prohibited from funding censorship-related research or collaboration with foreign entities on AI regulation that leads to censorship.

Lastly, “Avoid needless AI regulation that gives the government coercive leverage,” the document recommends.

The Committee notes the current state of affairs where the Biden-Harris administration made a number of direct moves to regulate the space to its political satisfaction via executive orders, but also by pushing its policy through by giving out grants via the National Science Foundation, once again, aimed at building AI tools that “combat misinformation.”

But – “If allowed to develop in a free and open manner, AI could dramatically expand Americans’ capacity to create knowledge and express themselves,” the report states.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK’s Online Censorship Law Drives Small Websites to Shut Down

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 19, 2024

The UK’s sweeping online censorship law – the Online Safety Act – that will be enforced from March of next year is already claiming its first victims.

The new legislative landscape in the country is now not providing any kind of safety for hundreds of small websites, including non-profit forums, that will have to shut down, unable to comply with the act – specifically, faced with what reports refer to as “disproportionate personal liability.”

The fines go up to the equivalent of USD 25 million, while the law also introduces new criminal offenses.

Earlier in the week, the act’s enforcer, Ofcom, published dozens of measures that online services are supposed to implement by March 16, including naming a person responsible – and accountable – for making sure a site or platform complies.

The law is presented as a new way to efficiently tackle illegal content, and in particular, provide new ways to ensure the safety of children online, including by age verification (“age checking”).

Opponents, however, reject it as “a censor’s charter” designed to force companies to step up monitoring and censorship on their platforms, including by scanning private communications and undermining encryption.

But another way that concrete harm can be done to the online ecosystem, while declaratively seeking to prevent harm, is now emerging with the example of small and community sites, where those running them are unwilling to take on the massive risk related both to the fines, and criminal responsibility in case they fail to “moderate” according to the act’s provisions.

UK press reports about one of the first examples of this, as the non-profit free hosting service Microcosm and its 300 sites – among them community hubs and forums dedicated to topics like cycling and tech – will go down in March, unable to live up to the “disproportionately high personal liability.”

“It’s too vague and too broad and I don’t want to take that personal risk,” Microcosm’s Dee Kitchen is quoted.

Although the general impression has been that only large corporate services will be affected by the law, in reality requirements and penalties for them are higher, but Ofcom made it clear that “very small micro businesses” are also subject to the legislation.

Microcosm’s decision illustrates what that will look like in practice, as sites – big and small – consider finding hosting overseas, or even leaving the UK market.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

How the Captive Media Divides Us

By Thomas Eddlem | The Libertarian Institute | December 19, 2024

Most political differences in America today aren’t a result of moral differences, or even policy opinions. Rather, they are generated by divergent media consumption. There’s a huge difference between those whose news comes primarily from the corporate Big Five (CBS-Viacom, ABC-Disney, NBC-Universal, Fox-NewsCorp, and CNN-TimeWarner) and that handful of midsize legacy publications like PBS, The New York Times and Washington Post, than from those who get their news from independent media.

While the independent media can be inaccurate, it’s often when they contradict themselves. On the other hand, when the Big Five and its satellites are inaccurate, it’s typically in union, as a bloc, and always in defense of the Washington establishment.

I could detail one hundred of these blatant lies spun by the unified, corporate media over the past two decades, but for purposes of brevity let’s take a quick look at just ten widely reported lies in three sentences or less (and I’ll include extra links to news stories with the same false take, to total five sources for each story), refuted by primary sources or recanted by these same establishment media organs.

  • Lie #1: Wearing cloth masks helps prevent COVID. “Public health messages should target audiences not wearing cloth face coverings and reinforce positive attitudes, perceived norms, personal agency, and physical and health benefits of obtaining and wearing cloth face coverings consistently and correctly,” the CDC inveighed on July 17, 2020, even though the same report acknowledged “widespread use of cloth face coverings has not been studied among the U.S. population.” The captive media dutifully lectured the public (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about the alleged benefits of cloth masks in preventing COVID, even though the CDC had just re-published a meta-study of all nineteen public scientific studies of mass masking in May 2020 which concluded there was no scientific benefit for mass public cloth masking. And a giant study by Yale and Stanford researchers in Bangladesh in 2021 confirmed the earlier research, finding a very small benefit in wearing surgical masks “but see no statistically significant effect for cloth masks.”
  • Lie #2: Donald Trump is a Russian spy. “A New Report Adds Evidence That Trump Was a Russian Asset,” a Slate.com headline blared in 2021, adding in the subtitle, “He helped Putin manipulate the U.S. election in 2020, as he did in 2016” (2, 3, 4, 5). But the reality is that the Durham Report of the special prosecutor concluded on May 12, 2023 that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” and found the entire affair was devoid of evidence and had been a joint operation between the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and friendly senior FBI officials, spread by a compliant media.
  • Lie #3: COVID vaccines have no serious side effects. “No serious safety concerns were found in the clinical trials of the vaccines that have been authorized for use in the United States,” FactCheck.org claimed on March 4, 2021 (2, 3, 4, 5), but within months the same “fact-checker” site had amended its claim to include deadly reactions in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (later pulled from the market for these reasons) and several serious side effects including myocarditis from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Likewise, the CDC has now published a long list of side effects, including myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and anaphylaxis.
  • Lie #4: Russia put bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan. “American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan—including targeting American troops,” New York Times reporter Charlie Savage claimed on June 26, 2020, in the heat of the election campaign, adding that President Trump “has yet to authorize any step” to counter it (2, 3, 4, 5). But, after the election, even NBC News admitted the whole story was fake from the beginning, as did other establishment-controlled outlets that echoed Biden administration admissions of the lack of proof for the highly politicized claim.
  • Lie #5: Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. “More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter,” Politico claimed of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, “outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’” (2, 3, 4, 5). But the reality is the FBI testified under oath that the laptop story, which was suppressed on Facebook, Twitter and other social media before the election, was legitimate all along. And a congressional investigation revealed the “Russian disinformation” story was a result of the Joe Biden presidential campaign colluding with senior CIA officials.
  • Lie #6: Donald Trump said there were “good people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally. “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides’” blared the headline in The Atlantic, adding “The president backtracked from his remarks on Charlottesville just a day earlier” (2, 3, 4, 5). Even the fact-checkers observed this claim that Trump’s “both sides” quote was false from the start, and that the “both sides” quote was about a totally different topic, though establishment organs continue to repeat the lie to this day.
  • Lie #7: Donald Trump said Liz Cheney should face a firing squad. “Now he’s talking about a firing squad,” Joe Scarborough ranted on MSNBC, on November 4, 2024, “for a Republican who is long ranked as one of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, DC” (2, 3, 4, 5). But Trump did no such thing. He simply called former Congresswoman Cheney a chicken-hawk, saying she’d have a less bellicose worldview if she were on the front lines. This is why the fact-check sites quickly called out this lie, and even uber chicken-hawk Jonah Goldberg had to recant the same claim as Scarborough.
  • Lie #8: Hamas decapitated dozens of babies on October 7. “Dozens of babies were reportedly found dead, including some that had been beheaded,” NBC reported, “in an Israeli kibbutz Tuesday after the terrorist organization Hamas stormed the community” (2, 3, 4, 5). The reality that emerged from the widely spread story of Israeli propaganda was that no babies were beheaded, according to a France 24 investigation that looked through the names of the victims of the terrorist attack several weeks later, though one ten-month-old baby was killed by gunshot wounds in the combat crossfire.
  • Lie #9: Joe Biden is in the best shape of his life and sharp as a tack. “F you if you can’t handle the truth,” Joe Scarborough lashed out on MSNBC on March 5, 2024, “This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever” (2, 3, 4, 5). Progressive YouTuber Matt Orfalea did a nice compilation of how official Washington dutifully recited the lines from the “sharp as a tack” talking points memos circulated by the DNC. But the reality was admitted almost universally after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump, ending talk about “cheap fakes.” CNN and the Associated Press published stories in July admitting the media ran cover for “forgetful” Biden as they tried to ramp up pressure to unceremoniously dump the winner of all the Democratic primaries that year and replace him with Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August.
  • Lie #10: Internet censorship was just corporations being responsible. “Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account on Friday,” NBC news reported January 8, 2021, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” and not mentioning that the decision was based on extraordinary pressure from the FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The removal of the sitting president of the United States from social media and many other prominent people was widely reported as entirely a corporate decision across the establishment media spectrum (2, 3, 4, 5). But the #TwitterFiles revealed these decisions were primarily the result of government pressure and not organic corporate decisions, with the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in Missouri v. Biden that the censored plaintiffs “presented extensive evidence of escalating threats—both public and private—by government officials aimed at social-media companies concerning their content-moderation decision.”

These lies help explain why independent media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, a comedian with a microphone, regularly get more than twenty million viewers for two-hour interviews with few commercials while CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, with their billion-dollar studios and networks, rarely crack one million viewers with their forty-four minutes of content in an hour. The American people no longer trust what I’ve come to label the “captive media,” and consume far more independent media content. The captive media can call Trump a rapist, a fascist, a threat to democracy, and, as the November election revealed, most Americans will simply no longer believe their claims.

And the #TwitterFiles reveal why the media organs pushing official lies are best labeled the “captive media” and not the mainstream media, legacy media or the corporate media. They have been captured by the U.S. intelligence agencies, often with dozens or even hundreds of “former” intelligence officers in place on-air and on staff.

The American national mental health crisis that emerged as a result of Trump’s election in 2024 was entirely one-sided; the people who raged like infants on social media and said Trump voters were horrible people were limited to those who digested nothing but captive Media outlets like CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the censorious Big Tech companies.

Why is it only the Democrats who are saying they can’t have Thanksgiving dinner with their family? Why didn’t Republicans have the same reaction after their loss to Joe Biden in 2020? Although many Republicans who watch Fox News did avoid Thanksgiving as a result of fear-mongering over the COVID vaccine skepticism.

Part of the answer to the question “Why just the Democrats?” is the structure of the media which political partisans consume. Democrats consume media solely within the FBI, CIA, ODNI matrix that the #TwitterFiles revealed to the public and rarely or never encounter media that contradicts the official narrative being sold. Google searches, like Facebook and most other social media, are curated by precisely the same intelligence agencies. So it’s possible for Democrats to live entirely within the captive media echo chamber (even as they earnestly believe they are getting “both sides” by listening to Republican Senator Lindsay Graham talk about Israeli babies being slaughtered on October 7 or former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney talk about Trump as a Putin asset) and assume that anyone with a heterodox opinion gets his information from some sketchy “dark web.” Republicans get a slightly different take with Fox News, and more importantly have trended toward relying progressively less on the captive media.

Republicans and independents hear something other than the captive media narrative.

The captive media echo chamber can occasionally be bipartisan, however. Back in 2020, in the throes of the COVID hysteria, Fox News viewers were also running around like fools with cloth masks on, viewing family members as ambulatory disease vectors, and judging those who took rational risks (or in the case of the experimental vaccine on young people who were getting myocarditis, avoided risks rationally) as bad or selfish persons.

Many Democrats are increasingly engaged in classic cult-like behavior as a result of the captive media drumbeat. “If you are going into a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you,” Dr. Amanda Calhoun of Yale University told ABC’s The View, “it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why.” The idea that Democrats should separate themselves from family and friends because they have different political opinions has become widespread in the captive media (2, 3, 4, 5). And it’s part of the very definition of cultish behavior, which includes when “subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends.”

The way to bring your friends and family out of the cult of the captive media matrix is to cut cable television out of your home, and to track the lies of the captive media and discuss them with family and friends as they’re exposed and recanted. Nobody likes being lied to.

Many of these captive media organs are engaging in a campaign against “disinformation” (as a ruse to resume government social media censorship), and this can be used to the advantage of people trying to rescue friends and family from the cult. Explaining in detail how the captive media reliably lies on behalf of the military-industrial-complex, the intelligence community and Big Pharma can bring them out as it has brought hundreds of millions of others out of the captive media matrix already.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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