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Pfizer Ad Spreads Misinformation

BY DAVID ZWEIG | SILENT LUNCH | AUGUST 1, 2023

A Pfizer ad on Twitter claims that 3 out of 4 US adults are at “high risk” for severe Covid-19.

This ad is highly misleading or, arguably, outright false.

Problem 1: What is “high” risk?

We don’t know because Pfizer doesn’t define it.

The graphic in the ad cites a study as the source of its claim “3 out of 4 US adults are at high risk for severe Covid-19.” Except the study never uses the term “high risk.” Rather, the study is on people at “increased risk.”

“Increased risk,” of course is quite different from “high risk.” Obviously, high risk is worse than merely increased risk. I need not explain why Pfizer would choose language in its ad that exaggerates the risk of Covid.

Problem 2: The cited study itself doesn’t even define “increased risk.” Does that mean a 0.1% increase, a 1% increase, 20% increase, 1000% increase? On this point, the study includes the following caveat: “the effect size of each risk factor was not taken into account in our analysis, so this report does not address degree of risk. Effect estimates of severe COVID-19 risk factors are widely variable and ultimately unreliable.”

Digging a little deeper, the study links to a CDC webpage that gives a list of conditions for people who are “more likely to get very sick with COVID-19” and uses “higher risk,” “increased risk,” “greater risk” and “high risk” in its text, seemingly interchangeably. The page gives a long list of medical conditions—from cancer to diabetes to depression. Still, we don’t know what “more likely” or “increased risk” actually means. This webpage, in turn, links to another CDC webpage that describes “Underlying Medical Conditions Associated with Higher Risk for Severe COVID-19.”

We’ve gone from the scary “high” risk (not defined), to “increased” risk (also not defined), to “higher risk.” How is “higher risk” defined? Here is what the page says:

Higher risk is defined as an underlying medical condition or risk factor that has a published meta-analysis or systematic review or underwent the CDC systematic review process. The meta-analysis or systematic review demonstrates a conclusive increase in risk for at least one severe COVID-19 outcome.

So we are now three layers deep and we still don’t have a quantifiable definition for what, exactly, “high,” “increased,” or “higher” even means, nor a clear differentiation of what the first study acknowledges is a wide variability in estimates of risk factors. I’m sure there is a quantifiable threshold defined somewhere, but I stopped digging because this isn’t even the main problem.

Problem 3 (the main problem): The data from the cited study in the Pfizer ad saying 3 out of 4 US adults are at high (aka increased) risk of severe Covid are from 2015-2018. But this ad is being run in July 2023—after nearly the entire population has either already been infected, vaccinated, or both, each circumstance, we have been told, decreases one’s risk of severe Covid. In other words, Pfizer’s own ad suggests that prior infection and vaccination have not reduced the number of people at high risk of severe Covid. Does Pfizer want us to believe that its product—the vaccine—did not lower the rate of people at high risk of severe Covid?

The fact is, 3 out of 4 US adults are not at “high” risk of severe Covid. This statement is based on data from before accounting for the protective effect of infection and vaccination. Moreover, “high risk” is not defined and appears to simply be a made up description.

We’ve heard a lot about “misinformation” in the past few years. Generally, the government and media have pointed the finger at so-called “anti-vaxxers” and “conspiracy theorists.” A critical spotlight from the government has rarely seemed to shine on claims made by Pfizer. Advertisements like this misinform and unnecessarily scare people, perhaps pushing some of them into taking additional doses of the vaccine, or therapeutics like Paxlovid (also made by Pfizer), that have potential harms, and for many people, especially now, without clear benefit.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

CIA moderating Wikipedia – former editor

RT | August 2, 2023

Wikipedia is one of many tools used by the US liberal establishment and its allies in the intelligence community to wage “information warfare,” the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, has told journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Speaking on Greenwald’s ‘System Update’ podcast, Sanger lamented how the site he helped found in 2001 has become an instrument of “control” in the hands of the left-liberal establishment, among which he counts the CIA, FBI, and other US intelligence agencies.

“We do have evidence that, as early as 2008, that CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia,” he said. “Do you think that they stopped doing that back then?”

Activity by the CIA and FBI on Wikipedia was first made public by a programming student named Virgil Griffith in 2007. Griffith developed a program called WikiScanner that could trace the location of computers used to edit Wikipedia articles, and found that the CIA, FBI, and a host of large corporations and government agencies were scrubbing the online encyclopedia of incriminating information.

CIA computers were used to remove casualty counts from the Iraq War, while an FBI machine was used to remove aerial and satellite images of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. CIA computers were used to edit hundreds of articles, including entries on then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China’s nuclear program, and the Argentine navy.

Some edits were more petty, with former CIA chief William Colby apparently editing his own entry to expand his list of accomplishments.

“[The intelligence agencies] pay off the most influential people to push their agendas, which they’re already mostly in line with, or they just develop their own talent within the [intelligence] community, learn the Wikipedia game, and then push what they want to say with their own people,” Sanger told Greenwald.

“A great part of intelligence and information warfare is conducted online,” he continued, “on websites like Wikipedia.”

Earlier this year, Twitter owner Elon Musk released a trove of documents showing how the platform’s former executives colluded with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, assisted the US military’s online influence campaigns, and censored “anti-Ukraine narratives” on behalf of multiple US intelligence agencies. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also admitted that Facebook censored information damaging to President Joe Biden’s 2020 election campaign at the direct request of the FBI.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Australia’s Intelligence Agencies Are Instructed To Tackle Online “Misinformation”

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | August 2, 2023

In a robust appeal for accountability, Australian intelligence agencies have been encouraged to counter online “misinformation” that potentially endangers national security. The recommendation comes from a parliamentary committee overseeing Australia’s six intelligence bodies, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Signals Directorate, and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.

The committee’s chair, Peter Khalil, announced the recommendation during a parliamentary session. “The committee sees an opportunity for Australia’s intelligence agencies to take an increasing role in sharing information with the Australian public – where appropriate – on matters relating to misinformation, disinformation, and harmful propaganda,” Khalil stated, as reported by Perth Now.

This push follows a significant increase in misinformation during the turbulent years of 2020 and 2021, a period accompanied by COVID-19 lockdowns and a rapidly fluctuating security environment. Surprising to some, the parliamentary committee found that this wave of misinformation significantly amplified security concerns, necessitating its robust redressal.

The suggestion to publicly tackle misinformation, while controversial to many free-speech advocates who caution about overreach, is among four recommendations proffered in the committee’s recent annual review. These include enhancing inter-agency information sharing and finding effective solutions to workforce issues within the intelligence community.

Khalil remains steadfast in his conviction that this human-centric approach could be transformative. “The people who work in Australia’s intelligence agencies are our greatest asset,” he said. “By developing a whole of national intelligence community recruitment and retention strategy, Australia will be better positioned to deliver on its intelligence priorities.”

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Hiroshima, Nagasaki Bombings Were Needless, Said World War II’s Top US Military Leaders

Mythology about these mass civilian slaughters warps thinking about US militarism

Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | July 31, 2023

The anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki present an opportunity to demolish a cornerstone myth of American history — that those twin acts of mass civilian slaughter were necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender, and spare a half-million US soldiers who’d have otherwise died in a military conquest of the empire’s home islands.

Those who attack this mythology are often reflexively dismissed as unpatriotic, ill-informed or both. However, the most compelling witnesses against the conventional wisdom were patriots with a unique grasp on the state of affairs in August 1945 — America’s senior military leaders of World War II.

Let’s first hear what they had to say, and then examine key facts that led them to their little-publicized convictions:

  • General Dwight Eisenhower on learning of the planned bombings: “I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and voiced to [Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’.”
  • Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s Chief of Staff: “The use of this barbarous weapon…was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.”
  • Major General Curtis LeMay, 21st Bomber Command: “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb… The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
  • General Hap Arnold, US Army Air Forces: “The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.” “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”
  • Ralph Bird, Under Secretary of the Navy: “The Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and the Swiss… In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb.”
  • Brigadier General Carter Clarke, military intelligence officer who prepared summaries of intercepted cables for Truman: “When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it…we used [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] as an experiment for two atomic bombs. Many other high-level military officers concurred.”
  • Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Pacific Fleet commander: “The use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”

Putting out feelers through third-party diplomatic channels, the Japanese were seeking to end the war weeks before the atomic bombings on August 6 and 9, 1945. Japan’s navy and air forces were decimated, and its homeland subjected to a sea blockade and allied bombing carried out against little resistance.

Full of midget submarines, a drydock in the port city of Kure, Japan lies in ruins

The Americans knew of Japan’s intent to surrender, having intercepted a July 12 cable from Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, informing Japanese ambassador to Russia Naotake Sato that “we are now secretly giving consideration to the termination of the war because of the pressing situation which confronts Japan both at home and abroad.”

Togo told Sato to “sound [Russian diplomat Vyacheslav Molotov] out on the extent to which it is possible to make use of Russia in ending the war.” Togo initially told Sato to obscure Japan’s interest in using Russia to end the war, but just hours later, he withdrew that instruction, saying it would be “suitable to make clear to the Russians our general attitude on ending the war”— to include Japan’s having “absolutely no idea of annexing or holding the territories which she occupied during the war.”

Japan’s central concern was the retention of its emperor, Hirohito, who was considered a demigod. Even knowing this — and with many US officials feeling the retention of the emperor could help Japanese society through its postwar transition —the Truman administration continued issuing demands for unconditional surrender, offering no assurance that the emperor would be spared humiliation or worse.

In a July 2 memorandum, Secretary of War Henry Stimson drafted a terms-of-surrender proclamation to be issued at the conclusion of that month’s Potsdam Conference. He advised Truman that, “if… we should add that we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty, it would substantially add to the chances of acceptance.”

Truman and Secretary of State James Byrne, however, continued rejecting recommendations to give assurances about the emperor. The final Potsdam Declaration, issued July 26, omitted Stimson’s recommended language, sternly declaring, “Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them.”

One of those terms could reasonably be interpreted as jeopardizing the emperor: “There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest.”

At the same time the United States was preparing to deploy its formidable new weapons, the Soviet Union was moving armies from the European front to northeast Asia.

In May, Stalin told the US ambassador that Soviet forces should be positioned to attack the Japanese in Manchuria by August 8. In July, Truman predicted the impact of the Soviets opening a new front. In a diary entry made during the Potsdam Conference, he wrote that Stalin assured him “he’ll be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.”

Right on Stalin’s original schedule, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan two days after the August 6 bombing of Hiroshima. That same day — August 8 — Emperor Hirohito told the country’s civilian leaders that he still wanted to pursue a negotiated surrender that would preserve his reign.

On August 9, Soviet attacks commenced on three fronts. News of Stalin’s invasion of Manchuria prompted Hirohito to call a new meeting to discuss surrender — at 10 am, one hour before the strike on Nagasaki. The final surrender decision came on August 10.

Three-year old Shinichi Tetsutani, burned as he was riding this tricycle when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, died a painful death that night (Hiroki Kobayashi/National Geographic)

The Soviet timeline makes the atomic bombings all the more troubling: One would think a US government that’s appropriately hesitant to incinerate and irradiate hundreds of thousands of civilians would want to first see how a Soviet declaration of war affected Japan’s calculus.

As it turns out, the Japanese surrender indeed appears to have been prompted by the Soviet entry into the war on Japan — not by the atomic bombs. “The Japanese leadership never had photo or video evidence of the atomic blast and considered the destruction of Hiroshima to be similar to the dozens of conventional strikes Japan had already suffered,” wrote Josiah Lippincott at The American Conservative.

Sadly, the evidence points to a US government determined to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities as an end in itself, to such an extent that it not only ignored Japan’s interest in surrender, but worked to ensure that surrender was delayed until after upwards of 210,000 people — disproportionately women, children and elderly — were killed in the two cities.

Make no mistake: This was a deliberate targeting of civilian populations. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were pristine, and could thus fully showcase the bombs’ power. Hiroshima was home to a small military headquarters, but the fact that both cities had gone untouched by a strategic bombing campaign that began 14 months earlier certifies their military and industrial insignificance.

“The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing,” Eisenhower would later say. “I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”

According to his pilot, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of US Army Forces Pacific, was “appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster.”

“When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb,” wrote journalist Norman Cousins, “I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted…He saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”

What then, was the purpose of devastating Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs?

A key insight comes from Manhattan Project physicist Leo Szilard. In 1945, Szilard organized a petition, signed by 70 Manhattan Project scientists, urging Truman not to use atomic bombs against Japan without first giving the country a chance to surrender, on terms that were made public.

In May 1945, Szilard met with Secretary of State Byrnes to urge atomic restraint. Byrnes wasn’t receptive to the plea. Szilard — the scientist who’d drafted the pivotal 1939 letter from Albert Einstein urging FDR to develop an atomic bomb — recounted:

“[Byrnes] was concerned about Russia’s postwar behavior. Russian troops had moved into Hungary and Rumania, and Byrnes thought it would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw her troops from these countries, that Russia might be more manageable if impressed by American military might, and that a demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia.“

Burned to impress Stalin: A victim of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima (AP /The Association of the Photographers of the Atomic Bomb Destruction of Hiroshima, Yotsugi Kawahara)

Whether the atomic bomb’s audience was in Tokyo or Moscow, some in the military establishment championed alternative ways to demonstrate its power.

Lewis Strauss, Special Assistant to the Navy Secretary, said he proposed “that the weapon should be demonstrated over… a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… [It] would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. It seemed to me that a demonstration of this sort would prove to the Japanese that we could destroy any of their cities at will.”

Strauss said Navy Secretary Forrestal “agreed wholeheartedly,” but Truman ultimately decided an optimal demonstration required burning hundreds of thousands of noncombatants and laying waste to their cities. The buck stops there.

The particular means of inflicting these mass murders — a solitary object dropped from a plane at 31,000 feet — helps warp Americans’ evaluation of its morality. Using an analogy, historian Robert Raico cultivates ethical clarity:

“Suppose that, when we invaded Germany in early 1945, our leaders had believed that executing all the inhabitants of Aachen, or Trier, or some other Rhineland city would finally break the will of the Germans and lead them to surrender. In this way, the war might have ended quickly, saving the lives of many Allied soldiers. Would that then have justified shooting tens of thousands of German civilians, including women and children?”

The claim that dropping the atomic bombs saved a half-million American lives is more than just empty: Truman’s stubborn refusal to provide advance assurances about the retention of Japan’s emperor arguably cost American lives.

That’s true not only of a war against Japan that lasted longer than it needed to, but also of a Korean War precipitated by the US-invited Soviet invasion of Japanese-held territory in northeast Asia. More than 36,000 US service members died in the Korean War — among a staggering 2.5 million total military and civilian dead on both sides of the 38th Parallel.

We like to think of our system as one in which the supremacy of civilian leaders acts as a rational, moderating force on military decisions. The needless atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — against the wishes of World War II’s most revered military leaders — tells us otherwise.

Sadly, the destructive effects of the Hiroshima myth aren’t confined to Americans’ understanding of events in August 1945. “There are hints and notes of the Hiroshima myth that persist all through modern times,” State Department whistleblower and author Peter Van Buren said on The Scott Horton Show.

The Hiroshima myth fosters a depraved indifference to civilian casualties associated with US actions abroad, whether it’s women and children slaughtered in a drone strike in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands dead in an unwarranted invasion of Iraq, or a baby who dies for lack of imported medicine in US-sanctioned Iran.

Ultimately, to embrace the Hiroshima myth is to embrace a truly sinister principle: That, in the correct circumstances, it’s right for governments to intentionally harm innocent civilians. Whether the harm is inflicted by bombs or sanctions, it’s a philosophy that mirrors the morality of al Qaeda.

That’s not the only thread connecting 1945 to 2023, as Truman’s insistence on unconditional surrender is echoed by the Biden administration’s utter disinterest in pursuing a negotiated peace in Ukraine.

Today, confronting an adversary with 6,000 nuclear warheads — each a thousand times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan — Biden’s own stubborn perpetuation of war puts us all at risk of sharing the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s innocents.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

China’s Rare Earths Export Curbs May Sink US’ Microchip Manufacturing Ambitions

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 01.08.2023

Chinese export controls on germanium and gallium have stepped into effect amid fears that this will mean more expensive microchips, solar panels, cars, and even weapons. More significantly, the restrictions threaten to sink the Biden administration’s ambitious domestic microchip manufacturing goals, says China-US trade expert Thomas Pauken II.

China’s rare earths restrictions officially stepped into force on Tuesday, with the measures, announced last month after Beijing said it needed to protect its “national security and interests,” expected to cause a sharp jump in the cost of an array of advanced manufactured goods, particularly electronics.

The export controls, which will require companies seeking to export the pair of rare earth metals to apply for licenses, come in retaliation to a long list of US hostile measures, including restrictions on the import of Chinese high-tech goods.

“This is just the beginning,” former Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wei Jianguo said last month, warning that “China’s tool box has many more types of measures available” should Washington try to retaliate to the rare earths semi-ban.

China produces upwards of 80 percent of the world’s gallium, and 60 percent of its germanium, with experts predicting that it could take “generations” for the US to replace lost Chinese capacity.

The rare earths restrictions show that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to Beijing last month to try to smooth over tensions clearly failed to get China to alter its position, with the Asian nation taking a harder line in retaliation to Washington’s tech and trade war, and attempts to box in Beijing in East Asia, earlier this year, starting by sanctioning US semiconductor giant Micron Technology in May.

Gallium and germanium are used in the manufacture of complex semiconductors, including chips with military applications, but also ordinary transistors, diodes, and other electronic components, for use in everything from smartphones and laptops to solar panels, vehicles, and medical equipment.

Move Could Sink Biden’s Semiconductor Scheme

“Obviously, these consequences are going to be devastating to US efforts to promote their manufacturing industry, to create these factories where they’re reshoring back home,” Thomas Pauken II, a veteran consultant and commentator on Asia-Pacific affairs, told Sputnik, referring to the $50+ billion push announced by the Biden administration last year to restore the US’ domestic electronics component manufacturing capabilities. “The thing is, you need these ingredients that are necessary for the chips and the semiconductors,” he said.

“So now I’m hearing that TSMC,” the Taiwan-based semiconductor giant, “is now having a rethink about doing their fab or semiconductor foundry that they were thinking about opening in Arizona. Also, there’s another story about Intel. They were going to open up this major chip manufacturing plant in Ohio, and now suddenly they’re saying, ‘Well, maybe we won’t open up this factory in Ohio because we lost all our Chinese customers. And because of these export controls we don’t have the ability to create all these chips,’” Pauken said.

US Caught Unprepared

Pauken believes the US and its allies may not have expected Beijing to go through with its rare earths export restriction threats, judging by the limited reporting on the matter, apart from specialized Washington-based think tanks warning about the “devastating impact” such export controls could have on the US, Europe, Japan, “and much of the world.”

“I think the real story is that the West maybe thought China was bluffing. Maybe they thought that China wasn’t being serious about these export controls. And now that they are starting to go into effect, they are realizing how destructive they can be. The fact of the matter is that the US has not done proper preparations to deal with the counter-sanctions or the counter-attacks led by China…They just thought that if they made all these announcements that they were going after China and all these other countries were following them, then somehow, China was going to wimp out, look scared, and then change their mind under the pressure. But in reality, what China has learned is that you cannot back down under peer pressure coming from Washington,” the observer said.

Pauken expects the export restrictions to put a “big hurt” on the global economy, but not so much on Beijing, which could even receive a boost to its domestic manufacturing industry as rare earths that once went to other countries will stay in China.

The expert stressed that if Washington were clever, it would “rethink” its China policy, and recognize that the get-tough approach to Beijing hasn’t been working, and won’t work, and has instead “been a disaster for the US economy.” Unfortunately, he added, “it doesn’t seem like the US has learned any lessons… so it seems as if they will just continue on with their anti-China legislation.”

“So basically it’s a case of if you’re tough to China, China will fight back just as tough. If you’re nice to China, then China will be nice. Right now, Europe decided they want to support the US and want to push back against China. So, of course, China is not only going after the US, but they’re also hitting Europe,” the observer said.

Options Limited

The escalating China-US tensions over rare earths has prompted US officials to begin a global search for alternatives, including Mongolia, a landlocked northeast Asian nation estimated to contain nearly 17 percent of global rare earths deposits.

“Mongolia is facing a generational opportunity. And that generational opportunity is a need for us to find critical minerals and rare earths in order to achieve our clean energy goals,” Under Secretary of State Jose Fernandez, who traveled to Mongolia in late June, recently told US media.

But it’s not as simple as investing in Mongolian rare earths production and extracting resources, Pauken said, pointing to the country’s landlocked status, and US efforts to irritate both of Mongolia’s neighbors, Russia and China.

“Obviously, you can’t go through Russia,” he said, citing anti-Russian sanctions. “So then they would have to go through China. And obviously, if Europe and the US decide to continue putting pressure on China, then they’re going to make it more difficult for the Mongolian miners to transport their products to the shipping ports,” the observer summed up.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Israeli Power Manifest in the US Visa Waiver Program

Biden bows to Israeli pressure and discrimination against Palestinian-Americans will continue

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 1, 2023

When I began this article early in the morning last Tuesday it must have been “let’s talk about antisemitism and holocaust denial day” on the internet. On my Yahoo home page headlines display there were glaring back at me featured pieces condemning Greg Gutfeld of Fox News and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for comments made by the two men that were interpreted to be antisemitic. Kennedy, who made the mistake of suggesting that the COVID virus appeared to be made in a lab to be genetic specific, sparing inter alia Jews and Chinese ethnics who might be resistant to it, seems to be on a never ending apology tour as he has done everything but crawl on his belly as he asserts his great love for the Jewish state, and I would not doubt that the belly crawl might be coming up.

Poor Gutfeld was hammered twice, once for the “dangerous holocaust” comment that he reportedly made suggesting that some Jews survived the experience by developing useful skills in the camps, and once for the distinction of being personally rebuked by the White House. Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary issued a statement saying “What Fox News allowed to be said on their air yesterday — and has so far failed to condemn — is an obscenity. In defending a horrid, dangerous, extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of Americans who suffered from the evil of enslavement, a Fox News host told another horrid, dangerous and extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of people who suffered from the evils of the Holocaust.”

As I settled in for my cup of coffee, I wondered what we might be hearing later in the day about Gutfeld from the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt of the reliably rabid Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who has already weighed in on Kennedy’s sins. And even as I was wondering, the ADL response popped up: “It is not clear from Gutfeld’s comments if he is arguing that Jews learned skills in the Holocaust, or that Jews who had skills had a better chance of staying alive. The latter is something that is well-documented, while the former is nonsense. That said, many millions of Jews, who, in Gutfeld’s words, had ‘utility,’ were still murdered.”

The piling on then began, with an unverifiable report that even Fox News staffers, speaking anonymously, described Gutfeld’s remarks as “disgusting,” saying “at any other place, his career would be over.” The Auschwitz Memorial and Museum also got into the fray with “We must not overlook the larger picture of the Holocaust. Nazi Germany’s ultimate goal was to exterminate all the people it considered Jews.”

And to ice the cake, an article that I had not seen about the Democrats who chose to boycott the recent Joint Session of Congress speech by Israeli President Isaac Herzog also appeared, stating that “Such behavior is virulently anti-Israel and absolutely reprehensible. Each of these folks is a shame to the United States of America. And to the Democratic Party.”

That all of the responses fit in comfortably with the Israeli and Zionist group standard holocaust narrative of perpetual Jewish suffering, together with the inflated victim count which does not stand serious scrutiny, should surprise no one and after I finished perusing the articles the first thought that came to mind was “Wow, if you needed any proof of the power of Jews in this country and their persistence in punishing critics, this is it!” But that was before I read an article that went well beyond the usual propaganda stream, one describing how Israel is apparently about to be approved for probationary access to the US Visa Waiver program, which will allow Israelis to travel freely to the United States. According to the article, Washington and Jerusalem have signed a “memorandum of understanding” as a first step to full waiver status which presumably will be granted after a trial period ending on September 30th.

There are currently 40 nations admitted to the program, mostly from Europe, enabling their passport holders to enter the US freely without a visa and allowing them to stay for up to 90 days. Israel and its friends in the US have been agitating for years to have Israel accepted into the program, which would likely lead to more free spending American tourists and more corporate investment in the Jewish state, but there has been a major hurdle that Israel has been unwilling to address seriously and that is the issue of “reciprocity.” That means in practice that if anyone carrying an Israeli passport is free to enter the United States anyone carrying an American passport must be free to travel to Israel and enter the country. And lest there be any misunderstanding, US law requires full reciprocity to US citizens seeking entry – without regard to race, religion, or national origin. This means that if an American Jew and a Palestinian-American both holding US passports arrive at an Israeli port of entry they must be treated exactly the same when processing through customs and immigration.

Israel, however, has historically not quite seen it quite that way and reserves the right to block entry by Americans, an option particularly exercised against Americans of Palestinian origin, and other Americans like myself who come up on their data bases as being critical of the Jewish state. Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has even been denied entry in a recent attempt to travel to visit her grandmother. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has been a critic of Israeli’s oppression of the Palestinians, has also been barred from entering the country.

There are other issues, including the fact that Israelis are way overrepresented in current visa fraud when they travel to the United States, often overstaying the time limit on their entry permission and working while in the country. Israelis in the country illegally and working were among the art students, Dead Sea cosmetics peddlers and the “Dancing Shlomos” movers who figured in the 9/11 saga, some of whom were known to be intelligence officers spying on American Muslims. Intelligence and law enforcement sources suggest that an open door to Israeli passport holders will lead to the entry of a new wave of Mossad officers who will be working against US Palestinian and Arab groups as well as against critics of Israel.

Israel is seeking approval to enter the program and is claiming that it has now initiated a trial period that will merge into a two-year pilot program that will ease the entry process and eliminate the many complaints about the harassment of Palestinian Americans and others. US citizens of Palestinian descent have frequently reported being harassed, detained, and denied entry by Israeli officials. Arab-Americans have told of being “strip-searched, questioned for hours about family and property histories, and even forced to give access to their social media accounts.” The US Embassy for its part only very rarely submits toothless complaints to the Israeli authorities about the treatment.

Because of that history, there is, inevitably, considerable skepticism about Israeli intentions. To cite only one example, Palestinian-Americans still cannot travel to the West Bank through Ben-Gurion Airport located near Tel Aviv, and are instead forced to fly into Amman, Jordan, before traveling overland to the West Bank. Furthermore, throughout the MOU, the US grants to Israel the freedom to deny any and all visitors entry for undefined security concerns – a variation on the “Israel has a right to defend itself” slogan and in itself a violation of the statuary requirements that established the Visa Waiver program. And even personal relationships are subject to scrutiny after one succeeds in entering the occupied territories. Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) requires any foreign national to “report the start of a romantic relationship with any Palestinian ID holder within 30 days.”

There is particular concern that Israel will behave during the trial period and once it obtains waiver status it will return to its old ways of denying Palestinian Americans entry. One Palestinian critic observes how the problem is institutional: “What we are seeing is representative of how Israel applies its apartheid laws to Palestinians everywhere, both in the occupied territory and abroad. Israel targets Palestinians simply for being Palestinians.” Even under the proposed pilot program, for example, Palestinian Americans will be able to apply for a 90-day travel pass to enter Israel but the restrictions on visiting the West Bank remain in place only for them and not for Jews visiting the illegal settlements. They are also blocked from visiting Gaza even if they have family there. The Palestinians will still need to apply to the Israeli government official for additional internal travel permits, which can easily be denied.

There is widespread belief that the so-called pilot program is a back door way for the Joe Biden Administration to bring Israel into the Visa Waiver Program without requiring it to end its systematic discrimination and abuse directed against Palestinian-Americans. It demonstrates yet again that the rule of US-Israel relations is what it always has been – zero accountability for Israel. And, together with the recent decision to permit a visit to the White House and Congress by major human rights violator Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it is just one more indication of who holds the reins of power in Washington.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen regards the new arrangement as a done deal, boasting how “After we finish all the necessary legislative procedures, I estimate that Israeli citizens will be able to visit the US without the need for a visa by the end of the year.” That freedom is, however, the fruit of a shameful move by the Biden Administration as it is conceding to the Israelis the right to continue to apply a race card to some American passport holders. It seems that whenever there is a conflict over issues vexing Washington and Tel Aviv it is the Jewish state that always emerges as the winner.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US forced Saudi Arabia, UAE to freeze investments in Syria

The Cradle | August 2, 2023

All promises of humanitarian aid and investment in Syria by Gulf countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been frozen as a result of US warnings and threats, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on 2 August.

“All the Emirati and Saudi promises to help Syria and activate investment in it on several levels remained words on tongues and ink on paper, and none of them were translated into reality,” Arab diplomatic sources told Al-Akhbar. 

According to the sources, the UAE “underestimated the ability of US sanctions to prevent” these investments and aid transfers from materializing. 

“It became clear that US sanctions and warnings … by the Americans to Emirati and Saudi officials … have already managed to thwart any new investment attempts in Syria … There are Emirati investment projects that already exist in Syria, but work in them has been frozen, under the pretext of the unstable security conditions,” the newspaper cites the sources as saying. 

Following the 6 February earthquake that devastated Turkiye and Syria, an Arab embrace of Damascus was initiated – with a number of Arab states, including most notably Saudi Arabia, restoring diplomatic ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad.

While this initially carried the hope of facilitating a swift end to the Syrian crisis and a reconstruction of the country, US sanctions and political pressure campaigns against normalizing with Assad have stalled such hopes. 

US lawmakers have even introduced legislation aimed at targeting countries that normalize ties with the Syrian government. 

On 31 July, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused western leaders of threatening to sanction Arab states to stop the normalization of ties with Syria. However, he added that “our Arab brothers will not submit to western blackmail,” stressing that there are talks with Arab nations “far from US influence.”

As some Arab states remain adamant about opposing Syria, such as Qatar, others, including Iraq, have continued to push for its full reintegration into the regional fold. 

Despite US attempts to drive a wedge between Baghdad and Damascus, as Al-Akhbar describes, the two states have continued close cooperation in several fields. 

As part of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s recent visit to Syria and meeting with Assad, many things were discussed, including increased energy cooperation to combat severe shortages caused by US occupation. 

While the US is systematically obstructing the Arab rapprochement with Damascus, its occupation forces in the country are reportedly preparing for new military action – coinciding with preparations being made by Iran-backed resistance groups. 

According to Al-Akhbar, the US is attempting to strengthen its Kurdish proxy, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as well as other factions and extremist armed groups who are being trained inside the US base in Syria’s southeastern Al-Tanf region. 

“The declared goal [is] occupying the city of Al-Bukamal to cut off the road between Damascus and Baghdad,” the report reads, thereby obstructing access “to the Iranian depth.” 

However, this US “move will be an opportunity for the … the axis to pounce on the American forces in the Syrian desert and expel them from this sensitive area.”

The newspaper adds that there are “military preparations” – most likely jointly coordinated by Syria, Iran, and Russia – in the Badia desert region and in Suwayda, “can be considered preparation for a ground attack on the US Al-Tanf base, perhaps preceded by an attack with drones and ballistic missiles.” 

As the threat of such an attack looms over the US occupation, Washington has been significantly reinforcing its occupation in Syria recently. 

An anonymous US military official recently said that there is a jointly coordinated Russian-Iranian campaign being waged with the aim of pressuring Washington’s troops to withdraw from Syria. 

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Iran inks defense deal with Russia ally Belarus

The Cradle | August 2, 2023

Iran and Belarus signed a defense agreement on 31 July, enhancing the already existing cooperation between the two countries. 

Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani signed a memorandum of understanding with his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Gennadievich Khrenin during a meeting in the Iranian capital. 

The two officials held discussions on a number of topics, including the war in Ukraine, Iranian media reported. 

“Belarus holds a special place in Iran’s foreign policy,” the Iranian defense minister said. 

The news was also confirmed on social media by the Belarusian defense ministry. 

The agreement comes as the two countries have been exploring prospects for military cooperation, particularly in relation to drone technology and the production of Iran’s Shahed drones, which last year appeared on the Ukrainian battlefield. 

In May, a delegation of Iranian engineers sponsored by Moscow visited Belarus to study the idea of producing Shahed drones there. 

Months earlier, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko visited Iran for talks with his Iranian counterpart. 

Belarus is considered one of Russia’s most strategic economic and political allies. Last month, Lukashenko announced that Russia was deploying nuclear warheads to Belarus in the first transfer of such weapons outside of Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

The boost in Iranian-Belarusian defense ties comes as the eastern European nation has followed in the footsteps of Iran and many other countries in applying to join the BRICS group, a rapidly expanding economic partnership between nations with emerging economies that aims to create an alternative to the dominant western-led financial system. 

It also comes in the wake of a defense deal between Iran and Bolivia, which was latest Latin American country to sign a defense deal with the Islamic Republic, following in the footsteps of Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

Following the signing of the defense deal between Iran and Bolivia last week, US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, John Kirby, told Voice of America (VOA) that Washington is concerned about the export of Iranian technology and its “destabilizing” role. 

In response, former Bolivian president Evo Morales condemned the “interventionist attitude” of the US towards deal. 

“We emphatically condemn the interventionist attitude of the US that, with double standards, tries to question Bolivia’s interest in acquiring drones from Iran. The same country that uses these remote-controlled aircraft as a weapon of war tries to prevent other states like Bolivia from using them for security tasks and the fight against drug trafficking,” he said. 

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

US Arms Firms Reportedly Given $9.7 Billion to Replace Weapons Sent to Ukraine

Sputnik – 01.08.2023

The US defense contractors have received nearly $10 billion in new Department of Defense weapons orders to replace systems sent as aid to Ukraine, US media reports said.

Citing official Defense Department figures released Tuesday, US media reported the Pentagon has currently used $9.7 billion to replenish its depleted weapons and ammunition stockpiles, out of a total $26 billion already approved for that purpose by the US Congress.

Lockheed Martin is already getting almost $2.3 billion of a potential $6 billion committed to it as well as $1.4 billion out of an eventual total $1.9 billion more for its joint venture with RTX, previously known as Raytheon Technologies to refill its arsenal of Javelin anti-armor weapons, media said.

Lockheed is also expected to receive $1.4 billion of a potential $5.2 billion to replace guided missiles for the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS). RTX will reportedly get another $844 million to replace the Patriot PAC-3 MSE anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems that have been sent to Ukraine.

RTX will get $581 million of a potential $624 million to replace US armed forces supplies of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Congress also has appropriated $18.6 billion to provide for Ukraine’s long-term defense needs. So far, $7 billion of that money has been obligated to US companies, the report added.

RTX reportedly has Pentagon commitments for $1.2 billion of a potential $1.4 billion to supply Ukraine with its long-range NASSAM air defense systems. General Dynamics and other contractors companies will receive $901 million out of a likely $1.4 billion to supply Kiev with more 155mm howitzer ammunition.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US journalist missing after trying to flee Ukraine

RT | August 2, 2023

Chilean-American reporter Gonzalo Lira, who claimed to be about to attempt to flee Ukraine after being subjected to physical abuse and extortion in custody, has gone missing, a source confirmed to RT.

Lira, a vocal critic of the Ukrainian government, resurfaced this week, months after being arrested by the nation’s security service, the SBU. In a series of posts on Twitter and YouTube, he stated his intention to cross the border into Hungary and apply for political asylum there.

He claimed that since early May he had been kept incommunicado in pre-trial detention. He said he was deprived of sleep as well and beaten and tortured by other inmates on instructions from the prison authorities.

Lira apparently never made it to the other side of the border. Mark Sleboda, a political expert and frequent guest at RT, confirmed to the channel that Lira was stopped on the Ukrainian side and has not been heard from since.

Lira said that he had been released on bail and told not to leave the city of Kharkov. However he added he was given his passport back and an electronic shackle was not put on him, contrary to the formal terms of his conditional release.

“Maybe I’m being set up by them so they can justify putting me away in a labor camp – so no one will ever know about their sordid extortion scheme,” he said. “I simply don’t know.”

If he made it across the border, he said he expected Ukraine to issue an international arrest warrant for him for skipping bail and that he hoped that Hungary would be willing to defy Kiev and not hand him over, unlike other EU nations.

“If you don’t hear from me in the next 12 hours—whelp! I’m on my way to a labor camp!” he concluded. There have been no further updates on his social media since.

Lira has been accused by Ukraine of “publicly justifying” the Russian military operation and “disseminating fakes [false stories] about the war in Ukraine”. He said the charges were bogus and that he did nothing but explain his opinions about Kiev’s policies and report what was happening in Ukraine.

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August 2, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , | Leave a comment

Western media suggests that Zelensky could be assassinated

By Lucas Leiroz | August 2, 2023

In an article recently published by Politico, it was said that Kiev already has a secret plan in case the Ukrainian president is assassinated. Although it is normal for countries at war to think about the possibility of their leaders dying, the way that media is reporting the case suggests a kind of attempt to prepare public opinion for Zelensky’s replacement.

The report was based on interviews with Ukrainian officials and analysts. The sources believe that it will be necessary to circumvent Ukrainian constitutional norms if there is a need to replace Zelensky. The country’s constitution declares that if the president is no longer able to fulfill his duties, the head of parliament must ascend to the office. However, the current parliamentary leader, Ruslan Stefanchuck, is an unpopular public figure, with only 40% approval, which is why it would be inappropriate to appoint him president.

To handle this situation, Kiev plans to create a team of officials, forming a governing council. The office would consist of people like Andrey Yermak, head of the presidential cabinet, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov and Ukraine’s military chief Valery Zaluzhny. Stefanchuk would be the formal leader of the group, but decision-making power would be shared with the other officers.

Informants argue that Ukraine achieved high levels of national unity during the conflict. This “unity” supposedly gave stability to the state, guaranteeing an institutional security independent of Zelensky or any individual politician. For this reason, in the current scenario no Ukrainian officer seems “indispensable”.

“(…) I don’t think it [Stefanchuck’s popularity] matters. There’s a strong leadership team and I think we would see collective government (…) The country has reached a point of very substantial solidarity and national unity, so if something terrible happened to Zelensky it would not be as decisive as you might think (…) I don’t want to say that Zelensky is hardly irrelevant to this (…) But I think the country’s unity is the indispensable thing”, Adrian Karatnycky, “a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council”, told Politico’s journalists.

In fact, this report leaves a series of unanswered questions. It does not seem surprising that Kiev actually has such plans, as certainly Ukrainian institutional security is a priority for the regime’s officials, especially in times of war. What seems unlikely is that these plans are easily accessible to journalists and public opinion.

Being a sensitive topic, relevant to national security, it is most appropriate that these discussions be taken in absolute confidentiality, with no possibility of information leaks. Discretion becomes even more necessary when these plans involve maneuvers to circumvent the constitution, violating the laws of the country.

So, it is necessary to think about what would be the interests of the Western media in spreading this type of information. It is possible, for example, that news agencies are trying to “prepare” global public opinion for an eventual replacement of Zelensky. There have been rumors for some time that NATO plans to remove the Ukrainian leader from power, given his discredited and deteriorated image. Zelensky is seen less and less as a “hero”, being classified by many as a “beggar” and a “loser“. Thus, putting a new politician in power could be beneficial to NATO’s plans to prolong the war, as it would generate more popular support in the West for the military assistance policies.

However, what is really curious is the fact that the article mentions the hypothesis of murder. This raises the possibility that Western intelligence is planning not only to replace but also to kill Zelensky. This would certainly be useful for the West to accuse Russia of having committed the crime, creating a false flag situation to move public opinion and justify new military measures in support of Kiev.

In the article, Politico reminds a series of recent requests made by Russian citizens calling for Zelensky’s elimination in retaliation for the terrorist attacks in Moscow and other Russian cities. Despite such requests being real, the Russian government has never shown an interest in doing so. These were just sincere expressions on the part of the Russian people, emotionally affected by the Ukrainian terror. No strategic guidelines to actually kill Zelensky were adopted.

The article, however, seems to want to show that Moscow has such a plan. Thus, western readers are prepared to have a preconceived opinion if future news confirms Zelensky’s death. This is a well-known psychological and informational warfare tactic used frequently by the West.

So far, the only side that has shown interest in replacing Zelensky has been the West itself, which wants to put in his place someone more competent to lead the regime. For Moscow, it is irrelevant who is in power in Kiev, Russian interest being only to force Ukraine to accept its peace terms, regardless of whether it is Zelensky.

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

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | | Leave a comment

New data shows deaths and disabilities continue to skyrocket

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | July 27, 2023

Returning guest and former BlackRock Equity Portfolio Manager, Edward Dowd, has been tracking the rising rate of non-COVID illness and excess deaths in the US and the UK since 2021, and has new alarming data on the skyrocketing rate of cardiovascular and hematological deaths. Hear the expert analysis on how these numbers may lead to a global economic crisis.

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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