Twitter drops ‘state-affiliated’ labels
RT | April, 21, 2023
Twitter has removed ‘state-affiliated’ and ‘government-funded’ labels from major media accounts as part of an unannounced update. The move on Friday follows a string of spats between Twitter and several news organizations over the designations.
Twitter had applied the controversial labels to numerous accounts over the last few weeks, including the BBC, Canada’s CBC, and America’s NPR. In response, the outlets threatened to leave Twitter and suspended their activity on the platform, arguing that the tags were an attempt to undermine their legitimacy or suggest a lack of editorial independence.
CEO Elon Musk explained that Twitter was only “trying to be accurate” and even changed some of the labels, switching the BBC’s designation from “government-funded” to “publicly-funded,” while CBC’s tag was reworded as “69% government-funded.”
However, as of Friday, no labels could be seen on any of the accounts mentioned. The tag was also removed from other media outlets, including Russia’s RT and Sputnik, and China’s Global Times and Xinhua. The label was likewise absent from the accounts of journalists associated with the outlets.
Before Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter last year, the “state-affiliated media” tag had primarily been reserved for non-Western outlets, mainly in Russia and China. Twitter’s previous management said in 2020 that the designation was meant to inform the public “when a media account is affiliated directly or indirectly with a state actor.” Twitter also said at the time that it would stop amplifying such accounts or their tweets through its recommendation systems.
The latest update to the platform has also seen the long-anticipated removal of all legacy blue check marks that previously identified the verified accounts of celebrities, journalists, and prominent politicians. Those wishing to have the icon next to their name must now pay an $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription fee.
Musk announced the dismantling of the legacy blue checkmark shortly after he closed the deal to purchase Twitter, revealing he wanted to monetize the feature to make the company more profitable. In addition to the basic Twitter Blue subscription, the platform now offers businesses a $1,000-per-month gold verification badge, which also allows them to verify their affiliates.
US to double its ‘defense’ budget
By Drago Bosnic | April 21, 2023
Back in late March, top American General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the United States of America would be doubling its military budget in case the Kiev regime was defeated by Russia. At the time, Milley claimed that “not supporting Ukraine now would lead to a massive increase in future defense budgets”. He also added that “it would lead to a global conflict that has been avoided since World War II ended”.
“If that rules-based order, which is in its 80th year, if that goes out the window, then be very careful,” Milley said while testifying before the US Congress on March 23, further adding: “We’ll be doubling our defense budgets at that point because that will introduce not an era of great power competition. That’ll begin an era of great power conflict. And that’ll be extraordinarily dangerous for the whole world.”
Firstly, it should be noted that Milley’s remark about the so-called “rules-based (world) order” supposedly lasting 80 years is completely misplaced. The geopolitical situation in the last three decades has merely been a shadow of the post-WWII global order. With the US conducting virtually incessant aggression against the entire world, any notion that there are actual rules that equally apply to everyone is beyond laughable. However, his claim that Washington DC would need to double its “defense” spending is much more serious and consequential. Ironically, he’s threatening to do that while “warning” about a looming global conflict, one which is solely caused by the US itself, as it’s the only country on the planet with an openly stated strategy of “full spectrum dominance”.
Milley testified before the House Appropriations Committee-Defense on the next year’s DoD (Department of Defense) budget, alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The figure for the Pentagon officially stands at $842 billion, $69 billion more than the $773 billion the military requested for 2023. However, the total spending on national “defense”, including work on nuclear weapons (officially under the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy), pushes that up to $886 billion. This is without including the so-called “aid” for the Kiev regime, which stood at approximately $113 billion at the beginning of 2023. However, the updated figure is now getting closer to $150 billion and there’s no indication that it will stop growing any time soon.
General Milley has repeatedly described the conflict in Ukraine as “an important national interest” and “fundamental to the United States, to Europe and to global security”. It could be argued that it’s neither of those things, as the world, the EU and the US itself all have more pressing concerns. Unfortunately, this notion is extremely unlikely to lead to any peaceful settlement, especially as the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC) keeps getting its windfall. While some members of Congress have consistently been skeptical about the “aid” for the Kiev regime, the majority still have a strong preference for the official narrative. The skeptics usually cite “the US and Kiev regime’s failure to more clearly define their strategic goals” as the primary reason for the lack of “more adamant support”.
This clearly indicates that the only “strategic goal” is to keep the war going for as long as possible, which also explains the repeated calls for the perpetual increase of the Pentagon’s budget. However, Milley’s call for doubling it is a major escalation and it’s unclear how exactly Washington DC is planning to achieve such a monumental task. Global military spending for 2022 was around $2.1 trillion, meaning that the US is already at over 40% of the world’s total with its current budget. Doubling it, even over the next several years (also taking into account other superpowers would certainly respond to it) could push that figure close to 60%. In terms of the US federal budget, it would also require further cuts to investment in healthcare, infrastructure, education, etc.
As the military currently spends approximately 15% of the entire US federal budget, obviously, doubling it would mean the percentage would go up to (or even over) 30%. Such figures are quite close to what the former Soviet Union was spending in terms of its overall budget, which was one of the major factors that contributed to its unfortunate dismantlement. On the other hand, it also forces others to drastically increase their own military spending. If China were to follow suit, its military budget would then be close to $500 billion, with Russia’s military budget approaching $200 billion. This would cause a military spending “death spiral” that would be extremely difficult (if possible at all) to control, leading the world into an unprecedented arms race.
However, this “new” Cold War could potentially be far more dangerous than the “old” one, as there would be approximately half a dozen superpowers and great powers competing for influence and a bigger geopolitical footprint. On the other hand, if the rest of the world refuses to respond in kind, such a massive increase in US military spending would only push the multipolar world into greater integration, as it would be the only way to counter US aggression without doubling their own military budgets. Either way, the US is left with a choice – further escalate, not only with Russia, but the rest of the world as well, or find an off-ramp. Otherwise, its inflation will surge so much that the “doubling” of the Pentagon’s budget will happen on its own.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Rep. Stacey Plaskett threatens journalist Matt Taibbi with jail over his Twitter Files testimony
A chilling letter that’s a further attack on free speech
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 20, 2023
Rep. Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands in the US Congress, has intensified her attack on independent journalist Matt Taibbi.
Previously, during a House Judiciary Select Subcommittee hearing on the Federal Government’s Weaponization, Plaskett had dismissed Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger as “so-called journalists” and attempted to discredit their testimony on government pressure influencing speech restrictions on Twitter.
Plaskett sent a letter to Taibbi accusing him of perjury and hinting at a potential five-year imprisonment sentence. The letter was obtained by investigative journalist Lee Fang. In the letter, Plaskett highlights that giving false testimony to Congress carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
The basis for Plaskett’s perjury accusation lies in several alleged errors Taibbi made during the publication of the Twitter Files. These alleged inaccuracies were brought to light by MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan, who criticized Taibbi during an interview and used them to claim that the entire Twitter Files project was fundamentally flawed.
While Taibbi did make a mistake, such as confusing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a federal government entity, with the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a nonprofit organization, Hasan failed to explain how this error invalidated the basis of the Twitter Files revelations.
Taibbi acknowledged the honest mistake in a tweet, pointing out that both organizations were part of the Election Integrity Partnership, a Stanford University initiative aimed at monitoring election-related social media discourse.
Nevertheless, Plaskett’s claim that Taibbi intentionally made the error and committed perjury is unfounded. “Taibbi has admitted mistaking CIS for CISA in a single tweet in one of his many threads, but his testimony to Congress was entirely different,” Fang wrote.
“Hasan deceptively conflated this quickly corrected tweet with Taibbi’s testimony.”
Fang went on to say, “… the evidence shows that Taibbi’s congressional remarks were correct. CIS and CISA collaborated with EIP on moderation requests, with both organizations directly appealing to Twitter for censorship, making Taibbi’s overall point and particular argument completely accurate.”
Fang has written more about this here.
Plaskett alleges that the mistake in confusing CISA and CIS was “intentional,” attempting to undermine the idea that the government is stifling speech, while, at the same time, threatening a journalist with imprisonment, effectively weaponizing her power against a member of the free press.
CDC director gives misleading testimony to Congress
Walensky misled Congress on vaccine effectiveness against viral transmission and on Cochrane review of face masks
BY MARYANNE DEMASI, PHD | APRIL 20, 2023
This week, CDC director Rochelle Walensky provided witness testimony to the House Committee on Appropriations responsible for overseeing the funding of various federal programs related to labour, health, education, and other related agencies.
But serious questions have been raised about the veracity of Walensky’s testimony.
Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-Ga) asked Walensky if her March 2021 public statement on MSNBC, in which she unequivocally said that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, they do not get sick” was accurate.
“At the time it was [accurate]” Walensky replied confidently.
She then proceeded to explain, “We’ve had an evolution of the science and an evolution of the virus” and that “all the data at the time suggested that vaccinated people, even if they got sick, could not transmit the virus.”
However, there was no such evidence at the time and it prompted criticism from scientists who said there weren’t enough data to claim that vaccinated people were completely protected or that they could not transmit the virus to others.
One of those critics was Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University School of Medicine.
“Back then, Walensky didn’t know if it was true. It was just an irresponsible use of a bully pulpit as a CDC director to say something that she did not know for certain to be true at the time,” said Bhattacharya.
“Unfortunately, people used that information to discriminate against unvaccinated individuals and would certainly have been used as fuel for very destructive policies like vaccine mandates,” he added.
Notably, only days after Walensky made that statement to MSNBC, a spokesperson from her own agency had to walk back the comments saying, “Dr Walensky spoke broadly in this interview” adding that it was possible for fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19.
Walensky missed the memo
Walensky should have known that when mRNA vaccines were first authorised in 2020, the FDA listed critical ‘gaps’ in the knowledge base. One of them was the vaccine’s unknown effectiveness against viral transmission.
Also, in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s original pivotal trials, there were 8 and 11 people respectively, who developed symptomatic COVID-19 in the vaccine group, proving the vaccines never had absolute effectiveness, like Walensky had claimed.
Several months later, the FDA’s evaluation stayed the same. In a clinical review, the FDA wrote, “remaining uncertainties regarding the clinical benefits of BNT162b2 in individuals 16 years and older, include its level of protection against asymptomatic infection and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, including for the delta variant.”
Even today, the FDA remains clear that efficacy against transmission is unproven. The FDA’s website states, “While it is hoped this will be the case, the scientific community does not yet know if Comirnaty will reduce such transmission.”
Walensky says Cochrane summary ‘retracted’
Another astonishing falsehood made by Walensky was her response to Congressman Clyde’s question about the Cochrane review which found that wearing face masks in the community “probably makes little to no difference” in preventing viral transmission.
Walensky enthusiastically stated, “I think its notable, that the Editor-in-Chief of Cochrane, actually said that the summary of that review was…[stumble]..she retracted the summary of that review and said that it was inaccurate.”
However, the summary of the review was not retracted, nor have the authors of the review changed the language in the summary.
Misleading statements by New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci has likely led to this falsehood being repeated (which I cover in a previous article).
In response to Walensky’s comments, Tom Jefferson, lead author of the Cochrane study said, “Walensky is plain wrong. There has been no retraction of anything.”
“It’s worth reiterating that we are the copyright holders of the review, so we decide what goes in or out of the review and we will not change our review on the basis of what the media wants or what Walensky says,” remarked Jefferson.
Bhattacharya was also stunned by Walensky’s comments. “It’s irresponsible for her to claim that the Cochrane review [summary] was retracted when it was not. It damages her credibility and harms the scientific process, which requires public officials to be honest about scientific results,” he said.
Did Walensky lie to Congress or is she poorly informed?
Witnesses at these hearings are expected to provide truthful and accurate information to the committee and may be subject to legal penalties if they provide false information or knowingly make false statements.
But will Walensky be held accountable for misleading Congress? Unlikely.
IRS Supervisor Tells US Lawmakers Hunter Biden Probe Being Mishandled by Agency
Sputnik – 20.04.2023
WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is mishandling its probe into Hunter Biden, a lawyer representing an IRS supervisor said in a letter to US lawmakers.
“I represent a career IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020 and would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress,” the letter said on Wednesday.
The letter was sent by attorney Mark Lytle to lawmakers, including US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden.
The sensitive investigation relates to Hunter Biden, US media reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The disclosures by the IRS supervisor contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee and involve failure to mitigate conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case and detail examples of preferential treatment that would not normally be followed if the subject of the probe were not politically connected, the letter said.
The IRS supervisor has already made protected disclosures internally and to the Justice Department Office of Inspector General, the letter added.
Hunter Biden has faced scrutiny from investigators regarding whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase. US media has reported that investigators have believed for months that they hold enough evidence to indict Biden.
On Tuesday, US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she has seen evidence of the Biden family running a criminal enterprise, involving multiple family members and shell companies. The statement came after Greene and other lawmakers reviewed thousands of pages of financial records at the Treasury Department.
Greene alleged that the “Biden crime family” participated in human trafficking and benefited financially from foreign countries as a direct result of President Joe Biden’s positions of authority in the US government.
Netanyahu: US should interfere more in the Middle East
MEMO | April 20, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Saudi Arabia could regret its rapprochement with Tehran as Iran is the reason for most of the problems in the Middle East, which he believes the US should be more involved in.
In statements made on Wednesday night to CNBC, Netanyahu said that 95 per cent of the Middle East’s problems emanate from Iran.
He added that the proof of the “misery” that Saudi Arabia may experience due to its rapprochement with Iran is evident in “Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq”. He also explained that he views the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, agreed on 10 March when Saudi Arabia and Iran announced the restoration of their diplomatic relations and reopening of embassies, as having more to do with the war in Yemen.
“I think that Saudi Arabia, the leadership there, has no illusions about who are their adversaries, and who are their friends,” he said.
“We’d like very much to have peace with Saudi Arabia. Because I think it would be another huge quantum leap for peace. In many ways it would end the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Netanyahu, adding: “I think the sky’s the limit. And even the sky’s not the limit, because there are many opportunities in space as well.”
Asked about China’s manoeuvres in the Middle East, Netanyahu said that he had no knowledge of a Chinese proposal to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but said: “We respect China, we deal with China a great deal. But we also know we have an indispensable alliance with our great friend the United States.”
He called for increased US involvement in the Middle East, and said: “I think that not only Israel but I think in many ways most of the … countries in the Middle East would welcome an American, not merely the American involvement in the Middle East which has been ongoing, but a greater engagement of America in the Middle East.”
“I think it’s very important for the United States to be very clear about its commitment and engagement in the Middle East.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts that his country was ready to help facilitate peace talks between the two sides, the latest mediation effort in the region, in separate phone conversations on Monday.
Gang expressed China’s concern over the escalating tensions between the two sides and its support for the resumption of peace talks.
The restoration of diplomatic relations, which were severed between Tehran and Riyadh in 2016, was a major turning point for China’s diplomacy and acted as evidence of its ability to play a role in changing the Middle East.
Ukraine: Stalemate in an attritional war?
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 20, 2023
The Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to the country’s “new territories” of Lugansk and Kherson/Zaporozhye Regions on Monday to assess the military situation.
The countdown has begun for the Ukrainian “counterattack”. The arrival of Patriot missile system in Ukraine testifies to the scale of mobilisation to impose heavy losses on Russia. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg paid a surprise visit to Kiev today, his first since the war began.
The leaked Pentagon documents are sceptical about the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, but Moscow makes its own assessments. Primarily, the neocons are not going to pull the plug on the Zelensky regime, since that means opening the Pandora’s box when President Biden is about to announce his bid for a second term as president and cannot accept that Ukraine is losing the war.
In reality, Ukraine is haemorrhaging. It is in the nature of attritional wars that at some point, the weaker side breaks and thereupon, the end comes very fast. This was how in Syria where once the 5-year old Battle of Aleppo was won in December 2016, the government forces swept through the country in a string of military victories bringing the curtain down on the conflict.
The attritional war in Ukraine may look “stalemated” but the clincher will be which side is inflicting the greater casualties. There is no question that the massive military, intelligence, financial and economic assistance by the West notwithstanding, Russian forces have ground down the Ukrainian side all along the line of contact.
The Russian ambassador to the UK recently said the ratio of losses in the attrition war is roughly seven Ukrainian soldiers to every Russian soldier. To put things in perspective, western media reports estimate that around 35,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be involved in the upcoming counter-offensive along the 950-km frontline while Putin is on record that the Russian reserve forces on the frontline come to 160,000 soldiers!
The Ukrainian air defence system is in a critical state. Russians have a predominance of artillery and, Russians have heavily fortified the frontline in the recent 5-6 months in multiple layers of defence such as mines, earthworks and bollards to impede advancing tanks, etc.
This is a desperate gambit for Ukraine, which has lost a large share of its most experienced soldiers (estimated 120,000 casualties), to take on the Russians who are having air superiority and missile superiority, air defence superiority and artillery superiority, and trained manpower superiority, above all.
The areas that Putin chose to visit — Kherson / Zaporozhya and Lugansk — are where the Ukrainian counteroffensive is most expected. Putin heard from the commanders the military situation and of course, most certainly, that will be inputs for his decisions on Russian counter-strategies, both defensive and offensive.
Despite the Pentagon leaks and the ensuing disarray and confusion in Washington and European capitals (and Kiev), the Ukrainian counterattack will go ahead to gain back at least some of the lost territory. This is a desperate throw of the dice.
However, delusional thinking still prevails in Washington. This is apparent from a recent article in Foreign Affairs co-authored by two veterans of the US establishment — former State Department official Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations — titled The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine: A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table.
The article largely sticks to the myths spawned by the neocons — that Russia’s special military operations failed and the war has “turned out far better for Ukraine than most predicted” — but has occasional flashes of realism. It builds on the refrain currently in vogue in Washington that “the most likely outcome of the conflict is not a complete Ukrainian victory but a bloody stalemate.”
Haas and Kupchan wrote that “By the time Ukraine’s anticipated offensive is over, Kyiv may also warm up to the idea of a negotiated settlement, having given its best shot on the battlefield and facing growing constraints on both its own manpower and help from abroad.”
The authors take note en passe that Russia’s leadership has options and calculations too, as western sanctions have failed to cripple the Russian economy, popular support for the war remains high (above 70%) and Moscow senses that time is on its side as the staying power of Ukraine and its Western supporters and their resolve will wane and Russia should be able to expand its territorial gains substantially.
Fundamentally, Haas and Kupchan hail from another planet. They cannot comprehend that Russia will never accept a scenario where the conflict ends with a ceasefire but the NATO will continue to beef up Ukraine’s military capabilities and steadily integrate Kiev into the alliance.
Why would Russia want to play another game of musical chairs while the West formalises Ukraine’s NATO membership — that is, acquiesce in a replay of the grotesque interregnum between Minsk Agreements of 2015 and Russia’s special military operations?
Putin’s visit to the new territories at this crucial juncture with the attritional war at a tipping point conveys a powerful signal that Russia too has an offensive plan and it is not up to Biden to blow the whistle and call off the proxy war — out of sheer fatigue or pressing distractions in the Asia-Pacific region or due to cracks in western unity or whatever else.
Equally, it is improbable that Russia can ever reconcile with the Zelensky regime, which Moscow sees as a puppet of the Biden administration. But how can Biden possibly dump or lose sight of Zelensky while the skeletons are rattling in the family cupboard?
Most important, Russian public opinion expects Putin to redeem the pledge he made while ordering the special military operations. Anything short of that will mean tens of thousands of Russian lives perished in vain.
It is not in the grain of Putin’s political personality to ignore the groundswell of Russian opinion — or overlook the wounded national psyche as images are playing out of forced eviction of hundreds of monks of Pechersk Lavra, the 11th-century Orthodox cave monastery complex in the heart of Kiev, branded as Russian fifth columnists. It was a calculated political move by Zelensky with tacit western encouragement. (here and here)
What the neocons in the US are yet to grasp is that they failed to subjugate Russia despite all the humiliations poured on its national honour, proud history and enviously rich culture. Why would Russia normalise with states that appropriated its sovereign wealth and imposed such draconian sanctions to bleed and weaken its economy?
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has admitted on CNN that sanctions may ultimately risk hegemony of the US dollar. But her remarks do not go far enough.
Meanwhile, the Russia-China strategic partnership has strengthened, the signal this week being Moscow’s willingness to coordinate with Beijing to counter military challenges in the Far East. (See my blog China, Russia circle wagons in Asia-Pacific)
Russia is far from isolated and enjoys strategic depth in the international community. Whereas, through the past one-year period, the systemic decline of the West and the US’ waning global influence has become an inexorable historical process.
UK police condemned over arrest of French publisher
RT | April 20, 2023
London’s Metropolitan Police has come under fire for its treatment of a French national who was arrested under anti-terrorist legislation earlier this week. Publisher Ernest Moret was reportedly told that his involvement in protests in his homeland were behind his detention in the UK capital.
Moret’s employer, French publishing house Éditions La Fabrique, issued a press release with fellow publisher Verso Books on Thursday in which they described the actions of British police officers as “scandalous.”
“We consider these actions to be outrageous and unjustifiable infringements of basic principles of the freedom of expression and an example of the abuse of anti-terrorism laws,” the statement added.
The publishers further claimed that Moret’s arrest was the latest example of a “slide towards repressive and authoritarian measures taken by the current French government in the face of widespread popular discontent and protest.”
According to the statement, Moret had arrived in London on Monday to take part in the London Book Fair. While at St. Pancras Station, he was allegedly “pulled aside by police officers acting under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and detained for questioning without a lawyer present.”
The arresting officers reportedly explained that Moret was taken into custody because he had participated in recent anti-government protests back in France.
The two publishing houses insisted that the case proves there is “complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.”
The formal reason for Moret’s arrest was stated as obstruction of police duties. His colleagues alleged that officers had demanded that Moret hand over his cell phone and unblock it, which he supposedly refused to do.
Pamela Morton from the UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) wrote: “It seems extraordinary that the British police have acted this way in using terrorism legislation to arrest the publisher who was on legitimate business here for the London Book Fair.”
The Metropolitan Police confirmed in a statement that “at around 1930hrs on Monday, 17 April, a 28-year-old man was stopped by ports officers… under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”
The AFP news agency later reported that Moret had been released on bail.
France has been gripped by mass protests in recent weeks as people vent their dissatisfaction at a retirement age increase pushed through by President Emmanuel Macron.
Facebook Censors Seymour Hersh’s Article About US Involvement in Nord Stream Pipeline Attack
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | April 20, 2023
Facebook is censoring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s story about US involvement in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines using a ‘fact checker’ with links to the Norwegian government in what represents a clear conflict of interest.
Earlier this year, Hersh published a report asserting that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation which was organized with the aid of the Norwegian government, Norwegian Secret Service and Navy.
Journalist Michael Shellenberger first noticed the issue when he tried to post Hersh’s article to Facebook, but saw the social media giant had slapped a warning label on the link stating, “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.”
Except the ‘fact-checkers’ in question aren’t independent at all.
As Shellenberger notes, “Hersh is infinitely more independent than Facebook’s Norwegian fact-checker. The fact-checking organization is a partnership with a Norwegian government-owned media company, NRK, which has a direct self-interest in censoring the story.”
By censoring the article with a dubious ‘fact check’, Facebook is preventing it from reaching a much wider audience, relegating it in the algorithm.
This is yet another example of how the ‘fact-checker industrial complex’ serves to censor legitimate information at the behest of governments by posing as an independent, non-bias actor when in reality it is merely a front for state control.
Facebook’s claim, made a few years ago, that it cannot act as “the arbiter of the truth” for any contentious issue, has been proven dishonest once again.
“Whether Hersh is wrong or right, his reporting should be debated publicly, not censored. Facebook’s actions are antithetical to America’s tradition of free and open debate and its rejection of secretive, authoritarian censorship,” writes Shellenberger.
“The American people have given Facebook broad liability protections under Section 230 that other media companies don’t get. And yet Facebook is acting like a media company, not a platform. As such, Facebook is putting its Section 230 protection at risk. And censoring Hersh may only attract more attention to it.”
US still doesn’t dare flying spy drones over Black Sea
By Drago Bosnic | April 20, 2023
It’s been well over a month since the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) Su-27SM3 masterfully downed a USAF MQ-9 “Reaper” drone that was spying on regions in southern Russia. The incident occurred on March 14, when the US drone flew just 70 km off the coast of Crimea. At the time, the VKS noted that the MQ-9 had its transponders off while heading toward Russian airspace in what was a clear violation of the agreed protocols for avoiding escalation. At the time, the Pentagon insisted that the drone was “merely conducting routine operations in international airspace over the Black Sea and posed no threat to anyone”. However, as it soon became clear, MQ-9 (presumably the latest Block 5 variant) was carrying out ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) over critically important Russian military infrastructure.
This was certainly a red line for Russia, as it’s perfectly aware that the information acquired through ISR close to Russian airspace is shared directly with the Kiev regime, enabling precision strikes. At the time, top Russian officials such as Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, stated that the incident proves the US is directly involved in the conflict. And indeed, this was certainly causing thousands of Russian military and civilian deaths even before February 24, 2022, because the Pentagon has been providing ISR to Kiev since 2014. Only a few days before the incident, the Neo-Nazi junta forces conducted numerous attacks on civilian settlements in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts (regions), killing and/or injuring hundreds.
The US warhawks were furious at the Biden administration for “allowing the Russians to shoot down our drones”. Some have even called for the Pentagon to “respond in kind”. Thankfully, there are still high-ranking officers in the US military that are perfectly aware of just how bad an idea that is, so these suicidal requests were promptly denied. What’s more, the latest reports indicate that Washington DC has not only drastically reduced the presence of its ISR platforms in areas close to Russia, but has even completely halted the flights of its extremely expensive RQ-4 “Global Hawk” spy drones, the data published by the Flightradar24 tracker website shows. According to its archive of tracks, the last time a US “Global Hawk” drone flew over the Black Sea was on March 21.
Since then, US drones based in Sicily haven’t approached even the Black Sea airspace, let alone the military installations in southern Russia. Before the start of Moscow’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, the Pentagon flew approximately 10 ISR missions per month, spying on Russian troops in Crimea. During the March 21-April 20 period, US “Global Hawk” drones made only three flights from the airbase in Sicily, severely undermining the amount of real-time battlefield data they could provide to the Kiev regime. Worse yet, these missions were conducted from within Romanian airspace and at a distance of over 400 km from Crimea. This is beyond the range of “Global Hawk’s” systems, capable of receiving clear images of an area at a maximum range of 200 km.
“Following the incident with the American Reaper drone, which fell into the waters of the Black Sea on March 14, ‘Global Hawks’ made only two more flights over the Black Sea — on March 17 and March 21 — both at a range no closer than 140 kilometers from the southern coast of Crimea. Apparently, the US command considered further flights in this area impractical. On the one hand, the amount of information received by a drone at such a range is sharply reduced; on the other hand, after March 14, the American side faced the danger of losing such equipment, and a Global Hawk is several times more expensive than a Reaper and is loaded with the most advanced equipment,” a military expert told Sputnik.
Indeed, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 “Global Hawk” drones are among the most expensive hardware in the US military. The latest Block 40 variant costs over $130 million apiece, a mind-boggling figure for a single drone. The aircraft is a HALE (high-altitude, long-endurance) ISR platform that provides direct support to US forces worldwide. It can fly for up to 36 hours at a range of up to 22,000 km, giving it an unprecedented loitering time and covering approximately 100,000 km² of any given surveyed area in a period of 24 hours. For reference, this is the size of South Korea or Iceland. RQ-4 “Global Hawk” is equipped with various ISR equipment such as radars, optical tracking systems and infrared sensors, all of which have been used extensively to spy on Russian forces in Ukraine.
Weapons such as the HIMARS (among others) are fed battlefield data directly from platforms such as the “Global Hawk”. This means that hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries caused by the aforementioned US weapons across the newly integrated Russian regions were entirely intentional, making them an unadulterated war crime. On the other hand, NATO ISR assets have also contributed to the vast majority of Russian military deaths, prolonging the conflict. The US and NATO don’t even need to fire a single bullet to kill Russian soldiers and civilians. However, while the Kiev regime forces are pulling the trigger, it is the political West’s “eyes” that are targeting them and even issuing commands. Considering these facts, downing NATO’s ISR platforms most definitely saves thousands of lives.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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UAE tortured, killed journalist for opposing Israel normalization
The Cradle | October 31, 2026
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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