It’s Zugzwang for Biden in Ukraine
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 8, 2023
There is a cardinal difference between the Washington Post report of June 18, 1972 by Alfred Lewis breaking the news of the Watergate burglary and the sensational claim by the New York Times on Tuesday — per a CNN report — that “intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group” sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
The WaPo reported on Watergate several months after Richard Nixon’s thumping victory for a second term as president, while the Times’ claim has been advanced even before Joe Biden has announced his candidacy for the November 2024 election.
A common thread, though, could be that while the Lewis story was followed up a day later by two young Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Times report also hopes to be a developing story but with a contrarian purpose.
If Watergate wiretapping forced Nixon to resign eventually, the big question is whether the Nord Stream sabotage will also be the undoing of the Biden presidency?
These are early days. But the reverberations of the Times’ claim are already being felt in Europe — Ukraine and Germany — although the report was carefully worded to keep Ukrainian leaders outside its purview.
But the bottom line is the caveat that the Times report was not made with high confidence and is apparently not the predominant view of the US intelligence community, and that the Biden Administration has not yet identified a culprit for the attack — succinctly put, this isn’t necessarily the last word on the subject!
That’s smart thinking — with an eye on Seymour Hersh, perhaps? Meanwhile, Ukraine has flatly denied involvement and German media reports stressed that there’s no proof that Ukrainian authorities ordered the attack or were involved in it. Evidently, Kiev and Berlin (and Washington) prioritise that the business of war must continue as before. And neither is in a position to hit back in defence.
But Moscow is plainly derisive. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti, “Clearly, the authors of the terrorist attack want to distract attention. Obviously, this is a coordinated stuffing in the media.”
Indeed, when asked about the Times report, the highly opinionated US National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby referred questions to investigating European authorities and excused himself saying he was “not going to get ahead of that investigative work.” Kirby played it safe.
So, as Lenin would have asked: ‘Who stands to gain?’ To be sure, what we have here is a high level leak planted in the Times by the US intelligence, which is non-attributable but probably serves as kite flying to see how far it will travel, especially in Europe, or, equally, it could just be, as Peskov put it, the stuff of an “obvious misinformation campaign coordinated by the media.”
Either way, someone high up in the Biden Administration is playing for high stakes. This is taking place at a time when Biden himself has been implicated by Seymour Hersh for ordering the destruction of Nord Stream — an act of international terrorism — and of course Biden is yet to announce his candidacy for the 2024 election.
As things stand, candidate Biden will not want the Nord Stream scandal to be another Albatross around his neck. The point is, if he stands for election, which he likely intends to, Biden can be sure that the scandalous Ukraine stories concerning him and his son Hunter Biden, dating back to his time as vice-president, will roar back to centrestage.
The questioning that the US ambassador to Estonia Senator George Kent was subjected to by Senator Tom Cruz at the hearings on his appointment in Tallinn in December suggested that the Republicans have a lot of dope on Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine and are waiting for the right moment to strike.
Kent, a career diplomat and former deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs with three stints in Kiev — the second time as DCM from 2015 to 2018 and the third as Charge d’Affaires a.i, in 2021 during Biden presidency— is in Senator Cruz’s crosshairs.
Last week, again, Sen. Cruz returned to the topic. This time around, he tore into attorney general Merrick Garland accusing the Justice Department of leaking uncontrollably in a calibrated bid to save Biden’s reputation.
Conceivably, the implication by the Times report that a “pro-Ukrainian group” may have been behind the Nord Stream attack can be seen as a veiled threat to the powers that be in Kiev to understand which side of their bread is buttered if push comes to the shove.
So far, Zelensky has played ball. Biden is bending over backward to appease Zelensky, if the manner in which the move to sack the Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, a close ally of the president, was summarily shelved is any indication.
The western media was copiously reporting on a purge under way in Kiev but when the trail came to Reznikov and Zelensky dug in, the US inspectors deputed from Washington to investigate the corruption scandal in the defence ministry simply disappeared.
Indeed, Biden must willy-nilly remain in power beyond 2024 or else he becomes extremely vulnerable. Therefore, Biden desperately needs a second term. He cannot be too sure even if some other Democratic candidate wins in 2024. God forbid, if the Republicans seize the presidency, Biden and his family members will be fighting with their backs against the wall.
But there is also the flip side. Biden’s candidacy will bring Nord Stream, Hunter Biden, Ukraine war, et al, to the centre stage of the election campaign. Is it worth the risk?
Frankly, it is a ‘zugzwang’ for Biden. It is his turn to move, but all of his moves are so bad that having to move can lose the game — and in chess, there is nothing like “pass,” either.
The sabotage of the Nord Stream forms part of the Ukraine issue. Whoever destroyed that pipeline did it with the intention to eliminate any residual prospect left of a revival of the post-cold war Russian-German alliance in Europe built around the two countries’ energy cooperation and interdependency.
The Biden team in sheer naïveté thought that sabotage of the Nord Stream would be a geopolitical masterstroke to humiliate Germany and make it a vassal state, destroy all bridges leading from Russia to Europe, and consolidate the US’ transatlantic leadership. They overlooked, out of sheer hubris, that it still remained a cowardly criminal act.
To compound matters, the war in Ukraine flowed out of Biden’s decision to destroy the Nord Stream (which, according to Hersh, dated back to September 2021.) Today, Biden cannot easily end his war as he is also beholden to Zelensky (who knows far too much about Hunter Biden’s escapades in Kiev.)
Will Biden Administration succeed in hushing up the Nord Stream scandal? Hersh is sure to revisit the topic. Biden cannot walk away from the crime now. But it doesn’t cease to be a crime.
Biden’s remaining option may be to announce he’s going to contest the 2024 election because Build Back Better Framework is still a work in progress.
Georgia Is Targeted For Regime Change Over Its Refusal To Open A “Second Front” Against Russia
By Andrew Korybko | March 8, 2023
The former Soviet Republic of Georgia experienced a serious Color Revolution attempt Tuesday night after radical pro-Western rioters tried to storm parliament in response to its passing of a bill requiring all organizations with at least 20% foreign funding to register with the authorities. The US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) artificially manufactured the false narrative in the run-up to events alleging that the law is based on Russia’s related system even though it’s explicitly inspired by the US.
This well-intended attempt to protect Georgia’s fledging and admittedly imperfect democracy from foreign meddling per its sovereign right was subsequently exploited as the pretext for organizing a violent regime change against Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. The West wants to punish him for his pragmatic refusal to open up a “second front” in the US’ proxy war on Russia after he publicly exposed this plot in early December while also pledging never to arm Kiev either.
President Salome Zurabishvili, who was visiting the UN in New York during the unsuccessful regime change against Garibashvili on Tuesday night, threw her full support behind the riots in a video that peddled the West’s false information warfare narrative alleging that the bill is backed by Russia. Readers should be aware that she served most of her career as a French diplomat after having been born there and was previously that country’s Ambassador to Georgia up until 2004.
She only received Georgian citizenship at that time due to a deal between those two governments proposed by Mikhail Saakashvili following his successful Color Revolution the year prior in order for her to become his Foreign Minister. For all intents and purposes, Zurabishvili has since functioned as one the Golden Billion’s top “agents of influence” in Georgia. Despite the Prime Minister nowadays holding more power due to prior reforms, the Presidency still provides her with some sway over society.
It was within this context that Tuesday night’s violent seizure of power against Garibashvili was attempted, though Russia was already prepared for this scenario after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in early February that something foul was indeed afoot in that former Soviet Republic. He told a popular TV anchor at the time that “The fact that they would like to turn Georgia into another irritant, to roll the situation back into the aggressive condition of the Saakashvili era is beyond doubt.”
It also deserves mentioning that the West’s latest Color Revolution attempt in the region took place amidst continued Russian gains around Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”, which prompted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to warn that Russia could roll through the rest of Donbass if it captures that city. Earlier that same day and just hours before the attempted storming of parliament in Tbilisi, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu confirmed that a victory there would smash Kiev’s regional defenses.
To summarize the strategic dynamics on the eve of Tuesday night’s unsuccessful regime change in Georgia, the MSM had already manufactured the false narrative ahead of parliament voting on that country’s US-inspired foreign agents bill alleging that it symbolizes the country’s tilt towards Russia. This information warfare campaign is waged against its premier for his refusal in early December to open up a “second front” against that Eurasian Great Power to relieve pressure upon the US’ Ukrainian proxies.
The Georgian President, who’s arguably always functioned as one of the Golden Billion’s top “agents of influence”, happened to be in New York when everything unfolded and threw her full support behind those regime change riots. Earlier that same day, both Defense Minister Shoigu and Zelensky informed everyone that Russia could roll through the rest of Donbass if it captures Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”. The stage was therefore set for attempting to violently overthrow Zurabishvili on Tuesday night.
It would be premature to declare that he’s secure in his position despite the security services successfully defending parliament from the rioters since a lot could still happen to advance the US’ regime change agenda. Georgia is a deeply divided country that’s been under immense Western influence for the past two decades, during which time the Golden Billion managed to manipulate a sizeable proportion of the population into doing its geopolitical bidding.
There’s no dearth of “useful idiots” who can easily be misled into destabilizing their country to the detriment of its objective national interests due to their liberal–globalist ideology. This means that Georgia is therefore expected to become the latest front in the New Cold War seeing as how it’s unlikely that its latest crisis will be resolved anytime soon. The situation is extremely serious and the outcome of the US’ undeclared Hybrid War on Georgia could directly affect developments in Donbass.
Ukraine responds to Nord Stream claims
RT | March 8, 2023
Kiev had nothing to do with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, the Ukrainian defense minister has said in response to media reports blaming last September’s explosions in the Baltic Sea on a “pro-Ukraine” group.
“For me, it’s a little bit strange story,” Aleksey Reznikov replied when asked about the issue after his arrival at an informal meeting of EU defense ministers in Stockholm on Wednesday.
“This story has nothing [to do] with us,” he said, expressing confidence that “the investigation [by] the official authorities will describe every detail” of what had happened.
The claims of Ukrainian involvement in the sabotage are “like a complement for our special forces, but this is not our activity,” the minister added.
Journalists asked Reznikov if he was concerned that the latest media reports could lead to a reduction in EU support for Kiev amid the conflict with Moscow. “No, I’m not concerned. Everything would be OK,” he said.
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported, citing US officials and unspecified new intelligence, that a “pro-Ukrainian group” may have been behind the September attack that disabled the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Europe via Germany. The US paper’s anonymous sources stressed that “no American or British nationals were involved” in the sabotage.
A few hours later, several German outlets claimed the country’s investigators looking into the Nord Stream blasts had found that a yacht reportedly used in the attack belonged to a Polish-based firm, owned by two Ukrainians.
Kremlin press-secretary Dmitry Peskov described the reports in the US and German media as “a coordinated media hoax campaign,” aimed at diverting attention from the actual “masterminds” of the sabotage.
Last month, veteran American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell report blaming Washington for destroying the Nord Stream pipelines. According to an informed source who talked to Hersh, explosives were planted on the pipelines in the Baltic Sea back in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of a NATO exercise, and detonated remotely two months later. The White House has denied the report by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.”
Kremlin: New Reports on Nord Stream Attacks Are Part of a Coordinated Disinformation Campaign
Sputnik – 08.03.2023
Media reports about the attacks on Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines are part of a coordinated spread of disinformation and an attempt to divert attention from the real perpetrators, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik on Wednesday.
“Obviously, the authors of the terrorist attack want to divert attention. This is obviously a coordinated spread of disinformation in the media,” Peskov said, commenting on the Western media reports.
He said the Kremlin wonders how US officials that media reports cite can assume anything about the attacks without an investigation.
Peskov also called for a transparent investigation into the Nord Stream attacks; one where Russia would be a participant in the probe.
“We are still prevented from taking part in the investigation. Only a few days ago, we received relevant notes from Denmark and Sweden. This is not just strange, it has scent of a heinous crime. At a minimum, Nord Stream shareholders and the UN should demand an urgent transparent investigation with the participation of those who can shed light on the matter,” the Kremlin spokesman underscored.
A US newspaper earlier cited American officials as saying that new intelligence suggested a “pro-Ukrainian group” had carried out the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines. A few hours later, a German newspaper reported that the investigators had identified the vessel used to carry out the attack on the pipelines.
The developments come about a week after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik that Moscow would do its utmost to make the Nord Stream probe happen.
“You remember how the West reacted to the investigation into Nord Stream published by Seymour Hersh – their nervous reaction. They started saying it’s nonsense and that they were not even going to discuss it. I think this makes everything clear. But we will do our best to make this investigation happen, we will not allow them to just sweep it all under the rug,” Lavrov stressed.
This followed Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia saying that Russia’s Western partners on the UN Security Council were not demonstrating any desire to cooperate in an independent investigation to verify a report that presented significant details that the US was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
The investigative report was published by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who revealed that US Navy divers had planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines during NATO’s Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022. Norway activated the bombs three months later at the behest of US President Joe Biden, the journalist wrote, citing insiders.
In September 2022, underwater blasts occurred at three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines, built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched separate investigations into the incident, while Russia wasn’t given access to their probes.
North Korea Warns of ‘Realistic’ Risk of Nuclear War
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | March 7, 2023
As the US and South Korea prepare for massive war games next week, North Korea is forewarning nuclear war on the peninsula. In a fiery statement, Pyongyang declared the chances of nuclear war are “a realistic one due to the irresponsible deeds of the US and South Korea.”
Last week, Washington and Seoul announced their largest joint war games in five years. The “Foal Eagle” military drills will involve American strategic assets being deployed to the Korean peninsula. Reaper drones will be deployed to South Korea for the war games as well which run from March 13-23.
Last month, Pyongyang warned if Washington and Seoul resumed their annual spring-time war games North Korea would turn the Pacific Ocean into a firing range. In 2018, the US and South Korea elected to cancel the Foal Eagle military drills to promote diplomacy with North Korea.
On Monday, the North Korean foreign ministry issued a statement in response to the joint war games. Pyongyang blasted Washington and Seoul for increasing the chance of nuclear war. “The danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula is turning from an imaginary stage to a realistic one due to the irresponsible deeds of the US and South Korea keen on the bellicose armed demonstrations,” it said.
Though Washington and Seoul claim Foal Eagle is a defensive exercise, Pyongyang views the war games as preparation for an attack on North Korea. The military operations “clearly shows that the U.S. scheme to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK is being carried out on the same footing as an actual war,” the foreign ministry stated.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, said the war games would force Pyongyang to respond. “The demonstrative military moves and all sorts of rhetoric by the U.S. and South Korea, which go so extremely frantic as not to be overlooked, undoubtedly provide (North Korea) with conditions for being forced to do something to cope with them,” she said.
Additionally, Kim warned Washington and Seoul against shooting down any missiles test-fired by Pyongyang. She expressed such a move would be considered a “declaration of war.”
In a separate statement by a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), Pyongyang claimed artillery drills in South Korea are further “aggravating” tensions. “On the morning of March 7, the enemy fired more than 30 artillery shells. This is a very grave military provocation further aggravating the prevailing situation,” it said.
North Korean forces were placed on “alert posture for attack,” the spokesperson added.
Mother Sues D.C. Doctor Who Gave Kids COVID Vaccines Without Consent
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 6, 2023
The mother of two children who were given COVID-19 vaccines without the mother’s consent is suing the doctor who administered the vaccines.
An attorney representing NaTonya McNeil last week filed a lawsuit in Superior Court for the District of Columbia against Janine A. Rethy, M.D., M.P.H.
According to the complaint, on Sept. 2, 2022, McNeil took her two older children, ages 15 and 17, to the KIDS Mobile Medical Clinic/Ronald McDonald Care Mobile clinic, operated by Georgetown Hospital, to complete their required annual physical exam for the 2022-2023 school year.
The lawsuit alleges Rethy, director of the mobile clinic, held the children in the examination room longer than necessary for a regular check-up and vaccinated them against COVID-19 over their objections and without consulting their mother
In order to attempt to obtain the children’s consent — which they are not legally able to provide without a parent or guardian — the doctor falsely informed the children the COVID-19 vaccine was mandatory for school attendance and told them they could not lawfully decline it if they wanted to attend school.
The suit, filed by D.C. Attorney Matthew Hardin, seeks damages for false imprisonment, battery and fraud.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is financing the lawsuit because, according to CHD President and General Counsel Mary Holland, “CHD couldn’t just sit still and not allow this wrong to go unpunished and not bring this to the public’s attention.”
In an exclusive conversation with The Defender, McNeil explained why she is suing the the doctor:
“I just feel like people shouldn’t be able to do whatever they want to do to other people and especially not to children. As a mother, I feel like, ‘You all just took all my rights away from me to do what you wanted to do to my kids.’
“I do want justice to be done in this case. I feel like something needs to be done. This can’t just continue to happen.”
‘I feel violated’
According to the complaint, Rethy’s stated goal is to vaccinate all children against COVID-19. The complaint quotes her statement to the press:
“Our goal is to increase vaccination rates in children here in D.C. . . . For more than 30 years our role has been to be in the community to help address the problem of health disparities, bringing families care where they are.
“For this particular effort, we are glad to be partnering with DC Health to provide both regular childhood vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines to all children.”
In addition to her role as director of the mobile clinic, Rethy is chief of MedStar Georgetown University Hospital’s Division of Community Pediatrics and assistant professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
McNeil said that when she took her older children to the clinic, she stayed outside the examination room to care for her infant. As soon as the children entered the doctor’s office, she called her daughter’s cellphone to let Rethy know she was just outside the door if the doctor needed to consult her for anything.
According to McNeil, the doctor did not ask or inform her about any vaccinations, and did not ask her to sign anything. At the end of the physical, Rethy came out to talk to her.
McNeil said the doctor explained her son’s asthma treatment plan, but that’s all they discussed.
As they were heading home, McNeil said she was shocked when her daughter complained that her arm hurt “pretty bad.” When McNeil asked her why it hurt, her daughter said she was given the COVID-19 shot, even though she told the doctor she didn’t want it.
When McNeil asked her why she allowed the doctor to administer the shot, her daughter said:
“When she had the needle in her hand and she was coming towards me, I backed up and I asked her what is that needle, and she said it was the COVID shot and I … told her I didn’t want it and she said, ‘Well it is mandatory, you have to get it in order to go to school.’”
Rethy allegedly administered the shot to her daughter, and then to her son. McNeil said:
“He’s 14 and he said they didn’t even ask him if he wanted it or not, but when they gave it to him, he said he thought he had to get it because his sister got it.”
According to the complaint, both children received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, authorized for emergency use, and the meningococcal vaccine. Her son was also injected with TDaP.
Both children were upset and angry they had been coerced into vaccination, the complaint says.
No school mandate, despite what clinic and doctor alleged
When she got home, McNeil said she called the doctor’s office, and asked them why they vaccinated her children without her consent.
“I would have never consented to you all vaccinating my children,” she said. “I’m not vaccinated and I’m not getting vaccinated and my kids were never supposed to be vaccinated for COVID period, under no circumstances.”
She said the person on the phone said they were supposed to get them for school.
After hanging up, McNeil said she was “so irritated I even started crying” because she couldn’t believe “they put this poison” into her children’s bodies.
In July 2022, D.C. public schools imposed a vaccine mandate for schoolchildren ages 12 and up for the 2022-2023 school year. But on Aug. 26, just weeks after imposing the mandate, officials walked it back, postponing it until 2023.
That means when McNeil’s children saw the doctor, there was no school vaccine mandate in place, despite what the Rethy allegedly told the children.
The age of consent
The District of Columbia in March 2021 enacted the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccination Amendment Act of 2020 (D.C. Minor Consent Act), allowing children 11 and older to consent to the administration of any vaccine — including COVID-19 shots — recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — without parental knowledge or consent if the medical provider believed “the minor is capable of meeting the informed consent standard.”
The law also required healthcare personnel to provide accurate immunization records to the Department of Health and to the student’s school, but not to parents with religious exemptions.
CHD and Parental Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to declare the D.C. Act unconstitutional.
A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 18, 2022, granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the D.C. mayor, Department of Health and public schools from enforcing the law.
That means at the time McNeil’s children visited the clinic, they could not legally provide consent to be vaccinated without their mother’s consent.
McNeil said:
“To do that to my little children, my innocent children. They took her rights. When she backed away from you [the doctor] and said she didn’t want it, that should have been the end of it.
“Or you [the doctor] should have called me on the phone to find out what I feel about the situation. But you [the doctor] basically told my child a lie so you [she] could do what you [she] wanted to do to my kid.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Virgin Australia flight from Adelaide to Perth forced to make emergency landing as First Officer suffered heart attack 30 minutes after departure
By Dr. William Makis MD | COVID Intel | March 7, 2023
Two days ago I wrote about pilots and fight attendants suffering cardiac arrests in-flight and then dying suddenly.
One of my readers kindly wrote in the comments section about a very recent incident on a Virgin Australia flight. This is that incident and now we have more information.
“Virgin Australia flight from Adelaide to Perth was forced to make an emergency landing after the First Officer reportedly suffered a heart attack just 30 minutes after departure. (click here)
The incident occurred on March 3, 2023, and resulted in the Airbus A320 being forced to return to Adelaide, where emergency responders were waiting to transport the sick pilot to the hospital.
The First Officer became incapacitated after suffering a heart attack. The Captain of the flight declared an emergency and successfully landed the aircraft around 70 minutes later.”
Aero Inside reports:
“A VARA Virgin Australia Regional Airlines Airbus A320-200, registration VH-VNB performing flight VA-717 from Adelaide, SA to Perth, WA (Australia), was enroute at FL320 about 240nm westnorthwest of Adelaide about 30 minutes into the flight when the first officer suffered a heart attack and became incapacitated. The captain declared PAN PAN and returned the aircraft to Adelaide for a safe landing on runway 23 about 70 minutes later.”
Here is additional information (thank you to @AirBo55):
Mainstream media pushing for one pilot in cockpit…
I have not seen any mainstream media reporting of this frightening incident. However, I have seen many articles from the media pushing for one pilot in the cockpit instead of two.
CNN – Why airplanes might soon have just one pilot
CBS News – Airlines are lobbying for a change to federal regulations that could put one pilot in the cockpit
Forbes – Airlines Move To Have One Pilot, Not Two, In Cost-Cutting Solution
“In a move to save costs and ease staff shortages, many countries are asking the UN body that controls global aviation safety rules, to move to a one-pilot model in commercial flights, instead of two.”
My Take…
As I’ve written before, I fear that we are getting closer and closer to a major airline crash due to pilot and or co-pilot incapacitation, as a result of COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
In the meantime, the mainstream media are aggressively pushing the concept of only one fully COVID-19 vaccinated pilot in the cockpit. Almost as if they want a major airline crash to take place. Would such an incident bring about a crackdown on flying in general? To fight climate change? And for our safety, of course?
I am currently working on a substack about small plane crashes and helicopter crashes in the past year where there was no obvious evidence of mechanical problems. As you can imagine, there are many of them.
Dr. Kirk Moore Insists He Did NOT Sell Fake COVID-19 Vaccine Cards
Utah doctor claims federal indictment contains fundamental falsehood
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | March 7, 2023
A week ago I reported the story of Dr. Kirk Moore—a plastic surgeon who was recently indicted by a federal grand jury in Utah for conspiracy to defraud the US; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey, and dispose of government property; and conversion, sale, conveyance, and disposal of government property and aiding and abetting.
The government’s indictment and mainstream media are highlighting the assertion that Dr. Moore and his colleagues received $50 per procedure in which they disposed of a COVID-19 vaccine dose instead of injecting it into the patient, and then issued a fake vaccine card to the patient. This is deemed to prove that Dr. Moore—a plastic surgeon by trade—”benefitted” from his actions.
I initially assumed the federal investigators and prosecutors involved in the case must have found evidence to support their assertion in the indictment that Dr. Moore had “benefitted” from these transactions—that is, that HE received all or part of the $50 per procedure.
However, shortly after I posted my essay, I was contacted by people familiar with the matter who claimed that the indictment’s assertion is false. To check their assurance, I contacted Dr. Moore and conducted a long interview with him.
Dr. Moore insists that never received a single dollar for administering early treatments to COVID-19 patients or for issuing COVID-19 vaccine cards to patients who feared the mRNA gene transfer injections are not safe. A plastic surgeon by trade, he insists he administered early treatment and issued the cards solely as a charitable endeavor—that is, to help the sick stay out of hospital and to help his fellow citizens who were mandated to receive the injections in order to retain their student and job positions.
In other words, according to Dr. Moore, the federal indictment’s assertion that HE benefitted from the $50 per procedure is FALSE. Because most patients expressed their desire to pay him at least some fee for his invaluable service, he adopted the practice of instructing each to make a $50 donation to a medical freedom charity from which he received no funds. He assumed that keeping this practice strictly charitable would protect him from the charge that he received financial benefits for his actions. He claims the evidence presented in his forthcoming trial will prove that he received no benefit.
An especially intriguing detail he related in my interview is the strange fact that—though he knew he was under investigation because HHS and DHS agents visited him at his office and served him a search warrant to seize his cell phone—he was NOT subsequently served with notice that a federal prosecutor had impanelled a grand jury and secured an indictment.
He only learned about this alarming action in a press report, from which he also learned the date and time of his arraignment.
We encourage our Substack readers to learn more about Dr. Moore’s case by visiting his website: https://www.standformoore.com
CDC’s Attempt Get Mainstream Media to Spread False Information
CDC Falsely Claims To Major Media Outlet That the 7.7% Medical Care Figure Was Wrong!
By Aaron Siri | Injecting Freedom | March 6, 2023
After ICAN obtained the v-safe data and published to the world that 7.7% of v-safe users sought medical care (and that the CDC hid this number from the public for two years), Reuters reached out to my firm stating it had received comment from the CDC regarding this figure.
Incredibly, CDC told Reuters that the 7.7% figure was grossly inflated because it claimed there were 10 million records in v-safe, not 10 million users. Here is the exact email I received from Reuters:
“CDC says v-safe has 10 million records, not 10 million users, and that one person could submit multiple records of seeking medical care for the same adverse event. Which makes the 7.7% statistic problematic… Is that something ICAN was aware of or able to adjust for?”
Based on the CDC’s claim, the major news outlet asked if ICAN would be modifying its claim of 7.7%. But it was the CDC’s claim that was categorically false!
ICAN was correct: there were 10 million v-safe users, not 10 million records; and the 7.7% also did not double-count because it was the number of unique v-users who submitted one or more reports of seeking medical care.
The CDC was plainly pushing the major news to declare ICAN’s claim false and, hence, characterize it as misinformation.
Had Reuters just accepted the CDC’s claim, as typically occurs, it likely would have published a story declaring ICAN’s 7.7% figure to be false information.
Luckily, to its credit and because one of its reporters proceeded objectively and with integrity, this news outlet did not just take the CDC’s word for its claim. It actually gave us an opportunity to respond to this claim. (Albeit not by asking if ICAN believed it was wrong but by asking if it would adjust the figure it published.)
CDC Proven Wrong
Showing that the CDC was wrong was simple. All we had to do was use the CDC’s own data it provided to ICAN!
The data the CDC provided to ICAN clearly and without any doubt showed that ICAN was using the precise and correct number of v-safe users and the number of unique v-safe users who reported needing medical care. Meaning, the 7.7% was absolutely accurate – without any doubt.
We sent this proof and asked Reuters to please ask that CDC substantiate with actual proof, not just conclusory assertions, how ICAN was supposedly wrong and spreading misinformation. And again, to Reuter’s credit, because it demanded proof from the CDC, the CDC eventually relented!
The CDC finally conceded that v-safe did in fact have approximately 10 million users and, hence, the 7.7% figure of those who reported seeking medical care was accurate.
With that, I expected that interaction would be one heck of a story in and of itself! I foresaw a Reuters story that disclosed this CDC behavior – here was the CDC trying to get a major news outlet to publish false information! It was trying to get it to write that the 7.7% figure was incorrect.
That should have been its own major story. And although Reuters did publish a story about v-safe, thus far, these behind-the-scenes communications have not been published. I expect they never will, other than in this article.
CDC Asks Reuters to Ask ICAN for a Copy of CDC’s V-Safe Data
It gets even worse. Making plain that the CDC officials communicating with Reuters were not concerned about the facts, and instead were focused solely on pushing their “safe and effective” mantra which is typically not questioned, they further revealed the agency’s disfunction: the CDC officials asked Reuters if it could get a copy of the v-safe data from ICAN and send it back to the CDC representatives Reuters were dealing with so they can review that data. If that sounds nutty, it is because it is.
Just so you don’t think you misread the foregoing, let me repeat: CDC asked Reuters to get the v-safe data that CDC had given to ICAN days before, and then send that data back to the CDC to review.
You can’t make this stuff up. Mind you, the data had already all been made public on ICAN’s website.
What this shows is that these CDC officials were driving forward to push a major news outlet to claim to the world that ICAN’s claim of 7.7% was false without actually looking at the data to assure their claim was accurate. It also shows an incredible level of disfunction at the CDC; instead of getting the data internally, they had to ask a news outlet to get its own data produced to ICAN to then send it back to CDC.
And these are the folk that have effectively dictated what level of civil and individual rights most Americans would have over the last three years!
CDC Seeks to Deceive Again
When the foregoing gambit by the CDC did not work, it had a new gambit. It tried to get Reuters to publish that the 7.7% figure was misleading by claiming to Reuters that “[i]n the first week after vaccination, reports of seeking any medical care … range from 1-3% (depending on vaccine, age group and dose).”
But as we explained to Reuters, even this is not true. For example, 3.36% of those younger than 3 years old reported receiving medical care within one week of receiving the Moderna vaccine.
Even if all combinations of vaccine, age group, and dose resulted in between 1% to 3% of infants, children, or adults seeking medical care within one week, that is not necessarily an insignificant figure! Why is this somehow comforting? Especially in the context of vaccinating the entire country.
And why should the reports of medical care on days 14 or 21 or 28 be ignored? Is it because the CDC thought it was not relevant information? And, if so, why in the world ask v-safe users to submit this information on these days? Or is it because the CDC did not like what the numbers showed? I will let you be the judge.
As noted above, and a sad irony, when medical care is sought during the first seven days, the CDC presumably attributes that to expected reactogenicity and tells the public to not be concerned. And if it occurs beyond seven days, it pretends as if that data does not exist – even though harms from COVID-19 vaccines, as the CDC well knows, can occur well after the first seven days, as discussed in depth in part 7 of this v-safe substack series.
Also, here, we are talking about a novel medical product, hence heightening the need for assessing its long-term safety – certainly beyond 7 days post-vaccination.
This shows how the sausage is made in mainstream media. But for the actual tenacity – I would even say courageous – pushback from a Reuters reporter, the story around ICAN’s v-safe claims could have ended very differently.
The real story I can only imagine this reporter would have liked to publish, the one I told above, however, would no doubt be a step too far for Reuters as an organization – at least for now, until brave journalists become the typical journalist.
Will Pakistan defy US sanctions to complete ‘Peace Pipeline’ with Iran?
By F.M. Shakil | The Cradle | March 7, 2023
Islamabad has formed a diplomatic channel to convince Washington to ease sanctions on Iran, which would finally allow for the completion of a crucial pipeline project to bring cheap Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.
Iran has vowed to take the matter to arbitration if Pakistan does not complete its portion of the pipeline by March 2024, as stipulated in an agreement between the two West Asian countries.
Discussions on constructing the massive pipeline project began almost 29 years ago, in 1994 – then called the Iran-India-Pakistan pipeline – which originally envisioned moving Iranian gas to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China. The focus later shifted to constructing a pipeline between Pakistan and Iran only, but the project has never been completed.
According to the terms of the IP-GSPA (Gas Sales Purchase Agreement) signed between Iran and Pakistan, each country was obligated to construct the portion of the pipeline on its own territory, and the first flow of Iranian gas to Pakistan was to start January 1, 2015. The agreement stipulated Pakistan would pay Iran $1 million per day in exchange for 750 million cubic feet of gas daily, with a contract lasting 25 years.
Iran completed its portion of the pipeline in 2011, however, Pakistan has failed to construct its portion, largely due to difficulties caused by US economic sanctions imposed on Iran for the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program. US sanctions block Pakistan from purchasing Iranian gas, and this geopolitical risk has made Pakistani banks unwilling to finance the project.
Because of US foreign policy pritiorites, therefore, Pakistan continues to rely on more expensive liquified natural gas (LNG) to meet its burgeoning energy needs, which has greatly limited Pakistani economic growth and exposed the country to crises during periods of volatile LNG price spikes.
Due to these difficulties, Pakistan’s Inter-State Gas Systems (ISGS) and the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) signed a revised agreement in 2019 to allow Pakistan more time to complete its segment of the pipeline. The agreement stipulated that neither Iran nor Pakistan will take the other to court for delays or impose fines until 2024.
But US sanctions have continued to make Pakistan’s completion of the project difficult, and Iran is now threatening to sue Islamabad for $18 billion in fines if it breaks the agreement and fails to complete construction by the 2024 cutoff date.
Financial straits or US pressure
As Asif Durrani, a former Pakistan ambassador to Iran, tells The Cradle:
“Pakistan needs roughly $3 billion to lay a pipeline stretching over a radius of 781 kilometers inside the country. The question is who will finance this project, and secondly, the US sanctions on Iran, which took the air out of this project as far as Pakistan is concerned, need a revisit by the US authorities to protect the faltering economies of the region.”
The sanctions, he adds, were primarily focused on the energy sector of Iran and set a cap of $10 million on investments in the Iranian oil and gas sector.
Durrani is not convinced that US sanctions make completion of the pipeline impossible, however.
“These are lousy arguments because, despite these restrictions, Iran supplies Turkiye with almost $10 billion annually in natural gas,” he argues, adding that India and China have also resisted US sanctions.
Durrani contends that Pakistan and Iran are neighboring nations and that neighbors must always conduct business with one another. He urges private sector participation in the IP gas project to accelerate the development phase of this huge project.
Now a senior fellow at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), the former Pakistani envoy to Tehran had in 2021 criticized the US for sabotaging the Iranian nuclear deal, claiming that Iran, as a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) member, had the legal right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Dr. Muhammad Abdul Muqtedar Khan, an Indian-American academic and a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware concurs with Durrani’s logic, telling The Cradle that too many countries in this region tend to yield to US pressure unnecessarily.
India, he says, disregarded US outrage over the Russian oil issue and refused to capitulate, unlike Pakistan which is still in a state of vacillation. In the same way, Pakistan could proceed with the Iran gas pipeline project, citing its energy and resource constraints in the face of pressure from Washington.
“In 1990, India, China, and even Bangladesh showed interest in the peace pipeline – but, in 2008, as a result of the Indian nuclear accord with the US, New Delhi decided to withdraw. As the thing unfolded, Iran has already installed the pipeline on their side of the border, but Pakistan is still dilly-dallying about it because of the US pressure and lack of the financial means to begin construction,” Khan adds.
He says Iran has spent a considerable amount of money constructing its section of the pipeline and would want compensation for the resulting commercial loss. “Iran has granted sufficient time for the pipeline’s development, and if Pakistan begins building its gas infrastructure, it could gain some cushion to reduce its import bill.
Pakistan is hedging its bets
Pakistan’s Secretary of Petroleum, Ali Raza Bhutta, disclosed in a meeting of the country’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that Pakistan has spoken to the US about the gas project, seeking relief in sanctions on Iran to press ahead with the construction of the pipeline.
Islamabad’s top energy official went on to add that since there was a ban on importing gas from Iran, the government has conveyed to the US ambassador to either grant Islamabad permission to go ahead with the project, or compensate Iran for the penalty imposed for opting out of the project.
As Noor Alam Khan, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, tells The Cradle:
“I did not convene this meeting specifically for the IP gas project, the focus was only on the audit paras of the petroleum ministry, and I suggested during the meeting – not the secretary – that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should approach the US to let them know how serious the situation is.”
When informed that the secretary of petroleum had briefed the committee on the IP gas project and that media had quoted him saying that either the US should pay the damages or permit the country to continue with the IP gas project under the terms of the Iran agreement, Khan, a member of a breakaway faction of former president Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party, became irritated, said it was nonsense, and hung up the phone.
The Pakistan National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee also discussed this matter last week. The committee’s chairman, Mohsin Dawar, raised fears about the fact that several nations in the region have received waivers for importing Iranian oil even though Iran is under sanctions.
Pakistan, however, was unable to secure such a waiver to conduct such lucrative oil and gas business with Iran. He pressed the appropriate ministries to examine opportunities for receiving exemptions for the IP gas pipeline with Iran, much as India and China had done for Iranian oil imports.
IP Gas Pipeline in perspective
The plan for the IP Gas Pipeline, which is also called the “Peace Pipeline,” dates back to 1994, when India was also part of the project.
The 1,700-mile (2,735 km), $7.5 billion project planned to move gas from the South Pars Gas Fields to India through the western part of Pakistan, Balochistan. Since its inception, the project has encountered numerous obstacles that have caused repeated delays in the execution of a natural gas project that was badly needed by energy-starved Pakistan.
In 2008, the three nations were close to reaching an agreement before India opted to pursue an alternative project, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI). The US pressure and sanctions on Iran appear to have impacted India’s decision to withdraw from the IP gas pipeline agreement and pursue an alternative that excluded Iran.
Then, in 2010, a 25-year-long Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) was signed, to construct a pipeline stretching across Pakistani territory from the Iranian border to Nawabshah, a distance of 781 kilometers.
Approximately 665 kilometers will travel through Balochistan while 115 kilometers will run through Pakistan’s Sindh province. The length of the Iranian portion of the pipeline is 1,100 kilometers. It begins in the energy economic zone of Pars and goes to Iranshahr and Bushehr. The route then continues through Fars, Kerman, Hormozghan, and Sistan-Baluchistan.
From the Pakistani border to Nawabshah, the pipeline will stretch around 781 kilometers. After completion, the IP gas pipeline was projected to supply 750 million cubic feet of gas per day to Islamabad from Iran. According to the deal, gas supplies from Iran would start in 2014. But, this assumption turned out to be a pipe dream and has not been realized during the past nine years.
A panacea for Pakistan’s economic woes
“Pakistan’s issue with foreign reserves would progressively get worse if it were unable to achieve a deal with Iran because years were spent in negotiations between Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey to create a close economic relationship for significant infrastructure projects, but the US sanctions and pressure shattered all these dreams,” Muqtedar Khan maintains.
He believes that Pakistan is currently dealing with a protracted foreign exchange problem that cannot be remedied by borrowing money from China, Saudi Arabia, or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because Pakistan would still have to pay back the initial debt.
“Strangely, Pakistan and Iran have failed to create a mutual understanding despite their common Islamic background. As an alternative to US dollars, they may conduct business in their own currencies. Even though they are neighbors, it would be a diplomatic failure if they did not restore a reciprocal trade relationship,” Muqtedar Khan concludes.
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