Kiev and Western backers trying to undermine Moscow’s ties with neighbors – FSB
Nikolay Kochmarik posing with a Ukrainian armored vehicle. FSB
RT | February 1, 2025
Ukrainian intelligence services and their Western handlers are creating fake online content in an attempt to spoil Russia’s relations with neighboring countries, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has alleged.
The agency announced in a statement on Saturday that it had identified a Ukrainian national who had offended the people of Uzbekistan while posing as a Russian blogger. The controversial clip had been uploaded to a YouTube channel “controlled by the Lithuanian special services,” it added.
A video featuring a man who claims to be a Russian citizen made headlines last month for comparing Uzbeks to dogs, sparking outrage among commentators in both Central Asia and Russia.
At the time, Rasul Kusherbaev, an advisor to the Uzbek ecology minister, urged the country’s foreign ministry to “take action” in response to the insults. “Our cooperation with Russia is based on the principles of equality and mutual respect. Discrimination is unacceptable in interstate relations,” Kusherbaev told the media outlet Daryo.
According to the FSB, the offensive blogger is a citizen and current resident of Ukraine named Nikolay Kochmarik, who has been actively supporting Kiev’s military during the conflict with Moscow.
“This incident is evidence of deliberate actions by the Ukrainian and Lithuanian special services as well as by their foreign handlers to create provocative content aimed at undermining relations between Russia and its partners in the CIS,” the FSB stressed. With such clips, Kiev and its Western backers are “attempting to form anti-Russian sentiment abroad,” it added.
The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) is an intergovernmental organization comprised of many former Soviet Republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
How Ukrainians became cannon fodder in British military’s Krynky debacle
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | February 1, 2025
In November 2024, Ukrainska Pravda published a little-noticed investigation, documenting in frequently disquieting detail the catastrophic failure of Ukraine’s long-running effort to capture the village of Krynky in Russian-controlled Kherson, October 2023 – June 2024.
That it was to all intents and purposes a British operation, from deranged inception to miserable conclusion, was perhaps the most shocking revelation.
As the proxy war teeters on collapse, it’s high time London’s covert role in fomenting relentless escalation, and getting enormous numbers of Ukrainians pointlessly killed, is critically scrutinized.
In June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction almost completely submerged large swaths of Kherson, a key proxy war frontline, depopulating these areas in the process. In the wake of this incident, responsibility for which remains a point of significant contention, Kiev decided to secure a beachhead on Russian territory on Dnipro’s Russian-held left bank.
As Ukrainska Pravda notes, the initiative was and remains “one of the least publicized operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” despite lasting as long as the Battle of Bakhmut.
This omertà endures today, with many “experienced officers” involved in and aware of the operation unwilling to answer any questions put to them by Ukrainska Pravda.
One pseudonymous marine quoted “was so concerned about the privacy” of his conversations with the outlet that he contacted them “from different numbers almost every time.”
The rationale for this conspiracy of silence is obvious. The Krynky operation’s failure was so egregious that it easily ranks among the uppermost tier of the biggest and worst modern military calamities.
Moreover, though, the effort had a supremely grand ultimate purpose, in which the surviving Ukrainian marines involved in the operation believed so strongly that several of them spoke of Kiev’s failed Krynky incursion in the same terms as the June 1944 Normandy landings – D-Day.
Ukrainska Pravda reveals it was hoped securing the Krynky beachhead would be a “game-changer”, opening a second front in the conflict, allowing invading marines to march upon Crimea and all-out victory in the proxy war.
This fantastical objective has hitherto never been publicly divulged. A December 2023 BBC article nonetheless hinted at intended greatness. It discussed the horrendous experiences of Ukrainian soldiers who “spent several weeks on the Russian-occupied side” of the Dnipro, as Kiev sought to establish its Krynky “bridgehead”.
Along the way, the British state broadcaster noted parenthetically, “President Volodymyr Zelensky has been keen to talk up this offensive, framing it as the beginning of something more [emphasis added].”
‘Constant Fire’
Per Ukrainska Pravda, Krynky’s foundations were laid in February 2023, when it was announced London, “perhaps Ukraine’s most active and determined ally”, would begin a training program for Ukrainian marines and pilots. Behind closed doors, Britain – “a naval power” – concurrently began lobbying Kiev to “start using marines for waterborne operations.”
However, the proposal “did not resonate… for a long time” with Zelensky, or then-Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. So the British took the “radical step” of dispatching an “official delegation” to Kiev, to convince the pair.
“The British team persuaded Zaluzhnyi, and he said: that’s it, we’re creating the Marine Corps,” a source informed the outlet. London then instituted five-week-long training programs.
Ukrainians were taught on British territory “how to overcome water obstacles: to cross a river, land on the shore and conduct operations on land.” Survivors of the operation told Ukrainska Pravda, “They realized they were being prepared for something big and different from their previous tasks during their stay in the UK.”
Come August, almost 1,000 Ukrainian marines had reportedly been tutored “in small-boat landing operations and amphibious assaults”, in training environments identical to where they would land in and around Krynky.
The stage was thus set for seizing the beachhead, which commenced two months later. “Almost immediately” though, “the operation’s biggest flaw – its planning – began to work against the Marines,” producing “huge losses”.
Ukrainska Pravda acknowledges the mission “wasn’t fully thought through in every aspect,” which is quite the understatement.
Ukrainian marines reaching Krynky required them to travel across the Dnipro via boat or be dropped off at numerous small islands nearby and swim to land. Resupply was also supposed to be conducted via boat deliveries.
In the aforementioned December 2023 BBC article, a marine participating in the catastrophe revealed it was expected by the operation’s British planners that once the Ukrainians landed, their adversary “would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed.”
Alas, “it didn’t turn out that way”:
“The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I’ve seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro River… When we arrived on the [eastern] bank… they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us – artillery, mortars and flamethrower systems. I thought I’d never get out.”
To make matters worse, “a lot of young guys” with zero combat experience were being fed into Krynky. “It’s a total nightmare… some of our marines can’t even swim,” the embattled marine bitterly relayed to Britain’s state broadcaster.
Fearing “things will only get worse,” he added “no one” dispatched to the “hell” there knew “the goals” of the operation in which they were engaged. “Many” believed their commanders had “simply abandoned” them, and “our presence [has] more political than military significance.”
‘Almost Impossible’
Ukrainska Pravda gravely notes, “not all [marines] made it” to Krynky, and “not all who did return.” Even those who survived the perilous journey “frequently sustained injuries or were killed” upon arrival, “because the Russians immediately targeted them with artillery.”
During landings, “every second mattered”, to the extent the Ukrainians quickly “abandoned the use of life jackets” for their river crossings, as detaching one onshore took half a minute, “and there [could] be casualties during that time.”
Fatal operational blindspots and blunders didn’t end there. Resupply boats were likewise relentlessly targeted by Russian forces, making it virtually impossible to equip marines with even the most basic essentials, including ammunition, bandages, food, medicine, and water.
The Ukrainians resorted to using hexacopter drones “to deliver all sorts of things” to the frontline, “even blood for transfusions.”
Meanwhile, one marine bitterly informed Ukrainska Pravda, “heaps” of artillery and rocket support “that would work in our favor” promised by their superiors never materialized.
“HIMARS will fire like machine guns!” they were told, “but we were deceived in the end.”
Regardless, marines were still expected to carry out extraordinarily grand missions once – if – they reached Krynky. For example, three marine brigades were tasked with capturing a 30-kilometer-long beachhead around the village, on foot and without heavy equipment, “using units already exhausted from fighting in Donbas,” within just four days.
This also necessitated thrusting up to seven kilometers inland, into Russian territory.
“The order seemed insane to everyone at the time,” a participating marine told Ukrainska Pravda, “we warned that it would be a massacre, but we were told to keep pushing.”
Their dire predictions were proven completely correct, the mission abruptly failing after “a considerable number of highly valued personnel” were blown to bits by Russian airstrikes, missiles, and tank fire. Yet, this senseless turkey shoot paled in comparison to the disaster and insanity of Britain’s plot for Kiev to march on Crimea.
A survivor of the Krynky operation said this “ultimate goal” was “almost impossible.” To accomplish it, Ukrainian marines “needed to cover a vast distance” – 80 kilometers – into territory that had been under heavy Russian occupation for 18 months.
Furthermore, it was “impossible to establish a foothold” in many of the areas where marines landed, which were “nothing but swamp”. Unable to dig shelters or trenches in the terrain, they were forced to hide from Russian bombardment in craters left by previous attacks.
Some marines intentionally “got lost” on islands near Krynky to avoid the river crossing. Others tried to reach the area and return floating “on car tyres”.
At least two “heroes” involved in the operation “refused to act” on certain orders from their commanders, “as doing so would have been suicidal.”
Some wounded soldiers literally took their own lives, “because there was no evacuation.” These were just a few of the “tragic stories” to result from Britain’s futile, covert proxy push on Crimea.
‘Remain Silent’
The onset of winter was “when the situation on the [Dnipro’s] left bank started to really deteriorate.”
The Russians transferred significant assault forces to the area, used glide bombs “to destroy a large part” of Krynky, and “figured out how best to target Ukrainian forces’ river routes, especially at the turns, where the boats had to slow down, and landing points.” Moscow’s artillery onslaught left the area “cratered like the moon.” A reconnaissance officer told Ukrainska Pravda:
“Each time our battalion entered [Krynky], the situation got worse and worse. People got there, only to die. We had no idea what was going on. Everyone I knew who was deployed to Krynky is [sic] dead.”
The situation further “took a dark turn” in early spring 2024. Not a single boat could enter or leave the area. “By May, the situation was a disaster” – but it was not until July the last of Ukraine’s marines withdrew from the area, being forced to swim back.
“Most people” Ukrainska Pravda interviewed about Krynky “are convinced the operation dragged on for at least several months longer than it should have.” One despaired:
“We had to withdraw in spring at the latest, during the foggy season. We could have got all of our soldiers out at that point. It would’ve saved people’s lives. But instead, we waited until nothing could be done any longer. Until the very last moment.”
During the operation’s entire nine months, Krynky never came under full control of Kiev’s British-trained and directed marines. They managed to capture, recapture, and hold “about half of the village” at most, per Ukrainska Pravda.
“As of late 2024, all of Dnipro’s left bank in Kherson Oblast is under Russian control,” the outlet concludes. No wonder that today, neither Ukrainian nor Western officials are “particularly vocal about Krynky, preferring to remain silent on the issue.”
Zaluzhnyi “has never issued a public statement about the operation.” In May 2024, he was appointed ambassador to Britain. Lieutenant General Yurii Sodol, Ukraine’s former Marine Corps commander who oversaw Krynky, was dismissed from the armed forces in November 2024, ostensibly after failing a military medical exam.
Total killed and wounded figures for the operation remain concealed, although Ukrainska Pravda learned just one brigade lost around 700 personnel during the nine-month-long debacle.
Had it been wave after wave of poorly prepared, ill-equipped and militarily unsupported British marines dispatched in large numbers to certain death in Krynky, one might expect their commanders and anyone responsible for planning the operation to face severe censure.
As it was Ukrainians doing the fighting and dying in an unwinnable, literal quagmire, British officials are likely to remain immune from repercussions.
In a bitter irony, Zelensky may well be joining them in London in due course.
Why is the top US spy alliance afraid of Trump?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 01.02.2025
America’s Five Eyes partners – Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand – fear that US President Donald Trump’s deep state crackdown and spy apparatus overhaul could destabilize their intelligence network, reports The Wall Street Journal.
What’s driving their concerns?
Free Riders
- Trump may see Five Eyes as a bloated racket exploiting US resources, per the WSJ. The US spends nearly $100 billion on intelligence – 10 times more than the other four combined.
Russia Collusion Hoax
- Five Eyes were entangled in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, largely pushed by US intelligence.
- The FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, later debunked, was triggered by an Australian tip in 2016.
- Britain’s GCHQ may have wiretapped Trump during his 2016 campaign, as the White House suggested in 2017.
- Trump hasn’t directly targeted Five Eyes lately, but their unease suggests they have plenty to hide.
What Triggered the Panic?
- The “world’s most powerful spy alliance” sounded the alarm as Trump’s intelligence picks, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, near confirmation in Congress.
- Gabbard, nominated for director of National Intelligence, vowed to fight weaponized intelligence, citing Iraq War lies and the Russia collusion hoax.
- Patel, set to lead the FBI, pledged to curb overseas operations and increase transparency.
NATO nation clears Russian-crewed ship in sabotage probe
RT | February 1, 2025
Norwegian police have released a Russian-crewed vessel after finding no evidence linking it to recent damage to an undersea fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and Sweden.
The Norwegian-owned Silver Dania, which operates between St. Petersburg and the northern Russian port of Murmansk, was detained on Thursday night following a request from Latvian authorities and a ruling from a local court.
Norwegian police said that the ship, which was escorted to the northern port of Tromso, could have damaged a critical fiber optic link belonging to Latvia’s state broadcaster and connecting the Baltic nation and Sweden’s Gotland island. It added that the law enforcement is “conducting an operation on the ship to search, conduct interviews, and secure evidence.”
However, less than a day later, the police stated that Silver Dania “will be able to leave Tromso already on Friday evening.” They added that while the investigation will continue, “no findings have been made linking the ship to the act,” and the crew had been cooperative.
The cable sabotage case is the latest in a string of incidents involving damage to critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, with speculation rife that Russia could have played a role. Short of any proof, however, Western officials have refrained from leveling direct accusations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations of Moscow’s involvement. “It is quite absurd to continue to blame Russia for everything without any reason.”
The Washington Post, citing Western intelligence sources, reported earlier this month that the damage to Baltic Sea infrastructure likely stemmed from maritime accidents involving poorly maintained ships and inexperienced crews rather than deliberate sabotage.
NATO has launched a mission dubbed “Baltic Sentry” to enhance surveillance and protection of critical undersea infrastructure in the area and address concerns about possible sabotage.
Did the US Declare the End of the Unipolar World Order?
By Professor Glenn Diesen | January 31, 2025
Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave an interview with Megyn Kelly on 30 January 2025 which could signal the beginning of the end of America’s hegemonic security strategy. Rubio recognised that unipolarity, having one centre of power in the world, was a temporary phenomenon that has now passed:
“it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet”.
Rubio suggested that the hegemonic position of the US resulted in a weakening of the Westphalian system based on sovereign states, and replaced it with a globalist system where the US claimed the role of a world policeman:
“And I think that was lost at the end of the Cold War, because we were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem”.
Rubio is referring to the end of the unipolar world order that emerged after the Cold War, and the need for the US to adjust to multipolar realities.
What is multipolarity?
If unipolarity is over, what is the multipolar system that is returning? The modern world order since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 has been based on the principle of multipolarity and a balance of power to constrain expansionist and hegemonic ambitions of states. A multipolar distribution of power dictates what produces security and the purpose of diplomacy.
Security when there are many centres of power entails managing the security competition between states. Conflicts derive from security competition as the efforts by one state to enhance its own security by for example expanding its military power, will reduce the security of other states. “Indivisible security” is therefore the key principle in a multipolar system, which suggests that security cannot be divided – either it is security for all or there will be security for none. Any effort by a state to become dominant will therefore trigger great power conflicts as it compels other powers to collectively balance the aspiring hegemon.
Diplomacy in a multipolar system aims to enhance mutual understanding about competing security interests and reach a compromise that elevates the security of all states. It is imperative to put oneself in the opponent’s shoes and recognise that if the opponent’s security concerns are resolved, then that also enhances one’s own security.
Unipolarity
Unipolarity was celebrated after the Cold War as it was premised on some good intentions. The idea was that great powers would not engage in rivalry and security competition if the benign hegemon of the US could not be contested. US security strategy was based on global primacy, and it was expected that there was no possibility and need to compete with the benign hegemony of the US. Furthermore, US global primacy would also ensure that liberal democratic values would be elevated. Yet, unipolarity would depend on keeping down rising powers that would therefore have an interest to collectively balance the US. Liberal democratic values would be corrupted as they would be used to legitimise the sovereign inequality required to interfere in every corner of the world. Even Charles Krauthammer who coined and celebrated the term “unipolar moment”, recognised it was a temporary phenomenon that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Security under the unipolar system did not entail managing the security competition. On the contrary, security was dependent on dominating to such an extent that no rivals could even aspire to challenge the US. In 2002, the US Security Strategy explicitly outlined that global dominance would “dissuade future military competition” and that the US therefore had to perpetuate “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces, and their forward presence”. The hegemonic strategy is why the West abandoned all agreements for an inclusive pan-European security architecture with Russia, and instead returned to bloc politics by expanding NATO toward Russian borders. It would threaten Russian security, but there would be no security competition as Russia would be too weak. The sentiment was that Russia would have to adjust to new realities or be confronted by NATO that had encircled it.
Diplomacy under unipolarity also came to an end. Diplomacy no longer meant to recognise mutual security concerns to find solutions for indivisible security. Rather, diplomacy was replaced with the language of ultimatums and threats as other states would have to accept unilateral concessions. In the past, Western politicians and media would discuss the security concerns of adversaries to mitigate security competition. After the Cold War, Western politicians and media largely stopped discussing the security concerns of adversaries, as there was no desire to “legitimise” the notion that Western hegemony as a “force for good” could be considered a threat. When the West placed its military forces on the borders of other countries, it was claimed to bring democracy, stability and peace. Furthermore, conflicts could not be resolved by diplomacy if they challenged the dominance of the West. For example, taking into account Russian security concerns about NATO’s incursion into Ukraine would represent a rejection of the hegemonic system. While NATO rejected diplomacy for three years as hundreds of thousands of men died on the front line, Rubio now suggests that diplomacy and negotiations must start as “We just have to be realistic about the fact that Ukraine has lost”.
A reason for optimism
In the late 1920s, Antonio Gramsci wrote about the troubling times as a period of interregnum. Gramsci wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”.
The great power conflicts in the world today are largely a result of the world being in a transition between unipolarity and multipolarity. The West attempts to defeat its rivals to restore the unipolarity of the 1990s, while the vast majority of the world seeks to complete the transition to multipolarity. As the US worries about unsustainable debt, the collective balancing by adversaries and the rising possibility of nuclear war – it appears that there is a growing willingness to retire the temporary project of unipolarity.
Desertion Epidemic? Ukrainian Soldiers Flee as Army Collapses on the Battlefield
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 31.01.2025
As Ukraine’s army suffers mounting defeats, thousands of soldiers are abandoning their units, unable or unwilling to continue the fight.
- The 157th Brigade, formed in 2024, ceased to exist by 2025 with one-third of its soldiers deserting before becoming operational.
- The elite 155th ‘Anna of Kiev’ Brigade saw at least 1,700 of its 2,300 soldiers desert before reaching the front lines.
- Over 10% of the 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers sent to Poland for training fled the country.
- Desertion is occurring in both large and small groups, with 22 soldiers from the 71st Separate Jaeger Brigade deserting in just one week in December 2024.
- Some deserters are even charging to assist others escape, with one man arrested for smuggling soldiers out for €7,000 each.
The Scale of Desertion is Staggering:
- For every 100 mobilized soldiers, only 10 reach the front, according to General Serhiy Kryvonos.
- Ukrainian activist Gennadiy Druzenko estimates 150,000 deserters, with 114,000 criminal cases opened.
- Ukrainian officials have admitted the crisis, with Deputy Anna Skorokhod estimating over 100,000 desertions by October 2024. Commissioner Olga Reshetylova stated bluntly: “The problem is big. People are exhausted.”
Would you eat bread made with worms? Brussels thinks so
By Liz Heflin | Remix News | January 28, 2025
According to Regulation (EU) 2025/89, EU citizens will now be able to enjoy bread made from worms. The inspiration for this new rule is that we humans need an alternative to meat.
“A European will eat four oxen, four rams, 46 pigs, 46 turkeys, 12 geese, 37 ducks, and as many as 945 chickens in their entire life. Over 73 percent of families prepare meat dishes at least several times a week. Around 350 million tons of meat are consumed worldwide each year,” explained Poland’s Salon24, noting that the consumption of meat in Poland is even higher than in other member states.
Last year, the European Commission removed the emphasis on promoting laboratory meat within the framework of the Community’s climate policy due to objections from farmers. Agriculture, namely, livestock, has been targeted for generating over 10 percent of annual gas emissions, and the EU aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 90 percent by 2040.
So now, Brussels wants people to get their protein by eating insects The EU list of new foods for humans, reports Salon24, currently includes three types of insects: the mealworm (in the form of dried larvae), the migratory locust (frozen, dried and powdered) and the house cricket (frozen, dried and powdered).
The larvae of the shiny mealworm have also been allowed to be traded on the EU market in frozen, paste, dried, and powdered form.
The European Commission announcement implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/89 on Jan. 20 authorizes “the placing on the market of UV-treated powder of whole yellow mealworm larvae (Teebrio) as a novel food and amends Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2470.”
It explains that “on March 28, 2023, the Authority adopted its scientific opinion on the ‘Safety of UV-treated powder of whole yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor larvae) as a novel food pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283’’ in accordance with Article 11 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283.”
The communication continues: “In its scientific opinion, the Authority concluded that the UV-treated powder of whole Tenebrio molitor larvae is safe under the proposed conditions and use levels. Therefore, this scientific opinion provides sufficient grounds to establish that the UV-treated powder of whole Tenebrio molitor larvae, for use in bread and rolls, cakes, pasta products, processed potato products, cheese and cheese products, and fruit and vegetable compotes, intended for the general population, meets the conditions for placing it on the market in accordance with Article 12(1) of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283.”
It concludes by stating that “this Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.”
The law means bread and rolls will contain 4 grams of mealworms per 100g of bread, and cakes – 3.5g of larvae per 100g of cake. And apparently, this is creating a whole new business of larvae breeders.
On a Polish government website, there is even a study published for over 5 million zlotys, provided by the EU, to develop “a strategy for the use of alternative protein sources in animal nutrition enabling the development of its production in the territory of the Republic of Poland.”
Luckily, it appears that the regulation mandates that all products containing UV-treated powder of whole Tenebrio molitor larvae (yellow mealworm) be listed as an ingredient. Also, there will have to be an additional “statement that this ingredient may cause allergic reactions to consumers with known
allergies to crustaceans, and products thereof, and to dust mites.”
The 99th Congress That Called Vaccines “Unavoidably Unsafe”
By Ginger Taylor | Brownstone Institute | January 28, 2025
Meet the original “Conspiracy Theorists,” Ronald Reagan and the members of the 99th Congress, who, in 1986, passed into law the “medical misinformation” that vaccines were “unavoidably unsafe” and potentially caused autism.
Last week Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, a scathing letter accusing him of, among other things, “dangerous views on vaccine safety” and “false hysteria that vaccines cause autism.” The letter included 175 questions that she said he should be prepared to answer at his Senate confirmation hearings. But in her letter, she exposes her own ignorance of federal vaccine policy and the laws passed by her own legislative branch.
In 1986 the House of Representatives passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 to 300aa-34) by a voice vote. Senator Warren should know that her current Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was, at the time, a member of the House and should presumably know that the bill that was passed to give vaccine makers liability protection from civil claims when a child was killed or seriously injured by a vaccine, and placed all vaccines administered to children in the legal category of “unavoidably unsafe” medical products, which means a product that cannot be made safe for its intended use.
In 2018, Mary Holland, JD, then the Director of the Graduate Legal studies program at New York University School of Law, and now Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit organization founded by Kennedy, remarked on the legal standing of the safety of vaccines:
The key language about “unavoidable” side effects comes from the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, 42 USC 300aa-22, re manufacturer responsibility (see bold text below).
That language was based on language from the Second Restatement of Torts (a legal treatise by tort scholars), adopted by most state courts in the mid-1960’s, that considered all vaccines as “unavoidably unsafe” products. The Restatement opined that such products, “properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warnings, is not defective, nor is it unreasonably dangerous.”
Further the 2011 SCOTUS ruling in the Bruesewitz v. Wyeth case interpreted the highlighted text below from the National Vaccine Injury Act to find that it did not permit design defect litigation – that issue had been unclear since 1986, and different state high courts and federal circuits had decided the issue differently. So, [it] is correct that the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) never decided that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” directly, but it acknowledged that Congress considers them to be so.
Sec. 300aa-22. Standards of responsibility
(a) General rule
Except as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (e) of this section State law shall apply to a civil action brought for damages for a vaccine-related injury or death.
(b) Unavoidable adverse side effects; warnings
(1) No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.
(2) For purposes of paragraph (1), a vaccine shall be presumed to be accompanied by proper directions and warnings if the vaccine manufacturer shows that it complied in all material respects with all requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. See https://www.ageofautism.com/2018/11/the-supreme-court-did-not-deem-vaccines-unavoidably-unsafe-congress-did.html
What few know, even among their own memberships and supporters, is that the following medical authorities consider vaccines unsafe:
The American Academy of Pediatrics (“AAP”)
The American Medical Association (“AMA”)
The American Academy of Family Physicians (“AAFP”)
The American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians (“ACOP”)
The American College of Preventive Medicine (“ACPM”)
The American Public Health Association (“APHA”)
The Association of State and Territorial Healthcare Officials (“ASTHO“)
The Center for Vaccine Awareness and Research at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston
Every Child By Two, Carter/Bumpers Champions for Immunization (“ECBT”)
Immunization Action Coalition (“IAC”)
Infectious Diseases Society of America (“IDSA”)
The March of Dimes Foundation
Meningitis Angels
The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (“NAPNAP”)
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition
The National Meningitis Association, Inc. (“NMA”)
Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases (“PKIDs”)
The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (“PIDS”)
The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (“SAHM”)
The Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (“CHOP”)
When the family of Hannah Bruesewitz, a child injured by Wyeth’s Tri-Immunol DTP vaccine, challenged the 1986 Act in the Supreme Court for the right to sue Wyeth for Hannah’s severely disabling vaccine-adverse event, these organizations filed an amicus brief in support of Wyeth, asking the court to uphold the law that protects vaccine makers from liability for injury or death arising from any vaccine licensed by the FDA and recommended for children by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (“ACIP”). They even went as far as to argue against the idea that each vaccine should be individually evaluated for the “unavoidably unsafe” status, stating in their brief
Case-by-case consideration of whether vaccines are unavoidably unsafe, on the other hand, would “undoubtedly increase the costs and risks associated with litigation and would undermine a manufacturer’s efforts to estimate and control costs.”(citing Bruesewitz v. Wyeth Inc., 561 F.3d 233, 249 (3d Cir. 2009).
Brief Amici Curiae Of The American Academy Of Pediatrics and 21 Other Physicians and Public Health Organizations In Support Of Respondent [Wyeth LLC], at 25.
The organizations’ position that vaccines are unavoidably unsafe taken before the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government has caused consternation in parents and vaccine safety and choice advocates for decades, because many of these same organizations argue the exact opposite – that vaccines are safe – when they appear before state legislatures in support of school vaccine mandates and in opposition to vaccine exemptions.
A lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry may argue over breakfast in Washington, DC that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” and then drive to Annapolis at lunchtime and testify that Maryland should remove religious exemptions to vaccines required for school entry because “vaccines are safe.”
Attempts to have these organizations explain their conflicting positions met with stonewalling.
In 2015, the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics argued for the removal of and/or restrictions to the religious and conscientious objections to mandated childhood vaccines. The Executive Director of the Maine AAP, Dee Kerry deHaas, testified in writing that this should be done because “vaccines are safe,” but when testifying in person, said that vaccines are “mostly safe.” In my response to her, as the then Director of the Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice, I asked several questions arising from her testimony, including the following questions:
How can the AAP argue that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” in the Supreme Court in order to convince the federal government to grant you liability protection from vaccine injury, and then argue that, “vaccines are safe,” and “vaccines are mostly safe,” before this committee in order to convince the State of Maine to mandate that families receive counseling/buy vaccines from you?
Are vaccines, “safe,” “mostly safe,” or “unavoidably unsafe?”
How do such widely contradictory statements engender trust in vaccines and in pediatricians?
Her response to my questions:
Ms. Taylor,
On behalf of the Maine AAP, I acknowledge receipt of your email and list of questions. I understand that our organizations have different perspectives in the vaccine debate. Each perspective has been aired in the legislative hearings and sessions with regard to these vaccine bills in the First Regular Session of the 127th Maine Legislature.
I respectfully decline to respond to your list of proposed questions or to continue the debate with you through electronic correspondence or social media.
Dee deHaas
Executive Director
American Academy of Pediatrics, Maine Chapter
Those advocating under this nonsensical construct quip that vaccines are unsafe, but only in DC.
Parent of a vaccine-injured son, Kim Spencer of The Thinking Moms’ Revolution, noted of the vaccine industry, “their claim that vaccines are ‘unavoidably unsafe’ won them liability protection, their claim that ‘vaccines are safe’ won them school and work mandates, but their claim that both are true has won them the distrust and contempt of parents.”
Senator Warren also accuses Mr. Kennedy of having, “spread false hysteria that vaccines cause autism.” But Kennedy has only done what Warren’s Congressional colleagues did 20 years before he began in vaccine safety advocacy; promote research into the vaccine-autism link and any link between vaccines and other childhood disorders.
Congress, while giving liability protection to vaccine makers with the 1986 Act, also ordered HHS to study links between the pertussis vaccine and more than a dozen conditions, including autism:
SEC. 312. RELATED STUDIES.
(a) REVIEW OF PERTUSSIS VACCINES AND RELATED ILLNESSES AND CONDITIONS.—Not later than 3 years after the effective date of this title, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall complete a review of all relevant medical and scientific information (including information obtained from the studies required under subsection (e)) on the nature, circumstances, and extent of the relationship, if any, between vaccines containing pertussis (including whole cell, extracts, and specific antigens) and the following illnesses and conditions:
(1) Hemolytic anemia.
(2) Hypsarrhythmia.
(3) Infantile spasms.
(4) Reye’s syndrome.
(5) Peripheral mononeuropathy.
(6) Deaths classified as sudden infant death syndrome.
(7) Aseptic meningitis.
(8) Juvenile diabetes.
(9) Autism.
(10) Learning disabilities.
(11) Hyperactivity.
(12) Such other illnesses and conditions as the Secretary may choose to review or as the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines established under section 2119 of the Public Health Service Act recommends for inclusion in such review. (Ante, p. 3771).
PUBLIC LAW 99–2660—NOV. 14, 1986 100 STAT. 3755
The pertussis vaccine injury inquiry ordered by law in 1986 was undertaken by the National Institutes of Health, carried out by the Institute of Medicine, published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1991, and edited by, among others, none other than Harvard’s Harvey Fineberg, who chaired the Committee to review the Adverse Consequences of Pertussis and Rubella Vaccines. PubMed (a database maintained by the United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health) gave the following summary of the final report, titled Adverse Effects of Pertussis and Rubella
Vaccines: A Report of the Committee to Review the Adverse Consequences of Pertussis and Rubella Vaccines:
Parents have come to depend on vaccines to protect their children from a variety of diseases. Some evidence suggests, however, that vaccination against pertussis (whooping cough) and rubella (German measles) is, in a small number of cases, associated with increased risk of serious illness. This book examines the controversy over the evidence and offers a comprehensively documented assessment of the risk of illness following immunization with vaccines against pertussis and rubella. Based on extensive review of the evidence from epidemiologic studies, case histories, studies in animals, and other sources of information, the book examines: The relation of pertussis vaccines to a number of serious adverse events, including encephalopathy and other central nervous system disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, autism, Guillain-Barre syndrome, learning disabilities, and Reye syndrome. The relation of rubella vaccines to arthritis, various neuropathies, and thrombocytopenic purpura. The volume, which includes a description of the committee’s methods for evaluating evidence and directions for future research, will be important reading for public health officials, pediatricians, researchers, and concerned parents. See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25121241/ (emphasis added).
The report’s cursory summary on autism was this: The report’s cursory summary on autism was this:
No data were identified that address the question of a relation between vaccination with DPT or its pertussis component and autism. There are no experimental data bearing on a possible biologic mechanism. (p. 152.)
In other words, we don’t know; no one has ever looked.
But since there was no data to prove a link, because there was no data, they decided to reject the hypothesis and conclude:
There is no evidence to indicate a causal relation between DPT vaccine or the pertussis component of DPT vaccine and autism. (Id.)
Today there is a great deal more data than there was in 1991. This report was published before the dramatic rise in autism rates in the 1990s following the rapid expansion of the number of vaccines given to children once the industry had liability protection from vaccine-induced injuries.
Now, more than 200 papers showing multiple vaccine-autism links exist. You can review those papers at https://howdovaccinescauseautism.org/.
Senator Warren and all those skeptical of Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine critique must understand that he is more informed on vaccine law than the legislators questioning him. The political talking point that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a “conspiracy theorist” if perpetuated, must now extend to the entire Legislative branch of the US Government starting with Democrats like former Congressman Henry Waxman, who wrote and introduced the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.
Senator Warren might also consult with other current members of the US Congress who held seats when the 1986 Act was passed, such as Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Hal Rogers (R-KY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chris Smith (R-NJ, who also sponsored the Combating Autism Act of 2006), and most notably, her own fellow Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey. Warren, like most politicians and doctors, does not understand that the presumption at the foundation of American vaccine policy, and the landmark law that has underpinned that policy for 39 years, is that vaccines are unavoidably unsafe. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. does.
Ginger Taylor is an author, speaker, writer and activist. She writes on the politics of health, vaccination, informed consent and both corporate and government corruption from a biblical perspective.
MY LETTER TO SEN BILL CASSIDY, MD
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | January 31, 2025
Del has a message for Senator Bill Cassidy, who headed the second of two fiery hearings of RFK Jr. for head of HHS.
WhatsApp accuses Israeli spyware firm of targeting journalists, civil society members
RT | January 31, 2025
Meta’s popular messaging platform WhatsApp has alerted nearly 100 journalists and civil society members to potential device breaches involving spyware from Israeli firm Paragon Solutions, a company official told Reuters on Friday.
These individuals have likely been compromised through a zero-click attack, possibly initiated via a malicious PDF sent in group chats, according to WhatsApp.
The identity of the attackers remains unknown, though Paragon’s software is typically used by government clients. After detecting and disrupting the hacking effort, WhatsApp issued a cease-and-desist letter to Paragon. The incident has been reported to law enforcement and Citizen Lab, a Canadian internet watchdog.
Paragon declined to comment on the accusations, according to Reuters.
Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton told the outlet that the incident “is a reminder that mercenary spyware continues to proliferate and as it does, so we continue to see familiar patterns of problematic use.”
Paragon’s website advertises “ethically based tools, teams, and insights to disrupt intractable threats,” and claims to only sell to governments in stable democratic countries. The company’s products include Graphite, spyware that allows total phone access.
Despite Paragon’s claims of ethical practices, WhatsApp’s findings suggest otherwise, Natalia Krapiva, senior tech-legal counsel at Access Now, told Reuters. She emphasized that such abuses are not isolated incidents, saying, “This is not just a question of some bad apples – these types of abuses (are) a feature of the commercial spyware industry.”
This incident follows a series of legal challenges against Israeli spyware firms. In December 2024, a US judge ruled that NSO Group, the maker of Pegasus spyware, was liable for hacking the phones of 1,400 individuals through WhatsApp in May 2019, violating US state and federal hacking laws, and WhatsApp’s terms of service. A separate trial in March will determine what damages NSO Group owes WhatsApp.
Legal documents from ongoing US litigation between NSO Group and WhatsApp have revealed that it is the Israeli cyberweapons maker NSO Group, not its government clients, that installs and extracts information using its spyware. This disclosure contradicts NSO’s prior claim that only clients operate the system without NSO’s direct involvement.
FBI Acted Like Modern-Day Gestapo
Sputnik – 31.01.2025
US President Donald Trump’s purge of the FBI’s leadership comes as no surprise – the agency has been acting more like a political enforcer than a law enforcement body.
Here are just a few examples of its (mis)conduct:
- August 2022 – The FBI stormed Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to seize classified documents while Biden faced zero consequences for doing the same.
- 2020 – The FBI actively suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story, labeling it “Russian disinformation”, despite knowing it was real.
- August 2024 – FBI agents raided the homes of ex-UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and journalist Dimitri Simes without announcing charges. Their crime? Challenging the official US narrative.
- 2024 – The House Judiciary Committee exposed the FBI for spying on Americans’ private transactions, targeting conservatives rather than criminals.
- 2022 – Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson revealed the FBI has been investigating parents critical of their local school boards, using threat tag employed by the agency’s counterterrorism division.
- 2016 – The FBI used the debunked Steele dossier as a pretext to spy on Trump’s election campaign, despite knowing the allegations of Trump-Russia collusion were false.
Trump’s crackdown on the agency was inevitable – the real question is how deep the rot goes.
A Republic of Spies
By Andrew P. Napolitano | Ron Paul Institute | January 30, 2025
In 2021, to his credit, President Joe Biden warned the American public against the dangers of zero-click spyware manufactured by an Israeli corporation. Zero-click is unwanted software that can expose the entire contents of one’s mobile or desktop device to prying eyes without tricking one into clicking on to a link. Biden banned its importation and use in the United States.
Last week, as an inducement to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the Israel/Hamas ceasefire agreement, President Donald Trump secretly agreed to lift the embargo on zero-click.
Here is the backstory.
Though America has employed spies since the Revolutionary War, until the modern era, spying was largely limited to wartime. That changed when America became a surveillance state in 1947 with the public establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency and the secret creation of its counterparts.
The CIA’s stated public task at its inception was to spy on the Soviet Union and its satellite countries so that American officials could prepare for any adverse actions by them. This was the time of the Red Scare, in which both Republicans and Democrats fostered the Orwellian belief that America needed a foreign adversary.
We had just helped the Russians defeat Germany in World War II, and our Russian ally — which was bankrupt and had just lost 27 million troops and civilians — suddenly became so strong it needed to be kept in check. The opening salvo in this absurd argument was fired by President Harry Truman in August 1945 when he used nuclear bombs intentionally to target civilians of an already defeated Japan. One of his targets was a Roman Catholic cathedral.
But his real target — so to speak — was his new friend, Joe Stalin.
When Truman signed the National Security Act into law in 1947, he also had Stalin in mind. That statute, which established the CIA, expressly stated that it shall have no internal intelligence or law enforcement functions and all its collections of intelligence shall come from sources outside the United States.
These limiting clauses were vital to passage of the statute, as members of Congress who crafted it feared the U.S. was creating the type of internal surveillance monster that we had just confronted in Germany.
Of course, no senior official in presidential administrations from Truman to Trump has taken these limitations seriously. As recently as the Obama administration, the CIA boasted that it had the capability of receiving data from all computer chips in the homes of Americans — such as in your microwave or dishwasher.
As well as its presence in your kitchen, the CIA is physically present in all 50 state houses in America. What is it doing there?
The feds admit to funding and empowering 18 domestic intelligence agencies — spies next door. The most notorious of these is the National Security Agency, which, when it last reported, employs 60,000+ persons, mostly civilians, with military leadership.
What do they do? They spy on Americans. We know this thanks to the personal courage of Edward Snowden and others who chose to honor their oaths to uphold the Constitution. NSA spying has produced so much data that the NSA built the second-largest building in the U.S. — after the Pentagon — for use as a storage facility of the data it has collected, and it is running out of room.
What has it collected? Quite simply, everything it can get its hands on. These domestic spies have access to every keystroke and all data on every digital device everywhere in the United States, without a warrant. This is computer hacking, a federal crime; but the feds don’t prosecute the spies they have hired to spy on us.
It also represents an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the right to privacy of all persons. The operative language is “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”
The law defines all searches and seizures conducted without a warrant as unreasonable and thus violative of not only this amendment but also the uniquely American value it was enacted to protect — the right to be left alone. Surely the computer chip in every desktop, mobile device, dishwasher and microwave is an “effect” protected by the Constitution.
The spies and, sadly, the presidents for whom they have worked don’t see it that way. They have claimed in federal courts and elsewhere that the Fourth Amendment does not pertain to them because they are not law enforcement and because they work directly for the president, who, when he is operating as the commander in chief, is free to employ government assets as he wishes, without constitutional constraints.
This argument has been used to justify the CIA’s violent killings of Americans and others in foreign lands using drones and its agents dressed as military. It has justified the brutal torture of foreign nationals, even those whom the CIA deemed were being truthful during their interrogations. And, of course, it has justified ignoring the Constitution and the rights it protects and the values that underlie it.
This argument was also used to justify foreign and federal spying on Trump. Now he wants to make it easier for America’s spies to spy on the rest of us.
Spying belies the very purpose of the Constitution — to keep the government off the people’s backs. Of course, when the late Justice William O. Douglas coined that phrase, there were no computer chips, the CIA was thought to be law-abiding and the NSA didn’t exist.
So, we can see how desirous of secrecy the Trump administration was last week when it agreed to lift the zero-click embargo.
We can try to avoid commercial spyware, but how can we avoid a totalitarian government that spies on everyone?
According to the Declaration of Independence, we can do so by altering or abolishing it.
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
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