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American Airlines crew members harassed for wearing watermelon pins

Janta Ka Reporter | January 5, 2025

New York Post :

Viral video shows a Jewish American Airlines passenger tearing into a flight attendant and calling her “antisemitic” for wearing a watermelon pin, which has become a symbol for Palestinian solidarity.

Video from inside the Miami-bound plane and uploaded to social media shows the man in a heated argument with the flight attendant as he tore into her for wearing the pin and not letting him leave the plane.

“You support terrorism, you’re antisemitic,” the passenger yells. “Why are you preventing me from leaving the plane, is it because I’m Jewish? You’re antisemitic.” […]

The flight attendant and a colleague tell the man he can’t film them, according to US aviation regulations, and they also accuse him of putting his hands on them. […]

American Airlines said it was investigating the incident, which unfolded last week. The company did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

American Airlines forbids its staff from wearing unauthorized pins that are not part of the official uniform.

Escorted away video.

UPDATE:

MEMO | January 7, 2025

A Jewish passenger on American Airlines has attacked a flight attendant and called her “anti-Semitic” for wearing a watermelon pin badge, which has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

A video clip of the incident on board the Miami-bound aircraft has gone viral on social media. It showed the man in a heated argument with the flight attendant as he berated her for wearing the pin and not letting him leave the plane.

“You support terrorism, you are anti-Semitic,” shouted the passenger. “Why are you preventing me from leaving the plane, is it because I am Jewish? You are anti-Semitic.”

The flight attendant and her colleague informed the man that he could not film them, according to US aviation regulations, and accused him of putting his hands on them.

The passenger was allegedly told he was not allowed to leave until he deleted the video and had to wait for police to escort him out, but the man claimed that he was the one who called the police for help.

“Once officers came, they told them I didn’t break any laws and they are the ones breaking the law by holding me on the plane for stupidity and they still refused to let me go so the officers got really upset and took me off the plane,” said the passenger. “It was very upsetting to be treated like a criminal.”

American Airlines said that it is investigating the incident, which occurred last week.

According to the New York Post, American Airlines forbids its staff from wearing unauthorised pin badges that are not part of the official uniform. According to the company’s policy, staff are only allowed to wear company-issued pins that celebrate an anniversary or award, or a union pin from a company-recognised organisation. It also allows pins to be worn that celebrate military service as well as other specific pins celebrating religion, ethnicity or LGBTQ pride.

The airline’s staff previously made headlines over a break with this policy when pilots and flight attendants were caught wearing pins and stickers with the anti-President Biden slogan “Let’s Go Brandon” in 2022.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Top Trump Official Claims Iran Is the Problem in the Middle East, Vows Crackdown on Pro-Palestinian Protesters

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 6, 2025

The incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said the Trump administration would target Iran in the Middle East and crack down on pro-Palestian protesters in the US to support Israel.

In an interview with Mark Levin, Waltz explained the “philosophy” of the incoming administration for the Middle East. “The problems in the Middle East by and large originate from Tehran, not from Tel Aviv. We’re going to stand by and support our greatest ally in the Middle East,” he said. “We’re aligned from a national security, intelligence and values standpoint.”

Waltz described this policy as instituting a “complete philosophical, wholesale national security shift.”

“We’re going to align with our ally Israel, we’re going to realign the common interests of the Gulf Arab states with Israel in opposing Iran’s aggression, we’re going to reinstate maximum pressure, we’re going to stop them from selling their illegal oil that has been funding terrorism,” he said. Adding that the US military is “getting worn out shooting missile after missile from this ragtag bunch of Houthis. We’re going to get that under control.”

President Joe Biden has provided Israel with $22 billion in military aid since the October 7 attack. On Friday, Axios reported that Biden was planning to approve a final $8 billion arms sale to Israel. The current White House has also protected Tel Aviv at the UN Security Council and fought a war against the Houthis in Yemen to defend Israel.

Additionally, the Biden administration increased the Trump-era sanctions on Iran and refused to return to the Obama-era nuclear agreement. The White House deployed its most advanced air defense systems to Israel to protect it from a potential Iranian missile attack.

Still, Republicans in Washington and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have attacked Biden for not providing Israel with enough support. The current administration has pushed Tel Aviv to allow most aid into Gaza.

However, Tel Aviv has largely defied Washington’s requests to allow more aid into Gaza. In December aid shipments sunk to 71 trucks per day, far below the number, 500, aid agencies say is needed to prevent deaths of deprivation in Gaza. Gazan children have begun to freeze to death at night as their families shelter in tents.

CNN reports that the incoming administration will be more amenable to Israel’s policies of further restricting aid shipments to Gaza and will further cut deliveries once Trump returns to office.

Waltz went on to say the Trump administration would crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters. The US government will “look at mosques, individuals, universities, professors – you name it – that post a threat to the United States and are radicalizing individuals to harm the United States.” He continued referring to pro-Palestinian campus protesters, people “here on a student visa, with the privilege to study in our universities – you don’t get to protest and radicalize. You’re going to go back home real fast.”

Some of Trump’s America First supporters may view doubling down on US support for Israel as a violation of that policy. Waltz said he believes Trump will be convinced to follow through on the policy points he explained to Levin.

Deals, such as expanding the Abraham Accords, is “what gets President Trump so excited and that’s what makes all of these historic disagreements that have perpetuated for decades, if not centuries, smaller and smaller,” he explained.

On Monday, Trump made remarks to radio host Hugh Hewitt that would suggest Waltz is correct. “Well, I’m the best friend that Israel ever had. You look at what happened with all of the things that I’ve gotten, including Jerusalem being the capital, the embassy getting built,” he stated, adding the provision of military aid to Israel would be “uninterrupted” during his administration.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’m undeterred in my pursuit of justice against Israeli soldiers despite threats: Lawyer

By Alireza Akbari | Press TV | January 6, 2025

Maira Pinheiro, a Brazilian lawyer and human rights advocate, says she is undeterred in her pursuit of justice against Israeli soldiers vacationing in Brazil, despite receiving vile threats.

Hailing from São Paulo, Pinheiro represents the Hind Rajab Foundation, an NGO named after a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was tragically killed in Gaza City last January.

Pinheiro was engaged to represent the Brussels-headquartered foundation as a legal counsel in pursuing charges against Yuval Vagdani, accused of heinous war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

Vagdani has been accused of serious war crimes in the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.

Speaking to the Press TV website, the Brazil-based lawyer said the suspect participated in the “controlled demolition of multiple residential buildings, posed for smiling pictures, recorded videos of himself rigging houses with explosives and documented the explosion and consequently the unlawful mass destruction of civilian property.”

Pinheiro said the foundation’s investigation team had located several Palestinian families whose homes were destroyed. One family formally appointed her as their legal representative by signing a power of attorney.

The lawyer noted that she worked on documenting the digital evidence obtained through open-source intelligence investigation while preserving the chain of custody according to Brazilian law and rigorously geolocating all the mentioned places.

However, following a Brazilian court’s directive for law enforcement to investigate Vagdani, Israeli army radio confirmed that Israeli regime authorities facilitated his escape, brazenly obstructing justice and shielding him from accountability.

The Hind Rajab Foundation also corroborated this “smuggling” operation, highlighting Israel’s blatant disregard for international law and its attempt to undermine justice on South American soil.

“There are also indications that evidence is being destroyed. This is not only a scandal but an affront to Brazil’s sovereignty and rule of law. Israel has employed similar tactics before,” the foundation said in a statement, calling on Brazilian authorities to fulfill their responsibilities, protect their judicial processes, and ensure justice prevails.

“As of now, I’ve been made aware through public domain information that the suspect managed to evade Brazil and the Brazilian authorities with the aid of Israeli diplomacy,” Pinheiro stated.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian lawyer has been threatened and intimidated after taking up the case, with many threats made on Instagram purportedly by pro-Zionist lobbies.

Speaking to the Press TV website, Pinheiro said she remains unfazed by such threats.

“What motivated me to act is the fact that there’s an ongoing genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Of course, I’m afraid of what Israel and its defenders can do, but no risk I undergo comes even close to what the people of Gaza are experiencing, and my main commitment is to them.”

The Brazilian lawyer and activist described the threats to her and her daughter as “horrible.”

“The worst part is people exploiting my daughter’s image, an innocent child that has nothing to do with the work I do,” she told the Press TV website.

“There’s also a very clear misogynistic aspect to those threats and attacks, as a profound lack of respect to me as a woman exercising her profession.”

In response to these threats, Pinheiro documented hundreds of attacks and forwarded them, along with URLs, to the Brazilian authorities for necessary action.

“In Brazil, it is a crime under Article 344 of the Penal Code to threaten someone with the intent to interfere in a judicial process,” Pinheiro stated.

“It is very clear that these people intend to intimidate me to make me step away from my work. I do not intend to give them what they want and will keep on doing the same things and taking the same stances,” she hastened to add.

The Brussels-based foundation also strongly condemned the threats in a statement on Sunday.

“The #HindRajabFoundation strongly condemns the vile and cowardly attacks targeting our lawyer in Brazil, Ms. Maira Pinheiro,” wrote the foundation on X.

It added that Pinheiro’s involvement in the case against the Israeli soldier resulted in “serious threats, including threats to her life, doxxing, sexist slurs, and even threats directed toward her daughter.”

The foundation further noted that Pinheiro was simply carrying out her professional duty as part of the legal process and called for solidarity with her, particularly from the São Paulo Bar Association and the broader legal community.

“We urge everyone to stand united in support of those who courageously pursue justice despite attempts to derail accountability. Justice will prevail,” it stated.

Pinheiro, speaking to the Press TV website, said she has been following up on other cases that have not yet been formally presented to the Brazilian justice system.

According to reports, four Israeli soldiers are currently being investigated and interrogated in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Brazil, and France on charges of committing war crimes.

The Israeli daily, the Times of Israel, reported on Monday that 12 complaints have been filed against Israeli soldiers abroad over war crimes in Gaza, adding that nine of the cases have yielded arrests.

In October 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation filed a formal complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for perpetrating war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

The complaint targeted soldiers across all ranks, from high-ranking generals and air marshals to low-ranking personnel for direct involvement in genocidal war crimes in the besieged Palestinian strip.

The case was bolstered by over 8,000 pieces of evidence, including videos, audio recordings, forensic reports, and social media documentation, meticulously detailing the soldiers’ war crimes.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian lawyer also referenced her 2024 visit to occupied Palestine and her participation in the International Law Summer School by the organization Al Haq, emphasizing her commitment to the struggle for justice and the liberation of Palestine.

“I had the privilege of visiting Al Aqsa Mosque and experiencing its sacred beauty and profound meaning, and while I was there, all I could think of were the dear friends from Gaza I had the privilege to meet during this struggle, and how unfair it was that I could be there while they couldn’t. I made a commitment there to the struggle for justice and liberation of Palestine.”

She also expressed hope that “getting to know a bit of her story” would inspire people to “commit to the fight for justice and for the end of this genocide.”

The Brazilian lawyer also expressed her love and admiration for Hind, saying she means the world to her, as she saw her daughter in the 6-year-old Palestinian girl’s plea for help.

Pinheiro said her heart shattered into pieces when she learned from now-martyred journalist Ismail Al Ghoul that Hind had been murdered along with her family and the two healthcare workers who tried to rescue her.

“Hind’s voice will forever echo in my memory as a tragic representation of the suffering of the children of Gaza,” she said, recalling the tragic event when the Palestinian girl was murdered.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

No rape allegations filed from 7 October, reveals Israeli prosecutor

MEMO | January 6, 2025

Israeli authorities have admitted that no allegations of rape or sexual assault have been filed from the 7 October cross-border infiltration by Palestinian resistance factions, despite extensive investigations.

Moran Gaz, a former lead prosecutor in Israel’s Southern District Prosecutor’s Office and member of Team 7.10, disclosed the findings in an interview with Ynet. The team is responsible for cases involving captured Palestinians linked to the attacks.

Gaz stated that her department has found no evidence of sexual violence. “In the end, we don’t have any complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will eventually come together will be entirely different,” she said.

Moreover, women’s rights organisations contacted by her office also reported no cases brought to their attention. “We approached women’s rights organisations and asked for cooperation. They told us that no one had approached them,” Gaz added.

Israel’s unsubstantiated claims of mass rape by Palestinian resistance fighters have dominated global headlines, but similar accusations by Palestinians against Israeli occupation forces have received minimal attention.

In March 2023, United Nations experts had already debunked similar allegations, concluding they were either unverified or proven false. Similarly, other gruesome claims, such as babies being beheaded or burned in ovens, were widely discredited but continued to circulate in political rhetoric.

Despite the lack of evidence, Gaz has maintained hardline views, claiming that those detained in connection with the 7 October attacks “have no right to live.”

The absence of evidence has fueled skepticism about Israeli narratives surrounding the 7 October attacks, often employed to justify Israel’s ongoing military onslaught in Gaza.

The Israeli occupation army has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 45,800 people, mostly women and children, since 7 October 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on the enclave.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

The Authoritarian Legacy of Justin Trudeau

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | January 6, 2025

After nearly a decade in office, after attempts at photogenic diplomacy and tearful apologies, Justin Trudeau is stepping down as Canada’s Prime Minister, leaving behind a legacy as divisive as it is dramatic. To some, he was the poster child for progressive leadership, a leader who championed climate action and diversity while bringing Canada into the global spotlight. To others, he was an over-polished politician whose tenure was defined by censorship, economic mismanagement, and the weaponization of state power against his own citizens. His resignation marks the end of an era—one defined as much by lofty rhetoric as by policies that left a deep mark on civil liberties and public trust.

So, what’s Trudeau’s Canada after nearly ten years? A land of progressive aspirations or a dystopian Pinterest board?

Censorship: The Friendly Autocrat Edition

Few things capture Trudeau’s tenure better than his government’s legislative war on free speech. Let’s start with the dynamic duo of digital overreach:

Bill C-10: “Regulating the Unregulatable”

The saga of Bill C-10 began innocently enough. Trudeau’s government framed the bill as a noble effort to modernize the Broadcasting Act. After all, the law hadn’t been updated since 1991, back when Blockbuster was thriving and the internet was just a nerd’s dream. The goal, they said, was to “level the playing field” between traditional broadcasters and streaming giants like Netflix and YouTube.

Sounds fair, right? Not so fast.

The devil was in the details—or the lack thereof. The bill gave Canada’s broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), sweeping authority to police online content. Originally, user-generated content like vlogs, TikTok dances, or indie films were supposed to be exempt. However, midway through the legislative process, Trudeau’s government quietly removed those exemptions. Suddenly, your cat video could be classified as “broadcast content,” giving bureaucrats the power to decide whether it met Canadian cultural standards.

Critics, including legal scholars and digital rights groups, raised the alarm. They argued that the bill’s language was so vague it could allow the government to dictate what Canadians saw, shared, or created online. The specter of state-controlled algorithms choosing what gets promoted on platforms was too close to censorship for comfort.

But the government dismissed the concerns, painting critics as alarmists. In Trudeau’s Canada, wanting clear limits on government power apparently made you a conspiracy theorist.

Bill C-36: Hate Speech or Debate Killer?

Not content to merely oversee what Canadians could create, Trudeau’s administration went a step further with Bill C-36, a supposed weapon against online hate speech. If Bill C-10 was about controlling the medium, this bill was about controlling the message.

What Did It Do?

  • Reintroduced a controversial section of Canada’s Human Rights Act, allowing people to file complaints over online hate speech.
  • Allowed courts to impose hefty fines and even jail time for offenders.
  • Gave the government the power to preemptively penalize individuals suspected of potentially committing hate speech—a sort of Minority Report approach to thought crime.

The problem? The bill’s definition of “hate” was so expansive that it could potentially criminalize unpopular or offensive opinions. The bill didn’t just target clear-cut incitements to violence; it targeted anything deemed likely to expose individuals to “hatred or contempt.” Critics feared that “hatred or contempt” could mean anything from political dissent to sharp critiques of government policies.

Even more alarming was the prospect of a “snitch culture.” The bill encouraged private citizens to report each other for suspected hate speech, potentially turning disagreements into legal battles.

David Lametti, Trudeau’s Justice Minister, defended the bill, claiming it struck the right balance between free expression and protection from harm. But when legal experts and civil liberties groups united in opposition, it became clear that balance was not the government’s strong suit.

The Financial Freeze Heard ‘Round the World

The Freedom Convoy protest of 2022

The Freedom Convoy—the moment when Canada went from polite protests and Tim Hortons to frozen bank accounts and police crackdowns.

In 2022, when truckers and their supporters descended on Ottawa to protest COVID-19 mandates, Trudeau didn’t meet them with dialogue or even his trademark smile-and-wave. Instead, he dusted off the Emergencies Act, something no prime minister had dared touch before. Overnight, financial institutions became Trudeau’s personal enforcers, freezing accounts of protesters and anyone who dared to support them.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s second-in-command at the time and a walking, talking LinkedIn connection to global elites, eagerly played bad cop. Under her direction, the financial clampdown turned Canada’s banking system into a political weapon. It wasn’t lost on critics that Freeland’s cozy ties to global financiers made the whole thing look like an international crackdown on dissent.

And what of the precedent? Trudeau’s message was clear: disagree with the government, and you might lose access to your life savings. It was a masterclass in how to turn financial systems into handcuffs, leaving civil liberties in tatters.

The Media Muzzle: Subsidizing Obedience

Also on the chopping block was journalistic independence. Trudeau’s government rolled out legislation forcing media outlets to register with a government body to qualify for funding. On the surface, this was marketed as a lifeline for struggling journalism. Because nothing says “press freedom” like reporters dependent on government handouts, right? It’s a classic move: offer financial aid with one hand and hold the leash with the other.

Critics were quick to point out the slippery slope. When the same entity paying the bills also sets the rules, the line between journalism and government PR gets blurry fast. Trudeau, of course, framed this as support for democracy, but the result was a media landscape nervously eyeing its next paycheck while tiptoeing around criticism of its benefactor.

Big Brother Gets a Twitter Account

Then came the surveillance. Under Trudeau’s watch, Canadian intelligence agencies dramatically expanded their social media monitoring. Initially, this was framed as a necessary tool against extremism. But “extremism,” much like “disinformation,” is a flexible term in the hands of those in power. Activists and protest groups—voices traditionally central to democratic discourse—suddenly found themselves under the microscope.

Imagine logging onto X to vent about a new housing policy, only to realize your tweet has been flagged by a government algorithm. The message was clear: dissent might not be illegal, but it was certainly inconvenient.

Disinformation: The Government’s New Buzzword

Trudeau’s pièce de résistance was his crusade against “disinformation.” This word became the Swiss Army knife of excuses, used to delegitimize critics and corral public opinion. Do you have a bone to pick with government policies? Disinformation. Questioning pandemic mandates? Disinformation. Unimpressed with Trudeau’s latest photo op? You guessed it—disinformation.

To hammer the point home, his administration launched a series of public awareness campaigns, ostensibly to educate Canadians about the perils of online misinformation. These campaigns, dripping with paternalistic condescension, often blurred the line between fact-checking and outright propaganda. The subtext was unmistakable: dissent, even if rooted in genuine concerns, was a threat to national cohesion.

Canada’s New Normal: The Fear of Speaking Freely

The cumulative effect of these policies wasn’t subtle. Everyday Canadians began censoring themselves, not out of respect for others but out of fear of stepping on the wrong bureaucratic toes. Content creators hesitated to tackle divisive topics. Activists wondered whether their next rally would land them on a government watchlist. What was once a robust marketplace of ideas began to resemble a sparsely stocked shelf.

And yet, Trudeau’s defenders remain loyal, arguing that his policies were noble attempts to safeguard society. However, as history has repeatedly shown, the road to censorship is paved with the promise of safety, but its destination is a society too scared to speak.

The Legacy of Controlled Speech

So what’s the verdict? Is Trudeau a misunderstood guardian of democracy, or is he the wolf who prowled under the guise of a shepherd? It’s hard to champion inclusivity and diversity when fewer voices are allowed to join the conversation. Canada may someday reckon with the full implications of these policies, but the damage is already visible.

And as Canadians tiptoe around their digital platforms, one question remains: how free is a democracy where everyone whispers?

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Desperate Biden ignores precedent by arming the DPP

By Hamzah Rifaat | Al Mayadeen | January 5, 2025

US President Joe Biden is slated to make way for President-elect Donald Trump in January 2025. However, his departure is marked by abysmally low ratings domestically, which is partly due to his administration’s mishandling of “Israel’s” genocide in Palestine. Now, the disgraced President is seen desperately trying to reverse his domestic downslide by coming up with foreign policy stunts. The latest controversial stunt involves the greenlighting of military aid worth $571 million to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) separatists in Taiwan. This has once again undermined the ‘One-China principle’ that the United States adheres to, as well as the precedents set in the previous joint communiques between the two countries.

This is nothing but desperation on the part of outgoing Joe Biden who has sought to address domestic disapproval by taking measures that undermine US-China ties. This is also evidence of a myopic and narrow-minded approach, which hints at self-destruction.

With his majority lost in the US Congress, Biden is adopting foreign policy blunders amid capitulation, which should have ideally resulted in a more pragmatic and visionary approach to global affairs.

That has not been the case.

Futile attempt to deflect domestic criticism

There should be little doubt that the Biden administration’s latest authorization of military aid to the DPP is nothing but an attempt to salvage lost domestic popularity. It comes after the Democrats were comprehensively defeated by the Republicans under Donald Trump in the 2025 US elections. Surveys conducted by America’s own business intelligence company, Morning Consult, clearly indicate that the Biden administration’s net approval rating has plummeted in 45 states compared to 18 during the start of his tenure. This can be attributed to his messy withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, his mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis, and rising inflation.

Ideally, in such circumstances, embattled leaders adopt more prudent policy-making and measured rhetoric to salvage lost pride and reverse the tide of declining approval ratings. However, Joe Biden sought to greenlight $571 million worth of military aid to Taiwanese separatists who are adamant that violating China’s inevitable national reunification is the right course of action. The DPP government also has a history of threatening the sovereignty of China through nefarious activities and militarization.

As a result, Bien has adopted a self-destructive strategy as it ignores both precedent and principle vis a vis US-China relations. Also, supporting separatism both politically and militarily constitutes a violation of the UN Charter which otherwise mandates all member states to respect the sovereignty of other states and refrain from actions that constitute brazen interference. Hence, the move to militarize Taiwan is unfathomable on the part of the Biden administration as arming Taiwan violates the ‘One China Principle’ as an integral part of American foreign policy, as well as precedents enshrined in the 1979 Joint Communique between the two sides.

For someone who often presents himself as a figure with a more globalized and integrated vision than his rival, Donald Trump, Joe Biden has clearly adopted a hypocritical approach in his final days in office. His push to present himself as an alternative to the more firebrand, populist, Donald Trump and his Republican Party stands exposed as he is not pushing for increased engagement with China but is supporting separatism and ignoring historical precedents instead. Recall that the decision to greenlight more military aid has been a recurring trend under his administration given his previous approval of $2 billion of arms sales to Taiwan in October 2024 which included, for the very first time, the delivery of an advanced surface-to-air missile defense system.

Will the Biden trend be reversed?

It is therefore important for the incoming President of the United States, Donald Trump, to adopt a more principled approach on the Taiwan issue vis a vis China as this can otherwise contribute to tensions between the two sides. Failure to do so would lead to a tit-for-tat reaction as no UN member state endorses interference or brazen arming of separatists on their territory, which poses a direct threat to their state sovereignty.

China’s response to Biden’s reckless adventurism has also been a sensible one as it is in line with precedents set out in the joint communiques and the UN Charter. As stated by China’s Taiwan Office, such nefarious designs and actions by the United States ‘contradict’ its leaders’ serious commitments to not supporting Taiwanese independence. Beijing also cautioned and warned the United States to tread with utmost caution and cease arming Taiwan. Clearly, the Biden administration has failed to acknowledge this incontrovertible reality, which now puts the incoming Trump administration into the spotlight over whether the US-China relationship can move forward on amicable terms.

Regardless, Biden’s decision to arm Taiwan has shown that crass desperation in the face of declining domestic approval ratings is now guiding the United States policy toward China. The death of late Jimmy Carter who was a great friend of Beijing and worked tirelessly toward improving relations should have ideally been a wake-up call for the American leadership. The key was to build on a legacy that brought China out of isolation in the 1970s rather than seek to isolate it further by propping up the Taiwan issue.

To date, Biden has failed to understand this, and Trump is set to continue from where his predecessor left off.

China should act proactively and thwart such nefarious designs in order for it to ensure that its sovereignty remains intact.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Germany’s gun grab? Saxony-Anhalt begins disarming AfD members

Remix News | January 6, 2025

Authorities in Germany have begun withdrawing gun ownership licenses from Alternative for Germany (AfD) members, who are deemed a “danger to public safety.”

So far, five AfD members have received a notice that their gun license would be revoked, while another member voluntarily returned his license after a revocation procedure was initiated. Another 51 cases are currently being examined by authorities, according to data released by the Saxony-Anhalt Interior Ministry in response to a request for information from the Left Party.

Hunters and sport shooters will also have their gun licenses canceled by authorities. In total, there are 74 members of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt that hold a firearms license, with 49 registered as sport shooters and 25 as hunters.

The revocation of gun licenses comes after the Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s powerful domestic intelligence agency, classified the AfD as “certainly right-wing extremist.” With this designation, AfD members suddenly faced a litany of problems. For one, authorities could spy on their communications without any warrant; however, authorities could also seize their firearms, and members could also face issues with government employment.

The efforts to disarm AfD members won praise from the Left Party’s parliamentary group leader Eva von Angern.

“The first revocation notices show that, after individual examination, these people pose a threat to public safety,” she said to German news outlet Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.

As Remix News has reported in the past, the BfV has also been active designating the AfD as an extremist threat in other states such as North Rhine-Westphalia, where gun owners are also under threat of having their firearms taken away from them.

The BfV is a highly politicized intelligence agency targeting domestic “threats” to the constitutional order, while critics contend it is designed to snuff out political opposition. The agency is currently monitoring AfD members in a number of states, including tapping their phones and surveilling their internet communications, all without a warrant. Currently, their membership in the party offers enough legal grounds to target what is the second-largest party in the country.

In 2023, the Gera Administrative Court ruled that the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior cannot revoke firearms licenses of AfD members in a blanket measure; however, it left the door open for individual cases.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

US ‘Quietly’ Sent Heavy Weapons To Ukraine Well Before Invasion Started, Blinken Reveals

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 5, 2025

The United States is currently dealing with conflicts in multiple hot spots from Eastern Europe to Gaza to dealing with a collapsed Syrian state and continued standoff with Iran over its nuclear program.

But the Biden administration regrets nothing – so says Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a major end of term interview given to the NY Times and published this weekend. Among the more interesting pieces of new information from the interview is Blinken’s direct admission that Washington was covertly shipping heavy weapons to Ukraine even months before the Russian invasion of February 2022.

“We made sure that well before [Russia’s ‘special military operation’] happened, starting in September and then again in December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine,” he said in the interview published Saturday. “Things like Stingers, Javelins.”

The Kremlin at the time cited such covert transfers, which were perhaps an ‘open secret’, as justification for the invasion based on ‘demilitarizing’ Ukraine and keeping NATO military infrastructure out. Moscow had issued many warnings over its ‘red lines’ in the weeks and months leading up to the war.

Below is the full section from the NY Times interview transcript where Blinken boasts of the pre-invasion transfers:

QUESTION:  You made two early strategic decisions on Ukraine.  The first – because of that fear of direct conflict – was to restrict Ukraine’s use of American weapons within Russia.  The second was to support Ukraine’s military offensive without a parallel diplomatic track to try and end the conflict.  How do you look back on those decisions now?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So first, if you look at the trajectory of the conflict, because we saw it coming, we were able to make sure that not only were we prepared, and allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared.  We made sure that well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September – the Russian aggression happened in February.  Starting in September and then again in December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defended themselves – things like Stingers, Javelins that they could use that were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kyiv, from rolling over the country, erasing it from the map, and indeed pushing the Russians back.

Blinken claims elsewhere in the interview that the Biden White House kept diplomacy going the whole time, and tried to engage Moscow, but explains that this basically involved keeping the Western allies and backers of Kiev unified and on the same track.

Interestingly when asked about whether its time to end the war, Biden’s top diplomat basically dodged the question…

QUESTION:  Do you think it’s time to end the war, though?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  These are decisions for Ukrainians to make.  They have to decide where their future is and how they want to get there.  Where the line is drawn on the map, at this point, I don’t think is fundamentally going to change very much.  The real question is:  Can we make sure that Ukraine is a position to move forward strongly?

QUESTION:  You mean use – that the areas that Russia controls you feel —

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  In —

QUESTION:  — will have to be ceded?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Ceded is not the question.  The question is – the line as a practical matter in the foreseeable future is unlikely to move very much.  Ukraine’s claim on that territory will always be there.  And the question is:  Will they find ways – with the support of others – to regain territory that’s been lost?

Blinken in the above essentially gives his view that no… it is not time to end the war, despite the majority of the war-weary publics in Europe and the US thinking the opposite. There’s some evidence that much or most of the common Ukrainian populace wants it to end as fast as possible as well.

Ultimately, with the world now on the brink of WW3, it’s clear this White House regrets nothing, which even the title of the interview piece strongly suggests: Antony Blinken Insists He and Biden Made the Right Calls. But we think history will not look kindly.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

New York On The March To Climate Utopia

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | January 2, 2025

In a post a couple of weeks ago on December 21, I observed that the country of Germany appeared to have won the race among all countries and states to be the first to hit the “Green Energy Wall.” Its pursuit of the “renewable” wind and solar electricity fantasy has put it in a spot where regular wind/sun droughts cause huge electricity price spikes, and major industries have become uncompetitive. It has no solution to its dead end, and can go no farther.

If Germany has “hit the wall,” what is the appropriate analogy for New York? New York passed its Climate Act with great fanfare in 2019. The Act orders that we are to have a “net zero” energy system by 2050, with interim deadlines along the way. The first serious deadline arrives in 2030, where the official mandate is 70% of electricity generation from “renewables” (aka “70 x 30”). That deadline is now just five years away. Within the past year, all the efforts to move toward the 70 x 30 goal are falling apart, as anybody who had given the subject any critical thought knew that they inevitably would. But nobody in authority has yet been willing to acknowledge that this has turned into a farce.

Here’s my analogy: New York is like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, who has run off the cliff and is now suspended in mid-air, apparently not knowing what will happen next.

We know what’s next: shortly, he will crash to earth.

Consider a few data points:

Off-shore wind procurement

The Scoping Plan developed under the Climate Act calls for some 9000 MW of offshore wind by 2035. People with elementary-school-level arithmetic skills knew that this amount of intermittent generation would not be nearly enough to replace the amounts of dispatchable generation set to close; but maybe this would at least be a serious start. By early 2023, it was reported that some 4300 MW out of the 9000 MW were in “active development,” with wholesale prices having been agreed to with developers in the range of $100/MWh.

But then reality started to hit. In this post on October 15, 2023 I reported that “essentially all” of the developers of the 4300 MW of off-shore wind in “active development” had backed out and demanded price increases in the range of 30 – 50% to proceed. New York rejected that maneuver, but ultimately had no option other than to re-bid the contracts and get bids in the range that the developers were demanding.

On February 29, 2024, the State announced that it had accepted re-bids for two of the projects in question, for a total of only about 1700 MW and at a price of over $150 per MWh. (This level of price would require retail electricity prices in the range of at least $0.40 per kWh and would be completely uneconomic if it were to become the norm for New York electricity production.).

Meanwhile, the remainder of the offshore wind procurement appears to be in complete disarray. On April 19, E&E News reported that New York had canceled efforts on three of its big offshore wind development areas, Attentive Energy, Community Offshore Wind, and Excelsior Wind. These three, had they proceeded, would have totaled about 4000 MW out of the 9000 MW 2035 goal. Excerpt:

New York canceled power contracts for three offshore wind projects Friday, citing a turbine maker’s plans to scrap its biggest machines. The news is a heavy blow to the U.S. offshore wind industry and a major setback for the climate ambitions of New York — and President Joe Biden. The three projects would have delivered 4 gigawatts of offshore wind to the state, amounting to almost half of New York’s 2035 goal.

At this point nobody has any idea how to get large amounts of offshore wind developed around New York at a price anybody is willing to pay. And of course, nobody has a solution to the intermittency problem either.

Green hydrogen

The New York regulators have recognized that a de-carbonized and predominantly wind/solar electricity generation system will require something called the “dispatchable emissions-free resource,” or DEFR, to make it work. The best idea that anybody has for the DEFR is so-called “green” hydrogen, that is, hydrogen produced by some non-emitting system, like wind, solar, or hydro.

Currently, only negligible amounts of green hydrogen are produced in the world, and none in New York. But somehow, New York got the idea that it could make this work. Two green hydrogen facilities have been granted state subsidies and are supposedly under way. One is being developed by a company called Plug Power, and is at an industrial park called STAMP west of Rochester; and the other is being developed by Air Products at Massena, on the St. Lawrence River. Both of these facitilities are almost comically small relative to the amounts of hydrogen that would be needed to fully back up New York’s electricity generation in a world of mostly wind and solar generation. But at least they would be something.

On October 18, the Batavian reported that the Plug Power hydrogen facility was “on pause.” Excerpt:

Chris Suozzi, VP for business and workforce development at the Genesee County Economic Development Center, reportedly told a Washington, D.C.-based commercial real estate firm that Plug Power’s STAMP project is on hold. . . . “They’re not ready to go,” Suozzi reportedly said. “They’re on pause. We don’t know what’s going to happen with them at this point.”

The pausing or cancellation of a green hydrogen project should surprise no one. The past year has seen major cancellations of much larger such projects by big players like Australia’s Fortescue and Origin. The fact is that the cost of producing green hydrogen is a large multiple of the cost of getting natural gas out of the ground for the same energy content, besides which natural gas is a much superior fuel in every way (higher energy density, easier to handle, less corrosive, less subject to leaks, far less dangerous and explosive, etc.). Meanwhile, the developer of the STAMP green hydrogen project, Plug Power, reported as its results for the third quarter of 2024 a loss of $211 million on revenues of $174 million. They are hoping for a loan from the federal Department of Energy to keep themselves going. I wonder what Chris Wright is going to think about that.

The Air Products facility in Massena plans to use hydro power from a dam on the St. Lawrence to produce its hydrogen. Excuse me? The hydro power is already dispatchable. How can it possibly make any sense to use dispatchable electricity to produce hydrogen whose purpose is to make dispatchable electricity? At least about 40% of the energy is going to get lost on the round trip from electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity. It simply has to be that there is a better use for the St. Lawrence River hydro power than turning it into hydrogen and then using the hydrogen. But nothing here makes any sense.

Clean Path Transmission Line

Another key facility to make renewable energy work for New York was supposed to be the Clean Path transmission line. This is a proposed 175-mile high-capacity (4 GW) transmission line to bring to New York City and the downstate region power generated at various new “renewable” (wind and solar) facilities being developed in the northern and western parts of the state. The stated cost of this major project was to be $11 billion.

On November 27, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority informed the Public Service Commission that the Clean Path project had been canceled. Here is a copy of the NYSERDA letter. Here is a piece from Utility Dive on December 3 about the cancellation.

I don’t find any discussion about the reasons for the cancellation, but it has to be that the developers figured out the the economics did not work. Here’s the problem: because wind and solar generators only work about 20-40% of the time, this enormously expensive transmission line would not be operated at anywhere near its capacity. Likely, it would only average about one-third of capacity. That means, compared to a line that operates at or near 100% of capacity, its charges for transmission would be about triple.

The cancellation of this line has only occurred within the past month, and I haven’t seen anything about plans for a re-bid or an alternative strategy. So far, nobody is saying “this can’t possibly work.” But no matter how you approach the problem, the cost of transmitting intermittent wind and solar power from far upstate to New York City is going to be around triple the cost of transmitting power from a natural gas plant that runs nearly all the time.

So here we are, suspended up in the air, and nobody seems to realize that we will shortly crash to earth. Everybody involved is trying to milk the last dollars out of the taxpayers before the crash hits.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

The 2050 Net Zero Climate Scam

By William Levin | American Thinker | December 29, 2024

Twenty fifty is the official date for net zero emissions. According to the experts, it is the last chance to stop a catastrophic rise in temperature. The leading source for climate change science, the U.N. IPCC, says so. Corporations run commercials helpfully informing the public that net zero is a top priority. Few can outdo Delta Air Lines, which promises compliance using “a fully sustainable long-haul aircraft [that] has yet to be invented.”

The urgency is palpable and the science compelling. Humanity itself is at risk without net zero CO2 and non-CO2 emissions.

Politically, 2050 is the ideal climate date because it is close enough to justify immediate action, and just far enough as to be unprovable for climate disaster.

For a science so settled and a date so specific, there must exist a wealth of data scientifically supporting the hypothesis that 25 years from now marks a deadline and turning point for the Earth’s future.

An A.I. query provides the answer:

The target year 2050 for achieving carbon neutrality is primarily driven by scientific consensus and international agreements aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Paris Agreement outline that reaching net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 is crucial to avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.

A.I. is correct that the IPCC and the signatories of the Paris Agreement are the parties responsible for promoting 2050 net zero.  But who exactly are these organizations, and do they deserve our trust?

The IPCC is a political body consisting of 195 member-governments, charged with providing assessments in support of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. In theory, the IPCC mandate is to collect the best available climate science. The IPCC expressly commits that its “reports should be neutral with respect to policy.” And by its own admission, “the IPCC does not conduct its own research.” Its role is to summarize the objective science.

The signatories to the Paris Agreement are likewise 195 nations convened under the auspices of the U.N.  But unlike the IPCC, the Paris Agreement signatories make no pretense to being a scientific body, and indeed, no one is confused on this point. The signatories are a political body and the Paris Agreement a purely political document.

With an overlapping membership, it should come as no surprise that the two organizations coordinate their efforts.  In the process, the IPCC has become the loudest and most strident advocate for existential change in human activity.  In the latest IPCC report, deepening red gradient shadings convey that the Earth is a looming inferno.

According to the IPCC, the danger of imminent collapse due to rising CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, particularly methane, requires immediate action. Humanity must downsize and restructure the global economy, including, in their modest terminology, “governments, private sector, and civil society.” Everyone is responsible, and everyone must contribute.

Not only must GDP be lowered, but the world must immediately and drastically curtail fossil fuels; limit global agriculture output based on emissions, not feeding the world; spend and redistribute upwards of $125 trillion; rely on expensive, unreliable, discredited solar and wind for global power needs; and virtually ignore nuclear power, all the while “prioritizing equity, climate justice, social justice, inclusion and just transition processes.” To make the math work, governments and the private sector must implement on a global scale yet-to-exist carbon capture technologies, of unknown cost and consequence.

There is no imputation here that climate science is not real. It is the political choices of the IPCC at issue, specifically the 2023 Sixth Assessment’s Summary for Policymakers, as opposed to the physical scientists reporting as Working Group 1. As summarized by scientist Roger Pielke, “it is not within the IPCC’s mandate to call for action or to implore urgency.”

The IPCC task is to vet and summarize thousands of complex models and scientific papers produced annually. In each instance, a climate model incorporates assumptions not easily aggregated. The IPCC solution groups the models into five arbitrary scenarios based on forecasted warming in 2100. At no point does the IPCC ever declare one set of scenarios more likely than another.  Indeed, as aggregators, they have no scientific basis for making any such assertion. In these scenarios, 2050 does not exist as a scientifically significant year. It is simply a point on the curve connecting the current temperature to the 2100 end point.

To get to 2050, and urgency, the IPCC needs to import the political findings of the Paris Agreement.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement signatories reviewed the then most current IPCC report, the 5th Assessment. These 195 government actors arbitrarily concluded that “well below 2 degrees Celsius” of warming was the maximum threshold the Earth could survive. Nothing in the IPCC 5th Assessment supports the “well below 2 degree warming” as a scientific consensus. No IPCC evidence identifies a scientific threshold for global warming beyond which the Earth tips into collapse. Especially relevant, the signatories to the Paris Agreement in no manner highlighted 2050 as a year of special climate meaning, nor would it matter, scientifically speaking, if they had.  Following the 5th Assessment, the Paris Agreement target date is merely a “long-term temperature goal,” with one reference to “the second half” of the century.

The Paris Agreement signatories went farther, deciding by imperial fiat that the temperature goal needed a guardrail, the now infamous, endlessly repeated 1.5-degree-warming “limit.” In popular parlance, many, many people will swear that 1.5 degrees of warming is a scientifically valid statement of the limit to global warming, beyond which climate catastrophe ensues.

As important to note, all IPCC warming targets, including the Paris Agreement, start from the pre-industrial period 1850–1900. According to the IPCC, 1.1 degrees of warming has already occurred, meaning the Paris Agreement target at present is a mere 0.4 degrees over 75 years to the IPCC 2100 model date. This equates to an imperceptible 0.005 degrees of annual warming — hardly the stuff of headlines and catastrophic collapse.  And nothing compared to the 10 degrees of warming observed in the Earth’s last interglacial warm period in Siberia some 115,000 to 130,000 years ago.

It needs to be said as loudly as possible. The 1.5-degree climate tipping limit has no basis in any finding of the IPCC. It is the arbitrary finding of 195 political actors, in defense of the non-scientific “well below 2 degree” catastrophe, magically transported by the IPCC from 2100 to 2050.

How does the IPCC move the climate clock back 50 years, in violation of its 2100 science? By intentional sleight of hand, the IPCC provides a science answer to a policy question. How much CO2 can be emitted before the 1.5-degree target is breached? The sole source of the 1.5 degrees is the Paris Agreement.

Pro-IPCC climate scientists confirm that the global warming limit, whether it be 1.5 degrees from the Paris Agreement or some other number, is based solely on “value judgments and choice,” not “climate science.” (See page 7 chart.) The IPCC would have readers believe the exact opposite: that the global warming limit is scientifically determined, and those who disagree are “science deniers.” It is a deception of massive consequence.

Twenty fifty, as it turns out, is a long con between 195 governments and the IPCC.

As part of his Day One actions, President Trump needs to, once again, remove the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and disavow the overtly political IPCC Sixth Assessment Summary for Policymakers. The IPCC global prescription is not scientific, and it most certainly is not benign.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Raping Palestinians: Israel’s weapon of war

MEMO | December 29, 2024

During the summer of 2024, horrifying details began to emerge of Israeli occupation forces raping Palestinians they had detained. While revelations from Sde Teiman prison stirred debates both in Israel and abroad, the use of rape and sexual violence against Palestinians can be traced back to 1948. Tel Aviv has used sexual violence to torture, coerce, intimidate and break Palestinians for generations. MEMO looks into the systematic use of rape by Israel against Palestinians.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Climate Bombshell: New Evidence Reveals 30 Year Global Drop in Hurricane Frequency and Power

By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | January 4, 2025

Last month a small but powerful cyclone named Chido made landfall in Mayotte before sweeping into Mozambique, causing considerable damage and leading to the loss of around 100 lives. Days after the tragedy, the Green Blob-funded Carbon Brief noted that scientists have “long suggested” that climate change is making cyclones worse in the region, while Blob-funded World Weather Attribution (WWA) at Imperial College London made a near-instant and curiously precise estimate that a Chido-like cyclone was about 40% more likely to happen in 2024 than during the pre-industrial age. Not to be outdone, Green Blob-funded cheerleader the Guardian chipped in with the obligatory “cyclones are getting worse because of the climate emergency”. Almost unnoticed, it seems, among all the Net Zero dooming and grooming was a science paper published during December by Nature that found no increase in the destructive power of cyclones – the generic term for typhoons and hurricanes – in any ocean basin over the last 30 years. In the South Indian basin, the location of cyclone Chido, there was a dramatic decrease in both frequency and duration in recent times.

Reality rarely gets much of a look-in these days when fanatical Net Zero activism is afoot, but the paper, written by a group of Chinese meteorologists, makes its case by considering the facts and the data. The scientists apply a “power dissipation index” (PDI) which they consider superior to single measure indicators since it combines storm intensity, duration and frequency. The graphs below show the cumulative index for tropical cyclones across all ocean basins along with a global indication.

Downward trends in the cumulative PDI can be seen in a number of Pacific regions, while the trend holds steady in the North Atlantic. The southern Indian ocean downward trend is particularly pronounced while the overall global line is also heading in a similar direction.

So why does all this scientific twaddle get written by the  green activists in mainstream media? Much of it arises from the new pseudoscience that claims it can tie individual weather events to human-caused climate change. Press releases peddling climate Armageddon are issued days after a natural disaster and are eagerly reprinted by activist journalists promoting the Net Zero fantasy. The distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jr. is a fierce critic of this new pseudoscience, which he calls weather attribution alchemy. In a recent Substack post in the aftermath of Chido, he noted that the WWA at Imperial College simply assumes the conclusion that it seeks to prove by accepting that every storm is made stronger because of warmer oceans. Using this explanation, continues Pielke, it is straightforward to conclude that the storm was made more likely due to climate change. Or as Imperial states: “The difference in the storm intensity and likelihood of this storm intensity between the counterfactual climate and today’s climate can be attributed to climate change.”

As the new Chinese paper shows, the matter is not quite so simple. Pielke notes that tropical storms encounter numerous environmental influences such as vertical wind shear and storm-induced ocean surface cooling, even when they remain over warmer waters. “Such complexities mean that simple storyline attribution – warmer oceans predictably mean stronger storms – is inappropriate when used to characterise the behaviour of individual storms,” he argues. Pielke also comes down hard on the statistical evidence backing the WWA claims. Even if storms such as Chido were more likely in the future, it would take a very long time to detect a significant change using the threshold 90% confidence set down by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And by very long time, he means thousands of years.

“Perhaps that is why assumptions are favoured over evidence,” suggests Pielke.

There were plenty of assumptions on display in a now routine end-of-year weather report from the BBC headed: ‘A year of extreme weather that challenged billions.‘ Written by Esme Stallard, it claims that record-breaking heat brought extreme weather including hurricanes and month-long droughts. Pride of place is given to Dr. Friederike Otto, lead of WWA and Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Imperial, who claimed: “We are living in a dangerous new era – extreme weather caused unrelenting suffering.” “The impacts of fossil fuel warming has never been clear or more devastating than in 2024,” she added.

The redoubtable Paul Homewood is unimpressed with Stallard’s opening line about increasing extreme weather and has filed a complaint with the BBC. Stallard goes on to list a handful of random events, “but fails to provide any evidence that these are anything other than natural events which happen all the time”, states Homewood. “Nor is any evidence provided that such events have been getting more frequent or extreme over time,” he adds.

The BBC story highlighted typhoons in the Philippines as well as hurricane Beryl and stated that such events may be increasing in intensity due to climate change. Official data do not show any evidence of them becoming more powerful over time, notes Homewood. Much play was made of a recent drought in the Amazon, but Homewood points out that the World Bank Climate Portal reveals that rainfall has increased in the area by 5% over the last 30 years. Throughout the report, observes Homewood, the BBC bases its claims on weather attribution computer models. “However, computer models are not evidence, and can be manipulated to provide whatever results are desired. That is why they are widely derided by the wider scientific community,” he states.

For Roger Pielke, extreme weather attributions are “puzzling”. The most charitable explanation for their proliferation is that there is a demand for them, including from many in the media. The demand will be filled by someone, he concludes. “A less charitable explanation is that there is a systematic effort underway to contest and undermine actual climate science, including the assessments of the IPCC, in order to present a picture of reality that is simply false in support of climate advocacy. We might call that pseudo-scientific gaslighting,” he suggests.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment