UK’s Online Censorship Law Drives Small Websites to Shut Down
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 19, 2024
The UK’s sweeping online censorship law – the Online Safety Act – that will be enforced from March of next year is already claiming its first victims.
The new legislative landscape in the country is now not providing any kind of safety for hundreds of small websites, including non-profit forums, that will have to shut down, unable to comply with the act – specifically, faced with what reports refer to as “disproportionate personal liability.”
The fines go up to the equivalent of USD 25 million, while the law also introduces new criminal offenses.
Earlier in the week, the act’s enforcer, Ofcom, published dozens of measures that online services are supposed to implement by March 16, including naming a person responsible – and accountable – for making sure a site or platform complies.
The law is presented as a new way to efficiently tackle illegal content, and in particular, provide new ways to ensure the safety of children online, including by age verification (“age checking”).
Opponents, however, reject it as “a censor’s charter” designed to force companies to step up monitoring and censorship on their platforms, including by scanning private communications and undermining encryption.
But another way that concrete harm can be done to the online ecosystem, while declaratively seeking to prevent harm, is now emerging with the example of small and community sites, where those running them are unwilling to take on the massive risk related both to the fines, and criminal responsibility in case they fail to “moderate” according to the act’s provisions.
UK press reports about one of the first examples of this, as the non-profit free hosting service Microcosm and its 300 sites – among them community hubs and forums dedicated to topics like cycling and tech – will go down in March, unable to live up to the “disproportionately high personal liability.”
“It’s too vague and too broad and I don’t want to take that personal risk,” Microcosm’s Dee Kitchen is quoted.
Although the general impression has been that only large corporate services will be affected by the law, in reality requirements and penalties for them are higher, but Ofcom made it clear that “very small micro businesses” are also subject to the legislation.
Microcosm’s decision illustrates what that will look like in practice, as sites – big and small – consider finding hosting overseas, or even leaving the UK market.
How the Captive Media Divides Us
By Thomas Eddlem | The Libertarian Institute | December 19, 2024
Most political differences in America today aren’t a result of moral differences, or even policy opinions. Rather, they are generated by divergent media consumption. There’s a huge difference between those whose news comes primarily from the corporate Big Five (CBS-Viacom, ABC-Disney, NBC-Universal, Fox-NewsCorp, and CNN-TimeWarner) and that handful of midsize legacy publications like PBS, The New York Times and Washington Post, than from those who get their news from independent media.
While the independent media can be inaccurate, it’s often when they contradict themselves. On the other hand, when the Big Five and its satellites are inaccurate, it’s typically in union, as a bloc, and always in defense of the Washington establishment.
I could detail one hundred of these blatant lies spun by the unified, corporate media over the past two decades, but for purposes of brevity let’s take a quick look at just ten widely reported lies in three sentences or less (and I’ll include extra links to news stories with the same false take, to total five sources for each story), refuted by primary sources or recanted by these same establishment media organs.
- Lie #1: Wearing cloth masks helps prevent COVID. “Public health messages should target audiences not wearing cloth face coverings and reinforce positive attitudes, perceived norms, personal agency, and physical and health benefits of obtaining and wearing cloth face coverings consistently and correctly,” the CDC inveighed on July 17, 2020, even though the same report acknowledged “widespread use of cloth face coverings has not been studied among the U.S. population.” The captive media dutifully lectured the public (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about the alleged benefits of cloth masks in preventing COVID, even though the CDC had just re-published a meta-study of all nineteen public scientific studies of mass masking in May 2020 which concluded there was no scientific benefit for mass public cloth masking. And a giant study by Yale and Stanford researchers in Bangladesh in 2021 confirmed the earlier research, finding a very small benefit in wearing surgical masks “but see no statistically significant effect for cloth masks.”
- Lie #2: Donald Trump is a Russian spy. “A New Report Adds Evidence That Trump Was a Russian Asset,” a Slate.com headline blared in 2021, adding in the subtitle, “He helped Putin manipulate the U.S. election in 2020, as he did in 2016” (2, 3, 4, 5). But the reality is that the Durham Report of the special prosecutor concluded on May 12, 2023 that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” and found the entire affair was devoid of evidence and had been a joint operation between the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and friendly senior FBI officials, spread by a compliant media.
- Lie #3: COVID vaccines have no serious side effects. “No serious safety concerns were found in the clinical trials of the vaccines that have been authorized for use in the United States,” FactCheck.org claimed on March 4, 2021 (2, 3, 4, 5), but within months the same “fact-checker” site had amended its claim to include deadly reactions in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (later pulled from the market for these reasons) and several serious side effects including myocarditis from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Likewise, the CDC has now published a long list of side effects, including myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and anaphylaxis.
- Lie #4: Russia put bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan. “American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan—including targeting American troops,” New York Times reporter Charlie Savage claimed on June 26, 2020, in the heat of the election campaign, adding that President Trump “has yet to authorize any step” to counter it (2, 3, 4, 5). But, after the election, even NBC News admitted the whole story was fake from the beginning, as did other establishment-controlled outlets that echoed Biden administration admissions of the lack of proof for the highly politicized claim.
- Lie #5: Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. “More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter,” Politico claimed of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, “outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’” (2, 3, 4, 5). But the reality is the FBI testified under oath that the laptop story, which was suppressed on Facebook, Twitter and other social media before the election, was legitimate all along. And a congressional investigation revealed the “Russian disinformation” story was a result of the Joe Biden presidential campaign colluding with senior CIA officials.
- Lie #6: Donald Trump said there were “good people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally. “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides’” blared the headline in The Atlantic, adding “The president backtracked from his remarks on Charlottesville just a day earlier” (2, 3, 4, 5). Even the fact-checkers observed this claim that Trump’s “both sides” quote was false from the start, and that the “both sides” quote was about a totally different topic, though establishment organs continue to repeat the lie to this day.
- Lie #7: Donald Trump said Liz Cheney should face a firing squad. “Now he’s talking about a firing squad,” Joe Scarborough ranted on MSNBC, on November 4, 2024, “for a Republican who is long ranked as one of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, DC” (2, 3, 4, 5). But Trump did no such thing. He simply called former Congresswoman Cheney a chicken-hawk, saying she’d have a less bellicose worldview if she were on the front lines. This is why the fact-check sites quickly called out this lie, and even uber chicken-hawk Jonah Goldberg had to recant the same claim as Scarborough.
- Lie #8: Hamas decapitated dozens of babies on October 7. “Dozens of babies were reportedly found dead, including some that had been beheaded,” NBC reported, “in an Israeli kibbutz Tuesday after the terrorist organization Hamas stormed the community” (2, 3, 4, 5). The reality that emerged from the widely spread story of Israeli propaganda was that no babies were beheaded, according to a France 24 investigation that looked through the names of the victims of the terrorist attack several weeks later, though one ten-month-old baby was killed by gunshot wounds in the combat crossfire.
- Lie #9: Joe Biden is in the best shape of his life and sharp as a tack. “F you if you can’t handle the truth,” Joe Scarborough lashed out on MSNBC on March 5, 2024, “This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever” (2, 3, 4, 5). Progressive YouTuber Matt Orfalea did a nice compilation of how official Washington dutifully recited the lines from the “sharp as a tack” talking points memos circulated by the DNC. But the reality was admitted almost universally after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump, ending talk about “cheap fakes.” CNN and the Associated Press published stories in July admitting the media ran cover for “forgetful” Biden as they tried to ramp up pressure to unceremoniously dump the winner of all the Democratic primaries that year and replace him with Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August.
- Lie #10: Internet censorship was just corporations being responsible. “Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account on Friday,” NBC news reported January 8, 2021, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” and not mentioning that the decision was based on extraordinary pressure from the FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The removal of the sitting president of the United States from social media and many other prominent people was widely reported as entirely a corporate decision across the establishment media spectrum (2, 3, 4, 5). But the #TwitterFiles revealed these decisions were primarily the result of government pressure and not organic corporate decisions, with the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in Missouri v. Biden that the censored plaintiffs “presented extensive evidence of escalating threats—both public and private—by government officials aimed at social-media companies concerning their content-moderation decision.”
These lies help explain why independent media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, a comedian with a microphone, regularly get more than twenty million viewers for two-hour interviews with few commercials while CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, with their billion-dollar studios and networks, rarely crack one million viewers with their forty-four minutes of content in an hour. The American people no longer trust what I’ve come to label the “captive media,” and consume far more independent media content. The captive media can call Trump a rapist, a fascist, a threat to democracy, and, as the November election revealed, most Americans will simply no longer believe their claims.
And the #TwitterFiles reveal why the media organs pushing official lies are best labeled the “captive media” and not the mainstream media, legacy media or the corporate media. They have been captured by the U.S. intelligence agencies, often with dozens or even hundreds of “former” intelligence officers in place on-air and on staff.
The American national mental health crisis that emerged as a result of Trump’s election in 2024 was entirely one-sided; the people who raged like infants on social media and said Trump voters were horrible people were limited to those who digested nothing but captive Media outlets like CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the censorious Big Tech companies.
Why is it only the Democrats who are saying they can’t have Thanksgiving dinner with their family? Why didn’t Republicans have the same reaction after their loss to Joe Biden in 2020? Although many Republicans who watch Fox News did avoid Thanksgiving as a result of fear-mongering over the COVID vaccine skepticism.
Part of the answer to the question “Why just the Democrats?” is the structure of the media which political partisans consume. Democrats consume media solely within the FBI, CIA, ODNI matrix that the #TwitterFiles revealed to the public and rarely or never encounter media that contradicts the official narrative being sold. Google searches, like Facebook and most other social media, are curated by precisely the same intelligence agencies. So it’s possible for Democrats to live entirely within the captive media echo chamber (even as they earnestly believe they are getting “both sides” by listening to Republican Senator Lindsay Graham talk about Israeli babies being slaughtered on October 7 or former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney talk about Trump as a Putin asset) and assume that anyone with a heterodox opinion gets his information from some sketchy “dark web.” Republicans get a slightly different take with Fox News, and more importantly have trended toward relying progressively less on the captive media.
Republicans and independents hear something other than the captive media narrative.
The captive media echo chamber can occasionally be bipartisan, however. Back in 2020, in the throes of the COVID hysteria, Fox News viewers were also running around like fools with cloth masks on, viewing family members as ambulatory disease vectors, and judging those who took rational risks (or in the case of the experimental vaccine on young people who were getting myocarditis, avoided risks rationally) as bad or selfish persons.
Many Democrats are increasingly engaged in classic cult-like behavior as a result of the captive media drumbeat. “If you are going into a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you,” Dr. Amanda Calhoun of Yale University told ABC’s The View, “it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why.” The idea that Democrats should separate themselves from family and friends because they have different political opinions has become widespread in the captive media (2, 3, 4, 5). And it’s part of the very definition of cultish behavior, which includes when “subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends.”
The way to bring your friends and family out of the cult of the captive media matrix is to cut cable television out of your home, and to track the lies of the captive media and discuss them with family and friends as they’re exposed and recanted. Nobody likes being lied to.
Many of these captive media organs are engaging in a campaign against “disinformation” (as a ruse to resume government social media censorship), and this can be used to the advantage of people trying to rescue friends and family from the cult. Explaining in detail how the captive media reliably lies on behalf of the military-industrial-complex, the intelligence community and Big Pharma can bring them out as it has brought hundreds of millions of others out of the captive media matrix already.
Ukrainians welcome in Russia – Putin
RT | December 19, 2024
The number of ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia is at least the same as that in Ukraine itself, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, discussing Moscow’s repatriation programs.
”We welcome them,” Putin said of the Ukrainian diaspora during his marathon year-end Q&A session. “Those are people of our culture, part of our people in essence.”
Millions of Ukrainians chose Russia when they fled their home country amid the conflict between the two nations or voted in referendums to break away from Kiev and ask Moscow to accept their regions under its sovereignty, Putin explained.
Five former Ukrainian regions have done so since the Western-backed armed coup in Kiev in 2014. Crimea joined Russia the same year and now constitutes two federal subjects: the city of Sevastopol and the Republic of Crimea. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Kherson Region, and Zaporozhye Region became parts of Russia in late 2022. Kiev has refused to acknowledge their new status, which serves as one of the focal points of the current hostilities.
Putin previously stated that Ukrainians and Russians are brotherly peoples and that Moscow considers only the government in Kiev, which it calls an illegitimate regime, as an enemy. On Thursday, Putin used the Russian idiom “folk without kin or tribe” to describe those currently in charge in Ukraine.
The president mentioned Ukrainians when discussing the policy which offers preferential treatment to certain groups of foreign nationals who want to become Russian citizens. Ukrainians are one of the categories that enjoy such privileges.
Assassination of Russian general catches attention of Indonesian media
Kirillov’s reports on Washington’s illegal biological research had previously inspired Jakarta to shut down а US biolab
RT | December 19, 2024
The assassination of Igor Kirillov, the commander of the Russian Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, has been covered by Indonesian media. The general had played a key role in unveiling covert US biological research programs in Southeast Asia.
Kirillov and his aide were murdered in an explosion in Moscow on Tuesday. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), which had previously labeled the general as an “absolutely legitimate target” for assassination, claimed responsibility for the attack.
During his time as the commander of the military branch responsible for protecting troops and civilians from chemical and biological weapons, Kirillov had on numerous occasions reported on Washington’s biolabs in various parts of the world, primarily in Ukraine. However, he has also pointed to other similar facilities in other countries, including Indonesia.
In his report in 2022, Kirillov specifically mentioned the US Navy’s NAMRU 2 lab in Jakarta, claiming that it had been used to conduct suspicious biological research in Indonesia up until it was closed in 2010 after the Indonesian Health Ministry designated it as a “threat to Indonesia’s sovereignty.”
Kirillov’s report prompted Indonesian media to launch their own investigations into US biological research in the country. In April 2022, the Detik news outlet released a report suggesting that, despite the lab ban, the US had continued conducting illegal research in the country under the cover of military exercises.
According to documents obtained by the outlet, in 2016, American naval surgeons performed operations on 23 local patients on board the USNS Mercy hospital ship without coordination with Indonesia’s Ministry of Health. US military personnel were also alleged to have secretly exported blood samples taken from dozens of Indonesian patients and transported three rabid dogs from Padang – an area where rabies is endemic – without Jakarta’s permission. Local health officials also told Detik that the Americans had wanted to obtain samples of the dengue fever virus from local mosquitoes.
As for NAMRU 2, the lab was closed after then-Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari raised concerns over the facility’s operations and questioned its efficacy. Speaking to RT’s Indonesian Bureau Chief, Denis Bolotsky, in 2022, she noted that the results of the lab, which had been operating for nearly 40 years and was supposedly focused on studying malaria and tuberculosis, “were not significant.”
Supari’s attempts to close the NAMRU lab had reportedly become a big problem for Washington, which, according to memos leaked by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks in 2010, held multiple meetings on the issue and discussed ways to “manage” the minister and pressure her into keeping the facility open.
Ukrainian security services raid government quarter
RT | December 18, 2024
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said on Wednesday it had conducted a routine “counter-sabotage” raid in the government quarter of Kiev.
The operation was carried out by the SBU in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, namely the civilian National Police and military police.
The SBU outlined the goal of the raid as “checking the counter-sabotage protection” of the area, as well as the safety of “persons eligible to state-level security.”
Law enforcement officers inspected the grounds and buildings in the quarter, including of public institutions and residential areas, searching for unspecified “prohibited items.” People who happened to be present were subjected to random checks.
“The SBU asks citizens to be understanding about possible inconveniences and to respond appropriately to lawful actions and demands of law enforcement officers, to have identification documents with them, as well as to observe the curfew,” the agency announced.
It was not immediately clear whether the raid had yielded practical results or whether any “prohibited items” had been discovered or suspicious individuals apprehended.
The maneuver was meant to reinforce the security of Ukraine’s top leadership, and comes a day after the assassination of the commander of the Russian Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces, General Igor Kirillov. The general was killed in an explosion along with his aide in Moscow. Multiple media outlets reported the SBU being behind the attack.
The SBU reportedly regarded the general as “a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target.” Moscow has condemned the killing as a terrorist attack and vowed to bring those behind it to justice.
Ukrainian missile strike targets chemical plant in southern Russia – MOD
RT | December 19, 2024
Ukraine launched a missile attack against a massive chemical plant in Russia’s southern Rostov Region, the Russian Ministry of Defense has reported. According to the military, the attack happened on Wednesday. Six American-made ATACMS tactical missiles and four air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles were used in the assault.
Russian air defense units engaged the incoming missiles, successfully intercepting all ATACMS and three out of the four Storm Shadow missiles using S-400 and Buk-M3 surface-to-air missile systems, as well as the Pantsir air defense system. One of the Storm Shadows veered off course. However, it still impacted the facility, resulting in damage to a technical building on the premises, the ministry said.
Moscow condemned the attack, claiming that these actions by the Kiev regime, supported by Western sponsors, would not go unanswered.
The Kamensky plant is one of the largest chemical enterprises in southern Russia. Established in 1939, the plant has been intensively developed, producing essential chemical products to address issues of national importance and strengthening the country’s defense capabilities.
British media gloating betrays masterminds behind Kirillov’s killing
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 19, 2024
The reveling by the British news media over the assassination of a top Russian general in Moscow is revealing in several ways.
First of all, it is a sickening display of wretched so-called journalism. The celebratory tone in British media outlets at the sight of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov’s bloodied corpse lying in the snow speaks volumes of a despicable lack of respect. It says something about the depraved depth of British culture.
By comparison, the reporting of the assassination by American media outlets was relatively mundane and matter-of-fact.
Not so in Britain. The British media were almost euphoric in their reaction.
The Pentagon’s response was significant. Spokesman Patrick Ryder denied any U.S. involvement in the killing. He said the Americans were not forewarned about the assassination and he added that the United States did not support such action.
Of course, such denials should always be treated with skepticism.
However, while the Americans had the decency to remain reserved, the British were giddy in their ghoulishness.
The London Times editorial board declared that Lt Gen. Kirillov was a “legitimate target” for assassination.
The Daily Telegraph ran an oped piece by Hamish de Bretton-Gordon with the headline: “Putin’s chemical weapons henchman Kirillov was a truly evil man. He deserved to die.”
Meanwhile, the BBC blithely used the Foreign Office’s description of Kirillov as a “notorious mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation” to convey an implicit justification for murder.
Over at the Guardian, their Russophobic reporter, Luke Harding, abandoned all pretense of journalistic standards by glorifying Ukraine’s military intelligence service (SBU) for its “success,” adding: “The agency has cemented its reputation as an outfit that administers its own form of brutal extrajudicial justice. It is an abrupt and swift form of vengeance, delivered as if from the heavens.”
The Ukrainian secret services were no doubt involved. The SBU is claiming responsibility and distributing a video to Western outlets of the bombing outside the Moscow apartment block, which killed Kirillov and his assistant as they walked out of the building on Tuesday morning.
Russian security services (FSB) have reportedly arrested a 29-year-old Uzbek national who says Ukrainian agents recruited him to plant the explosive-laden scooter at the street-side doorway of Kirillov’s apartment block. The suspect says he was promised payment of $100,000 and a European passport.
That all points to the higher involvement of NATO military intelligence services in the assassination. The American CIA and Britain’s MI6 are the two principal players behind Ukraine’s military intelligence.
But the circumstances indicate that the British are the primary culprits.
In October, Britain put sanctions on Kirillov after London accused him of overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, a charge that Moscow vehemently denied. The British provided no credible evidence – only hackneyed claims – and, besides, the allegation does not make sense, given that Russia is decisively winning the conflict. Why would it need to resort to using chemical weapons?
Lt Gen. Kirillov was chief of the Russian army’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces. His investigators had uncovered what they claimed to be a secret and illegal network of Pentagon-run biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. The investigations provided substantive evidence that the bioweapons labs were authorized at U.S. presidential level and involved major American pharmaceutical companies. Typically, the West rubbished the claims as “Kremlin disinformation” without considering the information.
In other words, Kirillov’s work was mainly focused on interdicting NATO-run weapons of mass destruction, not on overseeing their use, as the British claimed.
Kirillov was the most senior Russian military commander to have been killed since the conflict in Ukraine erupted three years ago.
The British objective was to demonize Kirillov as a “chemical weapons henchman” and “an evil man.” That move was then followed by the Ukrainian secret services accusing the Russian general of being a “war criminal”. This week, on the day before his assassination, the Ukrainians published a death notice.
One could argue that the Americans had more motive to eliminate Kirillov than the British, given his potentially incriminating investigations into the bioweapons and the way it implicated President Biden.
But, arguably, that was not the motive behind his assassination. He was merely a high-profile target for a psychological operation.
Ukrainian opposition political figure Viktor Medvedchuk makes the important observation that Britain has taken over from the United States as the main intelligence player behind the Kiev regime. He says that the British are using the Ukrainian puppet president Vladimir Zelensky and his cronies to launder much of the U.S. and European money sent to Ukraine to end up in London’s banks.
With the incoming U.S. President Donald Trump expressing concern about winding down the Ukraine conflict and cutting off the financing of the Kiev junta, Britain wants to sabotage any such initiative. It wants to prolong the conflict and the money racket.
Assassinating a senior Russian commander in Moscow is aimed at humiliating the Kremlin and provoking an escalation of the conflict in a way that scuppers any possible peace negotiations with Trump, who takes up office in four weeks.
The British media’s gloating about the murder of Igor Kirillov and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov reveals Britain’s nefarious hand.
Not only was the victim vilified and condemned, the killing was glorified. The BBC, in particular, showed a keen interest in reporting on the “deep shock” felt by Muscovites in the immediate aftermath of the deadly explosion.
The state-owned outlet opined: “People living in the area told the BBC of their deep sense of shock. Even after nearly three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for many Muscovites, the war is something that is happening a long way away – something they only see on TV or on their phones. The killing of a Russian general in Moscow is a sign that this war is very real and very close to home.”
Russia has vowed to retaliate for the murder of Igor Kirillov. Zelensky and his cronies in Kiev are no doubt bracing themselves. The British werewolves of London might want to re-check their security arrangements, too.
Questions have to be asked about how Russian security services. How could they be so easily penetrated only a few kilometers from the Kremlin – and not for the first time? Only last week, a senior missile scientist, Mikhail Shatsky, was shot dead in Moscow in an attack ascribed to Ukrainian secret services.
But also it should be questioned if Russia is being too soft in exacting revenge. Should the masterminds of terrorist operations beyond the puppets in Kiev not also be “legitimate targets,” as the British are so fond of saying?
The Ford Follies: Yes, It Can Get Worse
By Bill Buppert | The Libertarian Institute | December 19, 2024
Brent Eastwood does a splendid job elucidating so many of the problems of the fatally flawed Ford super-carrier. I suspect he had to say “promising” but there is nothing here for the 21st century; this is the chariot and crossbow of the next generation. This is the sunken cost fallacy afloat. The prudent policy is to retire these behemoths immediately and completely rethink US and Western surface naval combat. The era of manned combat aircraft is over, whatever is aloft is a zombie force on borrowed time. The US Navy is quite literally playing chicken with thousands of lives in a gamble that the opponents will blink.
They won’t.
They can’t.
As we have discussed before, the strike package projection from a single super-carrier is less than ten birds with a combat radius of less than 750 nautical miles. China, Russia and Iran (not to mention the Houthis in Yemen) have the capacity right now to disable or sink a carrier near their homelands. They have been perfecting this amelioration effort for years if not decades, they are ready.
Key Points: The U.S. Navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers represent technological advancement but face five significant challenges.
–First, the cost is staggering, with the Gerald R. Ford exceeding $13 billion and maintenance costs nearing $27 billion over its lifetime.
–Second, construction delays have plagued the program, with delivery timelines stretching years.
–Third, evolving threats like anti-ship missiles, hypersonics, and drones put carriers at significant risk.
–Fourth, resupplying the massive vessel for long deployments remains logistically challenging.
–Lastly, advanced technologies like EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear have faced reliability issues.
-While promising, the Ford-class program has sparked debates about cost, delays, and future survivability.
The U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carriers: 5 Biggest Problems
Not only is the super-carrier crippled by existential problems in capability, its very existence is reminiscent of the Battleship Hypnotism that enthralled admirals of the West prior to 8 December 1941.
The U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier ‘Nightmare’ Has Begun
A live-fire battle with China would answer many of the following questions. Can a carrier survive a direct hit from an anti-ship missile? Do carriers need to patrol outside the range of the Anti-Access/ Area Denial defensive bubble that the Chinese have so deftly created around their First Island Chain? Will manned or unmanned submarines be the death of a U.S. aircraft carrier?
These questions will have to be pondered by some of the best thinkers in the U.S. Navy. Otherwise, the Gerald R. Ford will not be worth the exorbitant cost, and future aircraft carriers of the Ford-class may be reconsidered.
The next war may include anti-ship missiles, drones, and submarines. Carrier-based combat could be made obsolete by asymmetric weapons and a determined enemy who is likely to try anything to slow down or destroy the Gerald R. Ford.
A chilling report was just issued by the CRS on 13 December 2024 filled with foreboding and magic thinking.
Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress
Kiev regime assassinates Russian General to hide the truth about bioweapons
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 18, 2024
In a bold and lethal move, a terrorist attack carried out by Ukrainian intelligence operatives in Moscow killed Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Federation’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense Forces, along with his main advisor. Kirillov, one of the most important figures in Russian national security, became a strategic target due to his investigations revealing the complex and shadowy ties between the West, Ukraine, and the bioweapons research laboratories. His death is not only a blow against Russia but also a critical turning point in international relations, involving the controversy surrounding biological laboratories, the pharmaceutical industry lobby, and, inevitably, Kiev’s connections to U.S. politics.
Kirillov’s investigation into biological laboratories
Since the beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine in 2022, Igor Kirillov had been denouncing the existence of bioweapons research laboratories in Ukrainian territory. These laboratories, operating under the guise of “scientific research” and funded by global actors such as the Soros Foundation, Big Pharma companies, and even influential members of the Biden family, have been accused of developing biological weapons aimed at Russia.
In public statements, Kirillov warned of the growing risk posed by these biolaboratories, pointing out that their goal was to create a “universal package” of genetically modified biological pathogens to target Russian people, cattle, and crops simultaneously. The development of such weapons could potentially cause a catastrophe of epic proportions, destroying Russian food production and decimating the population. Once Russia became aware of these activities, it had no choice but to launch a military operation to dismantle these dangerous research centers.
Moscow also raised suspicions that, without early intervention, Ukraine, with U.S. support, could have launched a large-scale biological attack against Russia. This attack would target Russian public health by releasing multiple lethal viruses and bacteria simultaneously, with the aim of creating catastrophic chaos.
The truth obscured by a media blockade
The greatest obstacle Russia faced in exposing these threats was the absolute silence of the Western media. In the European Union, the United States, and even the Global South, an iron curtain was raised on the subject, with most media outlets ignoring or discrediting Kirillov’s revelations. However, Russia believed that without its military operation and the dismantling of bioweapons laboratories in the early days of the conflict, the country would have been vulnerable to a biological attack of catastrophic magnitude.
Furthermore, during the eight years following the Euromaidan coup, citizens of Russian-majority regions in Ukraine were subjected to a series of biological experiments. These included tests of new chemical and biological substances, some of which were administered under the guise of “voluntary treatments” or even by force, as in the case of prisoners or ethnic Russian low-ranking soldiers. The ultimate goal of these experiments was to understand the genetic characteristics of Russians in order to develop even more lethal and ethnically targeted pathogens, thus creating ethnically directed mass destruction biological weapons.
Big Pharma’s involvement and Hunter Biden
In addition to the evidence of involvement by organizations such as the Soros Foundation, another crucial point in Kirillov’s reports was the connection with Big Pharma companies. He spared no effort in revealing the role of pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Moderna in financing bioweapons research in Ukraine. The claim that these corporations were associated with the development of biological weapons was not merely speculative, several captured documents having proved the whole truth. In the same vein, the involvement of influential members of the U.S. government and their families, including Hunter Biden, in contracts and initiatives related to Ukrainian biolabs was a central issue in his revelations. The U.S. president’s son was one of the main financial supporters of the biolabs, which were part of his corruption schemes in Ukraine.
Kirillov’s death, therefore, is not only a significant loss for Russia but also a grim reflection of global corporate interests and the biological risks the Western powers were willing to take in their reckless pursuit of hegemony. The pharmaceutical lobby, with its vast networks of influence, found itself in an uncomfortable position after 2022, when several countries began questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as dismantling the mandatory vaccination campaigns that had been previously fervently promoted.
Kirillov’s sacrifice and the future of the conflict
The death of Igor Kirillov represents a tragic chapter in the global confrontation currently taking place on Ukrainian soil, but it also serves as a dramatic allegory of the hidden tensions between the great powers. While Russia continues to expose the West’s involvement in creating biological threats, the global mainstream media watches in silence, more interested in preserving its narratives than facing the truth about a global power struggle involving the use of biotechnology as weapons.
By revealing these threats, Kirillov had become one of the greatest obstacles to Western hidden interests. His death, caused by a Ukrainian terrorist attack, represents not only a loss for Russia’s national security but also a turning point in the realm of modern geopolitics.
Congo’s Health Ministry Confirms ‘Disease X’ is Malaria
Outbreak began shortly after Congo’s rollout of the novel R21 virus-like particle malaria vaccine
By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | Courageous Discourse | December 17, 2024
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s health ministry announced today that the previously unidentified illness coined as ‘Disease X’ by the media and Africa CDC circulating in the Panzi health zone has been confirmed as a severe form of malaria:
“The mystery has finally been solved. It’s a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory illness,” the health ministry said in a statement, adding that malnutrition in the area had weakened the local population, leaving them more vulnerable to disease.
This confirms our observations made last week, where we expected this to be malaria based on early testing. However, health agencies continued to ignore that possibility until now:
This entire situation reinforces how the mainstream media consistently attempts to generate as much fear as possible. They were caught propagating severe malaria coupled with malnutrition as the ominous ‘Disease X,’ fueling unnecessary panic:
In an emailed statement to USA TODAY, the World Health Organization (WHO) still claims it hasn’t conclusively determined the cause of the illness yet and lab testing is ongoing. This is similar to when the WHO falsely claimed that an individual in Mexico died of H5N2 bird flu. Soon after the claim, the Mexican government clarified: “A team of experts from the Health sector ruled that the person identified with influenza A (H5N2) did not die because of this virus, but as a result of chronic conditions that generated septic shock.” They added, “The diseases he suffered were long-term and caused conditions that favored the failure of several organs, specialists concluded.” The individual suffered from kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, and systemic arterial hypertension for more than 14 years.
Right before this malaria outbreak began, in late October, the Congo introduced the novel R21 malaria vaccine into their national immunization program. “R21 is a virus-like particle comprising the central repeats of Asn-Ala-Asn-Pro (NANP) and C-terminal sequence of circumsporozoite protein fused to the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg).” It would not be surprising if this new vaccine played a significant role in triggering or exacerbating the severe malaria outbreak.
Facebook restricting Palestinian news outlets post-October 7: BBC
Al Mayadeen | December 18, 2024
A study conducted by BBC found that Facebook has restricted Palestinian news media outlets, significantly reducing their audience reach throughout the Israeli war on Gaza.
After examining and analyzing Facebook data, BBC found that Palestinian newsrooms operating in Gaza and the West Bank saw drastic drops in online engagement since October 2023, when the war on the Gaza Strip was launched.
Leaks further showed that Instagram, also owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, has increasingly moderated comments by Palestinian accounts during the same period.
Meta, responding to the allegations, claimed that implications that it intentionally restricted “particular voices” were “unequivocally false.”
Given that Israeli authorities prohibited the entry of foreign journalists, only allowing a very limited number accompanied by army escorts, social media transpired as a key medium for those seeking direct information from inside Gaza.
Facebook pages of news outlets like Palestine TV, Wafa News Agency, and Palestinian Al-Watan News—based in the West Bank—have played a key role in providing updates to people around the globe.
BBC News Arabic analyzed engagement data from the Facebook pages of 20 major Palestinian news organizations, comparing data from the year before and the year after the October 7 operation and the subsequent events.
Findings: Palestinian media saw 77% drop in engagement
BBC found that in light of the war on Gaza, audience engagement with the examined Palestinian outliers dropped by 77%.
For example, although Palestine TV has 5.8 million followers on Facebook, journalists from the newsroom shared data showing a 60% decline in the number of people seeing their posts. “Interaction was completely restricted, and our posts stopped reaching people,” said Tariq Ziad, a journalist at the channel.
Over the past year, Palestinian journalists have expressed concerns that their online content is being “shadow-banned” by Meta, meaning its visibility had been significantly reduced.
Comparative studies with Israeli, Arab media
A comparative study with 20 Israeli news outlets, including Yediot Ahronoth, Israel Hayom, and Channel 13, found that they experienced an increase in audience engagement by almost 37%.
Moreover, it is worth noting that Meta has faced accusations from Palestinians and human rights organizations of not moderating online content impartially. A 2021 independent report commissioned by the company claimed that these issues were not intentional but were due to a lack of Arabic-speaking moderators. As a result, some words and phrases were misinterpreted as offensive or violent.
For instance, the Arabic phrase “Alhamdulillah,” meaning “Praise be to God,” was sometimes auto-translated as “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”
To determine if this could be related to the drop in engagement with Palestinian outlets, the BBC conducted a similar analysis on the Facebook pages of 30 major Arabic-language news sources based elsewhere, such as Sky News Arabia and Al Jazeera. These pages, however, experienced an average engagement increase of nearly 100%.
In response to the research, Meta acknowledged the “temporary product and policy measures” implemented in October 2023. The company explained that it faced challenges in balancing freedom of speech with its responsibility to enforce its policies, particularly given that Hamas is both US-sanctioned and classified as a “dangerous organization” under Meta’s guidelines.
Meta also noted that pages focusing solely on the war were more likely to experience a decline in engagement. “We acknowledge we make mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false,” it noted.
Leaks: Meta imposes anti-Palestine algorithm
The BBC also spoke with five current and former Meta employees about the impact of the company’s policies on Palestinian users. One anonymous source shared internal documents revealing that Instagram’s algorithm was altered after the Hamas operation, making moderation stricter on Palestinian comments.
The employee stated that within a week of the operation, the code was changed to target Palestinians more aggressively. Internal communications showed concerns raised by an engineer about potential bias against Palestinian users.
Meta confirmed the algorithm change but argued it was necessary to address a “spike in hateful content” from the Palestinian territories. The company stated that the policy adjustments made at the start of the war have now been reversed, though it did not specify when this occurred.
“A lot of information can’t be published as it is too graphic – for example if the [Israeli] army commits a massacre and we film it, the video won’t spread,” Omar el-Qataa, one of the few photojournalists who stayed in northern Gaza, revealed, affirming his and his colleagues’ commitment to continue sharing news from the heart of Gaza.
Engineer fixes anti-Palestine bug, gets fired
Meta’s controversial conduct when it comes to spreading Palestinian voices has been a prominent topic of discussion for years, but more so since October 2023. In June 2024, the tech giant fired one of its engineers for fixing a bug causing the block of Instagram posts related to Palestine.
Palestinian-American engineer Ferras Hamad, who has been employed at Meta since 2021, filed a lawsuit in a California state court for discrimination and wrongful termination, accusing the company of bias against Palestinians. He said the company even deleted internal employee communications mentioning the deaths of their relatives in Gaza and conducted investigations into their use of the Palestinian flag emoji.
The lawsuit further states that no similar investigations have been launched before for employees posting Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis in similar contexts.
Hamad notes that his dismissal was due to an incident in December regarding an emergency procedure to troubleshoot severe problems with the platforms, known within Meta as a SEV or “site event”.
According to the complaints in the lawsuit, Hamad noticed irregularities in the SEV policies related to restricting content posted by Palestinian Instagram accounts, such as posts being prevented from appearing in searches and feeds.
Read more: Al Mayadeen English unpublished by FB, asserting pro-‘Israel’ bias
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From the Archives
The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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