Sputnik – 06.02.2025
Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment was driven by CIA and USAID operatives, claims US author Michael Shellenberger, known for his work on Elon Musk’s Twitter Files project.
What does Shellenberger assert?
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 5, 2025
Judging by the most recent statements made by UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, the government feels it will have to implement even more stringent speech-restrictive measures than those contained in the sweeping and controversial censorship law, the Online Safety Act.
Appearing on a BBC political talk show, Cooper kept beating the now well-established drum the ruling Labour has gone for in the wake of last year’s Southport killings, and subsequent mass protests – namely, to try to portray social media companies as somehow “a part of the crime,” which is verbatim how the cabinet minister put it.
One of the recurring themes these last weeks, since the Southport trial saw its conclusion, has been that tech companies are “morally responsible” for not deleting (that request came only last week) one of the violent videos viewed by the killer, Axel Rudakubana.
This request was made even though said companies are under no legal obligation to do that, until the spring of this year and the start of the enforcement of some parts of the Online Safety Act.
The stage set that way, Cooper’s logic – or lack thereof – goes like this: “We are being clear that we are prepared to go further if the Online Safety Act measures are not working as effectively as we need them to do,” she told the host, Laura Kuenssberg.
There is no way to predict how social media firms will act once they are under obligation to remove certain types of content – and yet Cooper is already threatening to make the Online Safety Act even worse.
After the case played out in court, the authorities are now going to organize an inquiry that will broaden the narrative and examine how social media, i.e., the content that third parties can publish there, is influencing “online radicalization” (Cooper mentions Islamist and far-right extremism in the same breath) and “obsession with violence” among young people.
At one point – but well into this attempt to implicate the availability of both illegal and legal content related to violence as an important factor behind the Southport tragedy – the interviewer mentions that Rudakubana was “on the radar of the social services, he was on the radar of Prevent, a Home Office program, and yet no one stopped him.”
When asked whose responsibility it was to stop him before the crime, Cooper danced around the topic (but surprisingly, didn’t name social networks.)
By Oscar GRENFELL | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 5, 2025
For the second time, the cricket world has provided a petty, vindictive and downright ridiculous example of the broader campaign by the powers-that-be to silence opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
In December 2023, the International Cricket Council (ICC) forbade Australian batsman Usman Khawaja from taking the field in international matches with shoes that read “all lives are equal” and “freedom is a human right.” The bureaucrats, who run the game from the ICC’s headquarters in the dictatorial United Arab Emirates, deemed those statements to be “political” because they were regarded as a reference to Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians.
The ICC’s suspicious and hostile attitude to professions of human rights and basic decency has now been matched by the Sports Entertainment Network, which runs the popular SEN sports radio broadcaster.
Over the weekend, SEN unceremoniously dumped Peter Lalor, a widely-respected cricket commentator, over posts he made on his X/Twitter account referencing Gaza. The sacking was done in a hurry. Lalor was in Sri Lanka as a freelance commentator commissioned by SEN to cover the ongoing Australia-Sri Lanka Test cricket series when he was dismissed.
Lalor had commentated the first test in Galle without incident, and was scheduled to cover the second. Why then the sudden rush by SEN to sever all ties with a leading cricket expert? For anyone familiar with the witch-hunts of the past 16 months that have accompanied the Israeli war crimes, inevitably “upset” and “offended” Zionists were in the picture.
As per Lalor’s account, “I was asked by station boss Craig Hutchison, who was civil, if I didn’t care that my retweeting of events in Gaza made Jewish people in Melbourne feel unsafe. I said I didn’t want anyone to feel unsafe.” Predictably, Hutchison reportedly related accusations that Lalor may be an antisemite, which has been the go-to line for shutting down opposition to the assault on Gaza.
Lalor went on: “The following day Hutchison told me that because the ‘sound of my voice made people feel unsafe’ and that people are ‘triggered by my voice,’ I could not cover the cricket for them anymore.”
If Zionists were telling SEN management that Lalor’s measured commentary of a Test cricket match was making them feel “unsafe,” the appropriate response would have been to dismiss the remarks as absurd.
More to the point, SEN should have noted that the complainants were making a cynical bid to have someone sacked for disagreeing with them politically. They should have told the witch-hunters to stop harassing their employee.
But, as has so often been the case with the Zionist witch-hunts, SEN management rolled over.
After Lalor’s sacking, Hutchison issued a nauseating statement. “SEN Cricket is a celebration of differences and nationalities,” it proclaimed, although those “differences” evidently did not extend to opposing the unfolding genocide or referencing the mass killing of Palestinians. To justify its censorship, the statement went on to describe the station as a “a place where our SEN audience can escape what is an increasingly complex and sometimes triggering world.”
Like the saga of Khawaja’s shoes, the most striking aspect of this incident is the complete mismatch between Lalor’s “offence” and the response. Lalor is not accused of ever having mentioned Gaza during a broadcast, so the references to the sound of his voice are presumably because it reminds the Zionists of his X/Twitter feed.
Moreover, the posts on his feed are simply not of a highly controversial character. In any objective assessment, Lalor comes across as a humane and democratically minded man, disturbed by the mass killing of Palestinians and wishing for an end to war.
Most of his posts were retweets from other accounts. As per Lalor’s account, Hutchison indicated that SEN was hit with complaints over Lalor during the first Test match, played from January 29 to February 1. It is difficult to determine when something was retweeted, as against when it was posted by the original account.
But some of Lalor’s X content around that time included retweeting a post reporting that “Palestine Red Crescent teams have recovered another 14 decomposed Palestinian bodies from several areas on the Rashid Coastal Road in Gaza.”
Another was a statement by a Palestinian Christian leader, condemning the invitation by US President Donald Trump for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit Washington. The pastor wrote, “The man who has an arrest warrant for him from the ICC [International Criminal Court] is invited to the White House as a guest of honor. This is the world we live in. Faith leaders must make their voices heard in times like this.” Other retweets by Lalor have highlighted the plight of Palestinian children and prisoners.
People instigating a witch-hunt over such content, which has nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism, are simply supporters of war crimes.
Media and cricket figures have spoken out in defence of Lalor.
Khawaja declared on Instagram: “Standing up for the people of Gaza is not antisemitic nor does it have anything to do with my Jewish brothers and sisters in Australia, but everything to do with the Israeli government and their deplorable actions. It has everything to do with justice and human rights.” He concluded: “Pete is a good guy with a good heart. He deserves better.”
As per Lalor’s account of the sacking, “I was told in one call there were serious organisations making complaints; in another, I was told that this was not the case.”
Throughout the genocide, right-wing Zionist lobby groups that collaborate closely with the Israeli state and support its every crime against the Palestinians have fraudulently been depicted by governments and the media as representative Jewish organisations. Their every pronouncement has been reported uncritically and they have had access to the corridors of power.
These groups have repeatedly instigated witch-hunts targeting critics of Israel. Journalist Antoinette Lattouf is currently in the Federal Court, having brought a case against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for unlawful termination. Lattouf was sacked halfway through a week-long fill-in position, after a concerted campaign by Zionist lawyers who barraged the ABC with vexatious complaints.
Lattouf’s sacking, ostensibly because she shared a post to her personal social media from Human Rights Watch condemning Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war, occurred in December 2023. The dismissal of Lalor, more than a year later, in such similar circumstances, underscores the normalisation of witch-hunting and politically motivated sackings by the Australian political, media and corporate establishment.
Such repressive measures set a precedent for broader attacks on working people as they enter into struggle against the broader eruption of militarism, including Australia’s transformation into a frontline state for a US-led war against China, completed by the same federal Labor government that has consistently backed Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 05.02.2025
American tech giant Google has faced regulatory scrutiny on numerous occasions amid accusations of antitrust violations. Google’s relationship with the CIA, ranging from early financial support to collaborative efforts have been decried as undermining privacy rights and free speech in the digital landscape.
Google’s creation played a crucial role in the US intelligence community’s scheme to attain global dominance by controlling information.
How it Started
CIA Steps In
PRISM
By Liz Heflin | Remix News | February 5, 2025
The European Commission is essentially manipulating NGOs to achieve its own goals in exchange for financial support. A Dutch newspaper has exposed part of this process, writes Magyar Nemzet, which then shows how Brussels does this and who the biggest domestic beneficiaries are.
On Jan. 22, De Telegraaf reported on secret contracts that the European Commission had signed with green NGOs to conduct alleged covert lobbying activities. According to the newspaper, the lobbying organizations, commissioned by Brussels with EU money, were tasked with persuading MEPs and member states to support the commission’s ambitious green policy initiatives.
For example, the European Environment Bureau (EEB), an umbrella organization for green groups, was tasked with providing at least 16 examples of how the European Parliament had tightened green legislation thanks to its lobbying. According to documents reviewed by the newspaper, the EEB was also tasked with supporting the controversial nature restoration bill initiated by former Commissioner Frans Timmermans.
In addition, they could use around €700,000 in support to steer the debate on agricultural activity in a more environmentally friendly direction.
In Hungary, the EU provides funding to certain organizations, which then use their activities to serve Brussels’ political goals. Here are some examples.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is heavily dependent on international funding. According to their latest available financial report for 2023, more than 61 percent of their annual income came from private foundations, including George Soros’s organization. They received a total of 48.85 million forints from the European Commission, which accounted for 6.1 percent of their income. Helsinki has received funding for various projects serving legal protection purposes, typically for several years.
In recent years, the organization has often criticized the Hungarian government’s immigration policy, especially the measures related to border closures and the operation of transit zones, and has also undertaken the legal representation of migrants, for example, at the European Court of Human Rights.
One of the “results” of Helsinki’s operation is that in June 2024, the European Court of Justice imposed a migration fine of €200 million on Hungary and ordered our country to pay an additional €1 million per day until we change the relevant regulations.
Helsinki has actively contributed to the European Commission’s 2023 Rule of Law Report, which contains a number of criticisms of Hungary, including problems and recommendations in the areas of justice, the fight against corruption, and institutional checks and balances. The Helsinki Committee, together with other NGOs, including Transparency International Hungary, has submitted a nearly 100-page submission to the European Commission, which is withholding billions of euros from Hungary.
Transparency International Hungary (TI Hungary) has regularly attacked the Hungarian government in recent years, primarily on issues related to corruption, lack of transparency, and the management of public funds.
The organization also receives significant foreign funding, including funds from Soros’ Open Society Foundations, but their supporters also include the European Commission, from which they received a total of 13.7 million forints in revenue, according to their 2023 report.
Transparency International produces its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) every year, which is used to calculate which countries are the most and least corrupt in the world. Tamás Lánczi, president of the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty, has already held the organization accountable for the bias experienced in determining the CPI.
All of this is significant because the index serves as a reference point for the withholding of EU funds due to Hungary.
The 2023 report from Amnesty International Hungary shows that the organization is significantly dependent on foreign sources.
Their revenues from the European Union budget, as well as other states and international organizations, exceeded 170 million forints, which represented 42 percent of their total revenue in that year.
They received almost 53 million forints in funding from the European Commission in 2023, which is almost 13 percent of their total annual income. They received the money as the winner of a call for proposals under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Value (CERV) program to promote gender equality. Amnesty has been working against Hungary’s interests on several fronts, as shown below.
The organization reports that it prepared its analysis related to the European Commission’s annual rule of law assessment, which examined, among other things, the Hungarian justice system, corruption, the press, civil society organizations, and the legislature. It says: “The success of our work, which has been carried out for four years, together with our civil society friends, is also demonstrated by the fact that many of our recommendations are reflected in the report published in July.”
In other words, they are explicitly proud of having put Hungary at a disadvantage.
The annual report also mentions that in March 2023, in addition to the European Parliament, 15 EU member states joined the European Commission v. Hungary lawsuit filed on the side of the commission over the child protection law adopted in 2021. Amnesty boasts that the actions of many member states are due to their work.
The Hungarian Digital Media Observatory (Lakmusz–HDMO) was established in January 2023 as the Hungarian center of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), established by the European Commission in 2020. Six organizations work together within the framework of the project: Political Capital, Mérték Médiaelemző Műhely, AFP news agency, Lakmusz, Idea Foundation and Epresspack. According to their own admission, their activities include fact-checking and related research and analysis, and they also provide training for journalists and teachers on the topic of fact-checking and conscious media consumption.
The HDMO Project is being implemented with the partial support of the European Commission, and the consortium forming the HDMO was selected by the Commission through an open tender. Lakmusz, which participated in the project, has also previously attacked the Hungarian government. For example, they have tried to discredit the institution of the national consultation on several occasions. Political Capital, Mérték, and Lakmusz can also be directly or indirectly linked to the foundations of George Soros.
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 4, 2025
The Senate Finance Committee today narrowly advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.
The 14-13 vote along party lines came after Kennedy secured the vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that oversees HHS. Cassidy was the lone Republican considered to be a possible hold-out.
The Senate is expected to vote on Kennedy’s confirmation later this week or early next week, ABC News reported. The nomination “is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches,” The Associated Press reported.
Kennedy, founder and former chairman of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), can be confirmed even if up to three Republican senators and all Democrats vote against him in the full Senate.
If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee a $1.7 trillion budget and 90,000 employees. HHS oversees 13 public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
During today’s committee meeting, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “It is time to put a disruptor” like Kennedy at the helm of the HHS. “I hope he goes wild,” Tillis said.
Shares of vaccine manufacturers and packaged food companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Mondelez and Hershey, dropped after today’s vote, Reuters reported.
CHD CEO Mary Holland welcomed today’s outcome. She said:
“CHD is delighted that the Finance Committee is sending RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate. Given the 2024 presidential results, this seems only fitting. ‘Make America Healthy Again’ has become a worldwide rallying cry, and CHD is proud to be a foundational part of this movement.”
In a statement, Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, also welcomed today’s vote. He said:
“Americans demand a frank conversation about the state of our government healthcare agencies, and we’re very grateful for the Senators who responded by voting to move RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate.
“RFK Jr. has been asking the tough questions, and he’s been unmoved in the face of big-corporate money campaigns against him.”
In a statement before the vote, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chair of the committee, said that if confirmed, Kennedy “will have the opportunity to deliver much-needed change to our nation’s healthcare system.”
Cassidy, Kennedy agree to ‘unprecedently close collaborative relationship’
During last week’s hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, Cassidy said he was “struggling” with some of Kennedy’s positions regarding vaccines.
“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy posted on X earlier today. “I want to thank VP JD [Vance] specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”
Following today’s vote, Cassidy delivered remarks on the Senate floor, revealing the content of those discussions and the agreement he made with Kennedy to secure his vote.
He said Kennedy committed to a strong public health role for Congress and to meeting or speaking with Cassidy multiple times per month. They also agreed that Cassidy will participate in the hiring process for HHS and the public health agencies it oversees.
“He and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative relationship,” Cassidy said, noting that the hiring decisions that will follow “will allow us to represent all sides of those folks who have contacted me over this past weekend.”
Kennedy also agreed to maintain statements on the CDC website that vaccines do not cause autism and to maintain the recommendations of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Cassidy said he would also reject any attempt to remove the public’s access to “life-saving vaccines” without “iron-clad, causational scientific evidence” indicating otherwise. He also said he would carefully monitor any attempt to “wrongfully sow public confusion” about vaccines.
Cassidy conceded that “many mothers do need reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, effective, and most of all, safe” and expressed his support for Kennedy’s positions on toxic foods and reforming the NIH.
“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to Make America Healthy Again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said, noting that institutions like NIH and FDA require “reform.”
During last week’s confirmation hearings, Kennedy emphasized his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and said he would work to tackle the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.
Kennedy also said he would implement “radical transparency” in HHS. He also voiced support for vaccines — if backed by “good science.”
Related articles in The Defender
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
By Jonathan Turley | February 2, 2025
“This is NPR.” That tagline has long been used for National Public Radio, but what it is remains remarkably in doubt. NPR remains something of a curiosity. It is a state-subsidized media outlet in a country that rejects state media. It is a site that routinely pitches for its sponsors while insisting that it does not have commercials. That confusion may be on the way to a final resolution after the election. NPR is about to have a reckoning with precisely what it is and what it represents.
While I once appeared regularly on NPR, I grew more critical of the outlet as it became overtly political in its coverage and intolerant of opposing views.
Even after a respected editor, Uri Berliner, wrote a scathing account of the political bias at NPR, the outlet has doubled down on its one-sided coverage and commentary. Indeed, while tacking aggressively to the left and openly supporting narratives (including some false stories) from Democratic sources, NPR has dismissed the criticism. When many of us called on NPR to pick a more politically neutral CEO, it instead picked NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who was previously criticized for her strident political views.
Some have long questioned the federal government’s subsidization of a media organization. NPR itself continues to maintain that “federal funding is essential” to its work. However, this country has long rejected state media models as undermining democratic values.
This funding is likely more important given NPR’s cratering audience and revenue. NPR’s audience has been declining for years. As a result, NPR has been forced to make deep staff cuts.
Ironically, NPR has one of the least diverse audiences. Its audience is overwhelmingly white, liberal, and more affluent than the rest of the country. Yet, while serving fewer and fewer people, it still expects most of the country to subsidize its programming.
Many of us have argued that NPR should compete with other radio companies in the free market. Notably, some Democratic members pushed to get Fox News dropped by cable carriers despite not being subsidized and ranking as the most-watched cable news network. (For full disclosure, I am a legal analyst at Fox.)
NPR and PBS are facing calls to remove the subsidy at long last. However, at the same time, pressure is coming from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). FCC Chair Brendan Carr is inquiring about NPR’s claim that it does not do commercial advertising.
Many of us have noticed that NPR has ramped up its sponsor statements with taglines about the products or firm’s clientele. Carr wrote, “I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials. In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
The support for noncommercial radio and television stations fell under different regulations. It is hard to see the sponsor acknowledgments not as commercial advertising. It is common for for-profit outlets to have hosts read commercial sponsors.
Noncommercial educational broadcast stations-or NCEs are prohibited under Section399B of the Communications Act from airing commercials or other promotional announcements on behalf of for-profit entities.
What is interesting is that NPR stresses that the “NPR way” is actually better to reach consumers:
Across platforms, NPR sponsor messages are governed by slightly different regulations, but the guiding spirit is the same: guidelines are less about what’s ‘allowed’ and more about the approach that works best for brands to craft sponsor recognition messages that connect with people in ‘the NPR way.
It is common for law firms or companies to have hosts herald their work in given areas. It is also common to have product references.
The thrust of NPR’s pitch to advertisers is that this is a different type of pitch to attract more customers. However, the federal government long ignored the obvious commercial advertisement.
There is little discernible difference between NPR and competitors beyond pretense when it comes to bias or promotions. What is striking is how NPR’s shrinking audience righteously opposes any effort to withdraw public subsidies. While dismissing the values or views of half the country, they expect those citizens to support its programming. What would the reaction be if Congress ordered the same subsidy for more popular competitors like Fox Radio?
I would oppose a subsidy for Fox as I do NPR. Each outlet should depend on its viewership for support. Notably, many liberal outlets continue to maintain their biased coverage despite falling ratings and revenues. The Washington Post has had to again lay off employees and has lost roughly half of its readership.
After being called in to right the ship, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it… We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Nevertheless, writers at the LA Times and other outlets continue to argue against balanced coverage. They would rather lose readers and revenue than their bias. So be it. These outlets have every right to offer their own slanted viewpoints or coverage. They do not have a right to a federal subsidy to insulate them from the response of consumers.
It is time to establish a bright-line rule against government subsidies for favored media outlets. “This is NPR” but it is not who we should be as a nation.
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 4, 2025
A review of the UK’s policy on extremism, dubbed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper a “Rapid Analytical Sprint” was announced last summer, shortly after the Southport stabbings.
And now, the paper it produced has been leaked to the Policy Exchange think tank.
The results of the analysis and the recommendations revealed in the leak show that the UK government’s policy may be headed toward more free speech crackdowns, through a number of new measures.
They include introducing new criminal offenses and a new definition of “extremism” itself; in the first instance, it is “harmful online communications” that should be criminalized.
The paper recommends redefining extremism in very broad terms: instead of referring to a particular ideology, it would now cover “behaviors or activity of concern” – like whatever is considered misinformation or a conspiracy theory; misogyny, violence against women and girls – but also involvement in “an online subculture called the manosphere.”
The think tank’s reading of the paper is that it aims to de-emphasize ideologies in general, and Islamism in particular, and instead focus on “behaviors and activity of concern.”
In addition to those already mentioned, some others are the “fixture on gore and violence without adherence to an extremist ideology,” “preventing integration,” and, “influencing racism and intolerance.”
When it comes to existing laws concerning hate crimes – that are, as it is, vague – the idea is to introduce longer prison sentences for people convicted on those charges.
The leaked paper also seeks to reverse the decision to limit the number of “non-crime hate incidents,” NCHIs, that the police record, by reopening the floodgates for these complaints that are often frivolous and waste police time and resources.
The intention was to only log NCHIs that represent real risk of significant harm to individuals or groups “with a particular characteristic” – or that this might happen in the future.
Reacting to reports based on the leak, Home Office Minister Dan Jarvis denied that NCHI reporting would be expanded – other, that is, than when it concerns “Islamophobia” and “anti-Semitism.”
But the authorities admitted they plan to introduce longer sentences for those whose “hate crimes” target LGB and T persons.
Regarding “the sprint” itself, a spokesperson for the Home Office said that the contents of the document have not been formalized and that ministers are how “considering a wide range of potential next steps arising from that work.”
RT | February 4, 2025
The journalist who claimed that the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron was actually born a man is reportedly seeking political asylum in Russia. In an interview with Izvestia, Natacha Rey and her lawyer, Francois Danglehant, have cited “persecution” in France as the reason for her decision.
Rey alleged in 2021 that Brigitte Macron is actually the transgender identity of her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux. Rey spent three years researching Macron’s supposed secret and later published a video on her findings on social media. Since then, she has been the subject of judicial action in France.
Explaining her decision to seek asylum in Russia, Rey described the country as a great democracy compared to France, which, in her view, persecutes the political opposition and restricts freedom of speech.
“Why did I choose Russia? Because it is a great nation, a great civilization which I admire, defending traditional and Christian values that are inherent to me,” she told Izvestia. According to Rey, Russia has been a “victim of a disinformation campaign and unjustified attacks by European and American media for decades.” … Full article
Candace Owens | January 31, 2025
Chapter one of my investigative series “Becoming Brigitte”.
Candace Official Website: https://candaceowens.com
Candace Merch: https://shop.candaceowens.com
Candace on Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/Pp5VZiLXbq
Candace on Spotify: https://t.co/16pMuADXuT
Candace on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/RealCandaceO
Remix News | February 4, 2025
German MP Sahra Wagenknecht, who leads the self-proclaimed BSW party, urged a referendum on migration in an interview. Referendums on migration are not unprecedented in Europe, the first was held in Hungary in 2016, and the second in Poland in 2023,
“A migration policy that is supported by the majority of the population requires a referendum that gives the federal government a fundamental direction,” Wagenknecht told AFP over the weekend, as reported in Die Welt.
She believes a referendum with a clear result would counter the polarization of society and could take the wind out of the sails of the increasingly popular Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Wagenknecht further accused the German government of a failure in its migration policy.
“For 10 years, they have allowed a loss of control over migration, which the majority of people in Germany, including most well-integrated immigrants, do not want,” she said.
There is currently no legal basis for a federal referendum in Germany, although smaller states, such as Berlin, offer non-binding referendum votes on local issues. It is also unclear what the exact wording of Wagenknecht’s proposal would be. Many polls show that a majority of Germans want reductions in migrant numbers and say that migrants bring more disadvantages than benefits.
In the wake of soaring crime, terror attacks, and massive burdens on public service, Germans are now saying that migration is the “most important problem.” That is according to the research group Wahlen, which showed 41 percent of men and women listed this, in equal numbers, as the most important issue heading into national elections. That beats out the economy and concerns about the Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
In addition, a majority of Germans are in favor of permanent border controls and rejecting asylum seekers without documentation, according to Wahlen.
“Germans are divided on the question of whether the Union should accept votes from the AfD when’voting on a stricter migration policy: 48 percent of those surveyed think this is “not a good thing,’ 47 percent think it is ‘good.’ At the same time, a clear majority of those surveyed, 63 and 56 percent respectively, are in favor of rejecting asylum seekers without documents and of permanent border controls,” writes NZZ about the Wahlen research polling.
Other countries have utilized referendums, such as Hungary and Poland.
Hungary held a referendum on resettlement quotas in 2016, in which 98.36 percent of valid voters rejected the possibility of the European Union requiring the resettlement of migrants to Hungary, even bypassing Hungarian legislation.
In 2023, Poland held a referendum, with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s deputy prime minister at the time, saying that it “will decide the fate of Poland and Poles, whether they can live in a safe, peaceful country.”
By Ahmed Adel | February 4, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said that elections should be organized in Ukraine. This is another message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Washington will no longer sign him blank checks and fund his failed war efforts on Russia.
Zelensky’s claims that the constitution does not allow elections to be held during a state of emergency are meaningless because the Ukrainian constitution also does not allow the president to serve after his term expires. The powers of the president should have been taken over by the parliament, which did not express an opinion on this because it is in the pocket of Zelensky.
It is doubtful that Zelensky fears losing the elections since he has already banned all legitimate opposition parties. The only person he might be afraid of is the four-star general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who is currently serving as Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom, as he could return from London and be the opposing candidate because he is more popular, according to some indicators there.
Nonetheless, it does not matter what the results of those elections will be since it will be a farce like the rest of the Ukrainian state administration. The essence of the story is that this is a message to the Ukrainian people that Zelensky, an unelected usurper, cannot sign anything in anyone’s name. Ukrainians must have some legitimate authority, at least on paper, to be able to sign a capitulation. It will not be a truce or a peace agreement but a surrender because the Kremlin said this is the only way to end the conflict.
The US is trying to soften the situation by creating a narrative that it has defended democracy in Ukraine and that the Ukrainians have democratically decided to capitulate.
Russia is not interested in negotiating with a puppet but with the one who pulls the strings. This means that Russia will negotiate directly with the Americans. The Ukrainian delegation, whatever it may be, will be present but will not be relevant to the discussions and will only be symbolic – they will just put their signature on what is agreed.
The Americans have always been the bosses in Ukraine; the difference now is that a new boss has arrived in Washington and is now telling them what to do, and they will have no choice but to agree with it. Their options are capitulation with American oversight or trying to reach an agreement with the Russians separately.
Zelensky unfortunately cut off the second option as a possibility by issuing a decree banning direct negotiations with the Kremlin. He will have to withdraw that decree because it is absolutely clear that the Americans are in a hurry to end this as soon as possible. After all, this conflict no longer suits Washington, and they want to deal with other things, such as opposing the rise of China.
The Russians are unlikely to be satisfied with anything other than their announced goals: the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, the country’s neutral status, and recognition of Russia’s new territories.
US President Donald Trump’s team believes that elections must be organized in Ukraine so that the winner can engage in dialogue with Russia. Reuters sources say White House officials and Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, have recently discussed how to persuade Kiev to hold elections in the initial phase of a ceasefire with Moscow. They also discussed whether a ceasefire should be achieved before trying to reach a longer-term agreement.
Kellogg said that holding elections in Ukraine is important.
“Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so. I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running,” Kellogg said.
Reuters cited two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former US official briefed about the election proposal as saying that the Trump plan for peace “is still evolving and no policy decisions have been made” but that Kellogg and other White House officials discussed pushing Kiev to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia.
Zelensky’s five-year term was supposed to end in May 2024, but he has clung to the excuse that presidential and parliamentary elections cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022. According to sources cited by Reuters, the White House raised the issue of elections with senior officials in Zelensky’s office in 2023 and 2024 during the Biden administration, and US officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that elections were critical to uphold international and democratic norms.
Given that Zelensky has no viable opposition to challenge him, besides perhaps Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the question still remains why he refuses to uphold the democratic norms that he supposedly champions and defends.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 3, 2025
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) last week subpoenaed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for COVID-19 vaccine safety records and communications about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a subset of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.
HHS is required to produce the requested data and communications by Feb. 18. Johnson told The Defender it’s imperative that HHS comply promptly.
Johnson said:
“The federal government is supposed to serve the American people. Our taxes pay the bureaucrats’ salaries and fund their activities and studies. The results belong to the public and should be made available to us in a timely and transparent manner.
“Bureaucrats who withhold information only raise suspicion and reduce the credibility and integrity of their agencies.”
This was the first subpoena Johnson issued after being named chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Jan. 21.
During the Biden administration, Johnson wrote more than 70 congressional oversight letters to HHS officials and its health agencies requesting information on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events and related communications, according to a Jan. 29 press release.
Biden HHS officials “either completely ignored or inadequately addressed” the requests.
Johnson said in a statement:
“In the waning days of the Biden administration and after years of obstructing my oversight efforts, I warned HHS officials that when I become chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I will subpoena records and data on the COVID-19 pandemic that have been inappropriately withheld from Congress and the American people for far too long.”
The subpoena requires HHS to hand over:
Risa Evans, an attorney for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), applauded Johnson’s efforts.
CHD has filed multiple FOIA requests to obtain records from HHS agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) relating to the agencies’ monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety and injuries.
“The agencies have responded to our FOIA requests with delays, denials and redactions,” Evans said, “and we’ve been forced to sue to obtain records that, in truth, should be made public as a matter of course.”
Evans called the agencies’ lack of transparency “unconscionable — especially given the federal government’s relentless promotion of COVID-19 vaccination, coupled with claims that safety is being vigilantly monitored by the agencies and denials that the shots cause harm.”
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at CHD, said:
“Time is washing away the knowledge of how the government’s monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety went wrong, and the fingerprints of the wrongdoers. Promptly responding to Senator Johnson’s subpoena may preserve enough knowledge to ensure the betrayal never happens again.”
FDA partially responds to CHD’s FOIA request
Some documents referenced in Johnson’s subpoena have already been released, Evans said. For example, on Jan. 10, the FDA posted emails about its safety surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines using empirical Bayesian data mining.
Empirical Bayesian data mining is a method of analyzing vaccine injury reports, Jablonowski said.
The FDA provided the emails to CHD and posted them on the agency’s website one day after the agency objected to a motion filed by CHD in federal court about a 2023 FOIA lawsuit. CHD sued the FDA after it failed to respond to CHD’s FOIA request for the documents.
Other groups and individuals — including Johnson, The Epoch Times and the Informed Action Consent Network — had also FOIAed the FDA for the same safety surveillance data.
On Jan. 10, the FDA sent CHD a letter explaining that it was posting the emails as a “partial reply” to CHD’s FOIA request.
In its FOIA request, CHD had asked for “records of any Empirical Bayesian data mining” that the FDA conducted and “records of any sharing or discussion of results and signals with the CDC.” The emails posted by the FDA showed some of those records.
However, CHD in its FOIA request also asked for records related to “consultations by FDA and/or CBER [the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research] with VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] staff within the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office in connection with any signal that was detected.”
“The FDA still hasn’t responded to other key parts of our request,” Evans said. “In particular, it hasn’t provided records of the follow-up investigation the agency said it would conduct if it detected potential safety signals.”
Emails reveal FDA failed to detect safety signals
The emails released by the FDA revealed that in the first 18 months of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the FDA’s monitoring of VAERS showed consistent alerts for serious adverse events, including death, for the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine.
VAERS, co-managed by CDC and FDA, is a “passive” monitoring system that accepts reports of adverse events experienced after vaccination.
Meanwhile, the FDA’s monitoring found almost no safety signals for the Moderna and Pfizer shots, failing to detect signals even for widely recognized risks like myocarditis, pericarditis and anaphylaxis.
According to Jablonowski’s analysis of the emails, the FDA and CDC were never sufficiently looking for safety signals, despite all the “posturing” the agencies did around the COVID-19 vaccines’ safety.
The FDA and CDC’s “willful ignorance” of the adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination is an “epic betrayal,” Jablonowski said.
Related articles in The Defender
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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By Kit Klarenberg | Mint Press News | January 28, 2025
Ever since Tel Aviv’s 1948 creation, much has been said and written about ‘Greater Israel’ – the notion Zionism’s ultimate end goal is the forcible annexation and ethnic cleansing of vast swaths of Arab and Muslim lands for Jewish settlement, based on Biblical claims this territory was promised to Jews by God. The mainstream media typically dismisses this concept as antisemitic conspiracy theory, or at most the fringe fantasy of a minuscule handful of extremist Israelis.
In reality … continue
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