As is often the case with AP’s coverage of news having to do with Israel, there’s a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives attended the “National Prayer Breakfast” held in Washington DC. The day before that, these fugitives from the law were the guests of honor at an hour-long meeting of the International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by European police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill and at events attended by the US president.
Yet, there was not a single AP story in the US on any of this. 1 Not a single national network television or radio news program even mentioned these facts. In fact, Google and LexisNexis searches four days after these events took place turned up only three newspaper articles on them anywhere in the entire country. 2
Who are these fugitives from the law, wanted by Interpol, who are meeting at the highest levels of the US government? And why didn’t we learn of them?
Therein lies the story. These two men, it turns out, are just the tips of a colossal iceberg. And this iceberg doesn’t just have 90 percent of its mass hidden under water; this iceberg is almost entirely submerged.
They are Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, Israeli-Russian partners in the giant Russian oil company Yukos. They, along with a number of their cronies, are wanted by Interpol for allegedly bilking Russian citizens out of billions of dollars. To elude Russian prosecution, these men have taken up residence in Israel. 3
As the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz explains: “In recent years Russian authorities began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major stockholders, many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to flee to Israel, and resulted in Khodorkovski’s [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin attack on Yukos.”
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking power struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this connection. For example, a few months ago in a typical AP story on this power struggle, “Report: Russia again charges Berezovsky,” 4 Moscow AP Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an Israeli citizen, or of his many connections to Israel.
Such omissions by AP and large swaths of the American media leave Americans seriously disadvantaged in deciphering what is going on in Russia, and its profound significance for the world.
In order to make sense of this Russian power struggle, and to understand its importance to the rest of us, it is necessary to understand the usually omitted Israeli subtext. When this is understood, the friendship of such pro-Israel Congressional leaders as Rep. Lantos to fugitive Russian oil tycoons begins to make sense.
To explore this background it is often useful to turn to the Israeli press. In July a major Israeli publication, the Jerusalem Post, carried an article headlined: “Boris Berezovsky: Putin’s Russia dangerous for Israel.” Before describing what this contained, let us first go into a little of the background.
The Oligarchs
Boris Berezovsky is one of seven “oligarchs,” as they are known both inside and outside Russia: massively rich, powerful manipulators who through violence, theft and corruption acquired a mammoth percentage (reports range from 70 to 85 percent) of Russia’s resources, from its oil to the auto industry to mass media outlets.
At the same time, the group steadily gained control over much of the country’s political apparatus. Using extraordinary financial resources and insider dealing, the oligarchs handpicked prime ministers and governmental leaders and barely even bothered to do this behind the scenes.
In 1997 Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the group and Russia’s sometimes richest man (several of the oligarchs trade the top spot back and forth) told an interviewer before he was arrested and imprisoned by Putin last year:
“If we rank all the fields of man’s activity by profitability, politics will be the most lucrative business. When we see a critical situation in the government, we draw lots in order to pick out a person from our milieu for work in power.” 5
Almost all of these oligarchs, it turns out, have significant ties to Israel. In fact, Berezovsky himself has Israeli citizenship a fact that caused a scandal of Watergate proportions in Russia in 1996 when it was exposed by a Russian newspaper. 6
Do Berezovsky’s dual loyalties really matter? Yes. In the realm of global dominance, Israel’s interests and Russia’s are considerably divergent. It is in Israel’s interests to bring to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than the current one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its enemies. Not long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly disturbing to Israel.
Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel’s point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as “the Godfather of the Oligarchs’ and Kingmaker of Russia’s Politics’” and reports Berezovsky’s statement that “Putin’s Russia is dangerous for Israel.” Berezovsky goes on to assert that Putin “supports terror” in the Middle East through Russia’s previous relations with Iraq and current relations with Iran. 7
While Israelis may have been delighted at Berezovsky’s position in Russia, It is not surprising that Russian citizens were somewhat less so. Finding that a powerful leader and member of the Russian Security Council was an Israeli citizen was disconcerting, at best.
As a result of the media uproar over Berezovsky’s Israeli citizenship and other events, the Oligarchs’ connections to Israel are widely known in Russia and elsewhere. In Israel they are covered frequently, often with adulation, including a recent hit Israeli TV series called “The Oligarchs.”
“Some of its episodes,” according to Israeli writer Uri Avnery, “are simply unbelievable or would have been, if they had not come straight from the horses’ mouths: the heroes of the story, who gleefully boast about their despicable exploits. The series was produced by Israeli immigrants from Russia.”
Avnery writes that the oligarchs used “cheating, bribery and murder,” as they “exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the treasures of the state and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. In order to safeguard the perpetuation of their business, they took control of the state. Six out of the seven are Jews.” 8
According to a Washington Post story by David Hoffman, the group bought and controlled Russian governmental officials at the highest levels. After financing Yeltsin’s election in 1996, Hoffman writes: “The tycoons met and decided to insert one of their own into government. They debated who and chose [Vladimir] Potanin, who became deputy prime minister. One reason they chose Potanin was that he is not Jewish, and most of the rest of them are, and feared a backlash against the Jewish bankers.” 9
In Russia, the oligarchs are deeply loathed, considered villains who worked to bleed the country dry; during their reign many Russian citizens saw their life savings disappear overnight. A new term was coined for their dominance, “semibankirshchina” (the rule of the seven bankers), and they were widely known to have wielded small, murderous armies. There are rumors that Berezovsky, subject of the respectful AP article, was even responsible for the gunning down of an American journalist, Forbes Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov.
While no one has been charged with the murder of Klebnikov, who had written a book on Berezovsky, many suspect a Berezovsky connection. As a friend of Klebnikov wrote: “Experienced expatriates in Russia shared an essential rule: Don’t cross these brutal billionaires, ever, or you’re likely to go home in a box.” 10
The Chechnya Connection
There is evidence that Berezovsky’s responsibility for death and tragedy may be vastly greater.
“Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya,” Avnery reports, “in which tens of thousands have been killed and a whole country devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources and a prospective pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end to the peace agreement that gave the country some kind of independence. The oligarchs dismissed and destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular general who engineered the agreement, and the war has been going on since then.
“In the end,” Avnery writes, “there was a reaction: Vladimir Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel, another, Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be hiding here.)”
Yet, apart from the Washington Post, American media report on almost none of this. Instead, US coverage largely portrays Berezovsky and his crowd as American-style entrepreneurs who are being hounded by a Russian government whose actions are, to repeat the media’s commonly used phrase, “politically motivated.”
US news stories, even when they occasionally do hint at questionable practices, tend to use such phrases as “brash young capitalists” to describe the oligarchs. 11 For example, a long series co-produced by FRONTLINE and the New York Times referred to these men as “shrewd businessmen,” and asked “what it’s like to be young, Russian and newly affluent?” 12 Massive violence, dual loyalties, and control of resources are rarely, if ever, part of the picture.
When AP Moscow bureau chief Ingram was asked for this article about Berezovsky’s Israeli citizenship, she claimed to know nothing about it, a curious contention for someone who has been an AP news editor in Moscow since 1999. When Ingram was queried further, she hung up the phone.
An examination of Ingram’s reporting on the Berezovsky story cited above raises serious questions. Though she is located in Moscow, Ingram interviewed only two people for her news story: Berezovsky, who is in London, and Berezovsky associate Alex Goldfarb, in New York. One wonders why she interviewed none of the Russians residing around her.
Similarly, one wonders why not a single AP story has identified Berezovsky’s considerable connection to Israel.
Further, nowhere does Ingram’s article convey the ruthlessness of the oligarchs’ actions, or the significance of their holdings, including control of its media. Unnoted in Ingram’s report is the fact that her subject and fellow oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky have been two of Russia’s most powerful media tycoons.
Before Putin’s crackdown, according to the Washington Post, oligarchs had succeeded in seizing “the reins of Russia’s print and broadcast media, vital to the evolution of the country’s fledgling democracy and growth of its nascent civil society.” Berezovsky crony Gusinsky, who is close friends with Rupert Murdoch and was about the launch a satellite network, fled to Israel when it appeared he would be arrested.“ 13
Somehow, AP’s bureau chief seems to have missed all this.
Does this matter to Americans?
AP is the major news source for the thousands of news outlets around the country who cannot afford to have their own foreign correspondents. When AP chooses not to cover something, its omission is felt throughout the nation. When national news networks and others leave out the same facts, the cover-up is almost total.
Russia, despite its current turmoil, contains enormous power. Its natural resources are gargantuan: it possesses the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second largest coal reserves, and the eighth largest oil reserves. It is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, the second largest oil exporter, and the third largest energy consumer.14 Russia’s significance on the world stage now, as in the past, is immense.
Similarly, the United States is currently the most powerful nation on earth. It is therefore essential that its citizens be accurately informed on issues of significance. Israeli citizens, Russian citizens, and citizens of nations throughout the world know the information detailed above. It is critical that American citizens be no less well informed.
For years, the neocons’ push for war against Iraq was largely not covered by the US media. For even longer, the neocons’ close connections to Israel have gone largely unmentioned in mainstream American news reports. As a result, very few Americans know to what degree many of those responsible for the tragic US invasion and occupation of Iraq have been motivated by Israeli concerns.
The omission in coverage of Iraq has been profoundly disastrous, both for the Middle East and for Americans. In fact, it is quite likely that only history will show the true extent of this disaster. It is deeply troubling to see the same kind of omission occurring on Russia.
End Notes
- Interestingly, an AP report sent out only on its Worldstream wire (i.e. to Europe; Britain; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India; Asia; England, but not to US papers) contained information on this at the end of the report.
- Washington Post: “Prayer Breakfast Includes Russian Fugitives” (overall, the Post has been an exception to the general blackout on this subject); the Seattle Times, which ran the Post story, and the New York Times, in a short story on page 12 on Sunday, three days after the event. Interestingly, the NY Times story was filed from Moscow (not Washington) and quotes a “spokesman” for the two men, Charles Krause, who has worked as a correspondent in Israel for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. In the Times story Russian attempts to prosecute these men are described as “politically motivated.”
- This is a wise move, since Israel is known for often failing to Jewish extradite citizens, no matter what their crime. Even requests for such cooperation by the US, which gives Israel over $10 million per day, sometimes go unheeded by the Israeli government. Private citizens wanted for committing murder in the US, for example, have sometimes not returned for trial.
- Associated Press, Sept. 22, 2004
- “Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia,” By David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01
- “Media and Politics in Transition: Three Models,” Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter, Issue 35, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Feb. 27, 1997
- “Boris Berezovsky: Putin’s Russia dangerous for Israel.’, Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2005
- “The Oligarchs”, Uri Avnery, CounterPunch, Aug. 3, 2004
- “Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia,” By David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01,
- “Same Old Ruthless Russia,” by Michael R. Caputo, Washingtonpost.com
- Washington Post, Aug 28, 1998
- October 2003, Sabrina Tavernise,
- “Powerful Few Rule Russian Mass Media,” David Hoffman, Washington Post, March 31, 1997; Page A01
- Russia Country Analysis Brief
March 17, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Chechnya, Middle East, Russia, United States, Zionism |
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The huge $1.5 trillion US federal spending bill, that’s expected to be signed into law by President Joe Biden today, allocates over $2.6 billion to “Democracy Programs” and requires these programs to combat “the misuse of social media to spread disinformation or incite hate.”
This requirement is buried deep into the 2,741 page bill on page 1,408 and is part of the “Title VII General Provisions” of the “Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022.”
The bill states: “Democracy programs supported with funds appropriated by this Act… should, as appropriate… include… efforts to combat weaponized technology, including the misuse of social media to spread disinformation or incite hate.”
While this is the main requirement in the bill related to disinformation, there’s also another reference to disinformation on page 1,848 that states:
“Funds appropriated by this title under the heading “Economic Support Fund” may be transferred to, and merged with, funds available under the heading “Diplomatic Programs” for activities related to public engagement, messaging, and countering disinformation.”
The “Economic Support Fund” heading makes $6.47 million available until September 30, 2024 while the “Diplomatic Programs” heading makes $125 million available until September 30, 2024 with the provisions that up to $15 million “may be transferred to, and merged with, funds available under the heading “‘Capital Investment Fund”’ for cybersecurity and related information technology investments” and that the funds “shall be made available, as appropriate, to enhance the capacity of the Department of State to identify the assets of Russian and other oligarchs related to the situation in Ukraine, and to coordinate with the Department of the Treasury in seizing or freezing such assets.”
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
The way the final text of this massive spending bill was released in the middle of the night, hours before a final vote, has been criticized by numerous US politicians.
The final text of the bill was published just before 3 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday morning and the final vote for the bill in the US House of Representatives was set for 1:30 pm EST on Wednesday, giving representatives less than 11 hours to read the final text before voting.
A day later, the final vote for the bill in the US Senate was held, giving Senators around 24 hours to read the nearly 3,000 pages in the bill.
“Literally in the DARK OF NIGHT, the Democrat controlled Rules Committee met at 1:30 am – 2:30 am and passed the HORRENDOUS $1.5 TRILLION Omnibus bill,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted. “They did NOT tell anyone or announce this debate on the bill until after midnight! We woke up to 2,741 pages and we vote today!”
Senator Rand Paul added: “Do you think there is a single person in the U.S. who believes that Congress is filled with speed readers capable of digesting thousands of pages in a matter of hours? The 2741-page omnibus with a $1.5 trillion price tag that was released in the middle of the night is a perfect example of why Congress needs time to read the bills.”
This isn’t the first time a huge spending bill has been used to push new online rules. In December 2020, a controversial copyright reform that proposed up to 10 years in prison for “unauthorized streaming” was buried 2,540 pages deep in the 5,593 page “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.” Despite its huge length, this bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump within six days.
The addition of requirements to fight online disinformation in this federal spending bill is the latest of many examples of the federal government targeting online speech. The Biden White House has admitted that it flags content for Facebook to censor and proposed that If you’re banned for “misinformation” on one platform, you should be banned from ALL platforms. Members of Congress have also threatened to hold Big Tech companies “accountable” if they don’t censor misinformation.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | United States |
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Europe has been shaken by galloping gas prices in recent months, leading to financial and socio-political instability in the Old World.
There are several reasons for this, one of them being the politics of domestic European speculators, who wanted to get rich quick when, as a result of their blatant Russophobic policies, European officials managed to keep Gazprom and its cheap gas out of the EU internal market. As a result, these speculators sell at a markup of 300, 400 or 500 per cent the cheap gas that Gazprom pumped into their storages back in the summer. In doing so, they squeeze their super-profits out of the European consumer. And until they sell these reserves, they will not let Russian gas into Europe.
In addition to European speculators on Russian gas, the United States has become enormously rich in recent months, profiting from the extraordinarily high prices. Meanwhile, in order to distract public opinion from the true situation on the issue, Joe Biden’s administration officials are trying to falsely accuse Moscow of increasing gas prices, while doing nothing to lower those prices themselves, as their fall is absolutely unprofitable for Washington.
And this is confirmed by data from the Russian Federal Customs Service and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, which clearly show reports on gas exports to Europe by the US and prove that it is the US that has been making more money than Russia on the super-high gas prices in recent months. Thus, the value of natural gas and LNG exported by Russia in January-August 2021 was $33.197 billion, compared with $42.9 billion worth of LNG exported by the US during the same period!
Most US gas supplies to Europe come under spot contracts (at exchange prices, quick purchase and payment and delivery by a certain date) concluded in December and January, when quotations in Europe were hitting record highs. As a result, traders now supplying American gas to Europe are making super profits. In January, they not only benefited from supplying Europe with gas produced in the US, but they also diverted volumes from the Middle Eastern and even Asian routes as a result of lower gas prices in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).
As for Gazprom, it delivers, fulfilling its contractual obligations mainly under long-term contracts, i.e. at prices significantly lower than those on the stock exchange.
If LNG supplies result in lower gas prices in Europe, that market will automatically become uninteresting to US exporters, and Europeans themselves will have to go back to buying gas from the traditional suppliers. The panic mood in Europe is therefore now being artificially maintained by allegtions that Russia could cut off gas supplies because of the escalating situation around Ukraine. It is remarkable, however, that all the LNG supplies from the US have never managed to seriously depress gas exchange quotations in Europe, while any news of successful negotiations between Russia and the US or European leaders knocks prices down by $100-150.
As we know, the European gas market is the backyard of the global LNG market, dependent on the conditions in the APAC countries, where the market is physically larger. As soon as prices begin to fall in Asia, they also fall in Europe, and vice versa. In 2021, half of US gas exports went to Asia-Pacific and only a quarter to Europe. However, the diversion of LNG flows from the US to Europe could soon result in higher gas prices in the APAC, with US gas carriers heading back to Asia and European prices again breaking records for the benefit of the same European speculators and US traders, and to the misfortune of Europeans who will pay the price for Washington’s gangster gas policy.
Europe, with its substantial gas consumption and dozens of underutilized LNG import terminals, has long been of great interest to US companies, which have spent a total of $60bn on export infrastructure. There has been a real boom in the construction of LNG terminals in Europe too, under the influence of Washington, and they have even been built in Lithuania and Poland. However, no one can deny that LNG is expensive compared to pipeline gas from Russia. This is why, until recently, Europe was very enthusiastic about buying pipeline gas cheaply from Russia and why 75-80% of Europe’s LNG terminal capacity stood empty. In any case, the main criterion for assessing the prospects of US LNG as a competitor to Gazprom in Europe is price.
However, there have been some significant deteriorations in the gas market in recent weeks. Above all, they followed Russia’s receipt in late February of written confirmation of NATO’s and the United States’ refusal to engage in a dialogue with Moscow on security guarantees. This came against a backdrop where the West had previously blatantly refused to reassure Kiev’s rampant neo-Nazi authorities, who came to power in 2014 through a Washington-inspired coup. But for 8 years, at the instigation of Washington and with the tacit support of the West, the Kiev authorities have consistently pursued a policy of genocide in Donbas, where, according to incomplete information, they have killed more than 13,000 Russian-speaking civilians and pursued a policy of Russophobia. In addition, the Kiev authorities have recently intensified their neo-Nazi activities in the country and have made increasing threats of a potential nuclear weapon capability in Ukraine, in the hope of using which Kiev has already begun to develop far-reaching plans to attack Russia.
Under these conditions and in the absence of a proper Western response to the activities of the Kiev authorities, in late February Moscow was forced to launch a special operation in Ukraine to demilitarize and denazify it for reasons of self-preservation. In response, Washington and its Western allies unleashed an information war against Russia and slapped severe sanctions. Brussels, in a bid to please the Russophobic US political establishment, has refused to certify the already built Nord Stream 2, which could have significantly eased the situation on the European gas market. However, other Russian pipelines continue to operate and pump gas to Europe. Moreover, despite the misleading anti-Russian information warfare unleashed by Washington, Russian gas continues to flow through the Ukrainian gas transmission system without interruption, as reported by the Ukrainian transmission system operator itself. Gas supplies to Europe are not just flowing through the Ukrainian pipeline, they have also increased. The Europeans have increased their requests for supply and Gazprom has begun to pump through the Ukrainian pipe all of 109 million cubic meters of gas per day instead of 50 million cubic meters per day, as it was before the Russian special operation in Ukraine began, which is a doubling of supplies.
However, due to the depletion of European underground storage facilities due to winter weather, there is almost no gas left, forcing the EU to switch to current imports, which are “obligingly” offered by the US, which itself unleashed the crisis in Ukraine to, among other things, raise the price of gas in Europe. As for the Europeans, they are so far trying to move Russia’s hydrocarbon supplies out of the sanctions bracket, although individual European politicians, such as Borel, who openly “eat from Washington’s table”, have started talking about imposing additional sanctions against Russia in the gas sector as well, to please White House policy. At the same time, such European officials know full well that Russia is not going to use its gas as a tool against Europe. The EU has no substitute for that, by the way, and many of the world’s gas exporters have already spoken out about it. And the situation in Europe will only get worse for the population if the anti-Russian policy of the current European officials continues, threatening not only the impoverishment of the population, but also the bankruptcy of many European companies and even entire sectors of the economy.
At the same time, as Europe’s anti-Russian sanctions policy continues to escalate, it cannot be ruled out that Russia may eventually, in order to ensure its own security, use hydrocarbon supplies as a retaliatory measure if it considers Western sanctions to be disastrous for the Russian economy. But such actions will only lead to a clear victory for the United States over Europe, a further increase in its dependence on Washington, including on gas, and an even greater enrichment of the United States through its previously planned increase of gas prices in Europe by exacerbating relations with Russia.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Ukraine, United States |
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The Biden administration made direct payments to nearly all major corporate media outlets to deploy a $1 billion taxpayer-funded outreach campaign designed to push only positive coverage about COVID-19 vaccines and to censor any negative coverage.
Media outlets across the nation failed to disclose the federal government as the source of ads in news reports promoting the shots to their audiences.
According to a Freedom of Information Request filed by The Blaze, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) purchased advertising from major news outlets including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
HHS also ran media blitzes in major media publications including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, BuzzFeed News, Newsmax and hundreds of local TV stations and newspapers across the nation.
In addition to paying news outlets to push the vaccines, the federal government bought ads on TV, radio, in print and on social media as part of a “comprehensive media campaign,” HHS documents show.
The ad campaigns were timed in conjunction with the increased availability of COVID vaccines. They featured “influencers” and “experts,” including Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the White House and director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
In March 2021, Facebook announced a social media plan to “help get people vaccinated,” and worked with the Biden administration and U.S. health agencies to suppress what it called “COVID misinformation.”
BuzzFeed News advised everyone age 65 or older, people with health conditions that put them at high risk of severe illness from COVID, healthcare workers and those at high risk of exposure to the virus to get vaccine boosters, in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Other publications, including the Los Angeles Times, featured advice from experts on how readers could convince “vaccine-hesitant people” to change their minds.
The Washington Post presented “the pro-vaccine messages people want to hear.”
Newsmax said COVID vaccines have “been demonstrated to be safe and effective” and “encouraged citizens, especially those at risk, to get immunized.”
Yet, the latest data from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System shows 1,151,450 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 24,827 deaths since Dec. 14, 2020.
Numerous scientists and public health experts have questioned the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines, as well as the data underlying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of the shots.
The media rarely covered negative news stories about COVID vaccines, and some have labeled anyone who questions the shots “science denialists” or “conspiracy theorists.”
“These outlets were collectively responsible for publishing countless articles and video segments regarding the vaccine that were nearly uniformly positive about the vaccine in terms of both its efficacy and safety,” The Blaze reported.
Congress appropriates $1 billion tax dollars to ‘strengthen vaccine confidence’
In March 2021, Congress appropriated $1 billion U.S. tax dollars for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to spend on activities to “strengthen vaccine confidence in the United States,” with $3 billion set aside for the CDC to fund “support and outreach efforts” in states through community-based organizations and trusted leaders.
HHS’s public education efforts were co-chaired by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins, Fauci, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky — with Vice President Kamala Harris leading the effort from the White House.
Federal law allows HHS, acting through the CDC and other agencies, to award contracts to public and private entities to “carry out a national, evidence-based campaign to increase awareness and knowledge of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines for the prevention and control of diseases, combat misinformation about vaccines and disseminate scientific and evidence-based vaccine-related information, with the goal of increasing rates of vaccination across all ages … to reduce and eliminate vaccine-preventable diseases.”
HHS did not immediately respond to The Blaze when asked if the agency used taxpayer dollars to pay for people to be interviewed, or for a PR firm to place experts and celebrities in interviews with news outlets.
The Blaze also reached out to several news organizations whose editorial boards claimed “firewall policies” preventing advertisers from influencing news coverage, but which nevertheless took money from HHS for targeted ads.
“Advertisers pay for space to share their messages, as was the case here, and those ads are clearly labeled as such,” Shani George, vice president of communications for The Washington Post, said in a statement. “The newsroom is completely independent from the advertising department.”
Although The Washington Post may have several departments, they’re all under the authority of the same CEO and key executive team.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Times said their “newsroom operates independently from advertising.”
Former Newsmax anchor confirms network paid to promote only positive coverage
According to Desert News, Emerald Robinson, an independent journalist who previously served as the chief White House correspondent for Newsmax and One America News, said she was contacted by a whistleblower inside Newsmax who confirmed the news organization’s executives agreed to take money from HHS under the Biden administration to push only positive coverage of COVID vaccines.
Robinson was also contacted by top Newsmax executives in 2021, and told to stop any negative coverage of the COVID shots as “it was problematic.”
Robinson said she was warned multiple times by executives and was told by PR experts who worked with Newsmax that medical experts or doctors likely to say negative things about COVID vaccines would not be booked as guests.
Robinson was reportedly fired by Newsmax after tweeting “conspiracy theories” about COVID vaccines and was later banned from Twitter for “repeatedly violating the platforms’ rules on COVID-19 misinformation.”
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy in an op-ed applauded Biden for his vaccine efforts.
Ruddy wrote:
“At Newsmax, we have strongly advocated for the public to be vaccinated. The many medical experts who have appeared on our network have been near-unanimous in support of the vaccine. I myself have gotten the Pfizer vaccine. There’s no question in my mind, countless lives would have been saved if the vaccine was available earlier.”
In other examples cited by The Blaze, “fear-based vaccine ads” from HHS featuring “survivor” stories from COVID patients who were hospitalized in intensive care units were covered by CNN and discussed on ABC’s “The View” last October.
HHS ads on YouTube featuring celebrities like Sir Michael Caine and Sir Elton John garnered millions of views.
As The Defender reported in September, a group of people injured by COVID vaccines reached out to the media to tell their stories, only to be told by news agencies they could not cover COVID vaccine injuries.
Kristi Dobbs, 40, was injured by Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. Dobbs spent months pleading with U.S. health agencies to research the neurological injuries she and others are experiencing in hopes of finding a treatment.
Dobbs said she and others who developed neurological injuries after getting a COVID vaccine shared their experiences with a reporter, in hope of raising awareness about their experiences.
Dobbs said she and others knew they needed to tell their stories, without causing “vaccine hesitancy,” to protect others from the same fate — so members of the group started writing and calling anyone who would listen, including reporters, news agencies and members of Congress.
Dobbs said they tried the best they could as simple Americans to reach out to those who would hear their stories. Finally, a reporter from a small media company was willing to do a story. Dobbs and others from the group participated in a 2-hour and 40-minute interview.
“The story never went anywhere,” Dobbs said. She said the reporter told them a “higher up” at Pfizer made a call to the station and pressured staff there into not covering any other stories about vaccine adverse reactions.
As previously reported by The Defender, the same investment firms with financial interests in Pfizer also hold large ownership stakes of corporate media outlets.
In addition, Pfizer has contracts with the federal government, which has spent billions of American tax dollars both buying COVID vaccines and promoting only positive coverage to the public.
Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver told Desert News, “People have been injured and died as a result of the most extensive propaganda campaign in U.S. history and it was paid for with our taxpayer dollars.”
COVID vaccines are not safe or effective, but the American public has been given propaganda by the Biden administration instead of truth from the news media, Staver said.
“The consequence is that many people have needlessly suffered as a result of the censorship and propaganda.”
Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | ABC, Buzzfeed News, CBS, CNN, COVID-19 Vaccine, Fox News, HHS, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, NBC, New York Post, Newsmax, The Washington Post, United States |
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Del sits down for a one-on-one with the former W.H.O. consultant & research scientist, Tess Lawrie MD, PhD, who was a critical part of the Ivermectin trials over a year ago with overwhelmingly positive conclusions. See data and recorded personal zoom calls that reveal how a key review was attacked from within, keeping the safe, life-saving drug out of the hands of millions of dying Covid patients for more than a year.
March 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Ivermectin, NHS, UK, Unitaid |
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There are a lot of words that could characterize “Public Health” in 2022.
Some that come to mind:
-Not credible
-Misleading
-Wrong-focused
-Myopic
The one word that sums up “Public Health” in 2022?
“Untrustworthy”
“Public Health” has suffered from increasing and now severe vaccine myopia since the “prevention” program rose to power in the CDC.
Their one-sided thinking was fairly restricted to pediatrics but now has infected allopathic medicine.
Why are they untrustworthy?
For me, it’s because they willfully ignore evidence that challenges their policy positions. Worse, they work to destroy it (targeting papers for retraction, and peoples’ reputations).
They lie to themselves.
Their disdain for evidence that runs counter to their narrative places them outside of the demarcation zone of Science.
Here’s an example:
In the UK, the triple vaccinated now account for the majority of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations & deaths (See DailyExpose.uk ).
This should be on the front page of Public Health England’s webpage. Oh, wait, that’s right, PHE was “Public Health England was replaced by UK Health Security Agency and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities”.
And they want us to accept school mandates in places like Washington State.
The public trusted public health with their lives and their livelihoods. There are still people in “Public Health” defending lock-downs.
And they want us to trust them and support them in their quest for a “Universal COVID Vaccine” – one that targets “all variants” – an impossible task given the rate of evolution of RNA and how widespread SARS-CoV-2 is across the globe (See: Washington Post ).
They are untrustworthy because have turned a blind eye to the full balance of the data.
Here are some synonymous that might help you in your communications today
Dishonest, deceitful, not to be trusted, double-dealing, treacherous, traitorous, two-faced, janus-faced, unfaithful, duplicitous, dishonorable, unprincipled, unscrupulous, corrupt, shady, shifty, underhanded.
See how many of the following characteristics apply to “Public Health” from an article on five characteristics of untrustworthy people from Inc.com (5 Ways to Tell if Someone Is Untrustworthy):
1. They lie to themselves
2. They project behaviors on you that are clearly not ones you are exhibiting
3. They breach confidentiality
4. They show a lack of empathy
5. Their emotional state is volatile, and they have a pattern of inconsistency and fickleness in their decisions
The byline of the Inc.com article reads “Trust is the superglue of relationships, but if you spot these behaviors, it’s time to find a new partner to do business with.”
Exactly.
March 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, UK, United States |
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2021 granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to two COVID-19 early treatment oral drugs: Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s molnupiravir.
This was a major milestone, as until then, there were no FDA-endorsed pharmaceutical pill options for people diagnosed with COVID-19.
The standard medical therapy for a newly diagnosed person was: Go home, rest, drink water and go to the hospital if things get dire.
Now, after almost two years, people diagnosed with early stages of COVID-19 can be prescribed a pill!
As background, there are three stipulations a drug must meet in order to obtain EUA from the FDA:
- There must be an emergency.
- The treatment in consideration must be safe and offer 50% efficacy.
- There must not be an alternative available treatment that is safe and effective.
Pfizer and Merck oversaw clinical trials that attempted to prove their products were safe and effective. In the letters of authorization issued to Pfizer and Merck, the FDA outlined what tests were done, what the results were, what some of the limitations and concerns are, etc.
The FDA then generated more detailed advisories to healthcare providers (doctors) for Paxlovid and molnupiravir. These documents give more specifics about use restrictions (e.g., not to children), potentially adverse effects of each drug (e.g., not to be used by pregnant women, etc.), potential conflicts with other drugs (quite a few), etc.
Here are four key points to consider regarding the Paxlovid and molnupiravir data:
- The tests were conducted by the pharmaceutical companies themselves (not an unbiased entity).
- No long-term testing was done on either of these drugs (the trials lasted a few months).
- The effects on patients with many other diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s) were not evaluated and remain unknown.
- The reported effectiveness of each drug (hospitalization or death: 88% and 30%) are relative not absolute. (See this explanation about this important point.)
OK, kudos to the FDA for giving consumers some early treatment options for dealing with COVID-19. It’s especially good that they are non-hospital, take-at-home therapies.
However, the question remains: How do these FDA-endorsed drugs compare to other over-the-counter (OTC) and non-patented drugs — especially ivermectin (IVM) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) — that are reported to have some early treatment effectiveness against COVID-19?
As a scientist (physicist) I try to be careful in analyzing data, to not only be accurate but to present it objectively and understandably.
In that light, see this table where I juxtapose Paxlovid and molnupiravir to IVM, HCQ and three OTC drugs: curcumin, Vitamin D and zinc. The comparisons made are based on about 20 COVID-19 factors (effectiveness, safety, cost, etc.).
Comparison of Major COVID-19 Early Treatment Oral Pharmaceuticals
Click here to increase the size of the chart and access the hyperlinks.
6 takeaways from comparison of Paxlovid and molnupiravir to IVM, HCQ, and OTCs
- Pfizer’s Paxlovid is reported to have very high effectiveness.
- HCQ and the curcumin have effectiveness comparable to Paxlovid.
- Merck’s molnupiravir has very low effectiveness.
- IVM, Vitamin D and Zinc have effectiveness far superior to molnupiravir.
- Paxlovid and molnupiravir have more serious side effects than the others.
- Paxlovid and molnupiravir cost considerably more than the non-patented options.
Are Pfizer and Merck oral treatment EUAs legal?
Remember, federal law stipulates that an EUA can not be granted unless: “There is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating the disease or condition.”
The data in this analysis indicate there are “adequate and available alternatives for treating” COVID-19. If the data are accurate, then these EUAs have questionable legality.
Adequate and available alternatives for treating COVID-19 do, in fact, exist — the FDA has no scientific justification for ignoring IVM, HCQ, Vitamin D and zinc.
Further, if these FDA-issued EUAs for Paxlovid and molnupiravir violate federal statutes, a closer examination of the FDA’s COVID-19 vaccine EUAs seems warranted.
If the Pfizer and Merck EUAs are legal, then why haven’t HCQ and IVM also been given EUAs?
Considering the six takeaways listed above — plus the fact, as noted in the above table, that there have been successful HCQ and IVM studies much larger (~10x) than those done for Paxlovid and molnupiravir — exactly why has the FDA not issued EUAs for IVM and HCQ?
The comparative in Table 1 adequately demonstrates there is no justification for the FDA’s refusal to grant EUAs to IVM and HCQ.
If the FDA had granted EUAs for HCQ and IVM a year ago, hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths would have been prevented.
What FDA policy, procedure or precedent took priority over preventing hundreds of thousands of American deaths?
What about monoclonal antibody therapies?
Let us now expand our comparisons to include current monoclonal antibody therapies:
Comparison of Major COVID-19 Early Treatment Pharmaceuticals
Click here to increase the size of the chart and access the hyperlinks.
Note that the four key points identified above, regarding the Paxlovid and molnupiravir data, all apply here.
Some of the main takeaways from this comparison are:
- Sotrovimab has the highest effectiveness — but the least amount of data.
- HCQ and curcumin have effectiveness comparable to the bamlanivimab+ and casirivimab+ combinations.
- The first FDA EUA given to bamlanivimab turned out to be a mistake (as health issues were discovered).
- All the monoclonals have more serious side effects than the non-EUA options.
- All the monoclonals cost considerably more than the non-EUA options.
- All the monoclonals have much less safety data than the non-EUA options.
Again, this comparison shows that IVM, HCQ, curcumin, vitamin D and zinc compare very favorably to all of the early treatments that received EUA from the FDA.
John Droz, Jr. is an independent North Carolina physicist.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
March 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, FDA, Merck, Molnupiravir, Paxlovid, Pfizer, United States |
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How did she know?
This is amazing. BMJ Editor Fiona Godlee knew in August 2020, when the phase 3 vaccine trials were just getting started, that the vaccines:
a) would not be very effective
b) would likely just decrease severity of illness and not prevent infection
c) might become a suboptimal, chronic treatment, and
d) might change the definition of what we consider a vaccine to be
How did she know this? I imagine she knew it from a whistleblower or two or ten. The public certainly didn’t know it. If she knew it Fauci knew it, along with his Corona Task Force of useful idiots.
By Fiona Godlee, editor in chief, BMJ | August 20, 2020
“Few can doubt that we need a vaccine for covid-19 as soon as possible, and great strides are being made, including in our understanding of the immunology of SARS-CoV-2.1 But what damage may result from the race to create one? The World Health Organization has produced guidance on minimum characteristics for a vaccine, including 50% efficacy, temperature stability, potential for rapid scale-up, and proper evaluation against comparators. But, writes Els Torreele, these basic requirements are being rapidly eroded by the prevailing view that anything is better than nothing.2 So instead we are heading for vaccines that reduce severity of illness rather than protect against infection, provide only short lived immunity, and will at best have been trialled by the manufacturer against placebo. As well as damaging public confidence and wasting global resources by distributing a poorly effective vaccine, this could change what we understand a vaccine to be. Instead of long term, effective disease prevention it could become a suboptimal chronic treatment. This would be good for business but bad for global public health.”
March 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Global health and early life course scholars were too quiet during Covid, showing the broken incentives in academics
Of course, some academics were notably vocal during COVID19, taking the thesis position– lockdown, school closure, masking, temperature checks– or the antithesis– that these interventions don’t work or did more harm than good. But notably most academics were silent.
I understand why laboratory scientists might have stayed out of it, but two groups puzzle me: global health advocates and early life course/ disparities researchers who were quiet.
Lockdowns might ultimately be the single most destabilizing event in the last 25 years globally. Leading to famine and extreme poverty like we have never seen in modern times. Oxfam warned last summer that 11 people die each minute from hunger, outpacing covid.
A generation of kids have lost their future. UNICEF reported in March 2021 that 168 million kids lost a year of school, and many lost more.
India faced some of the longest closures, mortgaging the future of tens of millions of kids, leading to catastrophic educational losses.
School closures in the USA were disproportionately in liberal strongholds and attitudes were temporaly linked to Trump’s advocacy. Closing school for more than a year is the greatest domestic policy failure of the last 25 years. As a lifelong Democrat/ progressive, I know with confidence that my team is responsible for this.
Yet, throughout this pandemic, notice how many global health scholars were totally silent on lockdowns. How many global health researchers said nothing as India sacrificed the future of a generation with school closures? How many US based disparity researchers or early childhood advocates were silent on school closure? I believe most were quiet!
Why?
The answer is simple: they are more committed to their career than they are to the cause. It is a professional liability to take a strong stand on a controversial issue. It can lead to professional repercussions. Being silent is safe. At the same time, the single most consequential decision of one’s lifetime was taking place on topics these people supposedly care about, but they were silent. Instead, they continued their, by perspective, trivial work.
This criticism is particularly relevant for global health reseachers. For years, I have felt that some spend their lives flying to Europe to attend cocktail parties and lavish conferences, praising themselves for their virtue, while the globe stagnates in economic hegemony, and the average person’s health in a low or middle income nation is unchanged. It feels like empty rhetoric, and this was on full display with COVID. Most were totally silent on lockdowns.
Part of the barrier is the Academy, which is meant to promote vibrant thought, has become a monoculture of groupthink. Everyone cares about diversity, but on school closures– a form of structural racism– they were all silent. Everyone cares about the poor, but is happy to put their own child in a school pod, while poor kids get a zoom education. Perhaps some of these people lacked professional support or protection to speak against the (perceived) mob, but others may have merely lacked courage, or as is human nature, chosen selfishness.
At the end of the day, covid policy was dominated by idiots, people lacking a self preservation instinct, and a few courageous souls. Sometimes, however, it was hard to tell who was who. But most of all we missed the voices that should have been active. They were silent. They let me down, but also a few hundred million children. I hope they enjoy their promotions.
March 6, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights |
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I discuss how *G.Soros* & Canada are pivotal to the Globalist takeover of Ukraine. This seems to involve the CIA in its capacity as part of an underground international Intelligence Apparatus which I believe was set up during & after WW2 in Project RUSTY.
I have the BEST audience on the internet! and I want to thank you all for your support & comments. If you would like to send a financial contribution so that I can keep doing this work, please click the following link or go to my website, amazingpolly.net
I also focus on the major role Canadians have played in Ukraine.. There’s a lot going on here, so grab a pen. :)
NOTE: the photo I say is of Oleh Havrylyshyn is not him. I put in the wrong file. more…
I have the BEST audience on the internet! and I want to thank you all for your support & comments. If you would like to send a financial contribution so that I can keep doing this work, please click the following link or go to my website, amazingpolly.net
References:
Chrystia Freeland Macleans: https://www.macleans.ca/news/liberal-mp-chrystia-freeland-this-time-not-on-the-economy-but-on-ukraine/
Anti Trump Freeland Macleans: https://www.macleans.ca/politics/what-if-donald-trump-has-a-point-with-chrystia-freeland/
The World According to Soros: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/01/23/the-world-according-to-soros
Halyna Freeland and Soros: https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/qa-the-ukrainian-legal-foundation39s-halyna-freela-1344.html
Soros & Ukraine: http://willzuzak.ca/lp/soros01.html
US caused Orange Revolution: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
Orange Revolution aftermath: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122584545
NYT Clinton Pinchuk: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign-charity.html
Zelensky Pinchuk Kuchma together again: https://www.unian.info/politics/10581132-zelensky-s-adviser-pinchuk-helps-to-persuade-kuchma-to-re-join-minsk-talks.html
European Dev Bank, ..
March 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Video | Canada, CIA, Ukraine |
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JCVI – don’t bite the hand…
There’s a well known expression “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” It can be taken literally – if an animal bites the hand that feeds it, it won’t get fed. In the business or academic world, it means don’t upset your funder. It’s obvious really – if you do, they won’t fund you anymore. The bigger the amount received, the less of a good idea it is to upset the funder.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) “advises UK health departments on immunisation.”[i] The JCVI has a sub-committee specifically to advise on COVID-19 vaccines. The chair of the JCVI, Professor Andrew Pollard, recused himself from all JCVI COVID-19 meetings because he is involved in the development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine at Oxford University – where he works. This was done to avoid any “perceived conflict of interest.”
Professor Lim Wei Shen was appointed chair of the JCVI sub-committee on COVID-19 vaccines. In August 2021, he stated categorically that 12-15 year olds would not be offered COVID-19 vaccines.[ii] Barely 6 weeks after that statement, 12-15 year olds were offered jabs.[iii] Barely 6 months later, on February 16th, 2022, the sub-committee issued a statement saying that, although 5-11 year olds are “generally at very low risk of serious illness from the virus”, they would be offered 2 doses of the Pfizer mRNA jab.[iv] This recommendation occurred despite the trials in children not being due for completion until May 2026.[v] We have previously noted that Professor Lim has a substantial conflict of interest: he has direct responsibility for material levels of funding received by his department from Pfizer.
At the time of writing, the most recent minutes for the sub-committee meetings are from May 2021. The sub-committee and main JCVI minutes report “Declarations of Interest” for the committee members. The Code of Practice describes the JCVI as “an independent Departmental Expert Committee and a statutory body.”[vi] Independent being the word of interest. One would expect this to mean “free from conflicts of interest”, but a closer look revealed that this was not the case.
The COVID-19 sub-committee of the JCVI has 15 core members (1 lay member). None of the members of this sub-committee declared conflicts of interests. Five of the 14 non-lay members provided additional information in their ‘non-declaration’ that revealed conflicts of interest. One, for example, declared funding from “the National Institute for Health Research, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”, but didn’t consider any of that vaccine funding as a conflict of interest. A cursory search on the remaining nine members revealed that six had conflicts of interest – from running a COVID-19 vaccine trial to being their organisation’s representative for Pfizer. One member failed to declare that he leads the Pfizer Vaccine Centre of Excellence in Bristol.
The members work for organisations, which collectively have received approximately $1,000,000,000 – one billion dollars – from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation aims to “accelerate the development and commercialization of novel vaccines and the sustainable manufacture of existing vaccines.”[vii] No doubt the Gates Foundation would have welcomed the sub-committee’s decision.
The majority of the COVID-19 JCVI sub-committee members have conflicts of interest. These members don’t seem to realise that their research or institution receiving huge sums of money from pharmaceutical companies and/or the Gates Foundation is a conflict of interest.
Has this committee truly been able to provide an independent assessment of the risk and reward of the main products of interest of the Gates Foundation? Or has it made a decision to not bite the hand that feeds it?
Read full article here:
- [i] https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation#conflict-of-interests
- [ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RS1v7jN94w
- [iii] https://www.england.nhs.uk/2021/09/nhs-rolls-out-covid-19-jab-to-children-aged-12-to-15/
- [iv] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-updates-advice-on-vaccinations-for-5-to-11-age-group
- [v] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04816643
- [vi] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/224864/JCVI_Code_of_Practice_revision_2013_-_final.pdf
- [vii] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-health/vaccine-development-and-surveillance
February 25, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Gates Foundation, UK |
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Historically, the claim of consensus is the first refuge of the scoundrel; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics.
Michael Crichton, PhD, MD, author, screenwriter and academic
Humans cause all or most of the changes in the climate by burning fossil fuel. We must stop using the most efficient fuel we have, one that supplies 85% of our energy needs, and sign up for a so-called Net Zero future. The rich will get richer, since they will control state-mandated transfers of once-productive capital into new untried technologies, and the poor will get poorer. Holidays, personal travel and energy will be rationed (for the masses), while meat-free diets will be the order of the day. There are disadvantages, admit the green, politically motivated zealots, but it has to be done. The Earth is on fire – the science is settled.
Except that it isn’t. The idea that humans are largely responsible for climate change is an unproven hypothesis. The claim that it is ‘settled science’ on which all specialists in the field agree is a political con. Over 40 years, climate models have produced wildly inaccurate warming forecasts that have never been right.
The political narrative of global warming got going in the 1980s, following the failure of the 1970s global cooling scare. The warming narrative had a good ride for 15 years, until the recent warming started to run out of steam. Over the last seven years, there has been a standstill in temperatures. This is part of what lies behind the recent rebranding of bad weather as ‘extreme’, and unscientific attempts to link solo events to long-term aggregate climate change. Record high temperatures among the jet aircraft at Heathrow, record “gusts” of wind off isolated sea cliffs – all are used to craft a political Armageddon narrative.
At the heart of the debate, or rather the public non-debate, is the role of carbon dioxide as a warming gas. CO2 does warm the planet and the Earth would be about 33°C cooler without it and the other greenhouse gases. But its warming properties become less effective as more of it enters the atmosphere. Doubling atmospheric CO2 does not double the warming – a point which the IPCC accepts. Climate models guess that such doubling causes global temperature to rise in a range from 1.5°C to 6°C. Recent scientific work suggests this estimate is way too high. The simple ‘settled’ science deduction that rising CO2 levels automatically lead to significantly higher temperatures fails to take much account of natural climatic variations. In addition, little cause and effect between CO2 and temperature can be seen in current, historical or geological records.
CO2, methane and ozone, along with the much more common water vapour, produce a greenhouse effect of reflecting heat back to the Earth only within certain bands on the infrared spectrum. This has led some scientists to suggest that CO2 becomes ‘saturated’ once it reaches a certain level. Most of the heat that is going to be trapped is already being radiated back by the CO2 molecules evenly distributed in the existing atmosphere.
It is fascinating science, but it is conducted away from mainstream media, most political circles and the Earth Sciences/Geography university departments. It is the last that seem to provide many of the vocal scientists promoting the ‘settled science’ narrative. Such ground-breaking work holds out the promise of a better understanding of the role of CO2 in the atmosphere. Only a blinkered following of a political agenda can explain why it is ignored.
The idea that the science surrounding changes in the climate is settled goes back a long time. In 2006, the BBC ran a one day seminar in secret to decide on its future climate editorial policy. The meeting was crucial in plotting future editorial guidelines. According to the former Sunday Telegraph journalist Christopher Booker, the new guidelines “would allow it to make its coverage of any issues relating to climate change more actively partisan than ever”. Booker continued: “Its obligations to remain impartial could be put aside, it argued, on the grounds that the official orthodoxy was now so overwhelmingly accepted that any dissent from it could be dismissed as too insignificant to be worthy of notice.”
In 2013, John Cook came up with the suggestion that 97% of scientists believed that humans cause global warming. Mr. Cook is a green activist, who runs a site called Skeptical Science with the intriguing strapline: “Getting sceptical about global warming scepticism”. His notion was given a huge boost when Barack Obama tweeted that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is “real, man-made and dangerous”. In fact the 97% figure, which is still widely quoted today, was quickly debunked. It was found that of the 12,000 abstracts rated, only 0.5%, or 65 papers, suggested that humans were responsible for more than 50% of global warming.
Since scientists differ widely in their view on the human contribution to climate change, the attempt to put a number on a so-called consensus is futile and meaningless. But it makes a good headline. Step forward Mark Lynas, with a recent raise on 97% to 99%. In fact, his study found only that 99% of scientists failed to explicitly quantify the effect humans were having on the climate.
Mr. Lynas has had a lively career in green activism and journalism, first coming to attention in 2001 when he threw a pie into the face of the sceptical climate economist, Bjørn Lomborg. He was behind the PR stunt in 2009 when the Government of the Maldives met under water to draw attention to rising sea levels. Happily, this is not a problem for the Maldives, since overall the islands have grown in recent years. In 2007 he wrote an article in the Guardian reporting on the possibility of global warming producing fuel air bombs caused by oceanic methane eruptions. These would be equivalent to 10,000 times the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, he claimed.
These days, Mr. Lynas is the Communications Strategist and Climate Lead for the Alliance for Science, a non-profit operation linked with Cornell University. Its primary source of funding is said to be the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – another case, it appears, of following the money to find the billionaires pushing their pet green narratives and causes.
February 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Gates Foundation |
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Aletho News 