Myth of Big Oil’s Funding of Climate Scepticism vs Reality of Big Green’s Billions Driving Climate Alarmism
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JUNE 15, 2023
In 2019 the climate activist and UCL Geography Professor Mark Maslin wrote that oil companies were spending $200 million a year promoting something he termed “climate change denial”. The ‘dark forces’ claim has been in regular use ever since. The Guardian recently reported Big Oil was “wringing humanity dry”, noting once again the annual $200m spent on climate change lobbying. Great story. Shame there is no actual evidence to back it up.
That can be concluded from a major new work from the investigative journalist Ben Pile. He traces the Maslin claim to a Forbes article, which in turn was based on the work of InfluenceMap, an international think tank at the “cutting edge of climate and sustainability issues”. InfluenceMap claims to use a funding methodology based on “best available records”, but Pile notes the presence of a “tower of estimates”. This is largely guessing, “not the discovery of a cache of receipts”, he observes.
In more detail, Pile notes that this stack of assumptions involves defining areas of corporate activity that might be used for climate lobbying and then estimating spending associated with these activities, and then further estimating the proportion of spending directed at climate change related issues, before finally categorising as ‘lobbying’ or ‘branding’ based on whether the activity pertains to a political agenda. Overall, Pile concludes, “it is just guesses”. The work is “performative” in nature, and gives the impression of an investigation in order to make real one of green ideology’s major articles of faith.
He goes on to note: “And so the idea of an entire industry of climate denial servicing the interests of big oil companies has become the most respectable conspiracy theory at all levels of society – the online troll is as comfortable reproducing the smear as the chair of the internationally-renowned scientific organisation.”
Of course there is no reason why Big Oil, which includes Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and Total, cannot spend money in the course of contributing to the energy debate. Fossil fuels provide over 80% of global energy needs and make huge contributions to society, including the pumping of billions of pounds into state funds and individual pension schemes. The oil business is a lawful enterprise that has helped provide humankind with a current standard of living almost unimaginable to the vast majority of people that existed previously. But the actual evidence indicates they have been keeping a lowish profile in the current debate, possibly taking the view that when the madness of Net Zero subsides, they will still be required to provide 80% of the world’s energy.
Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT notes that the current climate narrative – from ‘settled’ science to Net Zero – is “absurd”, but trillions of dollars currently says it is not absurd. Pile’s latest work – an excellent examination of many of the sources funding climate and Net Zero extremism – goes into great detail about many of the green billionaire foundations that bankroll everything from activist scientists, political campaigns and parts of the mainstream media, including, of course, the Guardian. The Daily Sceptic has reported on many of these activities, noting for instance the funding of green propaganda in schools and the provision of Armageddon-friendly copy for newsrooms and TV meteorologists.
To provide an insight into the vast amount of money available to fund the green agenda, Pile tabulated the information below estimating all the annual grants made by InfluenceMap’s own benefactors.

In total, InfluenceMap’s funders alone are making grants of about $1.2 billion every year to fund climate change lobbying. And these are only the funds with which InfluenceMap has a direct relationship. There are many others, including the Rockefeller family, Bezos, Bloomberg, Gates along with the Hewletts, Packards and Gettys.
Set against this, Pile goes on to note that in a small Westminster office building at 55 Tufton Street, scene of Extinction Rebellion paint-throwing and protests, is a clutch of small think tanks including the Global Warming Policy Foundation that are, as he gently puts it, “somewhat misaligned to the dominant ideologies of woke Western politics and media”. In total, Pile estimates the income of all nine campaigning organisations at just $6.7m.
Pile is able to show that billions of dollars have been poured into “manifestly false” philanthropic foundations with the money claimed to have been used to construct narratives, to found fake civil society organisations, to actively misinform the public, policymakers, governments and intergovernmental agencies, and to buy favours from or into research organisations, media companies and public institutions. Any contrary influence from Big Oil simply does not compare, he adds.
The vast sums spent by the Green Blob are noted, but Pile observes that members are confused as to why they are not living in a green Utopia. They have long felt it unnecessary to explain themselves, preferring to smear, fearmonger, block roads, use moral blackmail in place of reason – and invent conspiracy theories around oil companies. Furthermore, even after nearly two decades of lobbying, adequately effective green tech remains a distant dream. Wind power has been a failure, EVs are an expensive luxury and heat pumps cost multiples of gas boilers. As we have started to see all too clearly, nudge has now come to shove as activists demand that society must reorganise around the shortcomings of green technology and the ‘climate emergency’. This requires the construction of supranational political agencies in the form of technocratic bureaucracies with unprecedented power, beyond democratic control, populated by unaccountable wonks.
“Environmentalism is an elite ideology, and climate change fearmongering is a preoccupation only of the topmost parts of society. The rest of us find it implausible, somewhat ridiculous and manifestly self-serving,” Pile concludes.
Secret Pfizer Document Shows Company Observed 1.6 Million Injuries Following COVID Vaccination
BY MEGAN REDSHAW | JUNE 15, 2023
A recently released Pfizer document shows the pharmaceutical giant in August 2022 was aware of 1.6 million adverse events reported by those who had received its COVID vaccine.
The adverse events spanned more than 10,000 different categories and affected nearly every organ system in the body. Yet, Pfizer still concluded its shot was safe and effective.
According to Pfizer’s 396-page “confidential” pharmacovigilance document obtained by the European Medicines Agency, the company observed 508,351 case reports containing 1,597,673 adverse events. One-third of all adverse events were classified as “serious” — a number well beyond the 15% threshold that should trigger a safety signal.
The document shows that adverse events were three times more common in women than men, with 60% of all reports classified as “not recovered” or outcome unknown. The highest number of cases affected the 31-50 year age group.
Because 92% of individuals did not have a comorbidity, it’s unlikely their adverse events could be attributed to anything but Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The document further categorized the 1.6 million adverse events observed by Pfizer into categories and subcategories based on injury. According to journalist Daniel Horowitz, Pfizer observed more than 10,000 categories of diagnosis, many of which were severe or rare.
For example, 73,542 cases in 264 categories of vascular disorders were reported by individuals after receiving Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, 696,508 cases of nervous system disorders were reported, and 61,518 reported eye disorders in 100 different categories.
More than 47,000 ear disorders were reported, including 16,000 cases of tinnitus, 225,000 reports of skin and tissue disorders, 190,000 respiratory disorders, and more than 178,000 reproductive and breast disorders.
There were 77,000 reports of psychiatric disorders reported following vaccination, 3,711 cases of tumors, more than 100,000 reports of lymphatic disorders, and 127,000 reports of cardiac disorders in more than 270 categories.
The document also shows Pfizer was aware of 68 cases of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy — the rare and severe neurological disorder experienced by Maddie De Garay during Pfizer’s clinical trials that left her confined to a wheelchair.
At the end of hundreds of pages of observed injuries, Pfizer concluded the risks of its COVID-19 vaccine “evaluated in the context of the benefits” showed the shot had a favorable benefit-risk profile.
“No additional changes to the BNT l 62b2 RSI or additional risk minimisation activities in addition to those in place are warranted at this time,” the company, which made billions off its COVID vaccine, wrote.
To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not updated the product label for Pfizer’s COVID vaccine to include a list of its potential adverse events, nor has Pfizer been held accountable for failing to disclose these potential vaccine injuries to the public.
Russia Taking Note of New Leaks Regarding Nord Stream Sabotage – Kremlin
Sputnik – 14.06.2023
MOSCOW – Moscow is taking note of new leaks related to the Nord Stream sabotage, considering them to potentially be deliberate attempts to divert attention from those really involved in the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
“Of course, we thoroughly record different leaks and paid publications seen here and there in the media around the terrorist attack and sabotage of the Nord Stream. Each theory deserves attention… We cannot rule out that the information is being deliberately disseminated so as to divert attention from the real organizers of this terrorist attack against critical international infrastructure,” Peskov said.
Meanwhile, Russia is still not allowed to participate in the investigation into the blasts, the spokesman noted, adding that Moscow will continue to insist on a transparent and inclusive probe.
On Tuesday, a US media reported, citing officials familiar with the matter, that before the bombings, Dutch military intelligence officials had notified the CIA that a Ukrainian sabotage team was seeking a yacht on the Baltic coastline to be used by divers to plant explosives along the Nord Stream pipelines. The CIA, in turn, warned Ukraine against the sabotage, it added.
The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions in September 2022. The pipeline’s operator, Nord Stream AG, said that the damage was unprecedented and it was impossible to estimate the time repairs might take.
Denmark, Germany and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own investigation over the charge of international terrorism.
No official results of the investigations have yet been announced, but Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023, alleging that the explosions had been organized by the United States with the support of Norway. Washington has denied any involvement in the incident.
US silence on Nord Stream ‘surprising’ – Beijing
RT | June 14, 2023
Washington should reveal what it knows about last year’s attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, China has said, responding to recent claims that US intelligence agencies were aware of the plot months in advance.
At a Tuesday press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin was asked to comment on reports published in German and Dutch media suggesting that a Ukrainian plan to destroy the pipelines was known to the CIA in June of 2022, well before a similar scheme allegedly went forward in September.
“Eight months have passed since the explosion, yet the investigation process has been going slow. It is surprising that the US has remained silent [all] this time,” Wang said, adding that the US “owes the international community an explanation.”
The spokesman called for an “objective, impartial and professional investigation into the explosions” in order to “hold those responsible to account.” He voiced suspicion over Washington’s refusal to “respond to international doubts and concerns.”
German and Dutch outlets have reported that the Netherlands’ intelligence service initially uncovered the plan to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines last summer and later relayed the information to its American counterpart. While the original plot was reportedly called off, they claimed a nearly identical attack was carried out soon after.
The Washington Post published a similar report last week, citing European intelligence documents that were part of a trove of classified material allegedly shared online by a US National Guard airman earlier this year. The newspaper stated the US government had “learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack” on the pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany.
US officials have so far declined to respond to the claims but have insisted that Washington had no part in the sabotage. Ukraine, too, has repeatedly denied any involvement in the bombings.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in February that US President Joe Biden had ordered the CIA to disable the Nord Stream pipelines using NATO military drills as cover.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions, arguing that the US in particular benefited from the attack due to its position as a competing gas supplier to Europe.
No inquiry would be better than this inquiry
It doesn’t look good for balance or evidence when the Covid-19 inquiry is asking for lateral flow tests and masks
BY LAURA DODSWORTH | JUNE 13, 2023
The first Covid-19 inquiry public hearing will be held today, following the preliminary hearings which began in February. The inquiry will call witnesses to give evidence under oath and they will then be questioned by barristers and the chair, Baroness Hallett.
There is no deadline for the inquiry’s conclusion. It is an eye-wateringly expensive investigation, currently estimated to cost £114 million, but it will potentially run to more than the Bloody Sunday inquiry which was nearly £200 million. 63 lawyers are working directly for the inquiry and a further 100 are named as representatives. MP Graham Stringer has commented that this is a ‘very expensive and very bloated’ inquiry and it may be used to ‘kick things into [the] very long grass’.
It is important not to pre-judge the outcome of the inquiry, but it has been increasingly difficult to be hopeful for the inquiry’s fairness and value for money. After the imbalance of the modules and core participants, the first serious dark cloud to descend was the lamentable list of 150 questions put by Baroness Hallett to Boris Johnson. Now, they are only questions and we don’t have the answers yet, but to give you an idea, question 45 was particularly chilling:
45. To what extent did the UK Government have regard during the period January to March 2020 to the response of other countries to Covid-19? Did you consider taking more stringent measures in response to Covid-19 such as those seen in, for example, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand etc? What, if any, assumptions were made about how such measures would (or would not) work in the UK?
Why not Sweden? It did not impose strict lockdowns, or close schools for under 16s and currently has the one of the world’s lowest excess mortality figures. This inquiry appears to favour stringency above existing pandemic planning, minimum economic and social disruption, and low excess deaths.
But there was worse to come. If you thought that the curtain had closed on Covid safety pantomime, think again. Broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer has tweeted that the Covid-19 inquiry policy is for staff and visitors to take weekly lateral flow tests if they attend daily, and test in advance for individual days. The inquiry’s Covid policy goes further than government recommendations, asking those who test positive to stay away. The largely pointless face masks are welcome. The air will be purified, sanitising stations available and a ‘disinfectant fogging treatment will be used on the surfaces in the hearing room, viewing room and other rooms each evening’.
While some of the attendees who have lost loved ones to Covid may appreciate these gestures, they are nevertheless gestures. The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, for instance, does not publish such a ‘thorough’ Covid policy.
Psychologists found lockdown in itself was a primary reason why so many people were willing to abide by the rules from the start – believing the threat must be very severe if the government was willing to impose such drastic measures. In other words, ‘if the government is doing this, it must be really bad’. This supposition was reinforced by a concerted behavioural psychology campaign, a blitzkrieg of advertising, Downing Street briefings, unbalanced media coverage, the Covid death data dashboard, the most punitive laws and fines since the Dark Ages and the ongoing restrictions, tiers, rules and isolating lockdowns.
And now the people running the inquiry think we need more lateral flow tests and masks. The country has been institutionalised by Covid fear-mongering and the inmates are now running the asylum inquiry.
After dressing up in masks, taking weekly lateral flow tests for years and processing the answers to biased questions, the inmates at the inquiry will simply deduce that the walls were not ‘funny’ enough, not built early or high enough. Next time there is a pandemic, people will be able to say ‘Baroness Hallett’s report stated that the UK government didn’t lock down fast – or hard – enough. We won’t make that mistake again!’ There will be no redemption, just a long, hard sentence, swiftly imposed. Once again, lives will be ruined, not saved.
It would be better to have no inquiry than this inquiry.
Is the Dam About to Burst on the Biden Crime Family?
By Andy Behlen | The Libertarian Institute | June 13, 2023
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said on June 5 that the FBI has a file on an informant that accuses President Joe Biden and his family of accepting millions of dollars in bribes.
“It suggests a pattern of bribery where payments would be made through shell accounts and multiple banks,” Comer said last week.
Comer described the informant as a trusted and “highly credible” source to the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray initially refused to hand the committee the document, known as an FD-1023 form, which was dated from June 2020. Comer threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress over it. The committee even drafted a contempt resolution. But Wray yielded last week and allowed members of the committee to review the document.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), a Republican member of the House oversight committee, tweeted “The (FBI) is afraid their informant will be killed if unmasked, based on the info he has brought forward about the Biden family.” Neither Comer nor any other committee member have echoed that sentiment.
The draft of the contempt resolution and memos from Committee staff provided a few details about the GOP’s latest allegations against the Biden family.
“Without having custody of the FD-1023 form… the Committee cannot assess whether the allegations in the document pose a national security risk,” the resolution stated. “Because of the FBI’s refusal to cooperate with our investigation, the Committee cannot use the allegations in the FD-1023 form to evaluate whether anyone from the Biden family received payments from the foreign national, how much those payments entailed, if they were made, and what, if any, companies (including shell companies) were used to make such payments.”
A memo dated March 16, 2023, detailed bank records that the committee subpoenaed. According to the memo, one of Biden family business associates, Mr. John Robinson Walker (Rob Walker), “transferred over $1.3 million in payments to Biden family members and their companies between 2015 and 2017, which he received from foreign companies and foreign nationals. The Rob Walker accounts made payments while then-Vice President Biden held public office.”
A second memo dated May 10, 2023, outlined additional bank record subpoenas:
“Through the Second Bank Records Memorandum, the Committee released several new findings. First, Biden family members and business associates created a web of over twenty companies—most of which were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Bank records showed the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ companies. The Committee has identified payments to Biden family members from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as Vice President and after he left public office.”
After reviewing the FD-1023 form last week, Republican committee members confirmed that the allegations involve Hunter Biden’s relationship with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
It’s no secret that the Biden family has profited from business overseas, especially in Ukraine. But according to mainstream media reporting, all of this is perfectly fine and has nothing to do with corruption—even when a $5 million bribe shows up to shut down an investigation into the company that paid the president’s son $1 million a year.
On June 13, 2020, Reuters reported that Ukrainian authorities detained three individuals for offering $5 million in bribes to stop a corruption investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder and former president of Burisma Holdings..
The president’s son Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings in 2014, a position he held until 2019.
In 2020, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials were quick to exonerate the Bidens from any connection to the bribes.
“Let’s put an end to this once and for all. Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding,” said Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of the anti-corruption investigations in 2020.
The New York Post reported last week that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $83,333 per month while his father served as U.S. Vice President, according to invoices on the famous abandoned laptop. Those payments dropped by half after his father left office. Hunter Biden resigned from the Burisma board in 2019 while his father announced his presidential campaign.
In addition, Fox News reported last week on emails found on the laptop between the President’s son and Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor to the Burisma board. In one exchange, Hunter Biden asked Pozharskyi to pass along his thanks to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky for birthday gifts he received in 2016.
“Finally- thank (Zlochevsky) for the beautiful birthday gifts it was far too extravagant but much appreciated,” Hunter Biden said in the email dated February 4, 2016.
The emails did not indicate what the gifts were.
In March 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously leveraged $1 billion in aid to Ukraine in order for the country to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Shokin had investigated Burisma Holdings in 2014 for money laundering.
In 2018 Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about his strong-armed negotiations with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to get Shokin removed: “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”
But those close to the president said the threat to withhold aid had nothing to do with Burisma or Hunter Biden. A USA Today “Fact Check” from 2020 claims the reason was because Shokin did too little to fight corruption:
“Mike Carpenter, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the then-vice president, told USA TODAY that Shokin ‘never went after any corrupt individuals at all’ and ‘never prosecuted any high-profile cases of corruption.’”
That’s right—the Ukrainian prosecutor who investigated Burisma for money laundering “never went after any corrupt individuals at all.” To say otherwise would imply that Shokin may have had a case against Burisma and the President’s son.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) dropped a bombshell on Monday, saying that a Burisma executive at the center of the latest allegations has audio recording of then-vice president Biden accepting bribes, and that the FBI redacted this information in the FD-1023 form that the House Oversight Committee reviewed last week.
“The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them—17 total recordings,” Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” Grassley said.
Reporting on the development, Kerry Picket of The Washington Times wrote, “Mr. Grassley smelled a political double standard.”
“Special Counsel Jack Smith, who indicted former President Donald Trump on 37 counts, used an audio recording against former President Donald Trump and alleged Mr. Trump retained nuclear secrets and papers on foreign weapons systems at his Mar-a-Lago estate and waved around military plans to persons without proper clearance in 2021,” the article continued. “Mr. Grassley asked whether Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was doing anything with respect to the alleged recordings of the Bidens ‘that are apparently relevant to a high-stakes bribery scheme.’”
It should be noted that the GOP’s investigation into Biden family corruption all began with tech companies’ efforts to censor stories about the Hunter Biden laptop in the leadup to the 2020 elections. Photos from the laptop purport to show Hunter Biden smoking crack and cavorting with hookers during the time when he sat on Burisma’s board of directors.
Andy Behlen is a reporter for the Fayette County Record, a twice-weekly newspaper in La Grange, Texas.
Ukrainian gas executive has Biden ‘bribe’ recordings – US senator
RT | June 13, 2023
A Ukrainian gas executive who claimed to have paid bribes to US President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, retained more than a dozen recordings of his conversations with them as an “insurance policy,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has said, citing FBI documents.
In a statement published on Monday, the GOP lawmaker urged the Justice Department to release a full, unredacted copy of FBI files that allegedly outline a criminal bribery scheme between the Biden family and Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. The documents are reportedly based on FBI interviews with a “highly credible” confidential source who described several interactions with a top Burisma executive starting in 2015, when Biden was serving as vice president.
While the FBI shared the documents with select lawmakers last week, Grassley said key sections had been redacted, including “reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings.”
The Burisma executive kept the recordings “as a sort of insurance policy” in case he “got into a tight spot,” according to the senator, who said he had seen the full documents. He did not indicate what might have been said in the audio, however.
Senator Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer first highlighted the alleged bribes in May, citing a whistleblower who revealed the FBI was in possession of documents detailing its interviews with the confidential source. The Oversight Committee then subpoenaed the bureau for the records, which were only shared in redacted form last week after lawmakers threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.
The documents are said to show that the unnamed Burisma executive discussed $5 million payments he allegedly made to both Joe and Hunter Biden during the Barack Obama presidency. Despite having little experience in the energy sector, the younger Biden was employed on Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019 and received more than $50,000 per month.
The Burisma official allegedly explained that the company had to “pay the Bidens” because a Ukrainian prosecutor was investigating the company. While Joe Biden recently dismissed the bribery allegations as “a bunch of malarkey,” he has acknowledged that he was responsible for the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma and its executives for corruption at the time. Biden said he did so by threatening to withhold US aid, but insists Shokin was replaced for refusing to go after corruption.
NATO Drills Serve as Cover for ‘Less Publicized Actions’ Like Nord Stream Sabotage
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 12.06.2023
On June 12, the Western military bloc that already fans the flames of the Ukrainian conflict by supplying vast quantities of weapons and military hardware to Kiev launches a massive military exercise in Germany that may well become NATO’s biggest drill ever.
As US Ret.Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski explained to Sputnik, NATO is a “military alliance of disparate equipment, national procedures, and language,” and thus needs to conduct such exercises in Europe because so far, the bloc’s joint operations have been taking place “outside of Europe proper.”
Noting that the exercise will “practice defense (as NATO defines it) and conduct forward eastern operations as a 15 plus member fighting bureaucracy,” Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, also observed that such events may also serve another purpose.
“All publicized military and government exercises and activities always provide cover for other activities that are less well publicized, as we have seen with last summer BALTOPS 22, and the subsequent remote detonation of pre-planted explosives designed to sever both Nordstream gas pipelines,” she said.
When asked why NATO intends to essentially showcase so much military equipment during the exercise, Kwiatkowski suggested that the military bloc has been pushing a propaganda narrative portraying Ukraine as “Europe’s last stand against a crazed Russian invader set to sack the cities of western Europe,” and that this display is supposed to show that NATO members have the gear to resist such imagined invasion.
“In a sense, it is a NATO propaganda effort made necessary by a previous propaganda effort. NATO member states and their voting populations are beginning to realize what is really happening to their actual independent ability to defend their borders as they bleed stockpiled weapons systems, ammunition and artillery into Ukraine for free, and now face increased military budgets to replenish and upgrade their NATO and national systems,” Kwiatkowski mused.
According to her, this exercise may be an attempt to “shore up European confidence that the Ukraine proxy war has in fact not depleted their defensive capability.”
While Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerharz, commander of Germany’s Air Force, previously described NATO’s exercise as purely “defensive in nature,” the bloc’s leadership “is, and has been for decades, confused about the meaning of the terms ‘defensive’ and ‘promise’,” Kwiatkowski argued.
“It is easier to understand NATO strategy in the big picture if one accepts that NATO is about continuing to expand its mission, its budget, and importantly, its dominance as a European organization more powerful and important than the EU itself,” she said. “As the EU has lost membership, NATO aggressively signs on new countries and demands its share of the national budgets.”
The ex-DOD analyst also lamented that while “aging and declining” Europe would have probably been better off opting for diplomacy and a “repair of relationships,” what we see instead is a “massive waste and risky military behavior on the part of its generals and politicians.”
Trump Indictment: FBI Veteran Raises Red Flags Over ‘Abnormal’ Mar-a-Lago Raid
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 11.06.2023
A senior FBI official charged with executing the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last year has raised a red flag about “abnormalities” and apparent violations in the Justice Department’s handling of the case.
Former Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) Steven D’Antuono has reached out to the US Congress citing concerns and frustration with the manner President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice arranged the August 2022 raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan unveiled the damning testimony earlier this week and sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding answers.
First, D’Antuono, who had two decades of FBI experience, drew attention to the fact that the bureau’s headquarters made the decision to assign the execution of the search warrant in Trump’s Miami residence to… the Washington Field Office. As per D’Antuono, it looked strange given that the search occurred in the territory of the Miami Field Office, which should have been assigned with the task under the bureau’s rules.
Second, the DoJ failed to assign a US Attorney’s Office to the investigative matter of that magnitude which was “unusual” as per the FBI veteran. This triggered D’Antuono’s deep concerns as it was “out of the ordinary.” He noted that he “never got a good answer” from DoJ with regard to this decision.
Third, the FBI did not first seek consent to effectuate the search. D’Antuono recalled that at the meeting between FBI and DoJ officials, the Department of Justice pushed the bureau to execute the search warrant as quickly as possible. Referring to his experience, the FBI veteran underscored that the agency should have sought consent to search the premises prior to the raid. D’Antuono suggested that either AG Garland or FBI Director Christopher Wray made the decision to seek a search warrant despite “opposition” from the agents working on the case in the WFO. D’Antuono pointed out that “there was a good likelihood that [Trump’s legal team] could have given consent.”
Fourth, the FBI refused to wait for Trump’s attorney to be present before the raid, as per D’Antuono. The bureau veteran claimed that the FBI sought to exclude Trump’s lawyers from the search, which again sounded an alarm for the senior officer.
The FBI veteran’s testimony has prompted US Republican lawmakers to make a repeated request for bureau documents and information concerning the raid. In his latest letter to AG Garland, Jordan pointed out that a previous request regarding the matter was rejected by the Department of Justice.
The alleged expose of DoJ misconduct during the August raid comes after the department indicted Republican presidential candidate Trump earlier this week, charging him with 37 counts including the mishandling of classified materials. The charges further include obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements, as well as one charge under the Espionage Act.
“The Department [of Justice] will indict President Donald Trump, despite declining to indict former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information and failing to indict President Biden for his mishandling of classified information,” Jordan wrote. “The indictment creates, at the minimum, a serious appearance of a double standard and a miscarriage of justice.”
The latest row between House Republicans and the DoJ erupted amid the congressional investigation into the apparent “preferential treatment” of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who has been probed for tax crimes since at least 2018. The House GOP is also presently looking into an uncorroborated report about Joe Biden receiving a $5 million bribe, which has recently been provided by the FBI to lawmakers.



If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .