Ninth Circuit Spikes Berkeley’s Gas Ban
By Robert Bryce | April 18, 2023
Three federal court judges just rescued your gas stove and other gas-fired appliances from the nanny state.
Yesterday, in a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the nation’s first ban on natural gas, put in place by the City of Berkeley in 2019, violates federal law. The three judges found that the city’s ordinance was preempted by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which prohibits the implementation of regulations that favor one type of fuel over another.
The first report I saw on the court’s ruling was here on Substack by my friend, Ed Ireland. There’s no doubt that the decision is a huge win for consumers, businesses, and energy security. Indeed, the ruling in California Restaurant Association vs. City of Berkeley, has ramifications that go beyond California and the Ninth Circuit. It should invalidate the dozens of gas bans that have been enacted across the country over the past four years. It may also mean that plans by federal authorities, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to ban, or restrict, the use of gas stoves, gas furnaces, and other gas-fired appliances, are kaput.
About 47 million American homes have gas stoves and lots of chefs, and consumers, including Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, like cooking with gas. The Department of Energy’s own numbers show that heating homes with gas is far cheaper than heating with electricity. Despite these facts, a group of lavishly funded activist groups have been pushing electrify everything mandates that would prohibit the use of gas in homes and businesses and require consumers to rely almost exclusively (including energy for electric vehicles) on our already-shaky electric grid. The electrify everything claque got a boost in January after Richard Trumka Jr., who sits on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, told a Bloomberg reporter that gas stoves are a hazard and that “any option is on the table,” including, presumably, a ban.
Trumka’s comments sparked a storm of criticism. Within hours, the White House issued a statement saying that President Joe Biden doesn’t support a ban on gas stoves.
What has since been dubbed the “gas stove culture war” was ignited in July 2019, when Berkeley became the first municipality in the country to ban the use of gas. Since then, as I explained in January, (See: “The Billionaires Behind The Gas Bans”), several NGOs, including Climate Imperative, the Sierra Club, and Rocky Mountain Institute, as well as Rewiring America, have spent untold (and undisclosed) millions of dollars campaigning and lobbying at the local and national levels to ban the direct use of natural gas in homes and businesses. And thanks to remarkably friendly (and largely unquestioning) coverage from legacy media outlets, they’ve had undeniable success.
The Sierra Club, which operates on an annual budget of about $180 million, says 74 communities in California have “adopted gas-free buildings commitments or electrification building codes.” But that number doesn’t include the most recent ban. On April 13, the Irvine City Council, again according to the Sierra Club, adopted measures mandating that all new buildings be all-electric “on or after July 1, 2023. That puts the number of California communities that have banned gas at 75. The group isn’t just pushing for restrictions in its home state. Last August, it asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ban natural gas appliances at the federal level.
In September, the California Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of all gas-fired space heaters and water-heating appliances in the state by 2030. New York City and Seattle have banned the use of gas in new construction. Massachusetts is also rolling out a measure that will allow up to 10 communities to ban gas.
As I reported last month (See: “California Screamin’”), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District recently approved regulations that will ban the use of residential and commercial natural gas-fired water heaters and furnaces. The regulation, which only applies to new appliances, prohibits residents in the Bay Area from buying or installing gas water heaters starting in 2027. Also last month, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, said she is working on a “climate friendly” building code that will hamper or––in the words of the Boston Globe, “discourage”––the use of hydrocarbons in new buildings in Boston.
Following the proliferation of gas bans requires following the money. The Sierra Club has been a prime beneficiary of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has pledged $500 million to the Beyond Carbon project. In 2019, the pledge was considered the largest ever “philanthropic donation to combat climate change.” The Sierra Club is now getting about $30 million per year from Bloomberg.
For several years, the Rocky Mountain Institute, a group that took in $115 million in 2022, has been ginning up bogus studies that claim gas stoves are a threat to human health. And like the Sierra Club, it is getting big money from super-rich donors. In 2020, the Bezos Earth Fund gave RMI $10 million. RMI said the cash from the group, which, of course, came from Amazon founder and multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, would help fund its “work with a coalition of partners in key states. The project will focus on making all U.S. buildings carbon-free by 2040 by advocating for all-electric new construction.”
In January, numerous national news stories were published after RMI issued a paper claiming that 12.7 percent of childhood asthmas are due to gas stoves. One of the authors of that paper, Talor Gruenwald, works at RMI. Gruenwald is also a research associate at Rewiring America, a San Francisco-based outfit that calls itself the “leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses, and communities.” Rewiring America is funded entirely by dark money. It doesn’t publish its budget or file a Form 990. Instead, it is a sponsored project of the Windward Fund, a 501c3 non-profit that does not disclose its donors. Nor does the Windward Fund reveal how much it is giving to Rewiring America.
The January RMI paper didn’t stand up to even modest scrutiny. The definitive analysis of indoor air pollution and gas stoves was published in 2013 in Lancet Respiratory Medicine. It studied half a million schoolchildren in 47 countries over a multi-year period and relied on questionnaires that were filled out by the mothers of the children. It concluded, “We detected no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.”
Furthermore, just a day or two after the RMI paper came out, the group walked back its claim about asthma, with one RMI official telling the Washington Examiner that the study “does not assume or estimate a causal relationship” between childhood asthma and natural gas stoves.
Disasters report features ‘crudely manipulated data’
Global Warming Policy Foundation – April 17, 2023
London – The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to withdraw its fatally flawed 2022 Disasters in Numbers report.
The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), together with the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), recently published their 2022 report on “Disaster in Numbers.”
On its front cover, the report deceptively suggests that the 387 reported disasters, the loss of 30,704 lives, affecting 185 million individuals and causing economic damage of $223.8 billion are due to “climate in action” – although the report also covers earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and wildfires.
The annual review of disasters of all kinds has been examined by extreme weather expert, Dr Ralph Alexander, who has published a strongly worded critique at his website.
Dr Alexander notes that:
* data has been crudely manipulated to suggest that there may be a hidden underlying increase in weather-related disasters
* false claims are made on the basis of statistically invalid comparisons.
GWPF director Dr Benny Peiser said:
“Dr Alexander has shown that the authors of the latest ‘Disasters in Numbers’ report are bending over backwards to provide support for the narrative of climate doom, when the data and trends of weather-related disasters are pointing in the opposite direction.
The Catholic University and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) should be ashamed of what is appearing in their name. This publication is fatally flawed and should be withdrawn.”
More information:
* Ralph Alexander: CRED’s 2022 Disasters in Numbers report is a disaster in itself
* 2022 Disasters in Numbers
Climate Change Scandal in Australia Heating Up
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 17, 2023
Further significant doubts have been cast on the accuracy of global surface temperature results following the discovery that electronic thermometers in Australia have read up to 0.7°C higher than traditional mercury glass units. The Australian dataset is a major component of global compilations since it provides an important guide to one of the largest land masses in the southern hemisphere. After many years of trying, local freedom of information requests from scientists have forced the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to release comparative information from the two measuring devices around Brisbane airport. It shows that automatic readings are higher 41% of the time, compared with 32% when the temperatures were the same.
Electronic temperatures devices have been in general use in Australia since 1995. The guidance of the World Meteorological Organisation suggests averaging temperatures over a minute to remove corruptions caused by temporary effects such as a sudden gust of hot air. But the BoM records highs for just a second, something that basic mercury thermometers cannot do. For years, the BoM has refused to release comparative instrument data.
The Australian journalist Jo Nova takes a sceptical view as to why the BoM has been so stubborn. Potentially, the electronic sensors “offer a bonanza of propaganda headlines for the Green Blob to pick from, especially when ‘coldest ever days’ get ignored by the media”. The sensors are offering many more headlines of records for heat, heatwaves, hottest nights, more days over 35°C, she continued, adding, “there are many cherries to be picked here”.
The use of highly sensitive measuring equipment to produce temperature records and hence whip up climate emergency fears is common throughout the world. Last year In the U.K., the Met Office promoted a ‘record’ high of 40.3°C halfway down the runway at RAF Coningsby on the afternoon of July 19th. Admittedly, the record was declared to have stood for longer than a second – 60 seconds to be precise. To this day, the Met Office has refused to answer a number of Daily Sceptic enquiries about possible non-climatic causes of this widely promoted record. In the light of the Australian disclosures, we wonder if the Met Office should re-examine the way it declares heat records and compare the results of its measuring devices with those produced by basic mercury thermometers.
Dr. Jennifer Marohasy analysed the three years of Australian data that was eventually squeezed out of the BoM and found significant differences between the two measuring devises. In the most extreme cases, the modern probe was 0.7°C hotter than the mercury reading. She said it contradicted claims by the Bureau’s director Andrew Johnson that measurements from the two instruments are equivalent. Marohasy estimates the BoM holds data for a total of 38 different locations across Australia. The small Brisbane airport cache is thought to be the first public release of this data.
The former Liberal MP and noted climate sceptic Craig Kelly was merciless in his condemnation of the BoM actions. Noting the Bureau’s decision to reduce the size of protective Stevenson screens, which he said was known to artificially increase temperature recordings by up to 1°C, he concluded that Australia’s temperature records “have been cooked to artificially manufacture ‘hottest day ever’ headlines in the media”. Heads must roll, he demanded, but with the new Labor Government protecting this “malfeasance” at the BoM “they’ll get away with it”.
The Australian weighed in by suggesting that the Brisbane revelations raised some “difficult questions” about the BoM’s ability to claim new temperature records are being broken. “Given that new records are claimed on the basis of readings that are only a tiny fraction of a degree warmer, the problem is obvious,” it said in an editorial. The lengths to which the Bureau has gone not to cooperate with FOI requests, it continued, “gives the impression of an organisation with something to hide”. The newspaper said it was “truly astonishing” that the Bureau should suggest that understanding the effect of instrumentation was of no public interest. “This is particularly so given the Bureau was simultaneously publishing reports and giving media interviews claiming that a temperature increase of 1.5°C would have devastating consequences for the planet,” the editorial said.
The BoM information from 38 sites is of more than academic interest, noted the newspaper. This is because much of it eventually finds its way into what becomes the international global temperature record, on which climate change policy is based. The information is the property of the public, it states, and all the parallel records “should be made immediately available alongside all of the other data the Bureau prides itself on making public”.
These disturbing revelations about temperature gathering in Australia add to the numerous concerns that are mounting about the entire global surface temperature record. The Daily Sceptic has covered this story in great detail (see here, here and here). In this case, it seems that modern gauges have been used to establish new ‘records’, compared with the old mercury recordings. In addition, there may be a slight warming bias over the last 30 years, and if confirmed this will add to further corruption of global results. The BoM claimed its new electronic sensors were adjusted in light of mercury readings, but the Brisbane release suggests otherwise. It is particularly disturbing when public officials refuse to release scientific figures for no apparent good reason. The example of Climategate shows that when activists and scientists refuse to release basic data, it is time to start counting the spoons, if not undertaking an audit of the whole canteen.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Just how many US troops and spies do we have in Ukraine?
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | April 18, 2023
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has flooded the docket in recent months with resolutions designed to get U.S. troops out of overseas missions he believes have not been approved by Congress, is now demanding that Biden tell the American people just how many American military personnel are operating in Ukraine today.
His new Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, which forcing Biden to notify the House of the exact number of U.S. military inside Ukraine and to hand over “copies of any and all documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine,” comes a week after leaked Pentagon documents showing previously unreported U.S. Special Forces inside the war zone.
According to the document there were 97 special forces from NATO countries operating in Ukraine as of March, including 14 U.S. special forces. When asked by the Guardian newspaper for confirmation/clarification, the Department of Defense said, “We are not going to discuss or confirm classified information due to the potential impact on national security as well as the safety and security of our personnel and those of our allies and our partners.” The Pentagon has not denied the authenticity of the documents, however.
While “14 special forces” sounds like a drop in the bucket, these revelations are a drip-drip of other pieces of information over the last year that, when added up, leave more questions than answers, and the bottom line is that the American people have a right to know, says (Ret.) Lt. Col. Daniel Davis.
“It is entirely appropriate that the American people know, authoritatively, whether any U.S. troops are engaged in military operations within Ukraine — and to demand a change if we don’t like the answer,” Davis told me yesterday when I asked him about the Gaetz resolution.
“American history is rife with too many examples of presidents secretly employing U.S. troops without the consent or knowledge of our people. It almost always goes sideways when presidents go covert with our troops.”
We know from reporting last year, beginning in June 2022, that the CIA had a strong presence in Ukraine, engaging a network of commandos and spies among European partners set up to provide critical weapons and military intelligence to Ukraine. According to the New York Times, “even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces.”
Ken Klippenstein and Jim Risen reported in October 2022 that “there is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel and resources in Ukraine” than publicly known. They reported for the Intercept that several former and current intelligence officers told them that the covert operations were being conducted “under a presidential covert action finding,” for which only a handful of Congressional lawmakers have been notified.
In November, the administration announced it was sending a team of military “weapons inspectors” into Ukraine to keep track of weapons shipments, but that they would be away from the fighting. Also that month, the DoD confirmed that it would be setting up a new joint forces command called the Security Assistance Group Ukraine, or SAGU, based out of U.S. Army Europe and Africa headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany and led by a 3-star general to “handle weapons shipments and personnel training.”
In February of this year, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon wanted to revive pre-Ukraine war orders that would allow them to insert commandos in the form of “control teams” to direct Ukrainian operatives to counter Russian disinformation and monitor troops movements on the ground. This would require the U.S. personnel to be in Ukraine or in a neighboring country. Washington had been operating such teams in Ukraine under Section 1202 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act until the invasion last year.
Nick Turse, who has written extensively about U.S. covert operations in other parts of the globe, said the recent leak showing special ops forces in Ukraine “is hardly a surprise. ”
“U.S. Special Operations forces deploy throughout the world, often with next to no transparency or real oversight,” he said when asked about the Gaetz resolution. “Under little-known authorities, special operators conduct shadowy missions — sometimes indistinguishable from combat — unbeknownst to the American people and most members of Congress.”
What we don’t know much about is how many trainers and intelligence personnel might be working under contract for the U.S. government on the ground in Ukraine. There have been hints that they are there. Of course, some American experts, like Alexander Vindman, who are frustrated that the U.S. military is not more directly involved, have been calling on Biden to send contractors into the fight from the beginning.
Others have said “operational contractors” should be inserted into Ukraine, not to fight, but to help the Ukrainians train and operate the sophisticated weaponry Washington is sending over there. Are they there now? It is hard to tell. We know there are plenty of private military contractors in Ukraine today from all over the West working in extraction, training, and humanitarian aid, but they are, as far as we know, freelancing, not on the U.S. dole.
The use of contractors, whether they be Americans or third party, has been widespread since the U.S. launched a Global War on Terror after 9/11. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of the end of 2022, there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD throughout the US Central Command’s area of responsibility.
“It is highly probable that contractors are a significant part of the U.S. personnel presence in Ukraine,” speculated Ted Carpenter, who wrote about the topic recently for Responsible Statecraft.
“My expectation is that they would be used for the operation and maintenance of the more advanced (and twitchy?) weapons systems that NATO has given to Kyiv,” he shared on Monday. “Another interesting question is how many DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and Pentagon personnel, as well as contractors, might be helping Ukraine with targeting information for attacks on Russian forces. Some of the operations have seemed far too sophisticated for the known capabilities that Ukraine possessed when the invasion began.”
Responsible Statecraft has put in a request to the DoD press office to ask just how many contractors might be in Ukraine today. In the meantime, Gaetz said in a statement he will press on with his own quest for a clear number of U.S. troops there. “There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine.”
US Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Force Biden to Provide Data on Ukraine Aid, Conflict
Sputnik – 17.04.2023
WASHINGTON – US Congressman Matt Gaetz said in a statement that he has introduced a resolution to force the Biden administration to relay information about plans for US military assistance to Ukraine, as well as about the number of US servicemembers operating in the country.
“Today, US Congressman Matt Gaetz introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, forcing President Joe Biden to transmit to the House of Representatives copies of any and all documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine. Additionally, the resolution directs Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to disclose the number of United States Armed Forces, including special operators, deployed to Ukraine without Congressional authority,” the statement said on Monday.
Biden and Austin would be required to provide the requested information within two weeks of the bill’s adoption, the statement said.
Documents leaked in recent months that appear to show classified US military information revealed that at least 14 members of the US special forces were deployed in Ukraine.
There is a small US military element in Ukraine, but no servicemembers engaged in combat operations, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Monday. However, US officials have declined to comment on the veracity of the seemingly leaked materials.
“The Biden Administration and other allied countries have been misleading the world on the state of the war in Ukraine. There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine,” Gaetz’s statement said.
The resolution would better inform Congress and the country on the “true state” of the US military’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, the statement added.
Why are Western media suddenly praising Russian electronic warfare capabilities?
By Drago Bosnic | April 18, 2023
Electronic warfare (EW) is one of the most important aspects of modern military capabilities and is often the litmus test of how advanced the state and its armed forces are. It’s part of the “invisible” and yet extremely intense battle that we usually cannot see directly. However, its impact is wholly undeniable. Russia is among the world leaders in EW and its warfighting capabilities in this regard are a source of pride for the Eurasian giant, but also fear for its adversaries. Russian dominance in EW on the frontlines of Ukraine is so comprehensive and massive that it’s one of the few things the mainstream propaganda machine never dared to question or ridicule. Even Russian strategic thermonuclear capabilities were subjected to propaganda attacks at times, but its EW capabilities – never. And for good reason.
And yet, as with everything concerning the mainstream propaganda machine, we must tread carefully. This is especially true when it comes to the media citing the Pentagon “leaks” as their primary source of information. Needless to say, an actual leak would require an inadvertent release of classified information and most intelligence experts agree it’s extremely unlikely there was anything inadvertent about it. However, this is not to say that all information connected to the “leak” is false. On the contrary, its relatively elaborate nature implies that much of it is indeed true, but it can be difficult to discern what exactly. One of the few “leaked” facts we can surely believe concerns precisely Russian EW capabilities. Still, this begs the question – why?
To answer that, we should first dissect and specify the claims of the mainstream propaganda machine. The “leaks” include a massive amount of information, including the claim that US-made JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs are failing in Ukraine due to successful Russian EW measures. The “leak” documents not only review the use of Russian countermeasures to make JDAMs ineffective, but also indicate that in some cases this results in failure to even detonate. It seems this includes the JDAM-ER (Extended Range) bombs that the troubled Biden administration sent to the Kiev regime in order to provide certain battlefield advantages to its forces. A futile effort, it would seem now, although the documents suggest that at least a thousand JDAM kits have been sent so far.
Politico claims that “Russia is using GPS jamming to interfere with the weapons’ targeting process, according to the slide and a separate person familiar with the issue who’s not in the US government”. The report further states that “American officials believe Russian jamming is causing the JDAMs, and at times other American weapons such as guided rockets, to miss their mark”. Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and retired CIA officer claims: “I do think there may be concern that the Russians may be jamming the signal used to direct the JDAMs, which would answer why these munitions are not performing in the manner expected and how they perform in other war zones.”
This was quite an unpleasant surprise for the Kiev regime as it expected the JDAMs to be a “game changer” providing key tactical advantages that Russia supposedly “couldn’t match”. However, it’s not just that this completely false sense of security fell apart as a result, but it turns out that the performance of other much-touted NATO-sourced weaponry is little more than PR optics. The “leak” suggests that even the M270 and HIMARS rockets are being successfully countered by Russian GPS jamming tactics. Many documents consistently show that the Kiev regime forces are generally beset by chronic munitions and advanced weapons shortages, and having Russian EW capabilities preventing precision targeting is exacerbating this exponentially, despite countless billions in weapons provided by the political West.
This is where we come to the “solution” the American Military Industrial Complex (MIC) may come up with. So, how does the world’s largest cartel of arms producers solve the issues with the precision of their weapons? Well, more weapons! With the Kiev regime potentially acquiring thousands of additional JDAMs, obviously by using funds provided by the political West, since the Neo-Nazi junta itself is “financially dead”, as Hungarian President Viktor Orban accurately assessed, US MIC contractors get even more billions of American taxpayers’ dollars. The contract to alter and/or upgrade thousands of JDAMs and other munitions would provide long-term contracts to the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE Systems, etc. This could be one of the few logical answers to the question of why the mainstream propaganda machine suddenly felt the urge to tell the truth for once.
However, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking this has anything to do with altruistic motives or even the desire to make the Kiev regime a more effective fighting force. The main goal primarily revolves around causing as much death and destruction as possible, particularly to civilian infrastructure in the Donbass and other areas of former Ukraine. This has twofold advantages for the US. First, Russia is left with destroyed buildings and infrastructure that need to be renovated and second, the mainstream propaganda machine can portray the destruction as caused by Russia. This also explains why the Neo-Nazi junta continues using Western weapons that keep missing and hitting civilian areas. Perhaps the only positive aspect in all this is that the sheer magnitude of corruption and cronyism in both the political West and Kiev may very well accelerate Russian victory.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Leaked files: Britain’s secret propaganda ops in Yemen
By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | April 17 2023
Yemen’s civil war, considered the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis, appears to be nearing its end due to a China-brokered detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, who support opposing sides in the bitter conflict.
Early signs suggest that the rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh may not only end hostilities in Yemen, but across the wider region.
The US, Israel, and Britain have the most to lose from a sudden onset of peace in West Asia. In the Yemeni context, London may be the biggest loser of all. For years, it provided the Saudi-led coalition with weaponry used to target civilians and civilian infrastructure, with receipts running into billions of pounds sterling.
During the entirety of the war, Yemen was struck by British-made bombs, dropped by British-made planes, flown by British-trained pilots, which then flew back to Riyadh to be repaired and serviced by British contractors. In 2019, a nameless BAE Systems executive estimated that if London pulled its backing for the proxy war, “in seven to 14 days, there wouldn’t be a jet in the sky.”
In addition to supplying weapons, the war also presented a golden opportunity for Britain to establish a military base in Yemen, fulfilling long-held fantasies of recovering the Empire’s long-lost glory days “East of Suez.”
Al-Ghaydah airport in al-Mahrah, Yemen’s far eastern governorate, has for some time quietly housed “a fully-fledged force” of British soldiers, providing “military training and logistical support” to coalition forces and Saudi-backed militias. There are even indications that this involvement could extend to torture methods, which is a troubling reflection of one of London’s leading exports.
The Cradle has obtained exclusive information about a previously undisclosed aspect of London’s role in the proxy war against Yemen’s Ansarallah-led resistance. It has been revealed that a multi-channel propaganda campaign, led by the intelligence cut-out ARK and its founder Alistair Harris, a veteran MI6 operative, has been operating in complete secrecy throughout the nine-year-long conflict – one that specifically targeted Yemen’s civilian population.
Anti-Ansarallah ops
Leaked Foreign Office documents have revealed that ARK’s “multimedia” information warfare campaign was designed to undermine public sympathy for the Ansarallah movement and ensure that the conflict would only end on terms that aligned with London’s financial, ideological, and geopolitical interests.
For instance, public acceptance of the UN’s widely unpopular peace proposal required propaganda support from local NGOs and media organizations that “support UK objectives” to “communicate effectively with Yemeni citizens” and change their minds.
It was also necessary to counter “new actors” in the information space that were critical of the Saudi-led coalition’s brutal bombing campaigns and the illegitimate, US-backed puppet government that the aerial assaults sought to protect.
Considering the high rate of illiteracy in the local population, ARK conceived the creation of a suite of “visually rich” products extolling the virtues of a Riyadh-dominated peace plan. These products would be disseminated on and offline, would “deliberately include different demographics, sects, and locations to ensure inclusivity,” and would be informed by focus groups and polling of Yemenis. ARK’s campaign even extended to convening “gender-segregated poetry competitions using peace as a theme” and “plays and town hall meetings.”
Publicly, many of these propaganda products appeared to be the work of Tadafur – Arabic for “work collectively and unite” – an astroturf network of NGOs and journalists constructed by ARK. Its overt mission was to “resolve local level conflicts” and “unite local communities in their conflict resolution efforts.”
The campaign began initially at a “hyper-local level” across six Yemeni governorates, “before being amplified at the national level.” Activities “[in] all areas and at both levels” had unified messaging across “common macro themes,” such as the slogan “Our Yemen, Our Future.”
In each governorate, a “credible” local NGO was identified as a messenger, along with “well-known” and “respected and influential” journalists who served as “dedicated field officers” across the sextet, managed by ARK.
In Hajjah – “a site of strong Houthi influence” – the Al-Mustaqbal Institute for Development was ARK’s NGO of choice; in Ansarallah-governed Sanaa, it was the Faces Institution for Rights and Media; in Marib, the Marib Social Generations Club; in Lahij, Rouwad Institution for Development and Human Rights; in Hadhramaut, Ahed Institute for Rights and Freedom; in Taiz, Generations Without Qat.
These local NGOs were instrumental in promoting ARK’s agenda and advancing the narrative that aligned with Britain’s objectives in Yemen.
The company’s roster of “field officers” comprised of individuals with various backgrounds, such as:
“Human rights abuse” specialist Mansour Hassan Mohammad Abu Ali, TV producer Thy Yazen Hussain, Public Organisation to Protect Human Rights press official and “experienced journalist” Waleed Abdul Mutlab Mohammed al-Rajihi, producer from Alhadramiah Documentary Institute Abdullah Amr Ramdan Mas’id, editorial secretary of Family and Development magazine and the Yemen Times’ Taiz news manager Rania Abdullah Saif al-Shara’bi, as well as journalist and activist Waheeb Qa’id Saleh Thiban.
A Trojan Horse
Once ARK’s field officers and NGOs “successfully designed and implemented hyper-local campaigns,” coverage of “information around the related activities will then be amplified at the national level.” A key platform for this amplification was a Facebook page called “Bab,” launched in 2016 with tens of thousands of followers who were unaware that the page was created by ARK as a British intelligence asset.
Under the guise of a popular grassroots online community, ARK used the Bab page to broadcast slick propaganda “promoting the peace process,” including videos and images of “local peacebuilding initiatives” organized by its NGO and field officer nexus.
“Campaign content will highlight tangible, real-life examples of compelling peacebuilding efforts that all Yemenis, regardless of their political affiliation, can relate to,” ARK stated.
“These will offer inspirational examples for others to emulate, demonstrating practical ways to engage with the peace process at a local level. Taken together, these individual stories form the broader campaign with a national message: Yemenis share a collective desire for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.”
When “high engagement levels” with this content were secured, Bab users were invited to submit their own, which demonstrated “support for the peace process.” They were explicitly asked “to mirror content ARK has produced, such as voxpops, short videos, or infographics.” This was then “shared by the project and field teams through influential WhatsApp messaging groups, a key way of reaching Yemeni youth.”
ARK’s “well-connected communications team” would then “strategically share packaged stories with broadcast media or key social influencers, or offer selected journalists exclusive access to stories.” Creating a constant flow of content was a deliberate ploy to “collectively be as ‘loud’ as partisan national political and military actors.” In other words, to create a parallel communications structure to Ansarallah’s own, which would drown out the resistance movement’s pronouncements.
ARK’s role in Yemen’s peace process
While one might argue that the non-consensual recruitment of private citizens as information warriors by British intelligence was justified by the moral urgency of ending the Yemen war quickly, the exploitation of these individuals was cynical in the extreme. It amounted to a Trojan Horse operation aimed at compelling Yemenis to embrace a peace deal that was wildly inequitable and contrary to their own interests.
Multiple passages in the leaked files refer to the paramount need to ensure no linkage between these propaganda initiatives and the UN’s peace efforts. One passage refers to how campaign “themes and activities” would at no point “directly promote the UN or the formal peace process,” while another says concealing the operation’s agenda behind ostensibly independent civil society voices “minimizes the risk” that “outputs are perceived as institutional communications stemming from or directly promoting the UN.”
Yet, once ARK’s campaigns began “performing successfully at the national level,” the company’s field officers planned to “build a bridge” between its local foot soldiers and national “stakeholders” – and, resultantly, the UN. In other words, the entire ruse served to entrench ARK’s central role in peace negotiations via the backdoor.
Diminished western influence
At that time, the ceasefire deal proposed by the UN required Ansarallah and its allied forces to virtually surrender before Riyadh’s military assaults and economic blockade of the country could be partially lifted, along with other stringent requirements that the Saudis refused to compromise on. The US aggressively encouraged such intransigence, viewing any Ansarallah influence in Yemen as strengthening Iran’s regional position.
However, these perspectives are no longer relevant to Yemen’s peace process. China has now encouraged Riyadh to offer significant concessions, and as a result, the end of the war is within sight, with critical supplies finally allowed to enter Yemen, prisoners returned, Sanaa’s airport reopened, and other positive developments.
Evidently, Washington’s offers of arms deals and security assurances are no longer sufficient to influence events overseas and convince its allies to carry out its agenda. The failure of ARK’s anti-Ansarallah propaganda campaigns to coerce Yemenis to accept peace on the west’s terms also highlights Britain’s significantly reduced power in the modern era.
Whereas wars could once be won on the coat-tails of well-laid propaganda campaigns, the experiences of Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan show that the tide has turned. Subversive information campaigns can confuse and misdirect populations but, at best, can only prolong conflict – not win it.
The RESTRICT Act will usher in a new era of censorship under the guise of “national security”
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | April 17, 2023
45 days after 9/11, the United States government passed the PATRIOT Act — a chilling law that used the guise of “national security” to greatly expand the federal government’s secret surveillance powers.
Almost 23 years later, another far-reaching bill, the “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act,” better known by its acronym, the RESTRICT Act, is using the same national security talking point to justify further federal government encroachment on Americans’ rights.
Although the bill doesn’t mention TikTok, its authors, Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Senator John Thune, have framed it as “the best way to counter the TikTok threat.”
However, the impact of the bill extends far beyond TikTok and gives the US government sweeping powers to ban a wide range of apps and services.
The bill authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit “current, past, or potential future transactions” involving technology products or services with more than one million US-based annual active users that:
- Are deemed to pose an “undue or unacceptable risk” in various areas (such as national security and election interference)
- Involve anyone determined to be “owned, directed, or controlled” by a “foreign adversary” (a term that can currently be applied to China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela but can be extended to other nations by the Secretary)
The Secretary of Commerce can also refer these tech products and services to the President who can take action to “compel divestment of, or otherwise mitigate the risk” associated with them.
Caitlin Vogus, the deputy director of rights group the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Free Expression Project, warned that these powers target the free speech rights of Americans. In a statement to Motherboard, she said:
“The RESTRICT Act could lead to apps and other ICT [information communication technology] services with connections to certain foreign countries being banned in the United States. Any bill that would allow the US government to ban an online service that facilitates Americans’ speech raises serious First Amendment concerns.”
Rights groups have also sounded the alarm about the RESTRICT Act’s threats to fine or imprison those who attempt to “evade the provisions” of the bill — a threat that they fear could be aimed at US citizens who attempt to access banned apps or services.
The RESTRICT Act states: “No person may engage in any transaction or take any other action with intent to evade the provisions of this Act.”
The bill even makes it unlawful to “approve” of “any act” that tries to evade the provisions of the bill.
People that violate these rules can be fined up to $1 million and imprisoned for up to 20 years.
Senator Warner has insisted that these penalties won’t be used to target individual users.
However, digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has noted that the bill doesn’t actually prevent individual users from being targeted. In an article about the RESTRICT Act, the EFF warned:
“Due to undefined mitigation measures coupled with a vague enforcement provision, the bill could also criminalize common practices like using a VPN or side-loading to install a prohibited app.”
Another concerning aspect of the RESTRICT Act is that it allows the Secretary of Commerce to form technical advisory committees without them being subject to Chapter 10 of part 1 of title 5 of the United States Code.
This section of the law aims to reduce “the undue influence” of special interests and lobbyists. It allows Congress to review the proposed activities of advisory committees before they’re formed and ensure that these committees aren’t being “inappropriately influenced” by special interests. It also requires advisory committees to report their activities and goals to Congress, make their meetings open to the public, make transcripts available to the public, and file reports with the Library of Congress.
Excluding RESTRICT Act advisory committees from this section of the law opens the door for lobbyists representing US tech giants to serve on these committees, push for their competitors in other countries to be banned, and further cement their dominance.
And the problems don’t end here. The RESTRICT Act also limits judicial, congressional, and public scrutiny of the government’s actions.
Actions taken by the Secretary of the Treasury under this act are exempt from sections 551, 553-559, and 701-707 of title 5 of the United States Code — sections that require federal officials and agencies to provide public notice when proposing rule making, allow interested persons to participate in the rule making, and give those who suffer legal wrong as a result of government action the right to judicial review.
The scope of judicial review under the RESTRICT Act is limited to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the court is prohibited from disturbing “any action taken” by the Secretary or the President when they review or prohibit transactions or take action against tech products and services, unless a petitioner demonstrates that the action is unconstitutional or violates a statutory command.
Additionally, Americans have “no right of access” to the information that the government uses when deciding whether to prohibit transactions involving technology products or services under this bill. The Freedom of Information Act also doesn’t apply to any information submitted by affected parties or created by the government when reviewing such transactions.
We obtained a copy of the RESTRICT Act for you here.
Despite the glaring problems with the bill, its architects are blaming TikTok for the criticism and claiming that the owners of the app are “spreading false claims about the Restrict Act in an effort to continue operating with impunity.”
According to Warner, the RESTRICT ACT has more than 20 bipartisan cosponsors.
The bill also has the full support of the Biden White House which has already demonstrated that it’s no fan of free speech and is currently being sued for alleged First Amendment violations.
If the RESTRICT Act passes, the Biden admin and any future pro-censorship administrations will be handed new powers to continue their crackdowns on online speech.
Canada’s state media quit Twitter over label
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau on CBC’s Face To Face with host Rosemary Barton in Toronto, September 12, 2021. © Global Look Press/Keystone Press Agency
RT | April 17, 2023
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) announced on Monday that it was “pausing” its activity on Twitter after the social media platform labeled it as state-funded, arguing that this somehow impugned their editorial independence.
“Our journalism is impartial and independent. To suggest otherwise is untrue. That is why we are pausing our activities on Twitter,” the government-funded outlet tweeted.
“Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work they do to allow our independence to be falsely described in this way,” CBC spokesperson Leon Mar said on Sunday evening. “Consequently, we will be pausing our activity on our corporate Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada news-related accounts.”
The CBC is a Crown corporation, entirely owned by the Canadian state. In its 2021-22 annual analysis, it reported receiving 1.24 billion ($930 million) Canadian dollars in government funding. However, the outlet insists that its editorial policies are entirely independent of the government and guided only by “public interest.”
Mar argued that Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as those in which the authorities “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” which is “clearly not the case with CBC/Radio Canada.”
Leader of the opposition Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre reacted to the labeling of CBC by tweeting that “Now people know that it is [Canadian PM Justin] Trudeau propaganda, not news.”
Last week, Poilievre called on Twitter owner Elon Musk to add the label to the broadcaster, saying it was needed to protect Canadians against “disinformation and manipulation by state media.” Describing the CBC as government-funded is a fact, the politician said, “and Canadians deserve the facts.”
The CBC’s Twitter boycott echoes the actions of two US outlets, the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Both stopped tweeting last week, in response to being labeled as government-funded.
PBS also insisted that it was entirely editorially independent and produced “trustworthy content that features unbiased reporting.” The outlet could not argue that it didn’t receive government funding, as 31% of its revenue came from federal, state and local authorities, with another 12% coming from regional public broadcasters and universities, also heavily subsidized by the government.
Twitter originally rolled out the labeling of outlets in August 2020, tagging Russian and Chinese media as “state-affiliated” but exempting Western outlets such as the BBC and Voice of America (VOA). As documents published after Musk’s takeover showed, the platform was working hand in glove with what several US journalists described as a “censorship-industrial complex” of government agencies and politically motivated NGOs.
MORE UNANSWERED RED FLAGS REGARDING JACK TEXEIRA
By Larry Johnson | SONAR | April 16, 2023
Several former military and intelligence professionals have contacted me and voiced similar doubts about the pat story being circulated regarding National Guard Airman Jack Texeira and the allegations that he removed TOP SECRET documents from a SCIF, photographed them and then posted them to a gamer chat. They all agree, something is not right. The media account does not make sense.
The biggest oddity are the two two separate documents from the CIA’s Operations Center. Neither are complete and both deal only with the Ukrainian/Russian war. To reiterate a point from my previous article, that CIA Operations Center produces two daily reports — one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It is not a “Community” product, i.e., it is not distributed to the other intelligence agencies. It is an internal CIA document (of course, it is available to the Director of National Intelligence).
Texeira’s alleged possession of two separate reports is doubly odd because he did not copy the full reports. The one dated 1 March 2023 only shows 3 of 8 pages. If he was taking the documents to impress the youngsters on the gamer chat, why did he not take the whole enchilada? And why did he only publish the portions of the intel report that dealt exclusively with Ukraine and Russia?
There has been some media reports that he also posted a State Department EXDIS cable. I have not seen it and cannot confirm that it exists. If it does, that would be another huge red flag. EXDIS is bureaucratic speak for EXCLUSIVE DISSEMINATION. It has a cousin, NODIS — i.e., NO DISTRIBUTION. The U.S. military does not have access to such cables.
There was a time when State EXDIS was available to U.S. military commands on a restricted basis. That was pre-Chelsea Manning. After Manning’s leaks in 2010, that access was cut off. I know this first hand because I was part of a team scripting military exercises for all U.S. regional commands (i.e., EUCOM, NORTHCOM, AFRICOM, PACOM, CENTCOM and SOUTHCOM) during the course of a year. I was the State Department Subject Matter Expert. That means I had the job of creating cable traffic from the Secretary of State or U.S. Embassies that the U.S. military might see during a terrorist crisis. Prior to the Manning/Wikileaks leak, I had full access to State Department messages, including EXDIS. After Manning, that access was terminated. Not just for me but for all the uniformed personnel I worked with. All held TS SCI clearances. There has been no change in that policy, which means there is no way that Jack Texeira would have had any access to copy and take a State Department EXDIS message.
Another curiosity with the story, apart from Jack’s youth and the claim that he held TS SCI clearances and had access to CIA internal reports, is the schedule of his Massachusetts Air National Guard unit. That outfit had not been called up and assigned a 24 x 7 mission. Instead, the Air National Guard unit meets one weekend a month. In other words, Jack had to work his magic over a two or three day period surrounded by peers and those in command of the unit. You do not just show up and pursue your own interests. There are drills and assigned work, which is supervised by Non-Commissioned Officers (i.e., Sergeants) and Officers.
The documents I have seen posted on Twitter and Telegram, were dated 28 February, 1 March and 2 March, i.e., Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. According to the MI-6 funded Bellingcat, those documents were published on 4 March, a Saturday. Let’s assume that Texeira’s National Guard unit assembled for drill on March 4. We’re asked to believe that Jack Texeira showed up for monthly Air National Guard duty on Saturday, quickly scoured the high side computer for sensitive documents, printed them off, smuggled them out of the SCIF, returned home sometime after 5 pm (normal end of duty day), photographed the documents and quickly uploaded them to the Discord server. If that is what happened, it smacks of urgency. Most young airmen, after a long day at work, want to go out and party rather than stay at home photographing documents.
I remain skeptical of the narrative and hope by raising these questions that some genuine journalists will explore the oddities and try to get to the ground truth.
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Argentina’s Javier Milei sells out his country for Israel
- Putting Nukes in Finland Won’t Make Country Safer, Finnish Politician Cautions
- Ukrainian drone strike kills worker at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant
- What the West Hides About Soviet Role in De-Colonization
- Villains of Judea: Douglas Feith
- US pension fund invests hundreds of millions in weapons firms supplying Israel
- US bill to grant Americans serving in Israeli army same rights as US troops
- What a president, a movie star, a congressman, and a cell phone all dared to say
- ‘An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership’: Merz
- Pakistan Throws Open Its Gates for Iran’s Transit Trade to Third Countries
- If Americans Knew
- Palestinians in Gaza Want to Rebuild Food Systems. Israel Isn’t Letting Them.
- Under Trump, Green Card Seekers Face New Scrutiny for Views on Israel
- Sheep Theft Sent Shockwaves Through a Palestinian Village. Then, a 12-year-old Boy Was Shot Dead
- Trump alum helps Israel mount AI influence campaign
- Dispatches From Catastrophe
- Despite Denials, AIPAC Is Now Funding Campaign of Ala Stanford In Philadelphia
- Israel’s neighbors are irate about its treatment of religious sites
- Israel escalates in Gaza: killing, torture, hunger – Daily Update
- Six Months into Gaza Ceasefire, Setting the Record Straight About Aid
- ‘Silent suffering’: Why children in Gaza are losing their ability to speak
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
Aletho News 