Democrats Attack Ukraine Audit Resolution as ‘Divisive and Ill-Advised’
By Kyle Anzalone | Libertarian Institute | April 26, 2023
Legislation introduced by Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) which calls on the White House to release documents related to the war in Ukraine passed a voice vote on Wednesday. With debate on the resolution divided along party lines, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to vote on the measure on Friday.
The bill, H.Res.300, would urge President Joe Biden to grant lawmakers access to “all documents indicating any plans for current or future military assistance to Ukraine,“ as well as any material “indicating whether any United States Armed Forces, including special operations forces, are currently deployed in Ukraine.”
Since Russia invaded its neighbor 14 months ago, Congress has authorized over $100 billion in aid for Ukraine. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Washington has provided $80 billion in military and financial aid throughout the conflict.
Though support for the resolution was limited to Republicans, it passed a voice vote and is set for a full committee vote on Friday. Several Democrats attacked the legislation during Wednesday’s debate.
Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) blasted the measure as “divisive and ill-advised,” claiming “It is a partisan political ploy, and the height of legislative irresponsibility that jeopardizes the national security of the United States, of our Europe allies and partners as well as the courageous Ukrainian people.”
Manning took issue with the resolution because it threatened a consensus in Congress that support for Kiev must be unwavering and indefinite. “The entire Congress has remained resolutely bipartisan for Ukraine as it fights against Russian aggression,” the lawmaker continued, adding “Measures like this put bipartisanship in jeopardy.”
She also asserted that the bill amplified Russian propaganda and claimed that reporting on legislation “favorably“ would be “irresponsible.”
“It plays directly into [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s hands by seeking to force the disclosures of all present and future military plans,” Manning said. “Passage of this measure would represent a gift to Putin and his Kremlin cronies and provide visibility into the plans our military and intelligence leaders strive to protect at all costs.”
However, she failed to explain how increased congressional oversight for US military policy in Ukraine could actually help the Russians on the battlefield. Congressman Daryl Issa (R-CA) said any documents provided to the House would not be made public, and that “every bit of the information requested could be and would be held at the Select Intelligence Committee.”
Further, dozens of documents detailing weak points in Ukraine’s defenses were alleged to have been leaked by a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman over the course of several months on Discord.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said that it was not an appropriate time for transparency regarding the billions in US tax dollars pouring into Ukraine. “Timing matters when this committee actions,” he argued. “There will be a time in insisting [on oversight], but now is not that time.”
Congressman Cory Mills (R-FL) argued in favor of the resolution, saying it could prevent “mission creep,” referring to a phenomenon in which military or policy objectives gradually shift over time, often becoming vague, ill-defined or impossible to achieve. The concept was frequently used to describe the US occupation of Afghanistan, which began as a counterterrorism operation and later expanded into a sprawling, poorly supervised nation-building project.
Mills went on to say that the bill is not about preventing support for Ukraine or empowering Putin, but merely better oversight.
When Gaetz introduced H.Res.300 earlier this month, he emphasized transparency. “The Biden Administration and other allied countries have been misleading the world on the state of the war in Ukraine,” he said, calling for “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.”
Event 201 Webpage Goes Missing
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | April 26, 2023
Event 201 – A high-level pandemic exercise held by The Johns Hopkins Center for Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The exercise began on 18 October 2019, months before the Covid pandemic started and the very same day the World Military Games began in Wuhan.
The website for the event has been available to view all the way through the pandemic but for some reason it has now been taken down. If you click on the web address, all you get is this:
But you can always view the archived version here.
Pfizer Gave Millions to ‘Independent’ Groups to Push COVID Vaccine Mandates
Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 26, 2023
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in 2021 made numerous grants to medical associations, consumer groups and civil rights organizations for the purpose of creating the appearance of widespread support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, investigative journalist Lee Fang reported.
As the vaccine mandates rolled out in 2021, Pfizer stayed quiet on the question of mandates — but public health groups, patient advocacy groups, doctors’ associations, community groups and others, along with the Biden administration, actively advocated for vaccine mandates as a key measure to protect public health.
New disclosures from Pfizer, posted by Fang on his Substack, show that many of these same groups were taking money from Pfizer while they promoted the idea that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were “safe and effective,” despite a lack of scientific data to back those claims.
Prominent groups on the extensive list of those who took Pfizer funding while pushing the mandates included the Chicago Urban League, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the National Consumers League, The Immunization Partnership, the American Pharmacists Association, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, the American Society for Clinical Pathology and the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Many groups did not disclose their ties to Pfizer.
“[These groups] set the nature of the debate,” Fang told comedian and political commentator Russell Brand on a recent episode of “Stay Free.” “They appear in the news media, they create events and they create a discourse that looks authentic, that looks organic, but it benefits the bottom line of their benefactors, of companies like Pfizer.”
Fang said many of these organizations, particularly civil rights organizations like the Chicago Urban League or the National Consumers League — which actually has a Pfizer lobbyist on its board — have powerful influence precisely because of their independent status.
When these groups speak out, Fang said:
“It affects how regulators see these issues and how the public sees them. When they see these third-party groups that have some credibility — these are famous organizations that are known for standing up for the public interest.
“When they say ‘hey these mandates are a good idea for the American public,’ it seems genuine.
“But they aren’t disclosing the Pfizer money, which is a relevant factor when you are talking about a policy that compels Americans to take this product.”
After the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in early 2021, vaccine mandates followed in different forms across the country.
At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Defense mandated vaccines for military personnel, and the Biden administration mandated vaccines for federal contractors and for all employers with 100 employees or more — the latter was struck down in federal court.
Universities mandated vaccination for students and staff, and many public and private employers across the country mandated vaccination for their employees.
Several school districts across the country planned to mandate vaccination for children to attend school, but most of those plans have since been rolled back.
Those who instituted mandates justified them by asserting that mass vaccination — and only mass vaccination — would “stop the spread” of COVID-19.
But it has since been revealed that in March 2021, when Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky publicly and unequivocally stated on MSNBC that vaccinated people would not get sick, there was no evidence to support her statement.
In fact, the CDC had to walk back the statement a few days later.
Biden also falsely claimed that the vaccinated would not get infected — in July 2021, just before COVID-19 vaccine mandates went into effect.
The vaccine makers have since acknowledged they never tested whether the vaccines would stop transmission, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that vaccinated people in both Pfizer and Moderna’s clinical trials contracted the virus.
Big Pharma’s big reach
Pfizer isn’t the only actor in Big Pharma that quietly funds third parties to do its work.
Fang told The Defender that “Many pharmaceutical firms covertly shape public opinion and regulations through the use of front groups and financial relationships with community organizations.”
For example, Purdue Pharma covertly funded third-party advocacy groups to encourage looser criteria for prescribing its highly addictive opioid painkillers, he reported.
As for Pfizer, Fang said, third-party funding is just one of the many strategies the drugmaker deployed to drive COVID-19 policymaking.
“Pfizer flexed its lobbying muscles around many COVID-19 policies, including efforts to curb drug-pricing initiatives and a bid to prevent the creation of generic COVID medications,” he said, adding, “The vaccine mandate debate is yet another example of Pfizer’s reach into public policy.”
Big Pharma — along with the Biden administration and its intermediaries — also lobbied to suppress those who questioned the vaccine program.
Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to set moderation rules that would flag purported COVID-19-related “misinformation,” as part of the effort to drive the national conversation about the COVID-19 vaccines, Fang reported as part of the “Twitter files.”
“Pharma is unique in the raw amount of money they spend to control the entire public sector on regulatory, on policy, on everything in terms of how it affects medicine as it is practiced in the United States,” Fang said.
The pharmaceutical and health products lobby is one of the biggest industry lobbies. According to OpenSecrets.org, last year alone the industry spent $372 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies, outspending every other industry — and each year it increases its spending.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is on the board of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the top individual lobbying spender in the industry, which spent $29.2 million last year. Pfizer itself spent more than any other drug company.
The industry also spends massive amounts of money on advertising. Pfizer alone spent nearly $2.8 billion on advertising for all of its products in 2022.
The COVID-19 vaccines netted $37.8 billion for Pfizer in 2022, up from $36.7 billion in 2021. The company’s overall earnings hit a record $100 billion.
Big Pharma and the CDC did similar work to promote mandates and vaccination
There is a “revolving door” between pharma industry lobbyists and the government — nearly 65% of lobbyists formerly worked for the government.
And the strategies used to build support for Big Pharma’s products are some of the same strategies used by federal government agencies like the CDC.
Since 2021 — the same time Pfizer started funding community groups — the CDC has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for the creation of “culturally tailored” pro-vaccine materials and for training “influential messengers” to promote COVID-19 and flu vaccines to communities of color in every state across the country.
For those grants, the CDC sought out community organizations that would communicate the CDC’s message without the CDC’s trademark, so the messages would appear to come organically from within local communities rather than from the government, particularly among communities of color.
In another case, the CDC hired a public relations firm to write what looked like news articles but were actually ad placements created to persuade parents of young children and elderly people — with a focus on Spanish speakers — to get vaccinated.
Both Pfizer and the CDC used their funding to target black and Latino communities that had lower vaccination rates. In one case, they both funded the same organization — the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA).
According to Fang, the organization worked with a public relations firm called Culture ONE World to distribute “press releases and media placements” that “called on employers of essential workers to mandate COVID-19 vaccines.”
Fang also wrote that the NHMA also signed joint statements lobbying in favor of Biden’s vaccine mandate and that “it received $30,000 from BIO [Biotechnology Innovation Organization], a vaccine industry lobby group that represents Pfizer and Moderna, IRS filings show.”
The Defender found that NHMA received $2,070,000 in two annual grants so far for their “Vacunas! Si Se Puede, Immunization Campaign for Hispanics” program, which later became “We Can Do This,” to create culturally tailored content to be circulated throughout Latino communities.
American Academy of Pediatrics received multiple grants from Pfizer in 2021
The AAP also appeared on Fang’s list of notable organizations that received direct Pfizer funding.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics was one of the most visible organizations working to build public support for vaccine mandates. The organization received multiple, specialized grants from Pfizer in 2021.
“Pfizer also provided grants to individual state chapters of the AAP earmarked for lobbying on vaccine policy. The Ohio AAP chapter, for instance, lobbied the Ohio legislature against bills to curb coercive COVID-19 vaccine policies, while receiving an ‘immunization legislation’ advocacy grant from Pfizer.”
Beyond its COVID-19 vaccine mandate work, the organization also was a public advocate for COVID-19 vaccines for children. Its then-president, UCLA professor Moira Szilagyi, M.D., Ph.D., publicly advocated, on media outlets such as CNN, for vaccinating children.
The organization, “dedicated to the health of all children,” previously issued policy guidance to its members stating that it is an “acceptable option to pediatric care clinicians to dismiss families who refuse vaccines.”
And in June 2022, the AAP issued a press release applauding the CDC’s recommendation of “safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines” for babies as young as 6 months old, despite concerns raised — by the FDA vaccine advisory commission, among many others — regarding a lack of clinical data for the vaccines in children.
In addition to the Pfizer funding, the AAP receives much of its funding directly from the CDC, raising questions about the organization’s ability to act independently, particularly with respect to vaccine recommendations, BMJ editor Peter Doshi wrote in 2017.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
FDA chief spruiks misinformation while vowing to fight misinformation
BY MARYANNE DEMASI, PHD | APRIL 25, 2023
Robert Califf, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hell bent on ridding the internet of misinformation.
In a series of public appearances, Califf has claimed that “misinformation is now our leading cause of death.”
When I asked the FDA for evidence to support his claim, the agency drew a blank, admitting that Califf’s statement “cannot be proven.”
Califf has since made attempts to tweak his public statement.
This week, CBS News reporter Alexander Tin pressed him for an explanation, to which Califf replied, “I want to modify my statement. And I’ll keep working on this, to try to get it right. I would say I actually believe it is the leading cause of premature death…”
Jessica Adams, an expert in drug regulatory affairs said, “It’s ironic. Califf is spreading misinformation about the leading cause of premature death in the US, while promoting the need to counter misinformation.”
“It’s unbelievable for him to make these assertions with no scientific backing,” she added.
Adams said it’s not the FDA’s job to police medical misinformation online.
“The FDA should be assessing drug approvals, overseeing post-marketing studies and ensuring product labels are up to date – not promoting vaccines and antivirals as if it’s the marketing arm of the drug industry,” said Adams.
The FDA sent me its website providing Califf’s reasoning for why he believes misinformation is the leading cause of premature death. It states:
“Most of the COVID-19 deaths since vaccines and antivirals became available were preventable if people had gotten updated on their vaccination status and, if high risk and infected, had they been treated with an authorized antiviral.”
“He’s failed to cite any sources to substantiate his claims and Califf keeps saying that it is just his ‘belief’…Are we supposed to just accept that?” said Adams, criticising his “obsession” over the boosters.
“It’s as if the FDA thinks that people don’t want the vaccines because they are misinformed, when it might just be that they are not persuaded by the data,” she added.
Adams also said the FDA is misinforming the public by “over-inflating” the benefit of the more recent bivalent vaccines.
“They’re now promoting the bivalent boosters which are based on much less data than the original [monovalent] vaccines and authorised on the basis of antibodies, which is not a fully validated correlate of protection,” said Adams.
This is not the first time the FDA has made misleading scientific claims to the public.
In August 2021, the FDA attempted to dissuade people from using ivermectin as an off-label, early treatment for COVID-19 by suggesting it was a livestock drug. The agency tweeted “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
But critics were quick to condemn the misinformation by pointing out that ivermectin is not only a medicine used to deworm livestock, it is also FDA-approved for parasitic treatment in humans.
Califf also spread misinformation in a Nov 2022 tweet which stated, “preliminary epidemiological findings point to the distinct possibility of the bivalent vaccines and antivirals reducing risk of long Covid.”
Vinay Prasad, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a practicing Haematologist Oncologist at San Francisco General Hospital wrote a scathing criticism of the tweet.
“For bivalent vaccines, he’s making things up. There are no relevant clinical data in human beings for bivalent vaccines, certainly not for the end points of long covid symptoms. Ergo that claim is 100% false; essentially a lie,” wrote Prasad.
“For antivirals, such as Paxlovid, this endpoint has not been assessed in randomized control trials. There are some poorly done observational studies that conflate ICD-10 codes with long covid symptoms and make bold, unsupported claims, but there is no robust evidence,” he added.
Traditionally, the FDA has regulated health misinformation to protect consumers from misbranded and adulterated products, but this new proposed “misinformation oversight” seems to extend to overseeing any online health-related issue.
“The FDA has always maintained that it does not want to regulate the practice of medicine, but lately it’s behaving as if it’s the Surgeon General – America’s doctor – making drug recommendations and promoting vaccines,” said Adams.
If the FDA wants to curb the spread of misinformation, it should start by looking at its own behaviour.
Despite the criticism, Califf remains defiant. Recently, he boasted to a crowd of journalists that he is “relatively impervious to critique.”
Perhaps, that’s where he is going wrong.
How the North Korean arms trade in the Russian Federation is ‘proven’
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 26.04.2023
We recently discussed how stories of North Korean weapons shipments to Russia were now being proven by saying things like, “Here’s a train with weapons on it; you can’t see them, but believe us, they’re inside.” But John Kirby, the coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, showed that he was more than qualified. On March 30, 2023, he said:
- North Korea is working to send dozens of kinds of weapons and munitions to Russia to be used in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine
- North Korea seeks to secure food supplies in exchange
- The potential arms deal is being arranged through a Slovakian arms dealer, identified as Ashot Mkrtychev, against whom the US Department of Treasury has imposed sanctions.
Kirby voiced fear “that North Korea will continue to back Russian military activities against Ukraine,” despite the lack of proof that North Korea sent huge quantities of ammunition to Moscow late last year.
Kirby emphasized that any arms deal between North Korea and Russia would directly violate a series of UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting the sale of weapons to and from the North.
What do we see when we look at it this way? The fact that the loud discourse of alleged deals was stated by an influential person should apparently be deemed evidence, and no more corroboration is required. Despite the fact that any clarifying inquiry of the class, “how exactly the DPRK sends such large quantities of weaponry to Russia,” leaves no stone unturned. As the author is already being ironic, Kirby is only credible if one believes the DPRK invented teleportation.
In reality, Defense Department Spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder tried to soften his tone, he was actually disputing what Kirby had said. According to him, “there currently was no indication that additional weapons or munitions have been delivered to Russia, but we continue to keep a close eye on it.”
An examination of the name of the US sanction recipient indicates the types of arguments Washington is employing to sever military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. To begin with, Mkrtichev was described as a “Slovakian citizen with Azerbaijani roots” in various Russian-language periodicals recognized by the Russian Federation as foreign agents (hence no references). This amount of investigation recalls an old joke about how to spell Iran or Iraq? Given the tense relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the fact that the person’s first and last names are both plainly Armenian makes us laugh.
But what was the mysterious Ashot up to? According to a press release from the US Department of the Treasury, Mkrtychev, 56, a resident of Bratislava, worked with DPRK officials between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 to buy more than two dozen weapons and ammunition for Russia in exchange for items like commercial airplanes, raw materials, and goods to be shipped to the DPRK. More precisely, he “might be involved in the organization of deals.” “Schemes like the arms deal pursued by this individual show that Putin is turning to suppliers of last resort like Iran and the DPRK.” An individual has been sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for seeking to arrange arms sales between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Now the questions. First, it is not very clear who Mkrtychev is. If he had even a passing knowledge of the armaments trade, the US Treasury’s statement would have likely indicated this for propaganda purposes. This “no name” was going to organize an epic transaction on an epic magnitude. Therefore, how was he to supply commercial aircraft as opposed to a large quantity of raw materials and goods? The author would like to recall a few important details. First, the North continues to be isolated, and trade across the border with the DPRK occurs in a number of places that are tracked by satellites. On the Russian-DPRK border, for example, there is just a train bridge. Ships cruising around the DPRK that could be used to dodge sanctions are also being monitored, and the UN panel of experts report gives specific data on ships that often trade coal by turning off transponders and regularly accessing Chinese ports. Mkrtychev must possess the ability of a James Bond 007 secret agent in order to organize the aforementioned plot.
Now the question is, why do we need an obscure middleman from Slovakia for two countries who share a geographical border and direct diplomatic ties, even if Russia and North Korea are interested in backdoor deals? Previous Kirby stories were a little more realistic in such a context.
Furthermore, it is not at all evident from the American comments whether any of the deals Mkrtychev mediated were successfully executed. Yet, a failed attempt to do business with the DPRK, from an American perspective, should be penalized in the same way as a successful one, because intent is punishable…
This prompts the author to consider the following points.
As part of their so-called “open source intelligence” operation, the US deploys neural networks to search the unprotected Internet for relevant content using a keyword system, providing them access to data on a variety of forums or chat rooms. Therefore, it seems possible that American “intelligence” discovered a method of getting around the sanctions by compiling a list of a few pertinent statements. Added to that is a misunderstanding of the context, as previously stated, when the author of a telegram channel about the secrets of Russian domestic politics in general may be a schoolboy fantasist.
Finally, this situation reminds him of the preparation for a fraudulent plan, which he had recently encountered on multiple occasions. The fact is that various fraudsters periodically try to cash in on the situation of DPRK. Such people come in contact with North Korea, depict themselves as sympathetic to the country’s situation, and occasionally reach Pyongyang to be photographed with a number of important people. Then they come in contact with a “third party” and try to buy or sell anything while appearing as someone with the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and Kim Jong-un’s personal trust. As middlemen, they receive commissions for risky and difficult work, which accounts for the majority of their earnings when a deal fails for whatever reason, even though the scale closely resembles the American reports.
I would venture to guess that we have dealt with something similar. However, any fraud of this nature provides the US State Department with a good excuse to impose sanctions. Although it is unlikely that such a person will visit the United States, it is not difficult to add a new victim to the sanctions list.
In order to better keep track of them and to be more critical of the loud propaganda remarks, I want to highlight three points as I draw to a close another text regarding flaws in evidence.
- When a high-ranking individual states a fact, the evidence for that fact is not that it was uttered by the “respected person” but, at the very least, some other form of confirmation, like “Yesterday I was in a cab, and the driver told me that…” Even a mention of an unnamed but knowledgeable “expert” is better than none at all.
- When an act is offered to you, it makes sense to try to understand the technical intricacies of it because, usually, it is ignorance of the details that makes an act physically impossible. Consider “mortar shootings,” the exchange of urine samples stored in canisters that require identification to open, or the immeasurable amounts of armament shipments.
- Remember that fabricated stories follow specific literary canons when the story being presented is too evocative of a blockbuster storyline. Reality can also be unrealistic, but not in the same way as the proven plot. Provocation is indicated by overdramatization.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences
US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 24, 2023
Politico cited unnamed US administration officials in their latest piece reporting that “Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive”. According to them, a dilemma of epic soft power proportions is in the making should this upcoming operation fail: hawks will blame the US for not giving Kiev everything that it demanded, while doves will demand the immediate commencement of peace talks. Left unsaid is the “politically inconvenient” fact that US’ own propaganda is responsible for this.
In particular, the SBU-backed fascist troll network known as “NAFO” played an unprecedented role in this respect. What began as an online campaign fundraising for war criminals morphed into an aggressive troll campaign whose members rarely get banned by social media for their toxic ad hominem attacks and doxing despite blatantly violating those platforms’ terms of service (with few notable exceptions). Although Twitter’s recent algorithmic tweaks have reduced their reach, they’re still very active.
What the combined efforts of infamous trolls like former congressman Adam Kinzinger and senior advisor at the Helsinki Commission Paul Massaro have done is generate unrealistically high hopes about Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted Western audience. This undeclared foreign agent and shameless glorifier of a genocidal World War II fascist movement respectively thought they were “helping the cause” but were in reality working against its soft power interests this whole time.
Those infamous NAFO trolls and their ilk continued pushing the information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach despite Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley publicly downplaying that scenario in late January by describing it as “very, very difficult”. These propagandists didn’t miss a beat even after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia several weeks later.
That second development was publicly shared just like Milley’s for the purpose of tempering everyone’s expectations about Kiev’s counteroffensive, with Stoltenberg’s drawing attention to how much more the West needs to ramp up military-industrial production to stand a chance of winning. It’s impossible for NATO to have made any serious difference in this respect in the two months since his candid admission so the difficult state of military-strategic affairs that Milley warned about still remains in effect.
A little more than one month ago, the Washington Post told its readers the truth about just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring. Several weeks later, the Pentagon leaks then confirmed this sobering assessment, which set the context within which Politico’s latest report was published. Accordingly, it’s now indisputable that leading Western officials and their allied Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets were preconditioning the public for the last quarter-year not to expect much from this counteroffensive.
NAFO’s failure to respond to those signals and instead defiantly redouble their information warfare narrative priming the public for Kiev’s ‘total victory’ sometime in the very near future therefore directly resulted in the present dilemma. Those average Westerners who are supportive of Ukraine didn’t extend any credence to those aforementioned figures’ warnings due to the social media echo chamber that they became trapped in since the special operation started.
These people preferred to surround themselves with fellow wishful thinkers who told them whatever they wanted to hear, sometimes even pushing the most absurd conspiracy theories to explain away the cognitive dissonance provoked by the difference between their claims and those officials’. The most popular one alleges that elements within the US Government, NATO, and the MSM are either under the influence of a “Russian disinformation operation” or even infiltrated by “deep-cover sleeper cell agents”.
For as amusing as this may be those who know better than to fall for that super paranoid conspiracy theory, so many people within the West seriously believe it that the US Government doesn’t consider this to be a laughing matter at all. In fact, it’s precisely because a critical mass of people still subscribe to these radical fringe beliefs despite leading officials’ best efforts since late January to correct their false NAFO-indoctrinated expectations that those US administration figures just spoke to Politico.
Simply put, their propaganda operation has gotten out of control and is now a major soft power liability. NAFO trolls won’t respond to those dog whistles being blown by American and NATO officials like Milley and Stoltenberg since they remain “loyal” to parroting whatever Ukrainian officials are saying at any given time. Those who stray from the dogmatic information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach are viciously attacked and expelled from this modern-day cult.
The felling of belonging that NAFO provides for many of its members, whose offline lives are rather dull and lonely to put it mildly, influences them to self-censor the sharing of any doubts they may have about Ukraine’s conspiracy theories in the face of growing Western public claims to the contrary. These interconnected gatekeeping and psychological dynamics result in narrative reinforcement, which in turn leads to Kiev’s average Western supporters retaining unrealistically high expectations about the conflict.
The reason why the US Government is recently scaling up its efforts to correct the public’s expectations is because the risk of deep disappointment affecting a critical mass of the population is assessed as being extremely counterproductive to their interests. Enough of them might become disillusioned in the aftermath of a failed counteroffensive that they decisively shift towards supporting the immediate ceasefire scenario, which works against those who want to indefinitely perpetuate this proxy war.
The most furious among them might even punish those politicians who they blame for this fiasco during the next elections, either by voting for pro-ceasefire candidates or not participating in the polls at all. Either way, administration figures fear that there’s a credible enough chance of tangible blowback from the false expectations that NAFO continued cultivating among the public in defiance of the dog whistles blown by top Western military officials that they’re now asking the MSM to help them avert this disaster.
The takeaway from Politico’s latest article is that the Biden Administration is still struggling to correct the public’s expectations after Milley first tried doing so a quarter-year ago. The US’ earlier NAFO-driven propaganda successfully instilled unrealistically high hopes of Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted audience, which is now a major soft power liability owing to credible fears that it’ll fail. Unless their expectations soon change, Ukraine’s supporters might be in for a very deep disappointment.
Spy letter about Hunter Biden shows how Dems are undermining democracy
By James Bovard | April 21, 2023
In the closing address at last month’s Summit for Democracy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken piously proclaimed, “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident.
“It requires constant effort.”
Or in the case of the 2020 election, it required deceiving American voters.
The House Judiciary Committee revealed that Blinken, then a top Biden adviser, orchestrated the letter from 51 top intelligence officials claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing but a Russian disinformation campaign.
Blinken contacted former acting CIA chief Mike Morell, who swayed scores of other former top officials — including three ex-CIA chiefs — to sign that letter to debunk the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign.
In the final presidential debate on Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked that letter from former intelligence officials to deflect Donald Trump’s attacks on Biden family corruption.
Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.
Biden pretended that letter arose spontaneously from the patriotic sentiments of former officials.
But the letter was “triggered” by Blinken’s call to Morell, who then contacted his former colleagues.
Blinken’s ploy may have swayed Biden to appoint him secretary of state.
The media are mostly ignoring or downplaying the revelations of Blinken’s machinations.
If the roles were reversed, cable news and front-page headlines would be screaming about a villainous Trump operative pulling official strings to whitewash the Donald.
MSNBC would be howling about the death of democracy, and CNN hosts would be sobbing hysterically about the dirty deal.
But when Team Biden does it: nothing to see here, move along.
How many presidential elections can Democrats seek to dishonestly rig without suffering any penalty flags from media scorekeepers?
Shortly before the 2016 election, senior Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan peddled false claims linking the Trump Organization to Russia.
The Federal Election Commission last month levied a $113,000 fine on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for their deceptive funding to cover up their role in the Steele dossier.
The FBI, which was apparently willing to pay any price to defeat Trump, offered former British spy Christopher Steele $1 million in cash if he could prove the charges in that dossier before the 2016 election.
There was no proof — but that didn’t stop the FBI from using the dossier to get warrants to spy on Trump campaign officials from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Jake Sullivan is now Biden’s national security adviser.
Did he get that gig in part because of his willingness to lie for Democratic kingpins?
Avril Haines is Biden’s director of national intelligence.
Did signing the Hunter laptop letter help her snare that plum job?
The letter Blinken finagled would not have been so influential if journalists were not shamelessly docile to federal job titles.
Inside the Beltway, former intelligence kingpins are viewed like royalty or at least second-tier aristocracy.
But the CIA has a long record of secretly intervening in dozens of foreign elections.
In 2019, former CIA director Mike Pompeo summarized his agency’s motif: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses.”
Former CIA chief James Woolsey insisted in 2018 that the CIA intervenes in elections “only for a very good cause in the interests of democracy.”
Yet the letter from former spooks was instantly revered by journalists as if it were handed down from Mt. Sinai.
For the Washington political elite, defeating Donald Trump was the ultimate good cause to save democracy.
Biden talks as if his 2020 election victory was the result of practically a divine incarnation of the “will of the people.”
Unfortunately, presidential elections are irrevocable regardless of how many voters were conned.
How much official deceit can democracy survive?
Any notion of “informed consent” by voters is a mirage if federal agencies and former officials have the power to endlessly distort the news.
Shortly after he became secretary of state, Blinken boasted that the US government doesn’t sweep problems “under the rug. . . . We deal with them in the daylight, with full transparency.”
That pledge apparently did not extend to Blinken’s own tampering with the 2020 election.
What else is Blinken hiding, and when will the next shoe fall?
Broken Trust
Can the relationship with state healthcare ever be repaired?
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | April 21, 2023
For many people, the words ‘trust the experts’ now invoke a sort of pavlovian horror response. This trope serves as a visceral reminder of 3 years’ constant gaslighting for daring to question the narrative, the relentless stream of celebrity medics repeating the ‘safe and effective’ mantra and the bullying and coercion to take a ‘vaccine’ that millions of people didn’t feel they needed or wanted. It had all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship. Core medical ethical principles were destroyed, the weaknesses of protocolised top-down healthcare delivery were exposed and of course there was direct harm to individuals. Is it any wonder that a great many of the British public never want to hear the words ‘our NHS’ ever again, cringing as they remember the weekly clapping ritual.
An inclination to throw the baby out with the bathwater is now a strong instinct for many who feel completely let down. If the relationship with state healthcare stands any chance of being repaired, harms enacted in recent years need to be properly acknowledged and people’s concerns carefully listened to. The uncomfortable question as to whether the NHS can function in its current incarnation should be aired. For a lot of people a ‘great reset’ of the medical profession would be a necessary condition of return. Indeed, many medics wonder if they can remain in a system that is clearly failing those it is supposed to serve.
As one doctor with decades of experience laments:
“If I continue to practise conveyor belt and recipe book medicine under the current system, the benefit is only to the Medical Business Model; hospitals, laboratories, diagnostic centres and the pharmaceutical industry all benefit in a model designed to keep the patient sick.”
Another consultant doctor reflecting on the past few years, had the following comments:
“The most odious revelation to me was when early on the directive came forth forbidding doctors, on pain of GMC punishment, to use their own initiative to treat a Covid patient with any other substance, drug, or agent whatsoever than that which was approved officially (of course at this point there was nothing in that category), save only for using it in an officially approved Clinical Trial. I felt utterly betrayed as a doctor. The whole essence of the doctor-patient relationship was abruptly abolished. We were now in the CMO-patient relationship. My role was merely to be a minor minion box-ticking algorithm slave. No clinical discretion. No discussion along the principles of best interest of the patient with informed consent. Oh no, that’s old hat! I saw the moral authority and overshadowing support of the entire medical establishment wither up like Jonah’s gourd.”
Multiple articles are now appearing reporting that morale for those working within the NHS is at an all-time low.1,2,3 One can only imagine that bearing witness to some of the most inhumane policies in NHS history for 3 years straight has not helped. Add to this the long hours on low pay, with increasingly limited time to spend with patients due to unmanageable waiting lists, and you have a perfect recipe for abysmal job satisfaction. Do we really want those in charge of our healthcare decisions to be forced to work under these conditions?
So now to the question of trusting medical advice that has been co-opted, protocolised and politicised, not to mention censored and distorted by financial interests. The UKHSA is supposed to be the government gatekeeper that is ‘responsible for protecting every member of every community from the impact of infectious diseases’. Just yesterday the agency was still urging people on Twitter to go and get their first and second covid vaccine. This is now so ludicrously at odds with the available evidence that any sane member of the public should conclude that the regulatory system in the UK is officially broken. It is worth taking the time to read the comments under the tweet to see that the public’s natural survival instincts seem to have well and truly kicked in. This random selection suggests the UKHSA may need to read the room:
If you tuned in to the Twitter Space on Sunday ‘Are mRNA injections causing cancers?’ hosted by Dr Kat Lindley and Neil Oliver, you would have heard a heated exchange between consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ahmad Malik and London-based oncology professor, Angus Dalgleish. Dr Malik wanted to get to the bottom of why Professor Dalgleish felt moved to write an article advocating for young people to take the covid vaccine in July 2021 entitled:
What every young person who fears the jab MUST be told: Vaccine expert ANGUS DALGLEISH dismantles beliefs that have seen rates stall among the 18-30s
Well that seems like a pretty clear message. Get the damned vaccine.
Given his background in vaccine research, Prof Dalgleish would have been very clear that long-term safety data is not an optional extra when injecting young people or pregnant women. When questioned, Prof Dalgleish revealed that he did not actually write the article himself. There was a phone interview with a Daily Mail journalist, which he described as ‘bullying’ and the article was an entirely perverted representation of that call. Nonetheless, his name appears alongside the article with the effect that the message therein appears to come from a distinguished professor of medicine.
Professor Dalgleish dramatically revised his position on covid injections after his son suffered acute myocarditis following the shots. Whilst it is obviously a good thing that he was courageous and open-minded enough to change his stance, it is very worrying that he is still an outlier. One can count on one hand the working medics willing to speak out on this issue. And it begs the question, what if Professor Dalgleish’s son hadn’t been injured? Would there have been more advertorials in the Daily Mail with his name alongside? Why are journalists ‘bullying’ through a particular narrative on medical matters? This rather suggests they have a particular agenda. As one Dr Roger Hodkinson, an eminent Cambridge educated pathologist says, “when politics plays medicine, that’s a very dangerous game.” Notably Dr Hodkinson is now only available to view on Bitchute, having been deplatformed from the more mainstream channels such as YouTube. More media censorship of highly qualified counter-narrative voices.
Working for a monopoly such as the NHS, with a mortgage and a family to feed, one might well find medical ethics end up somewhere below personal financial obligations. This is regrettable but understandable. Medics are human beings. Perhaps it is the fault of an increasingly secular society that somehow medics have been elevated to demi-gods and as a result their word is often deemed infallible. However, many more people now realise that this is simply not the case. If this disordered power dynamic is to be realigned, certain conditions need to be met:
- A genuine admission that mistakes were made. Not that ‘The Science™’ changed. It did not change and millions of people who resisted the military grade psy-op are fully aware of this;
- An overhaul of medical training so that clinicians do not feel afraid to speak out when they see something is wrong, and in fact should be encouraged to do so;
- The gaslighting must stop altogether. Those who have suffered injury or trauma need to be given proper air time and have their concerns addressed. They also need to be properly and fairly compensated.
- Open and unfettered discussions need to take place, allowing medics to speak freely about what has happened during the past 3 years, identifying with honesty and integrity what must not be repeated.
Taxpayers spend in excess of £220 billion per annum on the NHS. Weekly excess deaths are presently consistently way above average, whereas after a period of high mortality in the frail and elderly it should be well below normal levels. The public (and indeed the staff) deserve better. If this is impossible, perhaps the entire system needs to be completely reimagined.
Footnotes
‘Growing Frustration’ At FBI Over Failure to Charge Hunter Biden – Report
© AFP 2023 / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
By Wyatt Reed – Sputnik – 22.04.2023
There’s “growing frustration” among the FBI as US President Joe Biden’s unruly son Hunter has yet to be charged in multiple felonies and misdemeanor investigations over a year after agents concluded the bulk of their research, US media is reporting.
Investigators in the FBI “finished the bulk of their work on the case about a year ago,” according to NBC News, which noted that “a senior law enforcement source said the IRS finished its investigation more than a year ago” as well.
Per the outlet, “the possible charges are two misdemeanor counts for failure to file taxes, a single felony count of tax evasion related to a business expense for one year of taxes, and the gun charge,” which is “also a potential felony.”
The revelation comes just two days after a lawyer representing an anonymous IRS employee wrote in a letter to Congress that his client, a “career IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” is seeking to testify before the legislators as a protected whistleblower.
According to the lawyer, the IRS Special Agent, who’s reportedly spent over a decade on the job, is seeking to provide information that would “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee,” “clear conflicts of interest” in the case, and specific instances of “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols.”
It’s unclear whether authorities are still considering charging the younger Biden with money laundering and failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as well. But over the past several years, the Justice Department has seriously ramped up prosecutions of alleged FARA violations – though so far they’ve largely focused on those politically opposed to the Biden family.
In 2018, Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced to 60 months in prison for supposed FARA violations relating to work carried out in Ukraine. He was hit with a further 30 months for other charges as well.
This week, several Black socialists in Florida were indicted for allegedly failing to register under FARA by prosecutors who accuse them of not telling US officials they received funds from someone supposedly acting on behalf of the Russian government, further fueling suspicions that the Biden administration’s prosecutions are politically motivated.
Featured Video
Roosevelt’s Partnership with Stalin
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
“Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA
By Kit | OffGuardian | July 20, 2018
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran Beat Back The Greater Israel Project
- Roosevelt’s Partnership with Stalin
- Strategic Ambiguity (If We Must)
- Finland shreds nuclear weapons ban
- Kiev turns to ‘systematic killing’ of Zaporozhye plant staff – Russia’s nuclear chief
- Censored Lavrov article Politico refused to publish (FULL TEXT)
- Israel’s censor silenced 5,700 reports in 2025
- After US-Iran deal, Israeli minister threatens war on Syria ‘sooner or later’
- When the Iran War is over: Why the West Bank may be Netanyahu’s next front
- Israeli forces launch fresh ground incursions into Syria’s Quneitra, interrogate locals
- If Americans Knew
- What Ceasefire? Israel Has Now Killed Over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza Since October
- U.S. Whole-of-Government Takeover by Israel
- Netanyahu’s Mouthpieces Turn on Trump, Revealing a Deeper Israeli Ingratitude
- Senate wants to force US to share sensitive intel with Israel
- Trump ended his idiotic Iran war. Good.
- Khanna Becomes First in Congress to Sign ‘Peace Pledge’ Promising to Reject AIPAC Funds
- Look who’s losing it over Trump’s Iran deal
- Israel has killed over 1,000 Gazans during 8-month “ceasefire” – Daily Update
- REVEALED: Former Top DEA Official Says Israel Spies on US Law Enforcement
- What would happen if US actually cut off military aid to Israel?
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
Aletho News 