How the West rigged Moldova’s referendum on the European Union
By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 30, 2024
On October 20, a referendum was held on the Moldovan public’s interest in a constitutional reform to enable entry into the European Union. The “yes” vote won with 50.39%, a numerical margin of about 12,000 votes.
This result was well below expectations, considering all the government’s preparation and mobilization in support of the referendum.
Since Maia Sandu came to power, the goal has been to transform Moldova into a platform and tool for provocation and attack against Russia, similar to how Georgia and Ukraine were positioned in the past.
This had already begun even before Sandu’s election in 2020, with the free operation of Western or pro-Western NGOs in the country. According to various studies, there are around 14,000 NGOs registered in Moldova, a ratio of 1:200, with USAID having a strong direct presence in the country and indirect influence (as a funder of other NGOs).
USAID alone has invested more than $500 million in Moldova over the past 10 years. In terms of general funding, the West supports NGO activities in Moldova with $110 million annually. Besides USAID itself, other main NGO funders include the Open Society Foundation, the governments of Germany and the Netherlands, the NED, and Chatham House.
Among these “Moldovan” NGOs are Promo-LEX, IDIS Viitorul, the EEF (East Europe Foundation), WatchDog.MD, and the EBA (European Business Association), among others. All these groups work in areas like “promoting democracy and human rights” and “countering Russian disinformation.”
In recent years, these and many other NGOs have been actively shaping public opinion through social engineering techniques, aiming to “Ukrainize” Moldovans; that is, to turn Moldovans into Russophobic bots and compliant followers of Washington and Brussels.
With Sandu’s victory, Moldova’s automatic alignment with the West began. To achieve this, the nationalist sentiments of the population are naturally utilized, as the population historically identifies with Romania. However, this connection is manipulated not to foster a Romanian ethno-cultural identity but as a vehicle for the Westernization of Moldova.
When Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine began, Sandu seized the moment to formally apply for EU membership, despite Moldova’s constitution mandating geopolitical non-alignment. Shortly thereafter, the government started imposing censorship on the use of the Russian language in the country, as well as restricting Russian media and symbols, and even arrested her political rival, Igor Dodon. Predictably, Sandu quickly began indebting her country with multi-million euro loans from the European Union.
In the Moldovan narrative, Transnistria, a tiny strip of land with a Russian majority, poses a major threat to “Moldovan sovereignty.” Thus, Sandu decided to sacrifice Moldovan sovereignty in order to defend it. It makes no sense, but that’s how the minds of politicians who have been brainwashed by Western influence work.
Meanwhile, NATO stationed nearly 10,000 troops along the Moldovan border (even though foreign troops are prohibited on its territory), and the country faces frequent anti-government protests from citizens worried that the West might try to turn Moldova into another Ukraine.
This brings us to the referendum on constitutional reform aimed at EU integration. The result, although “victorious,” was disappointing, considering all the money spent promoting the EU, the imprisonment of opposition members, media censorship, and social engineering efforts by NGOs. Even this victory was only achieved through fraud. If you look closely at the referendum maps, you get the impression that the “no” vote won over the “yes.” And that’s exactly what happened: only 46% of Moldova’s residents voted for the reform. The majority of the country’s population voted against EU integration. In all of Gagauzia and the northern regions, opposition to the EU was nearly unanimous, and even in the center of the country, a significant portion of the population voted against joining the EU.
That’s when the “expatriate” population came into play—those who don’t live in the country, don’t share its fate, yet feel entitled to decide on its future. Out of 235,000 diaspora votes, 180,000 supported EU membership. The trick was simple: they increased the number of polling stations in Western countries while in Russia, where 500,000 Moldovans live (half the diaspora and one-sixth of all Moldovans worldwide), they reduced polling stations from 17 to 2, with only 10,000 ballots available.
The conclusion, therefore, is that under democratic rules, the Eurocrats and globalists would be soundly defeated at the polls. But since they don’t really care about democracy, they ensured that only the “right people” could vote.
TGA hides from questions about sudden infant deaths after vaccination
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | October 28, 2024
Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are names for the sudden and unexpected death of a baby when there is no apparent cause of death.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has gone to ground after being confronted with questions about a series of sudden deaths in infants who received the Infanrix-Hexa® vaccine.
The “hexavalent” vaccine protects against six diseases (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, hepatitis B and Hib) and is administered to infants at 2, 4 and 6 months of age.
Approved by the TGA in 2006, the vaccine lies at the heart of the National Immunisation Program, and has been administered to millions of babies across the country [Australia].
FOI request
A freedom of information (FOI) request for the number of deaths reported after use of the Infanrix-Hexa® vaccine has revealed some worrying data.
The Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN) shows 17 reported deaths in infants.
A further 26 reported deaths exist in the TGA’s ‘internal’ database, the Adverse Event Management System (AEMS), according to a recent FOI report.
Overall, 43 sudden unexpected deaths have been reported in babies mostly under 12 months of age, which have occurred within a day or two of vaccination.
Now, after many weeks of enquiries, the TGA has gone into hiding and refuses to confirm whether it has made any attempt to investigate the deaths.
Warnings from Europe
Infanrix-Hexa® was first authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2000, and the public has never been alerted to any safety issues.
EMA says it monitors pharmacovigilance data in the form of Periodic Safety Update Reports (PSURs), which are submitted by the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Essentially, PSURs describe the worldwide safety experience of the vaccine over a defined period, and are not usually available to the public for independent scrutiny.
However, a major lawsuit in Italy involving GSK, resulted in the Judge ordering the drug company to publicly release its PSURs for the Infanrix Hexa® vaccine.
Those documents were sent to Jacob Puliyel, a paediatrician and Head of the Department of Paediatrics, St Stephen’s Hospital, Delhi, who carried out an independent review.
The analysis revealed a cluster of sudden deaths among infants less than 12 months of age — 54 deaths (93%) occurred within the first 10 days of vaccination, and 4 deaths (7%) occurred within the next 10 days of vaccination.
Further, when he compared the rate of ‘expected’ sudden deaths, to the ‘actual’ rate of sudden deaths post-vaccination, there was a statistically significant increased risk of death in the first four days after vaccination, compared to the expected deaths.
The report concluded, “The clustering of deaths soon after immunisation suggests that the deaths were caused by the vaccine.”
Puliyel published the findings in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics in 2018.
The report also showed that infant deaths, which were reported in the safety report (PSUR 16) were deleted in the PSUR 19, effectively underreporting the number of observed deaths in the final report seen by EMA.
I contacted Puliyel to ask why EMA had not raised the alarm regarding the PSUR data, and he said he thought the data were misleadingly presented to EMA.
“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that EMA colluded with GSK in the subterfuge, but I think EMA was negligent and accepted the manufacturers’ deceptive data and interpretations unquestioningly,” he said.
Puliyel criticised EMA for its lax monitoring of post-marketing adverse events and has been urging all regulators to do better.
After the publication of his findings, Puliyel said there was no excuse for EMA to ignore the data discrepancies.
“The silence suggests EMA has no defence,” he remarked.
“I think nowadays, surveillance methods are designed to protect vaccine company profits rather than the public,” he added.
When I contacted EMA, the agency denied that deaths were “deleted” from the report as Puliyel claims.
Instead, EMA said the deaths were “reclassified” after it was determined the babies died of underlying diseases, such as “viral meningitis, an inborn error of metabolism congenital hydrocephalus and congenital heart disease.”
Puliyel rejected EMA’s explanation, calling it “singularly unconvincing.”
“Viral meningitis, congenital hydrocephalus and congenital heart disease would have been obvious at the time of vaccination when the children died – not discovered many years later,” explained Puliyel.
“EMA has to explain why these obvious underlying causes were not considered causes of death when the 16thPSUR report was published and why it had to be ‘reclassified’ years later,” remarked Puliyel.
‘When the number of sudden deaths exceeded deaths expected as per the calculations in the 19th PSUR – there was this urge to ‘reclassify’ three sudden unexplained deaths as ‘deaths due to underlying causes,’” he said.
TGA enquiries continue
Efforts to compel a response from the TGA will continue, but the latest data on Infanrix-Hexa® have raised broader questions about the safety of the newer generation of vaccines designed to protect against multiple diseases within a single shot.
I will explore this in a forthcoming investigation.
NIH Spending $2.2 Million to ‘Nudge’ Elderly to Get More Vaccines
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 29, 2024
Using U.S. taxpayer dollars, researchers at two universities are identifying older people behind on their recommended vaccines and testing personalized “nudges” to coax them into getting more shots. nih-nudge-more-vaccines-feature.jpg
According to grant documents obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding the $2.2 million “BE IMMUNE” clinical trial, which began in 2020 and will run through 2025.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington are using Electronic Health Records (EHR) data — the electronic records from doctors’ offices containing patients’ detailed health and demographic data — to target African American, Hispanic and Asian people with lower flu, pneumococcal and herpes zoster vaccination rates.
The ongoing study blames the “poor vaccination rates” on patients’ and clinicians’ “widespread decision-making biases.” The trial is testing strategies drawn from behavioral economics, which uses insights from psychology to understand — and in this case to “nudge” or direct — people’s decision-making behavior.
The randomized controlled study is headed up by Dr. Shivan Mehta and a team of healthcare management experts who combine medical and business-based strategies to run studies like these.
The trials often are based in Penn Medicine’s in-house “Nudge Unit,” where behavioral design teams are dedicated to figuring out how to influence patient choices.
The grant is part of a massive initiative by the NIH to increase vaccine uptake by changing how people make decisions. The initiative has included hundreds of millions of dollars in grants since 2020 to create “culturally tailored” pro-vaccine materials to promote COVID-19 and flu vaccines.
It also included more than 50 grants worth $40 million designed to increase HPV vaccine uptake.
Testing the ‘ladder’ of behavioral interventions
The study is testing different “nudges” at more than 100 primary care practices at Penn Medicine, University of Washington Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Health System, one of the world’s largest EHR vendors in the world.
Over 1,000 primary care physicians and thousands of eligible patients at those practices are involved in the trial.
The range of tested interventions is scaled on a ladder.
Nudges lower on the ladder try presenting people with information so they can make their own decisions about vaccines —- methods that typically are not very effective for increasing vaccine uptake, the researchers said.
Nudges higher on the ladder either prompt people to make decisions, or simply plan their decisions for them.
For example, one nudge automatically sets up vaccination appointments for people, compelling them to go to their appointment and get vaccinated unless they intentionally opt out.
The “opt-out” framework has been effective in other areas of healthcare, such as colorectal cancer screening or persuading more people to take their flu shots, the researchers reported.
Netflix uses prompts to encourage binge-watching — healthcare should prompt people to get more shots
Penn’s “Nudge Unit,” which bills itself as the “world’s first behavioral design team embedded within a health system,” houses the study, which is also being conducted in a similar unit at the University of Washington.
Economist Richard H. Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein popularized nudging in their 2008 book, “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” as a method to create a “choice architecture” designed to influence people’s behavior in a predictable way “but without restricting choice” — particularly for policies or measures that might otherwise be unpopular.
Penn launched its Nudge Unit in 2016, inspired by British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Nudge Unit, established in 2010 to shape citizen behavior in the United Kingdom — a strategy the Penn researchers thought should also be applied to healthcare.
Penn’s Nudge Unit founders argued in a 2018 New England Journal of Medicine article that healthcare should use the same strategies businesses use to influence consumer behavior.
For example, they said, airlines require consumers to actively choose whether to purchase trip insurance before they can buy a plane ticket. Netflix changed its default settings to automatically play the next episode in a TV series to encourage binge watching.
“Similar opportunities exist to direct clinicians and patients toward better health care in situations where there’s consensus about desired behaviors,” they wrote, citing effective drugs, vaccines and targeted therapies as examples.
The strategy is being implemented globally — management consulting firm McKinsey reported that about 400 “nudge units” had been established globally by 2021.
However, even the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed Gavi concedes, “the theory has its critics — detractors argue that nudges can be paternalistic, invasive, ideological, and coercive in ways that erode public trust.”
The researchers behind this study also found that often the nudge approach doesn’t work.
In those cases, they argue “a stronger intervention—a ‘shove’—may be needed.”
EHR — an opportunity to scale up the nudge
The researchers celebrated EHR for offering a unique opportunity to develop and rapidly scale up personalized nudges.
The records increasingly are used for research and clinical trial recruitment because they contain a wealth of data. And new technological tools now allow researchers to “mine, assimilate, analyze, link, reproduce and transmit information” gleaned from that data.
Twila Brase, a registered nurse and author of “Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth about Electronic Health Records,” told The Defender most people think the privacy of their EHR is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPPA — but that’s not the case.
HIPPA only guarantees your data will be secure as it is passed among the various entities that have access to it, including researchers, Brase said. And that access can be provided without your consent.
“Nowhere in the law does HIPPA give you control over your medical records,” she said.
Because the records contain massive amounts of personal information that can be used and linked in many different ways, researchers studying EHR-based research argue that the use of EHR also raises “pressing questions concerning privacy, confidentiality, and patient awareness.”
They say that the use of one’s EHR data for research reasons can be confusing or even impossible to opt out of because often the provision of healthcare is linked to accepting a policy allowing researchers to use EHRs.
And EHR research often operates on the same logic as the nudge — an “opt-out” approach where permission is assumed unless a patient explicitly indicates they want to revoke it.
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.
White House Security Adviser’s “Information Czar” Idea Triggers Free Speech Concerns
By Dan Frieth – Reclaim The Net – October 29, 2024
Amid escalating assertions over foreign influence in US elections, the White House is exploring a controversial proposal that some warn could threaten free speech and open debate. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently confirmed that the administration has been “grappling with and thinking about” the potential creation of an “information czar,” sparking concern over the government’s expanding role in controlling narratives under the guise of national security.
Speaking at the National War College, Sullivan responded to a question about the potential for a centralized figure to oversee and counter foreign disinformation efforts by suggesting that while the idea has been under consideration, it could raise issues in a free society. “Questions around information operations, around public diplomacy, around the voice that America uses to speak to the world, bleed over into questions of propaganda or politics,” he said, implicitly acknowledging that such a role could have far-reaching consequences on public discourse.
The proposal for an “information czar” raises immediate concerns over whether any centralized control over information could be used to restrict speech and stifle dissenting opinions. Sullivan recognized this risk, questioning whether such a role should be linked to the White House itself or to a more removed agency in order to “insulate this from the twos and fros of politics.” Still, the idea of government officials controlling “information resiliency” remains contentious, especially when directed at speech in the US rather than strictly addressing threats abroad.
In defending the proposal, Sullivan argued that foreign election interference, particularly by Russia and other state actors, poses a national security issue and “an attack on our country” that needs a robust response. However, critics argue that efforts to counter disinformation could easily expand into broader content censorship efforts, a slippery slope that could ultimately see the government interfering with free speech in the name of “resilience.”
We’ve Been Down This Road Before
The White House’s recent consideration of an “information czar” to counter foreign election disinformation brings to mind the Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) in 2022, which aimed to address misinformation but was quickly dismantled after facing public backlash and First Amendment violation concerns. The DGB’s stated mission was similar: to safeguard national security by countering foreign misinformation.
However, it was met with immediate and intense criticism, as many feared the board would become a vehicle for government overreach, potentially chilling free speech under the guise of “information resilience.” The public pushback against the DGB showed the deeply rooted skepticism toward government involvement in controlling or moderating information, especially when it intersects with free speech concerns.
Denmark Not Interested in Finding Truth About Nord Stream Explosion – Russian Ambassador
Sputnik – 29.10.2024
MOSCOW – Denmark prevented the initiation of an independent international investigation into the explosion of Nord Stream pipelines, the country is not interested in establishing the truth, Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said commenting on the possibility of the Danish side resuming the investigation.
“This would contradict the logic of the Danish side’s behavior. Denmark curtailed its own investigation, rejected any interaction with the Russian side, prevented the initiation of an independent international investigation under the auspices of the UN, concealed the fact of the presence of American warships in the area of the explosions on the eve of this terrorist attack on the gas pipelines,” he said.
The head of the diplomatic mission noted that Copenhagen had no interest in establishing the truth.
“The Danish authorities are obviously concerned that the investigation may reveal inconvenient facts and evidence that will compromise both Euro-Atlantic solidarity and further arms supplies to the Kiev regime,” the ambassador added.
Denmark and Sweden stopped investigating the Nord Stream explosions in February 2024.
The explosions on two Russian export gas pipelines to Europe, Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, occurred on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark and Sweden did not rule out deliberate sabotage. Nord Stream AG, the operator of Nord Stream, said that the destruction of the gas pipelines was unprecedented and that it was impossible to estimate the repair time. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has initiated a case on an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions on Nord Stream, but has never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Trump derangement syndrome out of control as Deep State tries defamation
By Drago Bosnic | October 28, 2024
From prosecution (although persecution is a more fitting term) by the Department of “Justice” (DoJ) and bans on running for presidency to several assassination attempts, Donald Trump has seen it all. The Deep State and the corrupt federal institutions are determined to prevent him from winning. Does this mean that Trump descended from Heaven to save us all? Certainly not. Many have argued, myself included, that it’s highly unlikely that he’ll change America’s disastrous foreign policy. Despite promises to do so, it will be exceedingly difficult (if possible at all) for Trump to significantly alter the way the United States works. However, what’s quite obvious is that he thinks thermonuclear war is an extremely bad idea (to put it mildly). And while this should be common sense, very little of it is left in Washington DC, so Trump indeed seems like the light at the end of the tunnel in comparison to the war criminals currently running the show.
That being said, it’s not his only redeeming quality, but it’s by far the most important one. However, the lunatics in power aren’t going to give up that easily. Namely, after all else failed, they’re now desperately launching defamation attacks on Trump in hopes of turning the tables at the polls. In the two latest cases of the Trump derangement syndrome (TDS), we have yet another alleged “sexual assault”, as well as an attempt to destroy the growing support Trump enjoys among Latinos and African Americans. The Guardian just published a story about Stacey Williams, a former model who claims that (for now) former president “touched her in an unwanted sexual way in 1993, after Epstein introduced them”. Williams didn’t say why she “suddenly” decided to publicly speak about the supposed “incident” only now after over 30 years of silence, although it’s quite clear who would benefit from such a story.
However, as the “sexual scandal” strategy was already tried several times, with little success, the mainstream propaganda machine wanted to make sure to simultaneously run several narratives aimed against Trump. This one isn’t new either, but it comes in a “new package”. Namely, the Atlantic, infamous neoliberal mouthpiece, is claiming that he supposedly tried to “walk back on a promise” to support the family of US soldier Vanessa Guillén who was killed in 2020. According to the report, Trump was allegedly “outraged when he learned that Guillén’s funeral, which included heightened security and closed streets, cost $60,000”. Quoting “anonymous sources”, the Atlantic reports that Trump said that “it doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican” and then “ordered then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to deny payment”. There’s just one “tiny” problem with these claims – none of it is true.
“I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics – hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members,” Guillén’s sister Mayra posted on X, condemning the Atlantic’s highly politicized reporting and adding: “President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today.”
Meadows himself also denied the claims made by the infamous warmongering mouthpiece, insisting that “any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Ms. Guillén or refused to pay for her funeral expenses is absolutely false” and that “he was nothing but kind, gracious and wanted to make sure that the military and the US government did right by Vanessa Guillén and her family”. Meadows instructed his spokesperson Ben Williamson to demand the Atlantic remove the deliberate disinformation. However, the magazine only added that Meadows “didn’t hear Trump say it”. This was the second time that the Atlantic published misleading and/or outright false information on Trump. Back in September 2020, it claimed that he “refused to visit a veteran cemetery” because he allegedly “called fallen soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers'”. This blatantly fake story was never retracted.
It should be noted that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the mainstream propaganda machine and its anti-Trump witch-hunt. Namely, it’s long been a routine to compare him to the likes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, even in American academia. CNN has been doing it for years, while war criminals such as the Clinton family never miss out on calling Trump a “threat to democracy”. Funnily enough, the mainstream propaganda machine now even claims that he will “use lawfare” against political opponents, “conveniently forgetting” that’s exactly what the corrupt federal institutions have been doing to him all these years. Hillary Clinton even called for more censorship to prevent people from accessing any objective information on what’s actually going on. There are other examples of TDS-induced panic, including claims that Trump will “use Navy SEALs to round up political opponents”.
Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz made similar allegations, claiming that he would “use the US military against those who didn’t vote for him”, while CNN facilitated even more disturbing acts of defamation, such as that Trump is planning to “exterminate people through eugenics”. This deeply irrational hatred was also extended to the electorate, with cases of teachers organizing mock voting, where those who voted for Harris were rewarded with pizza parties, unlike those who voted for Trump. Meanwhile, some of the DNC supporters are attacking Trump voters even in their homes, coming to their front doors and insulting them. The McDonald’s restaurant where Trump recently made a campaign ad is being review-bombed, but that’s the lesser issue, as it’s now forced to up security due to threats. And yet, this is only the tip of the iceberg of intimidation attempts both he and his supporters are subjected to.
African Americans who want to vote for Trump are now suddenly “fascists”, while whites are told they’ll be “held accountable” if they don’t vote for Kamala Harris. In previous months, Amazon allowed the sale of merchandise with the slogan “The Only Good Trump Is A Dead One”, while the mainstream propaganda machine tried suppressing information on several people who directly threatened to kill Trump. It should be noted that blatant death threats to him, his family and supporters never stopped even after several assassination attempts. Despite all this, prominent Democrats, including university professors, were openly saying things like “we hope the shooting will inspire others” or “Trump supporters should be lined up and shot”. In the meantime, corrupt federal institutions ignored repeated warnings about more plans to kill Trump, even after new “security incidents”, as they called the attempts on his life.
On the whole, it’s clear that the warmongering oligarchy in Washington DC is determined to either eliminate Trump (physically, politically, judicially or in any other way) or to sabotage his coming presidency by setting up a war with a global or at least a major regional power. Short of war, defamation is the Deep State’s last-ditch effort to (ab)use TDS, although it seems extremely unlikely this will work. Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, next week will surely be the most fateful in recent memory, as the warmongers, war criminals and plutocrats are desperate. This is why Trump and his team will have to be wary of warhawks who tried to sabotage his first presidency by starting new perpetual wars. It seems some measures are already being taken against these warmongers, but it’s yet to be seen to what extent will Trump remain resilient to their malignant influence.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
The Most Devastating Report So Far
By Jay BhattacharyaJayanta Bhattacharya | Brownstone Institute | October 27, 2024
The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.
Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.
The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.
President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?
In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.
HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.
When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.
In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?
The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.
I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.
With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.
You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician, epidemiologist and health economist. He is Professor at Stanford Medical School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Faculty Member at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Israel and Ukraine Gaslighting To Cover Up Failures
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR 21 | October 26, 2024
If bullshit was fungible, both Israel and Ukraine would be rolling in dough and not need another dime of foreign aid. The nonsense spilling out of Tel Aviv and Kiev is legendary and much of the Western public is slurping it up like a ravenous dog eating a bowl of rabbit stew.
Let’s start with Israel. The Zionists used more than 100 aircraft to send an estimated 200 air-launched ballistic missiles into Iran. Israeli aircraft did not dare to fly inside Iran. And what happened? Iran, with Russian help, shot down the majority of the Israeli missiles. Iran showed no signs of panic or anger in the aftermath of the attack — not what one would expect if Israel’s assault had been a smashing success.
Compare for yourself. The first video show’s Iran’s October 1 attack on Israel. The second video shows what happened in the skies over Tehran.
It is true that some of the Israeli missiles got through and killed four Iranian soldiers. Yet, check out this headline in today’s Jerusalem Post:
‘Backbone of Iran’s missile industry’ destroyed by IAF strikes on Islamic Republic
The Zionist spin patrol is working overtime to paint lipstick on their pig operation. The Zionists convinced themselves that Iran’s strike on October 1 was meaningless, notwithstanding clear video — and later satellite imagery — of damage from Iran’s missile barrage. Now, when confronted with evidence of Iranian air defense knocking Israeli missiles from the sky, they simply pretend it did not happen.
Here is a typical response from an ardent Zionist upon reports that Israel’s attack was underway:
The Israeli attack has begun and apparently they had no problem getting past the Iran air defenses. Early reports are about attacks hitting around Tehran which suggests they are going after command and control and possibly military leadership. Too early to know what is happening but by morning the real war will be underway. So far they have not hit the oil which is a surprise as that would finally sink Kamala which Netanyahu wants to do. The oil markets may think this is all OK and oil prices will remain around where they are but this is just chapter one. Before this is over the nukes and oil will get destroyed by Israel. The nukes will be next up as there is no time to lose for Israel to stop any chance of Iran fining some way to use a nuke against Israel.
So, what was Mr. Big Predictor’s reaction as dawn broke in Tehran?
It seems this was a staged attack with the intent to send a message and not to do grave damage. Arab nations were told ahead of time and passed that along to Tehran. We will need to wait a few hours to see what really happened, but it now seems clear this was not the all out attack Israel is capable of and it is instead a tit-for-tat strike to keep the US onside for now until Trump takes over. Israel needs Thaad and supplies of arms for now, so it may be that Netanyahu decided to play ball with DC to get what it needs and not use weapons it currently needs in Lebanon. The oil market will get this wrong and not realize what is yet to happen next time.
What sane folks need to understand is that no amount of evidence will shake the Zionists from their delusional fantasies. It is akin to those Americans who still insist that we could have won in Vietnam. We just didn’t try hard enough.
While Israel is doing its victory dance over its totally awesome, amazing, incredible air strike in Iran, Hezbollah, which was supposedly decapitated and rendered impotent, is stepping up its missile and rocket attacks in Israel. Here is a list of Hezbollah’s operations in the last 24-hours.
1- On the afternoon of Friday, October 25, 2024, a gathering of zionist forces in the “Shoumera” settlement was targeted (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65037) with a guided missile, resulting in confirmed casualties.
2- At 12:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64826) a rocket barrage targeted the “Kiryat Shmona” settlement.
3- At 06:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64867) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces around the town of Aita al-Shaab.
4- At 11:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64868) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the zionist enemy, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Tel Nof” airbase south of “Tel Aviv,” hitting their targets accurately.
5- At 12:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64876) a rocket barrage targeted the “Mishar” base (the main intelligence headquarters for the northern region in Safad).
6- At 12:45, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64875) a rocket barrage targeted the “Krayot” north of Haifa.
7- At 13:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64954) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched a qualitative rocket barrage at zionist forces gathered at the “Ayelet” base.
8- At 13:23, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64877) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces in the Al-Musharifa area in Ras Al-Naqoura.
9- At 13:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64925) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist soldiers in the “Shlomi” settlement.
10- At 13:35, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64926) a rocket barrage targeted the “Metzuba” settlement.
11- At 13:40, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64927) a rocket barrage targeted the “Jaatoun” settlement.
12- At 14:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64928) a large rocket barrage targeted the “Yesod HaMa’ala” settlement.
13- At 14:25, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64929) a rocket barrage targeted the Jal al-Alam site.
14- At 16:05, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64932) a rocket barrage targeted the “Habushit” site.
15- At 16:10, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64933) a rocket barrage targeted the “Ma’ale Golani” barracks.
16- At 16:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64934) a rocket barrage targeted the “Snir” barracks.
17- At 16:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64936) a rocket barrage targeted the “Shear Yeshuv” settlement.
18- At 16:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64953) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces east of the town of Markaba.
19- At 17:20, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64955) a large rocket barrage targeted the “Shraga” base.
20- At 18:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64985) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Naoura” base east of Afula, hitting their targets accurately.
21- At 19:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65020) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces in the “Hatzor” settlement.
22- At 23:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65021) as part of the warning (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64999) issued by the Islamic Resistance to various northern settlements, Islamic Resistance fighters launched a rocket barrage on the “Kiryat Shmona” settlement.
Yep. Hezbollah is barely hanging on.
Speaking of barely hanging on, Ukrainian forces are retreating all along the 900-mile front.
Information is coming from the field that our troops, after a big breakthrough, were able to firmly establish themselves in Shakhtyorskoye and continue to push the enemy out of the village.
The prospects for a Shakhtar breakthrough are impressive.
As far as we understand, the goal is to reach Razliv and take up positions on the Volchya River with access to the rear of the enemy garrison in Kurakhovo.
Plus pressure from two flanking directions: on the AFU group in Bogoyavlenka, thus enabling their expedient removal, and on Velikaya Novosyolka – leveling the main “joy” of the counter oink last year.
By the way, the direction of the conscious flight of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the Dnipropetrovsk region is also a so-so idea – the enemy has no sensible fortifications between Pavlograd and Pokrovsk. So the AFU will not be able to pull off the trick of drawing us to the prepared lines and then splitting up between Pavlograd and Konstantinovka.
Then there is the Ukrainian/CIA story claiming that North Korean troops are fighting on the front because Russia has lost so many men, it had to import new cannon fodder. I believe this story was ginned up by an increasingly desperate CIA in order to create a cover story for bringing South Korean pilots to Romania to fly F-16s. The “news” about the North Korean troops first appeared in the New York Times under David Sanger’s byline on October 8. Sanger has a long history of being a willing conduit for CIA “leaks.”
Marat Khairullin, a Russian war correspondent, explained what was really going on behind the scenes:
Now it has become clear why the North Korea issue is being actively stirred up during the SMO. South Korea is sending its soldiers and officers to fight in Ukraine. Let me remind you that South Korea is a passionate, evil six of the USA (slang for “lackey”- in Russia, 6 is the lowest numbered card in a deck of cards). They are not as smart as Japan, but not as dumb as the Ukraine. Most importantly, they are high-tech. . . .
Last week, the first 16 pilots from South Korea’s 19th Air Wing arrived at NATO’s Romanian air base near Mihail Kogalniceanu. Apparently, South Korea sent the first squadron of the air wing, the most prepared and combat-ready, to the war in full force. This means they are planning to throw them into battle immediately.
Currently, the F-16 fighters allocated to Ukraine are also in Romania – at the Fetești air base on the border with Moldova. As soon as the South Korean pilots go there, this will be an indicator of the imminent use of these aircraft in Ukraine. In addition to the F-16 pilots, pilots of South Korean T-50 combat training aircraft, which are used in the southern army as light attack aircraft, have arrived at the air base in the commune of Mikhail Kogalniceanu. It is assumed that these aircraft may be useful as hunters for “Geraniums” in the protection of the Odessa port.
Remains to be seen if the South Koreans will actually enter the fight. If they do, they will learn that Russia ain’t playing games and many of those pilots will likely die. I discussed this issue with Judge Napolitano. I am also posting a live podcast that Andrei Martyanov and I did with Nima as Israel’s attack was wrapping up Friday night my time.
Federal Judge Upholds Florida Ban on Lab-Grown Meat, as Other States Propose Similar Bans
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 23, 2024
A federal judge earlier this month rejected a request by California-based Upside Foods for a preliminary injunction against Florida’s new law banning the manufacture, distribution and sale of “cultivated,” or lab-grown meat.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the ban into law on May 1, making it a second-degree misdemeanor to produce or sell lab-grown meat in the state. The law took effect in July.
Upside Foods, which makes cultivated chicken, sued Florida in August, alleging the ban is unconstitutional and violates two federal laws that preempt Florida from imposing the ban.
A preliminary injunction is typically issued in a lawsuit if the court finds the plaintiff has a good chance of winning its case — a “substantial likelihood of success on the merits,” However, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said Upside’s argument, which boiled down to “if it’s a poultry product, states can’t ban it,” was insufficient.
Just because a product falls within the scope of the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act and is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) regulatory authority does not mean a state is “expressly preempted from banning the sale of that particular kind of poultry product,” Walker wrote.
Upside argued that the ban imposed ingredient and manufacturing requirements that clashed with provisions of the Poultry Products Inspection Act. However, Walker said Upside was unable to identify any federal law or regulation that created an “ingredient requirement” for cultivated meat. He also said that because the company didn’t produce its lab-grown meat in Florida, the manufacturing ban didn’t affect its premises, operations or facilities.
The ruling means the ban will remain in place while the lawsuit challenging its legality moves through the courts.
“We are not surprised by the judge’s rejection of Upside’s preliminary injunction,” Florida Sen. Jay Collins, who co-sponsored the original bill, told The Defender. “The dangers of cultivated meat far outweigh any misleading environmental claims. Floridians will not be lectured by billionaires like Bill Gates on how to feed their families.”
Upside’s attorney, Suranjen Sen from the Institute for Justice, said in a press release that the company plans to appeal the decision and is “confident that the courts will ultimately recognize that Florida cannot ban products simply to protect local industries from honest competition.”
A bench trial is set for Monday, Aug. 18, 2025.
Upside struggled to become profitable
Lab-grown or cultivated meat is produced from cultured stem cells taken from live animals or an animal cell bank and then reproduced in bioreactors using techniques borrowed from Big Pharma.
The cells are “fed” a mixture of sugars, amino and fatty acids, salts and vitamins to make them proliferate quickly. Once they’ve grown into a mass or a sheet — depending on the manufacturer — they are formed into meat-looking shapes like cutlets or nuggets.
Although the companies promote lab-grown meat in part by claiming it has environmental benefits, the process is energy-intensive. Research from the University of California, Davis, found that cultured meat’s environmental impact is likely “orders of magnitude” higher than real meat, based on current production methods.
Attorney Ray Flores, who worked in the natural health industry for 35 years, told The Defender that even if it provides environmental benefits, “Any environmental benefit is greatly outweighed by the possible dangers that these cutting-edge products may pose to one’s health.”
An investigation by The New York Times revealed several incidents during the development of some of Upside’s products that raised safety concerns. The company in 2018 found its chicken cell line contaminated with mouse cells. And in 2019, the cell line was found to be contaminated with rat cells.
Yet, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Upside’s meat was safe for human consumption in 2022, and the USDA approved the sale of products by Upside Foods and Good Meat — the first two companies to go through the regulatory approval process — in June 2023.
That approval made the U.S. the second country in the world, behind Singapore, to allow sales of lab-grown meat. In January, Israel green-lighted the sale of steaks made from cultivated beef cells, The Associated Press reported.
Since the USDA approval, however, Upside has struggled to become profitable.
Upside doesn’t have products available in stores. Partnerships with restaurants are primarily how the company gets its products to consumers.
It had sold its lab-grown chicken to one restaurant in Miami and was planning to showcase it at Miami’s Art Basel event before the ban took effect, according to the judgment.
However, Crunchbase reported that the company halted its plans to develop a major facility in Glenview, Illinois, and restaurants that had tried it out have since pulled it from their menus. San Francisco Michelin-star restaurant Bar Crenn, its final sale venue, confirmed it was pulling the lab-grown meat from the menu in February.
In the original complaint, Upside and the Institute for Justice claim that the “growing patchwork of conflicting state laws governing cultivated meat” makes it more difficult for Upside to partner with national meat distributors “who generally will not carry products they cannot lawfully sell in every state.”
It also makes it more difficult for them to partner with restaurants. If not for the ban, they said, they would be reaching out to several restaurants to create partnerships.
Following the Florida ban, Upside laid off 26 workers.
More states move to ban lab-grown meat, federal regulators eye labeling requirements
A few weeks after Florida passed its bill, Alabama passed a similar law making the manufacture, sale or distribution of food products made from cultured animal cells a Class C misdemeanor, with fines ranging from $100 to $10,000.
Iowa’s governor in May signed a bill prohibiting schools from buying lab-grown meat products and requiring clear labeling for lab-grown meats sold in other venues.
Five other states have proposed similar laws. And in August, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed an executive order banning the state government from purchasing it.
The USDA and the FDA share regulatory responsibility for cultivated meat products. Under the Biden administration’s 2022 plan to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation, the USDA also announced plans to issue draft guidance on the pre-approval consultation process and the agencies plan to propose rules for labeling cell-cultured meat and poultry sometime in 2024.
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.
Iran ‘strongly rejects’ any involvement in threats on European soil: Embassy
Press TV – October 26, 2024
Iran’s embassy in Brussels has vehemently dismissed baseless accusations and fabricated claims about Tehran’s alleged involvement in threats on European soil, saying the Islamic Republic stands at the forefront of the fight against terrorism.
The embassy issued a statement on Saturday in response to allegations leveled against Iran by EU Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli at the European Parliament plenary on Tuesday.
During the session, Dalli expressed growing concern about Iran’s alleged hybrid threats on European soil, claiming, “There are credible reports about: the role of Iranian state bodies in planning and aiding recent attacks in a number of Member States; about threats to members of the Iranian diaspora in Europe, and about cyber actions, or influence campaigns trying to create divisions in our societies.”
She also repeated allegations about Iran’s continued support for Russia in the war against Ukraine “through the provision of weapons, such as drones and, more recently, missiles.”
In its statement, the Iranian embassy said the Islamic Republic is a victim of terrorism itself and stands at the forefront of combating terrorism, particularly against the Daesh terrorist group.
“Iran strongly rejects any allegations regarding the alleged involvement of Iranian-affiliated institutions in so-called threats on European soil,” it added.
The statement also rejected the unfounded claims about Iran’s shipment of ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the conflict in Ukraine.
“Iran reiterated its neutrality policy towards this conflict and its support for resolving disputes through peaceful means and diplomacy,” the embassy said.
Instead of debating on fabricated illusory threats, the European Parliament member states are better off focusing on the most urgent and imminent threat to international peace and security as the result of the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocide and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon as well as its warmongering across West Asia.
Israeli crimes have brought about catastrophic consequences for civilians, human rights, and regional and international peace and stability, it emphasized.
“The EU Member States are expected to exercise maximum vigilance in the face of Iranophobic campaigns in Europe orchestrated by third parties, particularly the Israeli regime, whose aim is to destroy relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Europe,” the embassy said.
It urged the EU states to act responsibly and refrain from any measure that would make the long-standing relationship between Iran and Europe further adversely impacted.
Russia launched what it called a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 partly to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion after warning that the US-led military alliance was following an “aggressive line” against Moscow.
Iran has maintained its policy of impartiality toward the conflict. However, the US and its Western allies have claimed that Iran is supplying ballistic missiles to Russia for direct use in the Ukraine war.
Iran has repeatedly rejected the unfounded accusations, saying the Western countries are escalating the war through the supply of advanced weaponry to Kiev.
Russia has also warned that the flow of Western arms to Ukraine is prolonging the conflict.
Two Governments Linked By Lies and Bloodshed
The United States can never tell the truth about Israel or enforce its own laws
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 25, 2024
As the United States national election draws ever nearer the fringe stories that just might influence the outcome are increasing both in magnitude and in number. On Thursday I participated in a fascinating talk sponsored by Washington’s Committee for the Republic, which is “a citizen-based, non-partisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2003 [that] sponsors speakers monthly on challenges to the American Republic, including the military-industrial complex, too-big-to-fail banks, campaign finance, and US competitiveness.” The featured speaker for the evening was Josh Paul who “resigned from the State Department on October 18, 2023, over disagreement with the Biden administration’s unconditional surge of military equipment to Israel. The surge greenlighted Israel to equal or better the instruction of Thucydides: ‘The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.’ Josh is an insider’s insider. He toiled in the State Department for more than 11 years working as a Director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which is responsible for US security assistance and arms transfers. He also served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, US Army Staff… Josh holds master’s degrees from the Universities of Georgetown and St Andrews, Scotland. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the organization Democracy Now for the Arab World (DAWN) and a recipient of the 2023 Callaway Award for Civic Courage.”
Josh has cited the wisdom of George Washington’s Farewell Address warning against excessive fondness for any one nation because “[A] passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens.”
One might immediately perceive that George Washington very well described the possible consequences derived from the junior partnership which the United States finds itself locked into in its “wag the dog” relationship with the State of Israel. The “passionate attachment” has been amply demonstrated over the past year of warfare in Gaza in which the US has shamefully showered weapons and money on an Israel that is openly carrying out highly visible war crimes against the Palestinians in an attempt to achieve something like complete removal or extermination of the Gazans.
To my delight, Paul explained how policy making with Israel as the most favored nation works in practice. The United States federal government ignores its own laws to include two amendments of the 1961 Foreign Aid Act, known as the Symington and Glenn amendments, which ban aid to clandestine nuclear powers. Israel has a secret nuclear weapons arsenal that is cleverly ignored through a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” by the US federal government to allow the tribute money payment and other unilateral support to continue. An Energy Department directive actually demands imprisonment for any federal official or contractor who even mentions that Israel might have a nuclear weapons arsenal. To sustain the “nuclear ambiguity” policy on Israel’s weapons program, the government also uses deliberately improper classification to conceal what it is up to.
In addition, there is the Leahy law, which is also completely ignored in its establishment of a process which on paper requires a careful examination of how and when transferred US provided weapons are used, to include examination of possible “gross violations of human rights.” When that is the case, the sale or transfer of weapons is supposed to be denied. Israel, which is committing war crimes right out in the open that amount to a genocide and which has senior government officials calling for extermination of Arabs, is uniquely exempt in practice from such examination while Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his cast of spokesperson-buffoons lie persistently to both the government itself and to the public. They lie every time when they claim that it has not been demonstrated that Israel is guilty of such crimes against humanity, nor even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly mandates a near complete blockade of food and medicines, resulting in starvation and unneeded deaths.
Paul cited an example of how the system works in practice, with Jewish state demanding weapons often followed up with the Israeli Embassy in Washington calling the White House a few hours later asking “What is the hold up?” The White House then sends word down to the Pentagon and State Department to “Get moving on it!” All other countries seeking to purchase American weapons have to go through the vetting process and stand in line to wait their turn.
It seems that Israel always gets what it wants. There has been a great deal of speculation about the surprise decision by President Joe Biden to deploy in Israel a $1.15 billion Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system which will be manned by roughly 100 American soldiers on the ground. An advanced team of the soldiers and the battery itself were reported as having arrived in Israel shortly after the announcement of the deployment, and it turns out that a second battery was already in place in Israel. The commitment ultimately derives from the Biden regime’s frequently repeated unconditional “ironclad” pledge to defend Israel, but it interestingly creates a potential tripwire situation leading to an escalation and a much larger war if American soldiers should die in an Iranian or Hezbollah attack. And there is little to look for on the upside as the soldiers and equipment will be inside a nation which is neither an actual ally nor a friend, as its leader Prime Minister Netanyahu has demonstrated repeatedly over the past year in rebuffing the many proposals regarding mitigating the horror on display in Gaza put forward by Biden. There is also a political price to pay in terms of the US relationship with nations in the Middle East and beyond as the Jewish state is indubitably carrying out a genocide while apparently simultaneously seeking to go to war with all its neighbors to expand its territory to become “Eretz” or “Greater” Israel and establish itself as the preeminent military power in the Middle East. But, at the same time, Netanyahu knows that he needs an active role by the United States as his partner against major powers like Iran to accomplish that goal, which is perhaps why an insistent Israeli leadership somehow was able to pressure the White House into making a commitment of THAAD in spite of the potentially disastrous possible consequences.
So, the United States has absolutely nothing to gain by sending its batteries and soldiers to serve as potential targets in Israel and much to lose. And there has been serious consideration of what the THAAD would be able to accomplish if it did wind up in the middle of a shooting war. Former CIA and State Department officer Larry Johnson describes the THAAD projectile as “a large bullet that is supposed to strike an in-bound missile and break it up. It is a kinetic weapon, i.e., it does not explode.” It is not clear why Israel, which claims to have the best air-defense system in the world, would want or need the THAAD. Beyond that, there is a logistical problem related to the system which Johnson declares to be that “As a tactical and strategic weapon, THAAD is a bust.” There are only nine THAAD launchers in the entire world. Each launcher has mounted on it eight missiles, which means if Iran fires 100 missiles 84% of them will be safe from THAAD even assuming that 100% of the THAAD projectiles from the two batteries score a direct hit. Reloading the system is also complicated and there is a supply problem. Lockheed Martin apparently built only 1,000 missiles for this system which would mean that there will not be a lot of spare parts sitting around in a warehouse in Israel waiting to be sent to the front. Another point not to be ignored is that each missile costs $12.6 million, not exactly cheap ammunition.
There are a number of other factors that might be in play leading to the deployment. Johnson observes that the White House has been negotiating with Netanyahu over possible plans to attack Iran. He believes that it might be “A tangible gesture of support for Israel by the Biden Administration, [which] may be playing a desperation card in order to persuade Israel not to attack Iran.” Some observers note, however, that such a reckless plan relying on good decisions being made by a nuclear armed Israel might go wrong in a number of ways and become a formula for initiating World War 3, which would certainly kill millions of people. At the same time, it is useful to consider what might be achieved by the introduction of the battery and soldiers into an extremely volatile situation as they alone could not deter or even significantly blunt a major Iranian attack. So what is the motive? And what other elements are playing into the decision? And what does the leak of a Top Secret codeword protected US government document exposing the Israeli secret nuclear arsenal and describing possible Israel preparations for a pending Israeli attack on Iran mean?
Even though time is running out, The Washington Post is reporting that Israel has already decided to attack military sites in Iran before the US election. There is some discussion apparently still going on over whether targeting by Israel (possibly joined by the US) will include oil fields and refineries as well as underground nuclear research sites. Having Washington as a partner in the enterprise is just what Netanyahu wants as initiating a new conflict with Iran will invite Tehran’s retaliation, possibly killing the US military personnel inside Israel, and bingo the US will be at war fighting for Israel, which is something that Biden might actually be trying to avoid at least until the US election is over. That is why he, completely out of character, also warned Israel by way of a letter on October 13th that he would give Israel 30 days to undo the blockade of food and medicine going into Gaza, which is causing mass starvation, on humanitarian grounds or he would consider an embargo on some arms being illegally provided to the Jewish state. It did not take much profound analysis of the statement to realize that 30 days will be after the US election and, no matter who wins, it will not be necessary to do anything to punish Israel. The statement is essentially phony and is all about the election. In fact, as a majority of Democratic Party voters oppose Biden/Kamala’s support of what Israel is doing to the Gazans and Lebanese, it might be intended influence the outcome of a close election.
Which leaves us with the TS document that allegedly exposes elements in the Israeli plan of attack. Who leaked it and why? U.S. officials are scrambling to determine how two leaked, highly US classified documents conveying potential Israeli plans to attack Iran got on the Telegram app. According to the New York Times, the documents were prepared “in recent days” by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes information and images collected by America’s fleet of spy satellites.
There are several theories regarding these leaked reports. Trita Parsi, the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, opines that there are five plausible theories for what is behind the leak. The first theory posits an Iranian hacking of the servers of the US intelligence services and leaking the document as part of their psychological warfare against Israel, suggesting that they have learned Tel Aviv’s top secret war plans, possibly delaying what is intended. The second theory is that a dissident within the US government seeking to prevent or delay the war may have leaked it, but an initial internal investigation has reportedly already moved on to looking for possible outside government perpetrators, though that speculation might itself be a lie.
Third, the Biden administration may have carried out the leak itself in order to delay the Israeli attack until after the election. Biden cannot say “no” to Israel, but he might well illegally expose even top secret intelligence with the aim of confusing preparations and delaying Israel’s planned attack.
Fourth, the Israelis may have obtained or even fabricated the report and leaked it themselves with the objective of confusing Iran and inducing it to look for attackers in all the wrong places. And Five, possibly a close American ally — a Five Eyes state (FVEY) or a NATO ally with access to FVEY intelligence — might have leaked it, suggesting that a friendly country’s government might be so frustrated with Biden’s unwillingness to “stop Netanyahu from starting the largest war in the Middle East since World War II that they are taking matters into their own hands to sabotage Netanyahu’s escalation plan.”
When it comes to THAADs or no THAADs or leaks of top-secret intelligence, the Democrats would like to do whatever it takes to establish a narrative that will help them stay in power. That would include creeping dangerously close to getting involved in what might develop into a major war by blindly adhering to the blandishments of one notably rogue nation to help destroy another nation that in no way threatens the United States. Then the White House and State Department will lie about it all, as will Israel, to cover up what the true intentions and motives of the various players were. That will be the sleight of hands that will be playing out in the next few days. Where is the truth? The truth might itself turn out to be a lie!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Bolivia denies Israel accusations of hosting Iran, Hezbollah bases
MEMO | October 23, 2024
Bolivia has denied accusations that it is hosting Iranian and Hezbollah bases within its borders, urging South American nations not to fall for such allegations and become divided.
In a virtual press conference on Monday, Israel’s Ambassador to Costa Rica, Mijal Gur Aryeh, stated that there are “other countries in the region that have Iranian and Hezbollah bases, particularly Venezuela and Bolivia”, without providing evidence or specific details on such an allegation.
Bolivia’s Foreign Ministry yesterday denied those accusations, however, saying in a statement that “Bolivia is a pacifist state that promotes the culture of peace, which is why it has constitutionally assumed the prohibition of installing foreign military bases in its territory.”
Calling Aryeh’s words “irresponsible, unfounded, and self-serving”, the Ministry called on other South American countries “not to fall into these provocations that seek to affect the relations of brotherhood between states and peoples of the region.”
It asserted that the Ambassador’s comments ”seek to generate confrontation between Latin American states, governments and peoples, against the objective outlined in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) of consolidating Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace”.
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Lies are Unbekoming | January 25, 2026
The waiting room is clean. The receptionist is polite. The forms ask reasonable questions. Nothing in the physical environment suggests danger. The magazines are current. The hand sanitizer dispenser works. Someone has chosen calming colors for the walls.
A pregnant woman sits in a chair designed for her comfort. She has been told to be here. Not ordered—no one orders. Recommended. Strongly recommended. Everyone does this. Her mother did this. Her friends did this. The women in her prenatal group compare notes about their appointments the way they compare notes about nursery furniture. Which provider did you choose? What tests have you had? The questions assume the answers. The answers assume the questions.
She will be offered things today. Offered is the word used. The offers will come with information sheets that list risks and benefits in tabular form. She will sign consent documents. Everything will be voluntary in the legal sense. No one will hold her down. No one will threaten her. She will choose, and her choices will feel like choices, and she will leave feeling she has done the responsible thing.
What she will not feel is the weight of what has been arranged before she arrived. … continue
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Aletho News- Trump and Iran, War or Negotiations?
- US pressure contributing to Israeli influence in Latin America: Experts
- China Rejects U.S. Claims of Coercion in Central America
- New US defense strategy downgrades Russian ‘threat’
- EU turns to India for defense cooperation as US ties fracture
- Donald Trump Is No Peace President
- Vicious
- Germany to build 10GW of baseload gas plants (disguised as “future” hydrogen plants)
- French court jails pro-Palestine activist and mother over Gaza genocide speech
- Shot, amputated, and imprisoned: Palestinian man seeks to rebuild life after being maimed and tortured by Israeli forces
- If Americans Knew
- Will Rafah crossing be opened at last? – Not a ceasefire Day 108
- Israeli drone strike kills two children collecting firewood in Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 107
- Another Gaza baby freezes to death on Netanyahu’s watch – Not a ceasefire Day 106
- Oppose Israel’s Abuses While You Still Can
- UNRWA Heads Tell Ha’aretz: ‘We Don’t Radicalize Palestinians – Their Lived Existence Does’
- Plans Call for “New Rafah” Built in Israel’s Image — Without Palestinians
- Posing as priest, reporter is spat at many times, highlighting anti-Christian sentiment in Israel
- Leaked Documents: “Planned Community” in Rafah Would Force Palestinians Into Israeli Panopticon
- ‘Permits of Humiliation’: How Israel Strangles Christian Education in Jerusalem
- “The world sees death, destruction and injustice – and they see dollar signs” – Not a ceasefire Day 105
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Natural Gas Crisis Escalates … One Storage Site Near Empty …Government Silent
- Polar Colding…Antarctica Saw Its Coldest October In 44 Years!
- New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
- As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
- New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
Aletho News 