The Second Trump Shooter Believed Exactly What the Establishment Media Wanted Him to Believe
By Connor O’Keeffe | Mises Institute | September 18, 2024
On Sunday, for the second time this election cycle, a man was able to get close to Donald Trump with a rifle. The former president was golfing when Secret Service agents spotted a rifle barrel poking out of some bushes just off the course, near a hole Trump would soon play. Agents fired on the suspect, causing him to flee as Trump was rushed off the course. Shortly after, the man was apprehended by police.
A scoped rifle, two backpacks, and a video camera were recovered from the woods where the suspect was hiding. The FBI said it was investigating the incident as an attempted assassination. The suspect, Ryan Routh, has so far been charged with two gun-related crimes.
While there are clearly some major differences between this incident and the first assassination attempt in July—when Trump was shot in the ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—the fact that an armed man was able to get so close to the former president and remain undetected until the last moment for the second time in two months is a big deal.
Yet the reaction from the political establishment and the establishment media has been notably different. Back in July, there was broad agreement within the establishment that they needed to “lower the temperature.” This week, the rhetoric has changed. While most go through the motion of denouncing political violence, establishment figures and outlets have downplayed the assassination attempt, obscured the attempted shooter’s political ideology, and even blamed Trump himself for provoking people into trying to kill him.
It’s not surprising that the political establishment and their friends in the media want to dismiss or play down what happened on Sunday. Because Ryan Routh, the suspect, appears to have been motivated by the exact narrative of the war in Ukraine and the prospect of a second Trump term that the establishment is trying so hard to get the American public to accept.
In early 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the American establishment went into overdrive to whitewash all the developments that had led to the invasion. They instead defined Vladamir Putin as an expansionist tyrant bent on conquering all of Europe simply because he hates freedom and democracy.
Because of unearthed social media posts, numerous interviews with major outlets like The New York Times, and a self-published book, we can clearly see that Routh was completely convinced by the establishment’s characterization of the war. So much so that in the months after the war broke out, Routh traveled to Ukraine to try and join the fight. He was turned away, apparently due to his age, but stuck around to try and recruit other foreigners to join Ukraine’s ranks.
In one interview with Newsweek, Routh laid out how he views the war:
To me, a lot of the other conflicts are gray, but this conflict is definitely black-and-white. This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook— you know, any movie we’ve ever watched, this is definitely evil against good. … It seems asinine that we have a leader and a country that does not understand the concept of being unselfish, and being generous, and being kind, and just the basic moral values that are required by human beings these days. It blows my mind.
That is exactly how the pundits and politicians who make up the American political establishment want us thinking about this war. Not as an unnecessary geopolitical conflict that escalated for decades before erupting into the conventional war we see today, but simply as a black-and-white showdown with an evil country.
Importantly, as can be seen in the opening to Biden’s State of the Union address from earlier this year, the establishment has explicitly conflated this threat abroad with what they call the threat at home—meaning Trump and the MAGA movement. So if a disturbed person like Ryan Routh was convinced that he would be a hero if he went and fought the evil Russians in Ukraine only to be turned away because of his age, it’s not much of a jump to expect that he concluded he could still be a hero if he set his sights on, what he was told, is the same threat at home.
That’s not to say that the establishment voices pushing the simplistic narratives that captured Routh directly incited his assassination attempt—although it would under the standard they apply to Trump and January 6. Only that the establishment is using misleading and sometimes wholly fictional narratives about the war in Ukraine and the populist anger directed toward them to try to scare us into voting in ways that support their interests. It shouldn’t surprise anyone when these contrived, simplistic, overly dramatic narratives lead some people to decide voting isn’t enough.
Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of 30 officials? Yet another fake news about North Korea
By Eduardo Vasco | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 17, 2024
Do you remember the terrible death of Kim Jong Un’s ex-girlfriend?
In 2013, the international press reported the story of Hyon Song Wol, singer of the Pochonbo band, who had reportedly met Kim ten years earlier and continued a secret relationship despite being married and having a baby. Then, one day, Hyon and 11 other performers were arrested, accused of recording pornographic videos amongst themselves and selling them. Despite this sin, some of them were carrying Bibles, which, of course, is an even greater sin in the “North Korean dictatorship.” Three days later, all were executed by a firing squad. To make matters worse, their closest relatives were forced to watch the executions, as well as members of other prominent bands. Moreover, the “regime” deemed those who witnessed the executions guilty by association with the sinners and sent them to concentration camps! What a monstrous dictatorship!
The tragic and insane story took a twist the following year when Hyon was interviewed on North Korean TV—and, behold, she was alive! The British newspaper The Independent called Hyon’s appearance “miraculous” (perhaps the singer’s resurrection was linked to the Bible found amid the bacchanalia!).
The explanation for the singer’s miraculous resurrection, however, is not supernatural. The first to report the tragic story of the performers was the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo. The sources cited in the newspaper’s report were all anonymous. The South Korean disinformation service also had a hand in fabricating the story: shortly after the lie was spread, the head of South Korean intelligence, Nam Jae Joon, claimed he was also aware of the execution.
Chosun Ilbo is a major ultraconservative newspaper that acted as a propagandist for the Japanese Empire during the occupation of Korea, as well as for the military dictatorship that ruled the country until the end of the last century. It is distinctly anti-DPRK. But that’s not all: it is known for spreading fake news about Pyongyang. In 2019, both Chosun Ilbo and Chosun TV (owned by the same business group) reported that Kim Hyok Chol had been executed and Kim Yong Chol had been sentenced to hard labor. Both were nuclear negotiators for the DPRK in relations with the United States and were allegedly punished because the rapprochement process between the DPRK and the U.S. had not been successful. The sources cited by South Korean journalists were, again, anonymous. A few days later, however, Kim Yong Chol appeared alongside Kim Jong Un at an event broadcast by state television, a clear demonstration of Yong Chol’s prestige. CNN’s Taipei correspondent, Will Ripley, who had traveled to the DPRK around 20 times, also reported that Kim Hyok Chol was alive.
Despite its history of sensationalism and false news, the Chosun group continues to be a trusted source for major international media outlets. Earlier this month, the group reported that between 20 and 30 government officials had been executed for failing to prevent the deaths of 4,000 people in floods that hit the north of the country during the summer. As always, the Brazilian and international press eagerly spread the news, and O Globo even stated that Chosun TV was a “local broadcaster” from the DPRK. And, as always, the source of the information disseminated by Chosun was anonymous, as The Independent noted—even though it still endorsed the hoax with statements from “experts” on the subject, all of them South Korean and American.
What actually happened was quite different from the internationally orchestrated hoax. In early August, in a speech before flood victims in North Phyongan Province, Kim Jong Un took responsibility, as every leader should be conscious of doing, and announced the measures the government would take.
I felt uneasy because I could not help you much, despite my strong desire to do something. Although the entire country has sincerely mobilized to help, at this moment, I can only feel anxious and impatient because I have been unable to remove all the inconveniences you are experiencing in tents and poorly furnished public facilities.
In the same speech, the Korean leader announced that 130,000 young people and soldiers from the People’s Army were already being mobilized to rebuild infrastructure in North Phyongan. He also assured that all students and children from the areas affected by the heavy rains in North Phyongan, Jagang, and Ryanggang Provinces, which led to the Amnok River overflowing, would be transferred to Pyongyang during the reconstruction to stay safe and continue their studies, all at the expense of the State. In total, he announced that 15,400 people would be temporarily relocated to the country’s capital.
Nursing, edification, and education of students and other children are the most important of all state affairs, never to be abandoned even if the sky may fall in. Therefore, the State will take full responsibility for this work during the rehabilitation campaign. And state-backed care benefits will be offered in Pyongyang to the elderly and sick, honored disabled ex-soldiers, and nursing mothers before new houses are built in the flood-stricken areas.
Kim Jong Un also assured that those who remained in the affected cities during the reconstruction of their homes, in addition to the tents where they were already sheltered, could store their furniture and other belongings in safe places. Moreover, public restrooms with shower stalls and waste disposal systems would be provided to eliminate any possibility of contagious disease outbreaks. He also emphasized the issue of collective voluntary work, a historic characteristic of the Korean Revolution, as a means to solve the problem: “The assistance work must be conducted strictly under voluntary principles, never in a forced or organized manner.”
And so it happened. As the water was receding, the Paektusan Heroic Youth Shock Brigade— which received nearly 300,000 volunteer applications—was dispatched by the Workers’ Party to evacuate people from risky areas and begin the reconstruction process. One of the first measures was restoring water and electricity supplies. The metallurgical, steel, and mining industries increased production to meet the needs of the affected northern regions. Factories in all provinces focused their production on consumer goods for those affected. A special transportation scheme was set up on the railways to supply those regions with consumer and construction materials. Regional regiments of the WPK militias were sent to the affected provinces. Every sector of society was mobilized to aid in reconstruction. In addition to volunteers, who were joined by workers and soldiers to repair and rebuild buildings, roads, and bridges, professionals from various fields, such as doctors, scientists from the Academy of Sciences, and artistic ensembles, were also sent to the affected areas.
In Pyongyang, children and adults temporarily relocated from the northern areas at risk were offered visits to tourist and leisure sites such as circuses, theaters, museums, zoos, water parks, Mangyongdae Children’s Palace and Hill, and the Science and Technology Complex. Collective birthday parties are also being held for these people. The entire process is being closely monitored and reported daily by the Korean press.
The DPRK government estimated that the reconstruction would be completed within three months. Given the incredible mobilization of human and material resources, it is highly likely that this short deadline will indeed be met. Meanwhile, the vile propaganda of the DPRK’s enemies (and of the whole world) continues to spread its lowly lies. The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
‘Israel’s’ Bloody Negotiations Strategy in Gaza
By Jamal Kanj | Al Mayadeen | September 12, 2024
Fifty-two years ago, almost to the day, on September 8, 1972, I survived the first of many air and sea raids on my refugee camp in northern Lebanon. I was less than two hundred yards from the area across the river where a group of us young kids met every day, between 4 and 5 p.m., to play in the large field, swim in the river, or the Mediterranean Sea.
At first, I heard what sounded like a humming plane. Before I could even turn my head to look up at the sky, I was startled by the booming sound of low-flying fighter jets passing overhead, dropping massive rockets onto the open field. The first bomb exploded in the northwest area of the field, creating a massive fireball—a black column of smoke intertwined with a glowing red blaze. The shockwave threw me off my bike. Soot filled the air and fragments rained down like strafing bullets all around me.
In less than 15 minutes, the once grassy green play area of approximately 20 acres was transformed into a lunar landscape, pocked with craters. One pit was so large and deep that groundwater filled the hole.
If the Israeli air raid had occurred just five or ten minutes later, I would have been in the middle of the field, playing with other 14-year-old kids. My friend Barakat, who was already there and likely had been eagerly anticipating my arrival, was killed. The raid left many unexploded devices and time-delayed bombs, making it difficult to recover his body until the next day. Our neighbor Mahdi was also killed, buried under the plowed soil. Years later, his skeleton was discovered when the area was being graded.
I’m reminded of this today, September 10, 2024, as I watch footage of the huge crater left behind by an American-made 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb. The bombs were dropped in the middle of the night on 20 tents housing displaced civilians in an Israeli-designated “safe area” in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza.
Early in the morning, the Israeli army issued its disinformation boilerplate communiqué, declaring the raid was a “precise strike” on senior resistance members. But videos from the crater, where tents lay buried under the sand, suggest that “Israel” targeted civilians in a supposed safe area.
Reading about the “precise strike” on a BBC site took me back 52 years. Almost three hours after the raid on my camp, I remember my father and our neighbors gathering around the radio to listen to the 7 p.m. BBC Arabic news. I still recall how they stopped breathing, their eyes wide, mouths agape, as the BBC quoted an Israeli army spokesman claiming “Israel” had targeted a military base in Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
While I don’t remember the exact number of the killed and injured that afternoon, I know for certain that 100 percent were civilians—mostly young boys and girls, with at least one elderly man among them. I felt then as helpless as many of those who were sleeping on September 10 in their “safe” tents, unable to tell their story to the world. The photos left behind by the US-manufactured 2,000-pound bombs, however, expose “Israel’s” lies and the complicity of the managed Western media.
It is utterly despicable that the lecterns at the White House and the State Department have become platforms to market such lies, emboldening “Israel’s” intransigence and whitewashing its genocide. Especially egregious is the disinformation spread by White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby, who blamed the Palestinians as “the main obstacle” to a ceasefire. This brazen lie comes less than a week after the leak of a document pointing to new conditions that were added in late July by Benjamin Netanyahu to Joe Biden’s proposal from May 27, which torpedoed the ceasefire agreement.
After the Palestinians rejected Netanyahu’s new conditions in late July, “Israel” intensified its systematic campaign of bombing displaced civilians in safe areas, including 16 UN schools converted into mass shelters. Unable to compel a ceasefire on its terms, “Israel” is using these attacks on designated safe areas as part of its bloody negotiation strategy to exert pressure by inflicting maximum suffering on civilians through murder and starvation.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to supply “Israel” with the means to commit these war crimes, while using the White House platform to spread disinformation, making “Israel’s” “lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
No, New York Times, Climate Change Isn’t Destroying Bridges
By Anthony Watts | Climate Realism | September 6, 2024
The New York Times (NYT) recently published an article titled “Climate Change Can Cause Bridges to ‘Fall Apart Like Tinkertoys,’ Experts Say,” written by Coral Davenport. Multiple lines of evidence and examples not only refute this claim as false but expose the sheer absurdity of the claim.
These sorts of absurdly false claims have been tried before, for instance, when the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, MN in 2007. An article in 2007 by Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters exposed the claim as false:
A former member of the Clinton administration, and current Senior Fellow at the virtual Clinton think tank the Center for American Progress, claimed Monday that global warming might have played a factor in the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis last week.
I kid you not.
Writing at Climate Progress, the global warming blog of CAP, Joseph Romm – who served as Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy in 1997 and as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from 1995 though 1998 – stated in a piece amazingly entitled “Did Climate Change Contribute To The Minneapolis Bridge Collapse?“
Unsurprisingly, the actual cause had nothing to do with climate change at all but rather an engineering failure that used undersized gusset plates that were too thin for the load of the bridge:
The investigation revealed that photos from a June 2003 inspection of the bridge showed gusset-plate bowing. On November 13, 2008, the NTSB released the findings of its investigation. The primary cause of the collapse was the undersized gusset plates, at 0.5 inches (13 mm) thick. Contributing to that design or construction error was the fact that 2 inches (51 mm) of concrete had been added to the road surface over the years, increasing the static load by 20%. Another factor was the extraordinary weight of construction equipment and material resting on the bridge just above its weakest point at the time of the collapse. That load was estimated at 578,000 pounds (262 tonnes), consisting of sand, water, and vehicles.
So, human error and extra weight, not climate change, was determined to be the cause of the bridge’s failure.
Fast forward to the present. The NYT’s article makes similar claims:
Bridges designed and built decades ago with materials not intended to withstand sharp temperature swings are now rapidly swelling and contracting, leaving them weakened.
“It’s getting so hot that the pieces that hold the concrete and steel, those bridges can literally fall apart like Tinkertoys,” Dr. Chinowsky said.
As temperatures reached the hottest in recorded history this year, much of the nation’s infrastructure, from highways to runways, has suffered. But bridges face particular risks.
Really? The bridges in question weren’t engineered to handle daily temperature swings? A natural event that happens daily across seasons? That sounds like poor planning. Besides the absurdity of that claim, there are two further contradictory points to consider.
First, in the United States, we’ve seen far worse sustained heatwaves before, such as in the 1930s when the July 1936 heatwave hit America’s Midwest, where some places experienced up to 14 days of above 100°F temperatures. This is evidenced by the graph in Figure 1, provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Figure 1. This figure shows the annual values of the U.S. Heat Wave Index, from 1895 to 2020 contiguous 48 states. Environmental Protection Agency.
In the many reports of the heatwaves in the 1930’s, there is no mention of bridge collapse, which suggests that the linkage to “extreme heat aided by climate change” claim is false. Otherwise, such temperatures in the 1930s would have resulted in collapsed bridges. However, there simply are none from that period reportedly linked to heat.
Secondly, the article says “As temperatures reached the hottest in recorded history this year, much of the nation’s infrastructure, from highways to runways, has suffered.” But this isn’t true either. The claim NYT uses is about the global temperature, not the U.S. temperature. As seen in Figure 2 below showing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), widely considered to be the most accurate source of surface temperature data, July 2024 was not “the hottest in recorded history.” For example, maximum U.S. temperature was higher in 2012 and 2005 than in July 2024.
Figure 2: NOAA – USCRN Maximum Temperature
Diving deeper into the NYT article, the Times attributes the failure of a railroad bridge connecting Iowa and South Dakota during floods to climate change. Flooding in the rivers and streams across and bordering Iowa and South Dakota have been common for as long as records of such event have been kept back into the mid-1800s. And railroad bridge collapses have happened repeatedly in the United States and around the world, well before climate change ever became an issue. Since data show no increase in the number or severity of flood events across the United States, in general, or in Iowa and South Dakota, in particular, there is no evidence climate change played any role in that particular railroad bridge collapse.
The next claim is that the concrete buckled and broke on a bridge in Lewiston, Maine which NYT blamed on “recent fluctuation in temperature and rain.”
Looking at the weather in Lewiston, ME when the event occurred shows that although high and low temperatures were higher than the normal average for late June, the fluctuations the NYT was so concerned about were less extreme than normal, about a 15 degree change from high to low in June 2024 rather than the historic daily average of about 20 degrees. (See figure 3, below).
Figure 3: Normal average daily fluctuations in temperatures throughout the year for Lewiston Maine. Source: Google
The high temperature for the third week of June was 95℉, above the normal maximum for the date, but it was well below the historic high temperature for the city of 99℉ recorded in 1911, 113 years of global warming ago. Lewiston’s 2024 June high was also 10 degrees lower than the high temperature record for the state as a whole of 105℉ set in North Bridgton, ME, just thirty miles away from Lewiston, also from 1911, when that temperature was hit twice.
Because temperatures in Lewiston didn’t fluctuate wildly and were also not record setting, it is implausible for the bridge’s concrete cracking and buckling to have anything at all to do with climate change. It was likely a result of poor construction or, even more likely, poor maintenance, a problem for many bridges and overpasses in Maine and the U.S. as a whole, combined with increased traffic and load, due to significant population growth in the city and the region, using the bridge.
Literally, it takes two minutes of work on Google search to find this data. Apparently, NYT reporter Coral Davenport couldn’t be troubled to seek out the facts. Or perhaps, she just doesn’t know how. This sort of slapdash reporting containing speculative claims rather than simple facts seems like something out of the old TV series The Twilight Zone.
If such an episode aired today, my suggested title would be “Bogus Maximus.” This story was pure science fiction.
Trump’s Grand-Jury Indictments Don’t Mean Squat
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | September 10, 2024
A recent Los Angeles Times column by Times’s columnist Jackie Calmes entitled “Should a Five-Time Loser with Grand Juries Be President?” displays a woeful lack of understanding regarding grand-jury indictments.
Calmes’s article, of course, is about Donald Trump and argues that the five grand-jury indictments against Trump are a good reason for rejecting his candidacy for president. Adding authority to her argument, Calmes quotes former Justice Department official and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann: “For those counting, FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”
As a former prosecutor, Weissmann should know that grand juries are usually nothing more than rubber stamps for whatever prosecutors want. As Sol Wachtler, chief justice of New York’s Supreme Court, put it, “Any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.”
Grand juries are normally composed of good, little, patriotic, deferential citizens who look upon prosecutors and judges, especially at the federal level, as gods. When a federal prosecutor enters the grand-jury room armed with a bit of evidence and an indictment, the grand jurors are going to do what he wants them to do.
Keep in mind, after all, that there is no judge in the grand-jury room. There is also no defense attorney representing the person they want indicted. There is no one to challenge or rule out incompetent evidence. The prosecutor can use hearsay evidence, illegally acquired evidence, or even evidence acquired by torture. The grand jury is not going to challenge him on the evidence he is presenting to them. They are simply going to grant his request for an indictment.
Calmes makes a big deal over the fact that a grand-jury indictment is based on “probable cause.” Big deal. What she apparently doesn’t realize is that “probable cause” can be based on hearsay or other evidence that is not admissible at a trial. That makes the indictment worthless in terms of whether the accused is actually guilty of what the indictment charges him with.
The fact is that a grand-jury indictment is nothing more than an accusation. In a court of law, it doesn’t constitute any evidence whatsoever. In terms of determining whether a person is guilty of a crime, an indictment is worthless.
Whatever reasons people might have for rejecting Trump’s quest to be president again, those grand-jury indictments against him are a ludicrous one. Calmes, Weissmann, and the Los Angeles Times should know better than to make such a ridiculous argument for rejecting Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Fake news now at peak as Kamala faces CNN “interview”
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 4, 2024
Wherever you look, it feels like we are being bombarded now with an unprecedented level of fake news. One reason may well be how the installed governments by western elites – military industrial complex and banking – are getting very skittish indeed about a shake up of world order in November when the airhead Kamala Harris takes on Donald Trump in the presidential elections. This new trend of installing a useful idiot into power has been around for decades across Africa and Asia where the U.S. and before that the UK installed their own despots to serve their own needs, so we shouldn’t be so shocked by someone like Harris having the landscape prepared for her.
To call Harris a ‘lightweight’ is understating her political verve. She has none of the conventional talents that politicians require like public speaking, or engaging with media, let alone having any ideas of her own which might make it one day to policy. For most Americans the choice in November is between Harris, who is essentially Biden 2.0 or Trump. Not exactly a tough call many might say since RFK endorsed Trump who traditionally he has not been a fan of; it’s as though he’s saying to Americans, “anything but Kamala. Do the maths”.
Media is of course playing a huge and certainly tawdry role in pushing her which is not generally noted by most Americans. For weeks she has ignored or avoided all serendipitous contact with journalists which surely must be orders from the elite who are controlling her. And there is good reason for this as the internet is awash with her talking gibberish. Or dancing.
Talking mumbo jumbo won’t help her at the polls against Trump who revels at the microphone and is not afraid to go head to head with journalists and unscripted interviews, despite him whining about how unfair the set-up is.
What he is alluding to is that left-wing media in America like CNN fake the news and as we saw recently almost certainly gave Kamala a print out of the questions she was going to face with her recent CNN interview where she was joined by her running mate just in case she did something which broadcast journalists call ‘goldfishing’ – an on-screen facial contortion where the lips and cheeks move, but nothing comes out of the mouth. In Kamala’s case, goldfishing might not be as bad as actually speaking, as she has shown us that there is not much between the ears. She is not overburdened with what many academics have of knowing too much and not being able to communicate in short sound bites. Harris doesn’t really know anything at all except a few talking points from Biden’s days. Her own people will be happy with the staged interview as they can at least counter op-ed writers who claim she is so lame that she avoids all press. Thanks CNN. Great jaaaabbbb.
Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex whose six main companies cannot slow production down, unless they make job layoffs. The insatiable hunger of this machine is responsible for the lion’s share of U.S. foreign policy and Biden gave his cronies their one hundred Christmas’s when he created the Ukraine war and more recently Gaza. In Gaza the false reporting from western media is as repulsive as the images of children who have lost their entire brains and whose heads look like theatrical floppy props, which has become the day to day norm now when Israel bombs schools. Does anyone in the west in either camp still believe this is a “war” against Hamas fighters? With the recent invasion of West Bank and the rise of settlers stealing land there, surely the real story of Netanyahu’s campaign is there for all to see in plain light: ethnic cleansing on a grand scale to wipe Palestinians off the face of “Israel”. And still we read western journalists and op-ed writers parroting the line about ‘two state solutions’ and what the EU says, etc etc. By the time the chairs are arranged and the mineral water is put on the tables, there will not be a Palestinian left to even represent his or her own state. Everyone knows the two-state solution is a massive parody of diplo gibberish a bit like Kamala’s few media stints which are still good for a laugh today. And it’s an identical story in Ukraine. No western journalists can report on the true story of Ukrainian losses in Kursk and how the operation has blown up in Zelensky’s face. The omission of reporting key facts and data is just as bad as making up your stories, if not worse.
Noa Argamani blasts Israeli media: ‘Hamas did not injure me, an airstrike did’
(Photo credit: Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images)
The Cradle | August 23, 2024
Noa Argamani, the Israeli captive freed by an army operation that killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians, has lashed out at the media for misreporting comments she made about her time in captivity.
“I can’t ignore what happened in the media in the last 24 hours. Things were taken out of context,” Argamani stated in an Instagram story posted to her account on 23 August.
“I was not beaten and my hair was not cut. I was in a building that was bombed by the Air Force. The exact quote is: ‘This past weekend, after the shooting, as I said, I had cuts all over my head and was injured all over my body.’ I emphasize that I was not beaten, but injured all over my body by the collapse of a building on me,” Argamani added.
She went on to say that as a “victim of 7 October I will not allow myself to be victimized once again.”
Israeli media had falsely quoted the former Israeli captive as saying that Hamas beat her all over her body and cut her hair while she was in captivity during a meeting with G7 embassy representatives in Tokyo.
Before being updated, an article in the Jerusalem Post describing Argamani’s experience in captivity was published with the title: “Hamas beat me all over my body.”
In early June, Israel launched a rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza to retrieve Argamani and three other captives. Nearly 300 Palestinians were massacred in the process.
Argamani was notably paraded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to the US Congress in July.
Her testimony on Friday echoes that of other Israeli captives who have, since being released, described their experience with Hamas as much less frightening than the Israeli airstrikes that constantly rained overhead.
“We were in tunnels, terrified that it would not be Hamas, but Israel, that would kill us, and then they would say Hamas killed you,” a freed captive said during a tense meeting with Netanyahu in December.
Israeli forces have killed many of their captives being held by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, both through airstrikes and ground operations.
The bodies of six Israeli captives were returned to Israel this week following an overnight army operation.
According to Hebrew news site Ynet, the captives had died months ago, suffocating to death after a nearby Israeli airstrike flooded the tunnel they were in with toxic gases.
Argamani’s social media post comes less than two weeks after Hamas’ Qassam Brigades announced the accidental killing of an Israeli captive.
“After investigating the killing of an enemy captive by his guard, it became clear that the soldier in charge of the guard acted in a vengeful manner, contrary to instructions, after receiving news of the martyrdom of his two children in one of the enemy’s massacres,” Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said in a statement on 15 August.
“We stress that the incident does not represent our ethics and religious teachings in dealing with captives, and we will tighten the instructions after the incident was repeated in two cases so far,” he added.
“We hold the enemy fully responsible for all the suffering and dangers that its captives are exposed to as a result of its violation of all the rules of humane and humanitarian treatment and its practice of brutal genocide against our people.”
The untold terms of the new American ceasefire proposal
By Motasem A Dalloul | MEMO | August 21, 2024
Moscow denies Washington Post claims about secret Russia-Ukraine talks
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova © Sputnik / Sergey Bobylev
RT | August 18, 2024
Russia and Ukraine have not been involved in any “direct or indirect” talks that could have been derailed by Kiev’s cross-border incursion into Kursk Region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists on Sunday.
She was asked to comment on a Washington Post article which claimed, citing sources, that the Ukrainian attack thwarted secret indirect negotiations between Moscow and Kiev regarding a potential moratorium on striking energy infrastructure. The supposed talks were said to be mediated by Qatar, the outlet wrote on Saturday.
“No one has derailed anything,” Zakharova said, explaining that the two sides have not discussed any “security regimes” for critical infrastructure facilities.
She went on to say that threats to energy facilities such as the nuclear power stations in Zaporozhye and Kursk come from Kiev, not Moscow.
Earlier, a Russian journalist had reported that Kiev was plotting a “false flag” attack involving a dirty nuclear bomb either at the nuclear plant in Zaporozhye or Kursk. Commenting on the matter, the Russian Defense Ministry said it takes such reports seriously and vowed a swift and harsh response to any such attacks. Moscow has called on the UN to condemn the alleged plot, while Kiev has denied the claims.
According to Zakharova, Moscow and Kiev have not engaged in any talks since spring 2022, except for prisoner exchanges facilitated by third-party mediators. Peace talks held over the first months of the conflict collapsed after Kiev withdrew from them due to what Moscow claims was Western interference.
Ukraine had “all the chances” to resolve the conflict through negotiations, the spokeswoman said. Moscow repeatedly stated that it was ready to enter into negotiations at any moment as long as the situation on the ground was taken into account.
Kiev banned any talks with the current Russian leadership at the national level through a presidential decree signed in 2022. The move came after four former Ukrainian regions voted overwhelmingly to join Russia.
This June, Moscow put forward another peace initiative, Zakharova noted. At the time, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was ready to immediately open peace talks with Kiev if it withdrew its troops from the four regions that joined Russia in 2022 and committed to maintaining neutral status.
According to Zakharova, Kiev reacted to this “goodwill gesture” by launching an incursion into Kursk Region, where Ukrainian forces were “deliberately killing medics, rescuers, and volunteers, as well as attacking civilian transport.” In the wake of the attack, Putin said there can be no talks with those “who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians.”
I reported a piece for the New York Times on antisemitism. I found a major error, but the Times didn’t care.
An elected official alleged an antisemitic break-in. Police say it didn’t happen.
Pro-Palestinian protest in Teaneck, New Jersey outside Congregation Keter Torah on March 10, 2024. Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty.
By Arvind Dilawar | Drop Site News | August 8, 2024
As a freelance journalist, I contributed to a New York Times article earlier this year about an anti-Zionist demonstration in Teaneck, New Jersey, a township just outside of New York City. Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered to protest an event organized by Israeli realtors marketing properties in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank—Israeli settlements widely regarded as illegal under international law. Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Times article described the protest as contributing to escalating fear and tension in otherwise peaceable Teaneck. As a pivotal example of alleged antisemitic activity in the area, my co-author John Leland, a Times staff reporter, quoted township councilmember Hillary Goldberg, who claimed that her home had been “broken into” as part of a string of abuse in response to her vocal support of Israel and her Jewish background.
“I have been threatened; I had a box truck with my picture on it and the words ‘liar liar’ driven around town; my house has been broken into; I have received antisemitic messages,” Goldberg told Leland, adding: “I have never felt so afraid to be Jewish as now.”
It was an explosive allegation—a racially motivated break-in at the home of an elected official—and also a brand new one. Prior to the Times coverage, Goldberg was featured in an article from The Intercept about anti-Zionist organizing at Teaneck High School being suppressed by local politicians, including the councilmember. According to The Intercept, Goldberg appears to have collaborated with U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer to have the entire Teaneck school district investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for alleged antisemitism in retaliation for students organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza last November.
There is no mention of a break-in at Goldberg’s home in The Intercept article—nor coverage of it elsewhere, either in the news or social media. Goldberg’s comments to the Times were the first, and thus far only, mention of the incident anywhere.
The way the reporting and editing process unfolded next was a window into how politically convenient claims make their way into the paper of record without corroboration—and stay in despite contradictory evidence.
When I shared my concerns regarding Goldberg’s apparent political motivations as laid out in the Intercept article, as well as the lack of coverage of this otherwise extremely newsworthy allegation, Leland assured me that the councilmember had filed a police report, meaning her story checked out. But when I requested the report, he told me he hadn’t actually seen it, only been assured by Goldberg that she had filed it. The story went to press without further verification of her claim.
I was eventually able to obtain the police reports myself via an Open Public Records Act request, and they revealed that the police had determined no break-in, nor any other crime, had been committed. According to the first police report, dated February 10, six officers responded to a call at Goldberg’s publicly listed address because, according to the complainant, “Lights basement were on // were not on when left // back door was locked when got home unlocked.” The half-dozen officers checked the property but found no sign of forced entry nor anything else amiss. Two subsequent checks of the area found nothing further, and a follow-up investigation by a sergeant two days later ended the same.
“The sergeant did respond to the residence a couple days after the initial incident was reported and spoke with the complainant,” Seth Kriegel, deputy chief of the Teaneck Police Department, reiterated to me. “And based on speaking with her and his investigation, he determined that there was no burglary that had occurred—or attempted burglary.”
Teaneck police determined that no crime had been committed at Goldberg’s property, according to Kriegel. He also noted that subsequent checks were requested by the complainant, a dozen of which were conducted before the publication of the Times article, and none found anything to report.
Believing a correction to the Times story was in order—or at least an update, to give readers a fuller picture—I shared the police reports with Leland—who told me that he had already gotten them and, despite the explicit contradictions, no correction would be issued. When presented with the police reports, management at the Times also declined to reconcile them with its coverage. Instead, managing director of external communications, Charlie Stadtlander, said in a statement that the article was “thoroughly reported, fact-checked and edited, and we stand behind its publication.” Goldberg did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Times has come under fire in recent months for refusing to issue corrections to several other articles about Israel and Palestine.
Perhaps most significantly, the Times continues to defend an article accusing Palestinian militants of committing “systematic” sexual violence against Israelis on October 7, despite criticism from professors of journalism, cited by The Washington Post, and others regarding significant issues with the story and its reporting. The Times was forced to issue an “update” (rather than a correction, as would be stipulated by standard journalistic practice) to address contradictory evidence that later emerged.
Anti-Zionist groups such as Writers Against the War on Gaza and publications such as Mondoweiss have also criticized the Times for minimizing Israel’s role in the ongoing famine in the Gaza Strip, casting the Israeli genocide as a feminist endeavor and largely ignoring the killings of more than a hundred fellow journalists in Gaza.
Such apparent contradictions in the Times’ coverage of Israel and Palestine led to significant internal dissent at the publication. A planned podcast episode on the aforementioned story about sexual violence had to be scrapped after producers raised questions about its reliability. At least four other contributors have also resigned or severed relationships with the Times for similar reasons, according to the outlet Them.
Unfortunately the Times is not alone in breaking with standard journalistic ethics when it comes to covering Israel and Palestine. In a decade of being a full-time freelance journalist, I have personally never come up against the kind of opposition I’ve experienced trying to cover the reverberations of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
In December, an editor at The Smart Set, an arts and culture magazine that I contributed to for five years without issue, accepted a pitch of mine on decolonization—only to have a higher-up summarily reject the draft, without edits, notes, or payment.
In April, Times Union, the regional affiliate of Hearst Newspapers in Upstate New York, published an article that I had written about local businesses being harassed for supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. It was online for less than 24 hours before the editor-in-chief interrupted his own travel plans to force the newsroom to take it down. There were no factual errors in the article nor procedural errors in its reporting. Rather, it was Times Union that ran afoul of standard practice by refusing to issue a retraction acknowledging, much less justifying, their decision.
These experiences, as well as mine at The Times, could individually be written off as little more than professional setbacks, especially when compared to the unimaginable suffering in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, including at least 15,000 children, according to Al Jazeera at the time of this writing. These otherwise minor journalistic malpractices, however, should be understood as coming together to form a web, like the Kevlar-tough strands of spider’s silk, with the fates of those Palestinians caught in the middle.
Italian paper pays damages after labelling Palestine rights advocate a ‘terrorist’
MEMO | August 8, 2024
Italian newspaper Il Corriere Della Sera has been ordered to pay €15,000 in damages to Shawan Jabarin, the general director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, for falsely accusing him in 2021 of being a terrorist and murderer.
In a press release published this week, Al-Haq said the paper had published the claims days after Jabarin was invited to join a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament on 20 December 2021 following Israel’s designation of Palestinian NGOs as ‘terrorist organisations’.
Two days after the hearing, Il Corriere della Sera published an article “containing false and defamatory statements” labelling Jabarin a “terrorist”. Additionally, “the newspapers omitted essential contextual information around Israel’s targeted designation of six Palestinian civil society organisations as ‘terror organisations’, thereby infringing on the readers’ right to access free and impartial information.”
After being summoned to court, the paper accepted a settlement agreement, which included compensating Jabarin for “reputational” damage suffered and publishing an article retracting the defamatory claims. However it failed to admit, in its article, that it was among those who had defamed the Palestinian rights advocate.
Debunking the debunkers on the “myths” of antidepressants
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | August 5, 2024
Recently, The Conversation ran an article which claimed to “debunk” a range of myths about antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Natalina Salmaso, a clinical psychologist at Carleton University in Canada, highlighted five common myths that make people hesitant to take antidepressants.
Salmaso said hesitancy is often “unfounded” and “may not be grounded in science” and that “debunking the myths surrounding antidepressants is critical to permitting educated treatment decisions for those who suffer.”
However, Salmaso’s article was full of omissions and falsehoods, so we decided to debunk the debunker.
Myth 1 – I am stronger if I do this without meds
Salmaso says that a person with depression is like an athlete with a broken leg.
An athlete cannot compete effectively with a broken leg, in the same way a person with depression cannot function effectively, because their brain “is no longer responding to everyday life.”
She adds that a person’s brain needs to “heal” before they can expect it to function like they did pre-depression and implied antidepressants can help.
This is grossly misguided. This feeds into the false narrative that depression is a brain disease that can be cured by antidepressants.
Antidepressants don’t cure people with depression and their symptomatic effects are so small that they lack clinical relevance.
Studies show that patients actually do better with psychotherapy, which has enduring effects. Further, psychotherapy halves the risk of suicide whereas antidepressants double this risk, in people of all ages.
Myth 2 – I will be dependent on antidepressants to be happy
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t make people ‘happy’ per se, but they “allow people to experience all emotions in an appropriate and balanced way.”
However, this is not what patients report. SSRIs tend to make people feel “numb” and unable to experience emotions. Some describe it as an inability to feel love, attachment or sexual excitement.
Some experience sexual dysfunction, which can continue long after the drug is discontinued.
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are a long-term (typically at a minimum for a year) and (hopefully) curative treatment, much like chemotherapy for certain types of cancer.”
This is also misguided. Most people become depressed because they have stressful or depressing circumstances, which no drug can cure.
People have been misled to believe that antidepressants can “correct” a chemical imbalance in the brain. A systematic review in 2022 thoroughly debunked the hypothesis that depression is caused a serotonin imbalance.
Salmaso even says that “most studies show that if you take antidepressant medications for a year before coming off of them, the majority of people will not relapse.”
This is also incorrect. The majority of studies on relapse are flawed because they involve subjects already on antidepressants and when they suddenly stop them for the trial they experience withdrawals, which interferes with the assessment of relapse.
Also, the longer someone takes an antidepressant, the higher the probability of that person experiencing withdrawal effects.
Myth 3 – Meds will change who I am, I will be different or feel high
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t change you, but rather “allow you to view things from a more balanced perspective.”
However, Danish psychiatrists have reported that half of the patients on antidepressants agreed that the treatment could alter their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings.
Far from rebalancing the brain, antidepressants alter the normal functioning of the brain and disrupt biological processes with potentially devastating consequences.
As far as “changing who you are,” there have been ample reports of out-of-body experiences (including akathisia) where people became suicidal or homicidal on antidepressants, even in people with no history of this behaviour.
A systematic review found that taking antidepressants increased aggression three times more than taking a placebo, in children and adolescents.
Myth 4: I will become addicted
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are generally not addictive and have a low potential for misuse.”
This is not correct. Antidepressants can lead to dependency. Many people experience withdrawal symptoms, which are very similar to those that people experience when they try to come off benzodiazepines.
Salmaso claims that some patients get headaches and other withdrawal symptoms when the stop taking antidepressants “suddenly” but says they are “generally short-lived and can be minimised by tapering off treatment slowly.”
However, it is well-documented that about half of patients on antidepressants cannot stop them without experiencing withdrawals symptoms, which for some, can persist for many years. These symptoms are very difficult to “minimise” even with slow tapering.
Myth 5: Meds should only be used as a last resort
Salmaso disagrees that antidepressants should be used as a last resort.
She says that reserving antidepressants only for extreme cases “doesn’t make sense” because depression can reduce “work productivity and has immense societal consequences.”
“The financial repercussions that can be attributed to depression in terms of the number of workdays missed, jobs lost, accidents caused, etc. are enormous,” she added.
However, studies examining the efficacy of antidepressants have not shown any meaningful effects, such as improvements in quality of life, and they make it more difficult for people to function.
In all countries where this relationship has been examined, the increased use of antidepressants has been accompanied by an increase in disability pensions for mental health reasons.
Salmaso argues that, “Depression significantly increases risk of cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, respiratory disease and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few. It also seems to worsen the outcomes for cancer.”
Antidepressants do not improve these conditions either. Overall, it is our view that Salmaso’s evidence and arguments are flawed and misguided.
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Book Review
How the CIA hid their MKULTRA mind-control program
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | September 17, 2021
Back in the early 1990s, I spoke with John Marks, author of Search for the Manchurian Candidate. This was the book (1979) that helped expose the existence and range of the infamous CIA MKULTRA program.
Marks related the following facts to me. He had originally filed many Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests for documents connected to the CIA’s mind-control program. He got nothing back.
Finally, as if to play a joke on him, someone at the CIA sent Marks 10 boxes of financial and accounting records. The attitude was, “Here, see what you can do with this.”
I’ve seen some of those records. They’re very boring reading.
But Marks went through them, and lo and behold, he found he could piece together MKULTRA projects, based on the funding data.
Eventually, he assembled enough information to begin naming names. He conducted interviews. The shape of MKULTRA swam into view. And so he wrote his book, Search for the Manchurian Candidate.
He told me that three important books had been written about MKULTRA, and they all stemmed from those 10 boxes of CIA financial records. There was his own book; Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart; and The Mind Manipulators by Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Larry Johnson: AIR POWER CANNOT BEAT an ENTRENCHED ENEMY LIKE IRAN
- Report- U.S. and Israel Are Targeting ‘Hospitals, Residential Buildings And Schools Across Tehran’
- Witkoff undermined Iran talks by peddling lies to build case for military aggression: Report
- Iraqi Resistance reports drone attacks on US targets in Erbil
- Iran warns all Israeli embassies ‘legitimate targets’ if Lebanon embassy attacked
- Russia could end gas supplies to EU immediately – Putin
- Veteran War Correspondent Reveals How to Tell When Analysts Talking About Iranian Losses Are Lying
- Did Kuwait really shoot down three US F-15s?
- Trump’s Iran war will put him in the history books, but…
- The murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed
- If Americans Knew
- Is the International Norm Against Assassination Dead?
- More than 1,000 Civilians Killed in U.S.-Israeli Bombing of Iran, Rights Group Says
- The Neocons: First in War, Last in Peace
- With focus on Iran and Gaza, Israel is quietly annexing the West Bank
- Experts Worldwide Agree: US-Israel Attack on Iran a Clear Violation of International Law
- 1,000+ reported dead in Iran, in the war that Israel wanted – Not a ceasefire Day 145
- Rubio Suggests Trump Joined Israel’s Planned Attack on Iran Instead of Stopping It
- CNN: Timing of attack on Iran bears symbolic meaning in Judaism
- How the New York Times paved the way for apocalyptic war
- Tucker Carlson says Saudi Arabia and Qatar arrested Mossad agents planning bombings
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
- New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
- Germany: Electric Car Catches Fire At Charging Station, Sets Off Local “Inferno”, Widespread Damage
- New Study: Canada’s New Brunswick Was 1°C Warmer Than Today During The Medieval Warm Period
- Coal Power Back In Trend As Globe Tries To Keep Pace With Growing Demand For Power
- New Study: A 4°C Warmer Beaufort Sea Had ‘No Sea Ice’ 11,700 – 8200 Years Ago
- Unfudging The Data: Dutch Meteorological Institute Reinstates Early 20th Centruy Heat Waves It Had Erased Earlier
- German Gas Crisis…Chancellor Merz Allegedly Bans Gas Debate Ahead of Elections!
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