As her Free Press is poised to seal a $200 million deal with the mainstream news giant CBS, let us reflect on why
A thought experiment: would anyone who referred to the killing of 50 Jewish people, many of them “entirely innocent non-combatants, including children,” as “one of the unavoidable burdens of political power, of Palestinian liberation’s dream turned into the reality of self-determination,” ever be hired by a major television news network?
Would their news outlet ever be potentially offered more than $200 million to merge with that major news network?
Of course not, and for good reason. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening, only with one small but major difference: the writer and her news outlet responsible for this statement, Bari Weiss and The Free Press, were not talking about Hamas’ murder of Israelis, but rather about Israel’s killing of 50 Palestinians — “Zionism’s dream turned into the reality of self-determination,” as Weiss described it in 2021.
Weiss is currently in talks to sell The Free Press to CBS News for between $200-$250 million, after reportedly winning over its new owner, David Ellison, “by taking a pro-Israel stance,” according to the Financial Times. Ellison “wants to position The Free Press alongside CBS News,” the paper reported, while another source told the New York Times that Ellison is weighing up giving Weiss “an influential role in shaping the editorial sensibilities of CBS News.”
If so, it would be a major new development in a pervasive double standard we’ve seen in the past nearly two years. Weiss and her outlet have engaged in rhetoric and professional behavior that would ordinarily never pass muster in a newsroom — but are considered acceptable because they are in support of Israel’s war against Palestinians.
For one, The Free Press has repeatedly spread misinformation. In May 2024, the outlet charged that the UN had “admit” the civilian death toll was 50 percent lower than what was being claimed, a quickly debunked and borderline willful misreading of a UN document, a misreading that the UN secretary-general’s office swiftly came forward to correct (a fact left out of The Free Press’ piece).
One year later, The Free Press declared the idea that Israel was engineering a man-made famine that was underway in Gaza a “myth,” even as Israel was in its third month of blocking all food, fuel, and medicine into the territory and at least 57 civilians had already starved to death, most of them children. As recently as this past Sunday, another Free Press article argued that “there isn’t mass starvation as claimed by pro-Hamas propaganda,” which flies in the face of not just basic reality, but testimony from doctors, major news organizations with journalists on the ground, and even the conclusion of President Donald Trump, a supporter of the war.
Just this past June, The Free Press charged simultaneously that there had both been no massacre of Palestinian aid seekers, and that, if there was, Hamas may have been responsible. Of course, since then, not only have Israeli soldiers admitted to shooting aid-seekers but U.S. contractors are coming forward to back up their gruesome stories. These accounts are becoming a near-daily occurrence, with over 1,000 Gazans killed at or close to aid distribution sites in the past two months.
In late May, The Free Press even published a puff piece on the group running these virtual slaughterhouses, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), painting it as an unsung success story, despite ample controversy at the time over its reliance on mercenaries and lack of independence. Two months of bloodshed later, condemnation and calls for GHF’s dismantling are widespread, with one former GHF staffer — a retired U.S. special forces officer — saying he had never witnessed such brutality and indiscriminate violence against “an unarmed, starving population” as at GHF’s distribution centers.
All of these pieces are still up, uncorrected on The Free Press website. And this is by no means an exhaustive list.
When it’s not spreading outright misinformation, The Free Press engages in more insidious propaganda. For instance, it has, depending on the public relations needs of the moment, shifted between ignoring, indignantly denying, and justifying Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals.
When a blast in the war’s first month that killed hundreds at al-Ahli Hospital ignited global outrage, The Free Press jumped on evidence that it may have been an errant Hamas rocket to charge again and again and again, even as recently as two days ago, that the media were rampantly defaming Israel through fake news of crimes it had never committed.
Since then, The Free Press has simply ignored the Israeli attacks on hospitals, often openly done and fully admitted to by the IDF, that have left 94 percent of hospitals in Gaza damaged or destroyed, including just this year attacking al-Ahli at least twice. In fact, both the outlet and Weiss personally pivoted quickly from denying Israel would do such a terrible thing to actively justifying its targeting of hospitals.
Of course, the vast majority of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza are simply never discussed by the outlet. The same goes for Palestinian suffering more generally and the massive and ever-mounting Palestinian death toll, which a group of experts last year concluded is likely undercounted by hundreds of thousands. Typically, the only time these topics are discussed by the outlet is to deny them and to lament their negative effect on Israel.
This is hardly surprising, considering new revelations that The Free Press has serially regurgitated content pushed by the Center for Peace Communications — an organization staffed by figures from pro-Israel think tanks and funded by money from pro-Israel donors.
Another largely absent topic: antisemitism, which is a charge The Free Press exclusively reserves for antiwar protesters, college campuses, teachers unions, Peter Beinart, Ireland, and anyone else who expresses pro-Palestinian sentiment, while it dutifully ignores accusations of antisemitism among Trump appointees and nominees and allies who also happen to be supporters of Israel’s war.
That brings us to the conduct of Weiss herself. She has a personal history of both playing fast and loose with the truth and what can only be described as a high degree of tolerance for anti-Arab and Islamophobic bigotry.
Weiss first rose to prominence due to her efforts to get Muslim and Arab professors at Columbia University fired by accusing them of racism, only for the resulting investigation to find “no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic.” She then later misleadingly claimed she had never tried to get them fired.
The supposedly rabid bigotry of ordinary Muslims is a favorite topic of Weiss, who has previously blamed rising antisemitism in Europe on the Muslim presence there, and warned that European Jews have “reason to worry” because of it. Soon after October 7, she approvingly shared a Free Press article whose central argument was that protests against Israel’s war — dishonestly characterized as hateful antisemitic rallies “celebrat[ing] mass murder in the streets” — were thanks to immigrants from Middle Eastern countries who could be either “80-year-old Armenian retirees or jihadi terrorists plotting another 9/11.” The Free Press later published an error-riddled article explicitly blaming a surge in Canadian antisemitism on Muslim immigration.
At the same time, Weiss has often promoted, often through The Free Press, her “friend” Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali believes that “we are at war with Islam,” which she has called “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death,” that “there is no moderate Islam,” and that it must be “defeated” and “crush[ed],” including by closing all Muslim schools.
Ali has been a favorite of Islamphobic think tanks and neoconservative activists since the Global War on Terror. She has written that “every devout Muslim” at the very least “approved” of Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks and wrote a book that argued that Muslim immigration threatens the rights of Western women, partly because of Muslim men’s supposedly rapacious appetite for sexual violence.
Weiss eagerly promoted that book, spending an hour teeing Hirsi Ali up in a question and answer session to hold forth unchallenged about the dangers of ordinary Muslim men. Elsewhere, Weiss has waxed lyrical about her pride in associating with Hirsi Ali, and that she regards someone’s support for her as a “litmus test.”
If Weiss expressed or promoted any of these same views about Jewish immigrants and Judaism, she would likely be blacklisted in U.S. media, and for good reason. Instead, because they are aimed at Muslims, she is now being richly rewarded.
That a major network like CBS is seriously considering giving Weiss and The Free Press an even bigger platform and the imprimatur of mainstream legitimacy — given not just its promotion of anti-Muslim views, but its history of spreading outright, uncorrected falsehoods — is a sad reflection of the degradation of press standards.
And it seems to only be happening because a top media executive regards Weiss’ history of shoddy journalism less important than her support for Israel’s wars.
July 30, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | CBS News, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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The US media need to make “serious” amends to many people, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, for their active role in spreading the Russiagate hoax following the 2016 presidential election, according to popular Fox News host Greg Gutfeld.
The political commentator, comedian, and author was responding to recent revelations made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who released a trove of documents she described as “overwhelming evidence” of a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials – allegedly led by Barack Obama himself – to politicize intelligence and falsely accuse Donald Trump of colluding with Russia to win the election.
“We cannot let this go. They need to make serious amends because we are still living with the aftermath,” Gutfeld said on his latest show, aired last weekend. “People lost jobs, careers, friends. There need to be consequences.”
“They owe a lot of people an apology. Hell, they even include Putin.”
According to Gutfeld, major American news media outlets “played the starring role in amplifying the subversive plot against the president of the United States.” He dismissed recent claims by the press accusing the Trump administration of trying to “rewrite history,” calling them an “attempt to shift culpability away from themselves and hide the lie they perpetuated for almost a decade.”
Earlier this month, a similar assessment was made by former CIA Director John Ratcliffe. In an interview with the New York Post, he cited an internal review suggesting that American public opinion had been manipulated through repeated media leaks and anonymous sources quoted by The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other major outlets.
Allegations of “Russian collusion” persisted in mainstream media coverage even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no evidence to support the claims. Moscow has repeatedly denied interfering in the US election.
Gabbard described the Trump-Russia probe, widely referred to as Russiagate, as “a years-long coup” against Trump. The US president himself, who has consistently dismissed accusations of ties to Russia as fabricated, praised Gabbard for “exposing” the alleged plot and urged her to “keep it coming.”
July 29, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | New York Times, United States |
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Hamas has firmly denied claims circulating in the media that the Lebanese Army dismantled a Hamas armed training camp in Aley, Lebanon, and called on journalists to prioritize accuracy and professional integrity in their coverage.
In a statement, the Palestinian Resistance movement responded to reports circulated by some media outlets, newspapers, and websites claiming that “the Lebanese army dismantled an armed training camp in the Aley region belonging to Hamas.”
Hamas firmly denied having any armed training camp in the mentioned area or elsewhere in Lebanon, emphasizing that it has no intention of establishing such facilities in the first place.
The movement further emphasized its strong commitment to cooperation and coordination with the Lebanese state and its relevant authorities, as this contributes to maintaining civil peace and strengthening the fraternal Palestinian-Lebanese relationship. It also asserted respect for Lebanese sovereignty under all circumstances.
Hamas also called on all media outlets to adhere to accuracy and objectivity, ensuring that their reporting is guided by professional responsibility to avoid potentially severe repercussions that could further escalate tensions in Lebanon at the hands of the Israeli enemy.
July 28, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Hamas, Lebanon |
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A flurry of mainstream media reports, from Bloomberg, The Guardian, Financial Times, and CNN, among other outlets, claim that climate change is causing rising food prices “worldwide,” based on a single new study. This is false. Bad weather has always impacted crop production, and there is no actual evidence that extreme weather is increasing. Globalization of media coverage is simply making it easier to hear about bad weather elsewhere in the world, meanwhile crop production and yields globally continue to set records – a fact the same media outlets largely ignore.
Focusing on the coverage by Bloomberg, in an article titled “How Climate Change Is Raising Your Grocery Bill,” Bloomberg writers report on a study from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the European Central Bank, which claims price jumps in certain food products are due to “extreme weather they say is linked to climate change.”
Bloomberg claims that consumers around the world “say they are feeling the effects of climate change on their grocery bills, making food unaffordable for some and posing a challenge for central bankers trying to tame inflation.” If true at all, this is almost certainly the effect of media coverage like Bloomberg’s insisting that climate change is responsible, instead of observational evidence of crop production.
It is worth noting that the study uses the term “unprecedented” eight times in the mere four pages of content. To justify their use of the term unprecedented to describe global weather events in the last few years they reference ERA5 surface temperature data going back to 1940, and the standardized precipitation index from CRU going back to 1901. The reason why this is non-scientific and misleading will become clear when we go over the weather events they claim were so “unprecedented.”
Bloomberg discussed a few of the weather events mentioned in the study linking them to increases in the price for specific crops. They first highlighted increases in lettuce and vegetable prices in the United States, driven by droughts in California and Arizona, the former of which Bloomberg claims saw the “driest three-year period ever recorded.” Also mentioned was hurricane Ian. The problem, of course, is that California’s drought was anything but unprecedented. As discussed in the post “Mega-droughts and Mega-floods in the West All Occurred Well Before ‘climate change’ Was Blamed for Every Weather Event,” historical data and proxies show that California has experienced far more widespread and severe periods of drought in the past, some of which lasted as long as two hundred years.
In Asia, Bloomberg says a heatwave impacted South Korean cabbage production. While UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data indicate that cabbage production has been slowly declining after a massive spike in the 1970s, yields have remained stable or increased since 2000. This suggests that economic considerations or political decisions made about the relative benefits of growing cabbage versus other crops that could be grown, or uses the land could be put too, rather than climate, are responsible for changes in production.
Australia also saw high lettuce costs due to flooding in the eastern part of the country in recent years, but the year Bloomberg and the study highlight, 2022, was not unprecedented as they implied. In fact, 2022 was only the sixth “wettest” year on available Australian rainfall records, the wettest year on record was in 1950.
Bloomberg goes on to explain how the study allegedly “found that heat, drought and floods were occurring at an increased intensity and frequency,” which is at odds with available data and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th assessment report, which though it claims an increase in extreme heat has been detected, finds no emergence of increased flooding or drought in the current historical period.
In short, Bloomberg, and the other mainstream media outlets hyping the BSC report, failed to do any fact checking, failed to examine crop trends, and illegitimately linked individual weather events to long-term climate change, despite such events being common in history and there being no discernable trend in an increase in such events amid the slight warming that has occurred in recent years. To be clear, weather is not climate and, despite what unscientific attribution studies claim, no specific weather event can be tied to long-term climate change.
In short, none of the weather events Bloomberg referred to as unprecedented were in fact unique or even rare historically.
Concerning the crops, BSC and the media focuses on the most, lettuce and cabbage, data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show that between 1993 and 2023 (the most recent 30-year period of climate change for which we have available data):
- Lettuce (and chicory – the FAO combines them) production grew approximately 112 percent;
- Lettuce and chicory yields increased by about 4 percent;
- Cabbage production expanded by nearly 75 percent;
- And cabbage yield grew by more than 37 percent. (see the graph below)
Bloomberg does briefly concede that other factors, like El Niño, a totally natural phenomenon, played a role in weather in 2023 and 2024, impacting certain crops. The outlet also begrudgingly admits that “food price shocks typically turn out to be short-term in nature, because high prices incentivize more production, which brings prices back down,” though they try to say that coffee and cattle are exceptions to this rule. Although Bloomberg reports that coffee futures are high, there is no evidence that climate change is actually damaging global coffee production, as explained in Climate Realism posts here, here, and here.
Bloomberg ends with a warning from the study authors, claiming that “slashing greenhouse gas emissions and containing global warming will be key to reducing food price inflation risks,” but this ignores another key aspect of food costs. They are also impacted by the cost to produce food, like when governments increase the price farmers pay for fossil fuel derived pesticides and fertilizers or try to restrict their use. Fossil fuel derived chemicals increase yields with less labor and using much less land. Take a look at Sri Lanka for a good example of what happens when climate action is prioritized over food production.
Never before has it been so easy for the media to report on various weather disasters and crop failures globally, and this certainly has an impact on peoples’ perceptions as well as the ability for studies to try to draw connections that aren’t really backed by data. This Bloomberg piece is nothing more than climate fearmongering; taking disconnected crop shortages from around the world from localized weather events and trying to blame them on climate change, when the truth is that there have always been crops failing somewhere in the world at any given time.
July 27, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Bloomberg |
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In the CBS Boston (CBS-B) article titled “Is extreme heat the new normal in Boston? What hitting 102 degrees tells us about climate change,” Jacob Wycoff claims that Boston’s recent heat wave is a symptom of climate change and the “new normal.” This is misleading. In fact, long-term temperature records do not support the notion that heat waves are becoming more intense or more frequent in Boston or across the United States. Historical weather data shows that extreme heat events in Boston are neither unprecedented nor evidence of a climate emergency. The notion that a few hot days in June are proof of a systemic climate shift is simply not supported by the broader climate record.
“What used to be ‘unusual’ is fast becoming our new normal,” Wycoff writes. “And if we don’t act to slow warming, this kind of heat won’t be the exception, it’ll be the expectation.
“If greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked, Boston’s average summer highs could rise by 9 degrees by 2100,” says Wycoff.
Wycoff’s story, as is usually the case in mainstream media stories about climate change, promotes speculative model projections, while ignoring real world data and trends to the contrary.
It’s a familiar tactic: choose the most aggressive, worst-case emissions scenario and present it as destiny. Climate Central, the source for much of the CBS-B story, uses computer model projections based on RCP 8.5, for example. Yet as noted on Climate Realism, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stepped back from emphasizing RCP 8.5 as a likely pathway, recognizing that is implausible if not impossible.
This climate alarmist framing glosses over essential context: heat waves like the one Boston just experienced have happened before, well before recent increases in carbon dioxide emissions, and are often the result of local urbanization effects—not global climate trends.
Let’s start with the basic fact that the recent heat in Boston, while certainly hot, is far from unprecedented. According to the National Weather Service data, Boston hit a record high of 102 degrees for June on June 24, 2025. But historical data shows that Boston has experienced significantly high temperatures long before modern climate anxieties took hold. Boston’s previous record June temperature of 100℉ was June 6. 1925, 100 years of global warming ago. The highest all time ever recorded temperature in Boston was 104°F in July 1911, followed by 103°F in July 1926. The city also saw 102°F temperatures in 1911, 1975, and 1977. You can see these highs in the graph below with the most recent one on the far right in the figure below.
Figure: Hottest annual temperatures recorded in Boston, Massachusetts for each year between 1893 and 2025.
So, if recently increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is responsible for this “new normal” as Wycoff claims, how did these even hotter events happen in the past when carbon dioxide levels were lower? His narrative falls apart in this context.
So, no—extreme heat is not the new normal in Boston. It’s part of a long-standing, intermittent pattern of hot weather events. In fact, the heat experienced in June 2025 didn’t even break Boston’s all-time record. It was simply the hottest June day since 1872, not the hottest day ever.
Nor are extended heatwaves new to Boston. In June 1872, Boston experienced eight days of temperatures above 90°F. Boston also had a multi-day stretch of 100-degree temperatures in July 1911, a heat wave that was deadlier and more extreme than what the city experienced in June 2025. That 1911 event resulted in numerous fatalities across the Northeast, a fact documented well before climate change became the default explanation for every summer hot spell.
The CBS-B article cites Climate Central’s claim that Boston’s overnight summer temperatures have increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years. But this trend is almost certainly influenced by the well-known Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which causes cities to retain more heat, especially overnight, due to heat-absorbing infrastructure like asphalt, concrete, and buildings. This is not a climate crisis; this is local urbanization.
The UHI effect is well-documented and accounts for much of the localized warming in urban centers. In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) acknowledges that “cities tend to be warmer than rural areas, particularly at night, because buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb heat during the day and release it slowly after the sun goes down.”
Boston, like most major metropolitan areas, has undergone significant growth over the last century. The city’s population has grown substantially over the past 70 years. With more people bringing with them the development of more houses, buildings, streets, bridges, concrete, blacktop, machinery, and denser development, all of which contribute to warmer temperatures. The temperature increase isn’t a global phenomenon playing out on a Boston street corner—it’s a localized, urbanized one.
Furthermore, the idea that climate change is singularly responsible for making hot days “six times more common” in Boston is based on computer model forecasting, not measured trends. CBS-B leans heavily on Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index, which is a modeled estimate—not direct measurement—of climate influence. These types of attributions rely on climate models that, as Climate Realism has repeatedly shown, consistently overstate future warming compared to observed reality. Research by Roy Spencer Ph.D., has demonstrated that most climate models overestimate warming by up to 50 percent compared to satellite data.
What CBS-B also fails to mention is that heat-related deaths in the U.S. have been declining, not increasing. Thanks to modern air conditioning, improved healthcare, and public awareness, society is far more resilient to heat than it was a century ago. According to a 2022 study published in The Lancet, cold weather still kills significantly more people than heat does.
The CBS-B story is a prime example of lazy climate reporting. It cherry-picks recent temperatures, ignores over a century of weather history, and repeats activist talking points without challenge. CBS-B’s failure to carry out basic fact checking resulted in a story that was alarmingly misleading. The story is an example of the type of “journalism” that is eroding the public’s trust in journalists and mainstream media outlets they report for.
July 18, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | CBS |
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Moscow has dismissed a US media report claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Iran to accept a nuclear deal that would strip it of the right to enrich uranium, calling it a dirty ploy to stoke tensions in the region.
In a statement on Sunday, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed Western outlets as a “tool” in the hands of the political establishment and “deep state,” which it said does not hesitate to resort to any means, including provocative acts and “fake news.”
Russian officials singled out the US outlet Axios, which it described as a “toilet tank” that consistently spreads targeted disinformation, mentioning in particular its recent article titled “Scoop: Putin urges Iran to take ‘zero enrichment’ nuclear deal with US, sources say.”
The Axios story, the ministry said, was “apparently yet another dirty, politicized campaign launched with the aim of escalating tensions around Iran’s nuclear program.” It also reiterated that Moscow’s position remains that the crisis around Iran’s nuclear program should be resolved “exclusively by political and diplomatic means.”
On Friday, Axios reported, citing European and Israeli officials, that Putin told both US President Donald Trump and officials in Tehran following the 12-day Israel-Iran war that he would support a nuclear deal involving “zero enrichment.”
One European official told the paper that Putin encouraged Tehran to move in this direction in order to aid talks with Washington, but noted that the Iranians declined to consider the idea.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing sources, reported that Tehran had received no such messages from Putin.
The US has insisted that Iran commit to zero enrichment as part of a potential nuclear deal, a demand Tehran has dismissed as unacceptable, explaining it needs such capacity for its civilian nuclear program. Iran also maintains it has no plans to create a nuclear bomb.
July 13, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Iran, Russia, United States |
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For the third time, the Israeli regime has declared an implausible success rate in intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles, this time touting a fanciful figure of 86 percent, a claim parroted with little scrutiny by much of the Western mainstream media.
This week, Israeli media outlets relayed statements from the regime’s war ministry claiming that 86 percent of Iranian missiles and 99 percent of drones were intercepted during the June 2025 Israeli war against Iran.
The figures, they said, were drawn from 12 days of the war, during which Iran launched 532 ballistic missiles in approximately 42 barrages targeting the occupied Palestinian territories. According to the same sources, about 300 missiles landed in “open areas,” while 200 were allegedly intercepted by Israeli and American air defense systems.
The interception systems credited include Israel’s David’s Sling, Arrow 2 and 3, along with the US-supplied THAAD and Aegis systems, altogether costing around 5 billion shekels, or nearly $1.5 billion.
In a triumphant assessment, the Israeli war ministry claimed their interception prevented over $15 billion in potential property damage and “saved countless lives.”
Some Zionist officials went even further, asserting that only 25 to 31 Iranian ballistic missiles actually struck targets within the occupied territories.
Despite the glaring inconsistencies in these numbers, and their defiance of both available evidence and basic mathematics, Western media repeated the claims almost reverently, offering little in the way of critical examination.
A pattern of fabricated success
This is not a one-off occurrence. It marks the third time the Israeli regime has released clearly falsified data on interception success rates, only to see these narratives absorbed uncritically into Western discourse.
After Iran’s Operation True Promise 1 and 2 in April and October last year, Israeli regime officials boasted a now-familiar “99 percent” interception rate. In the second operation alone, they claimed 200 Iranian ballistic missiles were launched, implying that only two managed to bypass Israeli defenses.
Yet satellite imagery tells a vastly different story. At Nevatim Airbase, one of the three key Iranian targets (alongside Tel Nof Airbase and Mossad headquarters), 33 Iranian missiles made direct contact, 26 of which caused severe structural damage, including to five hangars.
These figures alone debunk Israel’s exaggerated claims, as does independent footage from civilian sources, which recorded dozens of strikes, far more than the “three” the regime was willing to admit.
Tel Nof Airbase saw direct hits that triggered secondary explosions among stored munitions. At least two missiles impacted areas near Mossad’s headquarters. In total, over 40 Iranian missiles successfully penetrated much-hyped Israeli defenses during Operation True Promise 2, twenty times more than Israeli officials conceded.
Their missile launch count was also exaggerated. Visual evidence confirms that 53 missiles were launched in three waves: 25 from Kermanshah, 18 from Tabriz, and 10 from Shiraz. This suggests that over 75 percent of Iranian missiles struck their intended targets, an accuracy rate far closer to Iranian estimates of 90 percent than the Israeli claim of 1 percent success.
The same distortions appeared after Operation True Promise 1, with Israel again insisting it intercepted “99 percent of 300 missiles and drones”—a figure clearly contradicted by publicly available footage capturing numerous impacts.
Latest round of deception
As with the previous two retaliatory operations, the latest Israeli claims, of an 86 percent interception rate, 300 harmless impacts in open areas, and only 30 successful Iranian strikes, lack any verifiable evidence.
Most Iranian retaliatory strikes and Israeli interception attempts occurred at night and were recorded in numerous public videos. These show luminous streaks of incoming missiles, and often, impact explosions, across the occupied territories.
All Israeli systems engaged, David’s Sling, Arrow 2/3, and THAAD use hit-to-kill technology, designed to intercept missiles at long ranges and high altitudes. When successful, these intercepts generate massive hypersonic collisions that produce blinding explosions visible across the region.
If Israel had indeed intercepted 200 ballistic missiles, as claimed, there would be a flood of corroborating footage from personal and security cameras, all time- and date-stamped.
But such evidence is conspicuously absent. Even the Israeli military, known for showcasing its “successes,” has failed to release convincing proof.
Nor is there any physical evidence of widespread missile debris in Iraq or Jordan, which should exist if large numbers of missiles had been intercepted in those areas.
Conversely, hundreds of videos document Iranian missiles piercing Israeli defenses and detonating across the occupied territories. If most Iranian missiles were truly falling into uninhabited open zones, as claimed, the regime would be eager to release images proving it. Instead, photo and video censorship has been rigorously enforced.
In fact, the scale of destruction suggests widespread strikes on Israeli military infrastructure, not craters in farmland. Israeli media themselves have pegged total damage at $12 billion, with projections reaching $20 billion when indirect costs are counted.
These staggering figures are inconsistent with the claim that only 25–31 missiles hit, unless one believes each missile inflicted $500, 800 million in damage, an implausible notion.
The official 86 percent success rate also contradicts a statement by a senior Israeli intelligence officer to American media, who admitted that by the seventh day of fighting, only 65 percent of Iranian missiles were being intercepted.
He attributed this drop in effectiveness to Iran’s deployment of faster, more maneuverable, and more sophisticated missiles.
Initially, Iran had used older liquid-fueled ballistic missiles, such as Shahab-3, known for their slow speed and predictable trajectories, making them easier to intercept. However, these outdated models were paired with decoys, confusing air defense systems and draining interceptor stockpiles.
Despite the extensive documentation of missile attacks, no comprehensive analysis has yet detailed how many Iranian missiles and Israeli interceptors were deployed, or what the true interception rate was.
Open-source analysts have attempted estimates using nighttime footage from Jordanian photographer Zaid M. al-Abbadi, but his recordings cover only a fraction of the conflict, nighttime only, with limited geographical and vertical scope.
Nonetheless, they point to a clear trend: Iranian missiles breached Israeli air defenses far more often than official figures admit, and did so with a frequency higher than the number of interceptors deployed.
Diversions and disinformation
In addition to exaggerating interception figures, the Israeli regime employs a range of propaganda tactics to conceal its failures and downplay Iranian achievements.
During Operation True Promise 1, iconic images of glowing Iranian missiles above Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds stunned the world, symbolizing Iran’s reach and resolve.
In response, Israeli regime officials, most notably UN ambassador Gilad Erdan, offered the bizarre narrative that Israel was “protecting Al-Aqsa from Iranian missiles,” attempting to sow discord between Iran and the wider Muslim world.
In truth, those missiles were aimed at Nevatim Airbase, located 65 kilometers south of occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.
Similarly, during Operation True Promise 3, Israeli propagandists claimed Iran had deliberately struck the Al-Jarina Mosque in Haifa. In reality, a missile hit the Sail Tower regime building complex 50 meters southeast, with the mosque sustaining only minor facade damage from shockwaves.
Israel also falsely alleged Iranian attacks on schools and homes. But released images show damage consistent not with Iranian warheads, but with malfunctioning Israeli interceptors.
Perhaps the most egregious example was the claim that Iran targeted Soroka Hospital. In fact, the damage was from a strike on a nearby C4I military intelligence HQ. The regime routinely positions military infrastructure adjacent to civilian areas, then manipulates resulting collateral damage as evidence of Iranian wrongdoing.
Facilities like the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv and the military-linked Weizmann Institute are presented as “civilian” in official narratives. Moreover, videos of Iranian missile strikes on these sites are heavily censored, and sharing such footage risks severe legal punishment.
Finally, Israeli propaganda claims that missile victims are mostly “non-Israelis”—while failing to mention that non-Jewish residents are often banned from entering bomb shelters.
During the recent war, Palestinians, Chinese workers, and Turkish journalists all testified to being denied shelter access, highlighting both systemic discrimination and the hypocrisy of Israeli victimhood narratives.
July 5, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Sensationalist weathermen in Germany losing credibility, get mocked and ridiculed.
Meteorologists are discovering that if they want to get attention from the media and more clicks and and likes (short term), then all they have to do is announce fictional heatwaves that weather models routinely hallucinate 10-14 days out. “Temperatures could soar to 40°C!”
German online Weltwoche reports on this phenomenon with a recent article titled: “The “heatwave” to be followed by the “red hot wave”: the climate alarmists are taking themselves to the point of absurdity and losing all credibility.”
In an attempt to sensationalize hot summer weather to convey climate urgency and panic, some German meteorologists have been bombarding their viewers with alarming headlines, like: “This summer threatens to shatter all weather records!”
These climate alarmists have been fixated on regular weather extremes and using dramatic imagery of storms, droughts, and collapsing Swiss mountains to sway public opinion – while totally ignoring the lack of statistical evidence for an increase in such phenomena.
Weltwoche, reports, however, that the increasingly shrill weather rhetoric is backfiring, leading to greater mistrust among a growing number of skeptics who use social media platforms like X to mock and ridicule the sensationalized claims.
Thanks to social media, Weltwoche concludes that the era of media monopolies on truth is over: “But the shriller the battle cries of the climate alarmists, the less credible they become.”
June 21, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Germany |
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Yesterday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired every single member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—the influential group of experts that decides which vaccines are added to the childhood schedule.
Today, he set fire to the media’s hysterical reaction.
Within 24 hours, legacy outlets and public health institutions lost their collective minds. Former CDC directors, industry-funded doctors, and conflicted public health groups lined up to denounce Kennedy’s move as reckless, anti-scientific, even deadly.
“This is a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe,” said former CDC director Dr Tom Frieden.
“Unilaterally removing the entire panel of experts is reckless,” said paediatrician Dr Tina Tan to The New York Times.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said it was “deeply troubled and alarmed.” It claimed the move would “stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines”—this from the same organisation that has spent decades pushing the childhood vaccine schedule while taking money from the very companies that profit from it.
Others framed it as a political purge, a blow to science, or a “coup” that would bring back measles and polio.
But within hours, Kennedy hit back—and this time, he wasn’t the outsider being easily dismissed. He was the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And he came armed with evidence, receipts, and a brutal takedown of the media’s favourite falsehoods.
In a searing post on X, Kennedy explained the decision.
He said the clean sweep was necessary because ACIP had demonstrated its “stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children.”
And despite the media’s insistence otherwise, Kennedy argued that no routine injected childhood vaccine on the CDC’s schedule had ever been approved based on a placebo-controlled trial using an inert substance.
CNN had tried to prove him wrong last week—claiming it had found “257 placebo-controlled studies” of vaccines on the schedule.
Kennedy dismantled it in forensic detail.
“CNN is wrong,” he wrote. “No routine injected vaccine on CDC’s schedule was licensed for children based on a placebo-controlled trial. That is not conjecture. It is a fact based on FDA’s clinical trial data.”
Then came the body blows.
He pointed out that most of the 257 studies used active substances like aluminium, antibiotics, or other vaccines—not inert placebos.
He linked directly to FDA definitions of “placebo” and to official clinical trial records. Of the few studies that may have used saline controls, none were relied on by the FDA to license a single routine vaccine for American children.
Some studied products that were never approved in the US. Some occurred after licensure. Others involved discontinued vaccines. “CNN’s list ironically proves the lack of adequate safety trials,” Kennedy wrote in a stinging rebuke.
The post was devastating.
It was a clinical takedown of an industry riddled with deception—and it landed—because this time, Kennedy wasn’t being filtered through a hostile press.
He was speaking directly to the public, as a government official, with all the links to back it up. And the media couldn’t handle it.
Predictably, the media rolled out the same tired “experts” to recycle the same tired script—Paul Offit quotes, panic about “undermining trust,” warnings that children would die.
But Kennedy turned the whole thing inside out.
“We’ve gone from three routine injections by age one in 1986 to 25 in 2025,” he wrote. “And not one of them was licensed using a placebo-controlled trial.”
He said it plainly for the cameras: “That is just malpractice. So the people who are in charge of that are now gone.”
For years, the press had written Kennedy off as an anti-vaxxer and moved on. Now, they’ve thrown everything at him—and he threw it right back. Only now, he has the authority, data, and reach.
Kennedy told his followers he’d be announcing replacements in the coming days—no “ideological anti-vaxxers” just “highly credentialed physicians and scientists” committed to evidence, objectivity, and common sense.
Legacy media may still control the headlines, but they can no longer suppress the debate.
And perhaps that’s what really has them rattled.
They’re not defending science. They’re defending a regime of experts who signed off on decades of vaccine approvals without ever insisting on rigorous, inert-placebo safety trials.
When Kennedy calls them out, their only defence is to scream “danger!”—and hope no one checks the fine print.
Yesterday, he fired the gatekeepers. Today, he exposed the game.
June 11, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | ACIP, CDC, CNN, New York Times, United States |
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Any discussion about the future of UNIFIL falls solely under the authority of the UN Security Council, the spokesperson for UNIFIL clarified to Al Mayadeen, noting that the force remains committed to coordinating with the Lebanese Army and insists on the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Al Mayadeen, “There are currently no talks about UNIFIL’s future,” adding that “any such discussion would take place within the UN Security Council.”
Meanwhile, a US State Department spokesperson told Al Mayadeen in a short briefing that the recent reports claiming the United States intends to end the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon are inaccurate.
Tenenti stated that UNIFIL continues its operations in southern Lebanon in full cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces. He emphasized that Israeli forces should withdraw from their occupied positions in the area, noting that the UN Security Council alone holds the authority to assess whether UNIFIL’s ongoing presence remains necessary and effective.
“Restoring stability to southern Lebanon depends on Israel’s withdrawal from recently occupied positions,” he added.
Lebanese Army is adhering to resolution 1701
Tenenti also affirmed that the Lebanese Army remains committed to implementing UN Resolution 1701, deploying to required areas in close coordination with UNIFIL forces.
When asked about French troops, he responded: “I don’t distinguish between the role of French forces and UNIFIL, all are fulfilling their duties under Resolution 1701.”
The statement follows reports in Israeli media claiming the US and “Israel” agreed to terminate UNIFIL’s operations in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom cited sources claiming that “the United States and Israel have agreed to end UNIFIL’s operations in southern Lebanon.” According to the report, the US administration is “not interested in renewing UNIFIL’s mandate,” and “Israel, frankly, isn’t pushing hard to convince them otherwise.”
June 9, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Israel, Lebanon, United Nations, United States |
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The recent events involving India and Pakistan, in a short-lived, conventional and timely conflict, prompt us to reflect carefully on the use and management of media coverage of the conflict.
It is important to remember that the domination of information has to do with the domination of the mind; therefore, the way in which an event is narrated largely defines the perception that the masses will have of it. Controlling the narrative means controlling the majority element of the cognitive-perceptual dimension.
So, let’s look at the facts. A few hours after the massacre of 26 civilians in Pahalgam on 22 April, the main Indian media had already passed judgement. No investigation had yet been launched, no credible claim had been made, nor had any attempt been made to identify specific responsibilities, yet in a very short time the dominant narrative had been established: Pakistan was to blame.
What happened next represents a new critical point in the information war that now accompanies every moment of tension between India and Pakistan. In the days that followed, the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi suffered expulsions of staff, Pakistani citizens were ordered to leave India by 30 April, and a decisive digital offensive was launched. Significantly, the Indian authorities blocked Pakistani YouTube channels, froze social media profiles and targeted narratives coming from across the border.
From Islamabad’s point of view, this was not simply a response to terrorism through the media, but rather a form of information terrorism, an occupation of the narrative. This is a key turning point.
The conflict between the two countries has always been marked by propaganda, disinformation and narratives inflamed by the media on both sides and also abroad, where there is a constant attempt to identify with one faction or the other (as is to be expected); but in 2025, the information landscape is not only a subject of contention, it has become colonised territory.
Pakistan, increasingly marginalised in the large international digital spaces, finds itself fighting a narrative war at a disadvantage. The way in which the Indian media reported the Pahalgam attack follows a well-established script: vague intelligence sources, information presented as established facts, inflammatory talk shows launched well before any concrete evidence emerged. Even after Pakistan’s firm denial and request for a joint investigation, the Indian press continued its campaign. Outlets such as Times Now and Republic TV immediately ran alarmist headlines: ‘Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is back’, ‘It’s time for a military response’. Terms such as ‘atrocious’, ‘state-sponsored’ and ‘surgical strike’ dominated the broadcasts, while scientific investigations were still in their early stages.
No independent verification – note this detail – has been made public. The few Pakistani voices invited onto television programmes were promptly attacked. There was no editorial caution, no balance.
It is fair to acknowledge that Pakistan also has a complicated past with press freedom and control of narratives by the authorities, but what emerges today is not a symmetrical conflict, but rather an unbalanced silence.
On 25 April, the Indian Ministry of Information banned 16 YouTube channels, 94 social media accounts and six news sites linked to Pakistan. The official reason? ‘Protection of national security and sovereignty’. The concrete result: the blocking of almost any alternative or critical viewpoint, especially on issues such as Kashmir, the attack on Pahalgam or bilateral relations. Among the platforms affected were independent media outlets such as Naya Daur, channels run by Pakistani scholars abroad and cultural content with no political affiliation. At the same time, official fact-checking units launched a campaign to expose what they called ‘Pakistani disinformation,’ but the content removed also included material based on authoritative international sources, archive articles that were still valid, and statements taken out of context. The result was a sharp restriction of freedom of expression and access to certain local sources. Even diplomatic communications were not spared. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry saw many of its official posts on X (formerly Twitter) blocked, including statements calling for calm. On 29 April, the hashtag #FalseFlagPahalgam, widely shared in Pakistan, was virtually invisible on platforms accessible from Indian territory.
Tensions reached a new peak on 7 May 2025, when India struck civilian and military targets in Punjab and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, sparking fears of a serious escalation. Islamabad called the operation ‘a blatant act of war’ and announced that it had shot down five Indian military jets, three of which were also confirmed by international media. India has not yet officially responded to this claim, but anonymous government sources have said that three fighter jets crashed in Indian-controlled Kashmir, without confirming whether they actually belonged to India or Pakistan.
Geopolitical asymmetries
It is precisely in this disproportion that the real asymmetry can be perceived. India, thanks to its technological resources, its links with major global platforms and its ability to influence algorithms, controls the digital narrative. Pakistan, on the other hand, is often its victim. The result is a one-sided war of narratives, in which Delhi sets the terms of the debate and Islamabad is relegated to the role of designated culprit.
The internal consequences are no less serious: increased Islamophobia, similarities between Kashmiri identity and jihadism, and some localised tensions. Hashtags such as #PunishPakistan and #MuslimTerror have spread widely without control, while Pakistani responses denouncing violence or discrimination have been labelled as disinformation and deleted.
This double standard only fuels radicalism on both sides. It pushes young Pakistanis towards closed and polarised environments and makes it increasingly difficult to build peaceful bridges between the two peoples. What was once a space for cultural diplomacy is now a digital minefield. The silence of big tech and Western media in the face of India’s censorship is significant: when an authoritarian regime represses dissent, it is called tyranny; when India does so in the name of ‘national security’, it is praised as moderate. Pakistan has asked for the opportunity to defend itself in the information arena and has been effectively denied, leaving it at an international disadvantage.
The absence of real journalistic scrutiny signals a deeper evil: narrative has replaced facts. The struggle for dominance is now being fought with tweets, headlines and talk shows.
At this level of conflict, the gap between what is true and what is plausible becomes very difficult to discern. Do you understand how powerful this tool is? The frame within which the narrative is placed is what determines how the ‘truth’ of that event will be constructed.
The example of India and Pakistan teaches us that there is no need to fire guns, even in a historical conflict such as theirs. Words work much better. Because even when the guns have fired, there will still be ‘good guns’ and ‘bad guns’, and that value judgement will be made by the way people perceive what happened, not by an objective or rationally agreeable truth.
In all this, the great media victory is that a narrative front has been opened up that can easily be used by other global powers and could be employed by some of them to drag other adversarial countries into an information conflict. Russia, China, the UK and the US have interests at stake and could become part of this expanded infowar front. Because in the world of information, war does not have the space and time limitations of conventional warfare: everything is fast, fluid, constantly expanding and contracting, and knows no night or day.
Information warfare may save more lives, but it claims more victims. Lives are saved because direct killing can be avoided; victims are claimed because everyone involved will inevitably be hit by the weapon of information.
May 27, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | India, Kashmir, Pakistan |
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“For posterity’s sake.” Those words from President Joe Biden sum up the crushing impact of the leaked audiotapes from the interview between then-President Joe Biden and Special Counsel Robert Hur. Not only did they remove any serious doubt over Biden committing the federal crimes charged against President Donald Trump, but they also constituted what is akin to a political racketeering indictment against much of the Washington establishment.
The interview from Oct. 8-9, 2023, has long been sought by Congress, but was kept under wraps by the government even as Biden campaigned for a second term.
Many of us balked at Hur’s conclusion that no charges were appropriate despite the fact that the President removed classified material for decades, stored it in grossly negligent ways, and moved it around to unsecure locations, including his garage in Delaware.
Given President Donald Trump’s indictment for the same offenses, it was hard to imagine how the Special Counsel could not recommend the same criminal charges (presumably after he left office).
Instead, Hur declared it would have been hard to get a jury to convict Biden because he was “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
It appears that Trump, on the other hand, was presumptively not sympathetic or well-meaning and possessed a good memory for prosecution.
The contrast was glaring and only reinforced the view of many citizens that there are two tracks for justice in Washington.
Soon after the report’s release, President Biden gave an irate press conference in which he lied about the findings of his culpability and lashed out at any suggestion that he had gapped or stumbled in the interview.
For example, when reporters raised how Biden forgot when his son Beau died, Biden angrily responded, “How in the hell dare he raise that?” Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.
However, it was not Hur but Biden himself who raised the death of his son, and he forgot a wide array of dates, including when he served in office.
The interview shows that in 2023 it was clear that Biden was mentally diminished despite claims from many allies and former aides that there was a sudden loss of capacity just before the disastrous debate in 2024. It is now undeniable that the White House staff actively hid the president’s incompetence from the American public. That includes the White House press secretary Jen Psaki (who left her post in May 2022) and Karine Jean-Pierre who insisted that Biden was sharp and “running circles” around the staff.
Of course, the media is now covering the story after the public saw the truth in the debate. Figures like CNN’s Jake Tapper have even written books that belatedly pursue the question despite previously insisting that there was no evidence of a diminishment in Biden’s mental state.
Tapper repeatedly dismissed the claim and even mocked Lara Trump for raising it. In one interview, he pushed a White House talking point that such suggestions were mocking Biden for a childhood stutter:
“It’s so amazing to me- a ‘cognitive decline.’ I think you were mocking his stutter. Yeah. I think you were mocking his stutter and I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline. I would think somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from afar.”
When Lara Trump insisted that this was clearly evidence of a “very concerning” cognitive decline, Tapper dismissed her statement by saying “Thank you, Lara. I’m sure it’s from a place of concern. We all believe that.”
Keep in mind that others beyond Lara Trump were raising this issue and there were tapes showing physical and mental diminishment. The media simply refused to seriously pursue the story until the cover-up no longer mattered after the debate.
Over on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough was equally apoplectic at those raising the issue and stated
start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years… If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it
This media effort continued all the way up to the debate itself. On CNN, Oliver Darcy wrote, “Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.”
Once the public found out, the media was ready to tell the story when there was no longer any advance or ability to deny it. Articles began to appear with the same realization of “Oh you meant THAT mental decline. Well sure.”
It was the same belated acknowledgment that came, after the election, with Hunter Biden’s laptop. The media just moved on with a shrug and a collective “our bad” concession.
As for the President himself, the one moment of clarity in the interview may have been his most incriminating line. When asked why he removed classified material on Afghanistan, Biden admitted “I guess I wanted to hang on to it for posterity’s sake.”
That is precisely what critics on CNN and MSNBC accused Trump of doing: removing material as types of keepsakes or trophies.
One president was indicted for that and one was sent along his way to a second term in office.
The real indictment that comes out of these tapes is a type of political racketeering enterprise by the Washington establishment. It took a total team effort from Democratic politicians to the White House staff to the media to hide the fact that the President of the United States was mentally diminished. If there were a political RICO crime, half of Washington would be frog-marched to the nearest federal courthouse.
Of course, none of this complicity in the cover-up is an actual crime. It is part of the Washington racket.
After all, this is Washington, where such duplicity results not in plea deals but book deals.
May 18, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | United States |
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