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Using ‘Russiagate’ & ‘bounties’ logic, anonymous officials claim GRU behind mysterious ‘sonic attacks’ on US spies

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | May 11, 2021

Mysterious “sonic attacks” a scientist had identified as the work of crickets are now being blamed on some kind of Russian secret sci-fi superweapon by anonymous US officials, using the same script as “bounties” and ‘Russiagate’.

The “suspected directed-energy incidents” that have allegedly afflicted US diplomats and spies around the world may have been the work of “Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU,” Politico claimed on Monday, citing “three current and former officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.”

Both the CIA and the State Department are looking into the alleged attacks, but “all 18 federal intelligence agencies” are now focusing on the GRU’s “potential involvement” according to one anonymous congressional official. That makes it highly likely the source is someone from the office of House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-California), best known as the promoter of the conspiracy theory that Russia “hacked our democracy” in 2016.

That part about “18 intelligence agencies” is almost verbatim the “17 intelligence agencies” line used in Russiagate. The Space Force has added another agency in the meantime, you see. Trouble is, only select teams from four – the FBI, CIA, NSA and ODNI – ended up actually involved in the Russiagate document.

They produced an assessment that the alleged meddling was “consistent with the methods and motivations” they attributed to Moscow.  Compare that to Politico quoting one former national security official, who said it “looks, smells and feels like the GRU.”

“When you are looking at the landscape, there are very few people who are willing, capable and have the technology. It’s pretty simple forensics,” said the anonymous former official, somehow supposedly still in the loop.

Another former official said that Israel and China may also have the technology, but not a presence in all the locations of the alleged incidents, or desire to attack Americans. But Russia does? Again, no evidence, or even explanation what any of this is supposed to be based on.

Politico’s sources also admitted no specific weapon was identified, but that didn’t stop them from speculating about a device that could fit into a car or a large backpack, capable of targeting an individual from 500 to 1,000 yards away. Does any such weapon actually exist?

Now that the KGB is no more, US propagandists love pointing the finger at GRU – which hasn’t been known under that name for a decade, by the way. The agency has been accused of everything and anything – without evidence – from hacking the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta and running WikiLeaks in 2016, to paying “bounties” to the Taliban to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

The “Russian bounties” story – likewise based on anonymous sources – emerged just in time to derail President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2020, and give then-candidate Joe Biden ammunition to call Trump unpatriotic. After Biden was installed in the White House and announced that he would withdraw from Afghanistan, the “bounties” story was downgraded to “low confidence” and quietly dropped.

Politico’s bombshell speculation was picked up and parroted just as quickly and uncritically as the bounties story had been. In doing so, outlets around the world ignored the publication’s warning earlier in the day that the White House communications team handles all the quotes emanating from administration officials.

While Biden campaigned on “following the science” – a phrase the 78-year-old is fond of repeating in speeches – that commitment seems entirely absent from discussions of the alleged sonic incidents. Back in January 2019, a US Berkeley scientist said he had analyzed the recordings of the “attacks” published by AP and identified them as the chirping of the Indies short-tailed cricket.

Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator.

May 11, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Leading Russiagate conspiracy theorist appointed to key national security role at Biden’s Department of Justice

RT | May 10, 2021

Susan Hennessey, a former Obama-Biden administration lawyer who turned to promoting the Russiagate conspiracy theory during Donald Trump’s presidential term, has finally found her landing spot on President Joe Biden’s team.

Hennessey announced the move herself after seemingly scrubbing her Twitter account of Russiagate tweets, saying on Monday that she’s “honored to be joining the extraordinary team at the Department of Justice (DOJ).” In fact, she will be senior counsel in the DOJ’s National Security Division.

In between her roles with Obama-Biden and now Biden-Harris, Hennessey served as one of the more unhinged voices of the anti-Trump “#Resistance” and supported the Russiagate propaganda campaign through jobs as CNN analyst, Lawfare blog executive editor and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.

Responding to the appointment, journalist Glenn Greenwald called Hennessey “one of the most deranged Russiagate conspiracists.”

One of her Lawfare articles defended the widely discredited Steele dossier, suggesting that the mere fact the anti-Trump “intelligence community” had briefed the president-elect on the sordid allegations gave the report credibility. Even the fact that then-intelligence director James Clapper – later a CNN contributor and anti-Trump media activist – refrained from calling the dossier false meant that it must be at least partly true, she argued.

Hennessey’s attacks on Trump were wide-ranging, from the more minor “clearly, Melania hates him,” jab, to arguing that FBI officials “were telling the truth” when they misled the court to secretly spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. She even wrote a book saying that Trump was waging “war on the world’s most powerful office.”

When then-presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard suggested in 2019 that the US should pursue calm and better relations with Russia, Hennessey called the Democrat congresswoman “absurd.” She blasted Attorney General Bill Barr last year after the DOJ dropped charges against ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, saying there should be mass resignations from the DOJ, despite a review having determined that the case against the retired general was “unjustified.”

Journalist Michael Tracey said it was “blatant, transparent corruption” for Hennessey to seamlessly transition from NSA lawyer to Russiagate propagandist, then shift right back to the “National Security State” after Trump was ousted.

“Hunter Biden getting hired to run DEA would be less absurd than Biden’s decision to hire Hennessey to work on national security law, unless of course DOJ plans to falsify evidence and illegally spy on its political opponents,” Federalist co-founder Sean Davis said. “She’s perfect for that.”

May 10, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Fake News About Invented US Enemies

By Stephen Lendman | May 7, 2021

Virtually all nations vilified by both wings of the US war party and their press agent media are good neighbors.

They respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries, according to the rule of law.

Bipartisan hardliners in Washington, their predecessors, and establishment media echo chamber pretend otherwise.

Left unexplained is that China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and other nations outside US control prioritize peace over perpetual wars on invented enemies — how hegemon USA operated throughout most of the post-WW II period.

Iran notably hasn’t attacked another country in centuries. It threatens none now — except in self-defense against aggression, its UN Charter Right.

Former US official Elliot Abrams remains free from prosecution for numerous war crimes in multiple theaters since the 1980s.

Established in 1997, he was a Project for the New American Century (PNAC) signatory.

Comprised of neocon extremists like himself, it openly advocated for US global dominance by brute force if lesser tactics failed to achieve its hegemonic aims.

Many of its members like Abrams held high-level positions in Washington —promoting endless wars on invented enemies, rejecting peace, stability and the rule of law.

On May 5, Abrams turned truth on its head with the following remarks, saying:

Iran “continue(s) clandestine efforts to build a nuclear weapon (sic) and its refusal to allow mandated inspections (sic).”

Reality is polar opposite Abrams’ thinly veiled mass deception.

No Iranian nuclear weapons existed earlier, none now, no intention to develop what its ruling authorities want eliminated everywhere.

What Abrams knows, he conceals, along with ignoring nuclear armed and dangerous Israel — maintaining an arsenal of these weapons for over half a century.

Phony claims about an Iranian nuclear weapons program — including by Israel’s Netanyahu — were long ago debunked.

As for Abrams, he lost credibility multiple times over — including after being indicted for lying to Congress.

Once a liar, always one. He pled guilty to two lesser offenses of withholding information from Congress to avoid a trial, possible conviction and imprisonment.

On Christmas night 1992, GHW Bush pardoned him and other Iran-Contra defendants – their high crimes forgiven, not forgotten.

Most recently, he repeated his crime spree as Trump’s special representative for regime change in Venezuela and Iran — failing on both counts.

He lied claiming Iran “seek(s) technology in Europe that it needs to develop weapons of mass destruction (sic).”

He lied saying that Iran “was turning to Europe in its quest for weapons of mass destruction.”

He lied accusing Iran “of carrying out industrial espionage aimed at products that could be used to make nuclear weapons.”

He lied claiming “Iran continues actively to seek the elements it needs to build nuclear weapons.”

Virtually everything he said about Iran in his propaganda piece was a bald-faced Big Lie.

Abrams long ago proved he’s a serial liar, a figure who can never be trusted.

Like other current and former US hardline officials, he’s militantly hostile toward all nations free from its imperial control.

Separately on Thursday, Press TV reported that the Biden regime and subservient E3 countries made unacceptable new demands on Iran which it rejects.

They insist that Tehran destroy its legitimate “new-generation (IR-4, IR-6 and IR-9) centrifuges in return for a temporary suspension of some of the sanctions related to the” JCPOA.

Not only won’t Iran agree to unacceptable US-led Western demands, if their ruling regimes insist on them, the JCPOA may unravel altogether.

Unacceptable demands reflect typical US duplicity, colonized EU countries going along with what no responsible governments would accept.

Their demands are unreasonable in return for promises made to be broken like virtually always before.

Biden to date continues Trump’s maximum pressure.

Hardliners running his geopolitical agenda have no intention of negotiating in good faith with any countries free from US control.

In 2018, after Trump’s unlawful JCPOA pullout, I asked: Is the JCPOA Doomed?

At the time, I said that preserving the landmark agreement depends on all its signatories — including the US — fulfilling their mandated obligations, what clearly hasn’t happened.

Last year, earlier this year, and after Vienna talks began, I asked the same question.

The US and E3 flagrantly breached international law by failing to comply with JCPOA provisions.

As long as this continues, the landmark nuclear deal indeed is doomed.

To date, talks in Vienna achieved nothing positive.

Iran justifiably demands that all illegally imposed sanctions since 2016 be lifted.

At most, Biden regime hardliners may selectively rescind some, not all.

At the same time, they unilaterally reserve the right to impose new illegal sanctions at their discretion.

As long as this policy remains hard-wired, there’s no chance to save the JCPOA.

While nothing is certain ahead, that’s the most likely outcome.

When claims of progress in Vienna talks are made, they’re more illusory than real.

Whenever the US negotiates on any issues — directly or in the wings as in Vienna — it can never be trusted because whatever it may sign onto most likely will unravel ahead because of its noncompliance or abandonment of what was agreed on.

That’s why good faith diplomatic outreach by nations like Iran with the US most likely become exercises in futility.

Chances to save the JCPOA are slim at best.

Most likely it’ll unravel entirely ahead because of unacceptable US/Western demands and refusal to fulfill their obligations.

A Final Comment

On Thursday, Axios reported that the Biden regime (meaning E3 countries as well) remain far apart (at a) critical stage” of talks.

It’s likely related at least in part to what’s covered above.

Axios cited an unnamed Biden regime official saying the US is preparing for a breakdown in talks, adding:

“If that happens, (its hardliners) will do everything to make sure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon” — what it doesn’t seek.

The above remark is an ominous sign of what may lie ahead.

Based on lack of good faith toward Iran by Biden’s geopolitical team, it’s clear that its hardliners never intended to return to the JCPOA as affirmed by Sec. Council Res. 2231.

Their lack of good faith strongly suggests that the landmark agreement will unravel altogether in the days or weeks ahead.

Is that what they planned all along without publicly admitting it?

May 7, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Wild Exaggeration and Egregious Lies

By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | May 6, 2021

The Covering Climate Now propaganda effort was “co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation in association with The Guardian and WNYC in 2019, CCNow’s 460-plus partners include some of the biggest names in news” with the stated purpose “to produce more informed and urgent climate stories, to make climate a part of every beat in the newsroom”. Their basic document, the CCNow Climate Emergency Statement, claims, in part, “… to preserve a livable planet, humanity must take action immediately. Failure to slash the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make the extraordinary heat, storms, wildfires, and ice melt of 2020 routine and could “render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable…”. To accomplish their goals, CCNow provides its partners with republishable stories from other partners (.pdf), editorial guidance, story writing ideas, a list of talking points labelled Climate Science 101 provided by Katharine Hayhoe.

Important Notice:  Call 911 immediately if you are choking or experiencing chest pains as a result of reading that last sentence – in Europe, dial 112 – in the UK, dial 112 or 999 – in Australia, 000 or 112.

CCNow also supplies NPR’s Climate Guide of mis- and dis-information on climate and their own “fact sheet“ [ sic ] “Who says it’s a climate emergency?” in addition to their list of ten  “Best Practices” for climate propagandists.

If this is your first time hearing about CCNow, please read my previous essays posted here at WUWT, most recently The Climate Propaganda Cabal and Turning Opinion into Science Fact. There are some earlier essays as well – here and here.

Last week, on April 27 2021, CCNow web site posted a list of Nine Pieces We Loved. One of those featured was:

How Warming Oceans Are Accelerating the Climate Crisis — Humans have locked in at least 20 feet of sea level rise—can we still fix it?” by Harold R. Wanless

On the upside, the article in The Nation is clearly and prominently marked:

Adapted from an article for the Florida Climate Reporting Network’s project “The Invading Sea,” this article is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

My quick check of web search results show this article, one week old now, being re-posted or linked 16 times, before I stopped counting.

This article represents the “Big Lie” aspect of professional propaganda. Big Lies sell better, persuade people better than little nit-picky lies.

Here’s the bottom line Big Lie from this CCNow propaganda piece:

The climate emergency is bigger than many experts, elected officials, and activists realize. Humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions have overheated Earth’s atmosphere, unleashing punishing heat waves, hurricanes, and other extreme weather—that much is widely understood. The larger problem is that the overheated atmosphere has in turn overheated the oceans, assuring a catastrophic amount of future sea level rise.

As oceans heat up, the water rises—in part because warm water expands, but also because the warmer waters have initiated a major melt of polar ice sheets. As a result, average sea levels around the world are now all but certain to rise by at least 20 to 30 feet. That’s enough to put large parts of many coastal cities, home to hundreds of millions of people, under water.

Let me point out, unnecessarily for many readers, that not a single phrase or sentence in the first paragraph is true. The second paragraph fares little better. But only because “warm water does rise”  — just not in the odd way Wanless says. [Technically, warming the water in the ocean causes expansion of the ocean’s water  —  the fact the ‘warmer water rises’ is not involved in this – it is the expansion that can lead to rising sea levels.] Nothing else in the second paragraph is true.

I am loathe to exaggerate, as this is what I am accusing CCNow and Wanless of doing, so let’s take a close look:

The climate emergency is bigger than many experts, elected officials, and activists realize.” There is no real physical climate emergency – there is only a shared opinion that there is a climate emergency. At best, the sentence is an unsupported opinion (being presented here as fact). It would be hard for the real climate situation to be bigger (worse) than some of the more bizarre activists and politicians (“we have nine years left” – John Kerry).

“Humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions have overheated Earth’s atmosphere, unleashing punishing heat waves, hurricanes, and other extreme weather—that much is widely understood.” There is no scientific consensus that the Earth’s atmosphere has been “overheated”. Increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are believed to have caused a small amount of warming – but only that since the mid-1900s. Many think that that small warming and the CO2 that may have caused it are beneficial, including some of the smartest people in America. The real data on global heat waves, hurricanes, and extreme weather do not support the claim that the small warming experienced has “unleash[ed] punishing heat waves, hurricanes, and other extreme weather” – that is the climate activist’s preferred meme, not fact. More on the facts are available from the specialized pages on this web site and here. [Readers: Please supply links in comments to reliable graphs showing that the CCNow/Wanless claims are false.] Since this point is broadly contested by experts in wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes and extreme weather, it cannot be said to be “widely understood”.

“The larger problem is that the overheated atmosphere has in turn overheated the oceans, assuring a catastrophic amount of future sea level rise.” The oceans have not overheated – that is simply not true in any sense – it is difficult to even scientifically support that the oceans have warmed in any substantialclimatically important way.  Measuring ocean water temperature is an ongoing project and we have a very short time series of even moderately reliable data. It is madness to claim that the tiny amount (if any) of ocean water warming has “assur[ed] a catastrophic amount of future sea level rise.”   

I will leave parsing the rest of second paragraph to readers. But let’s take a further look at the idea that sea levels are assured to rise “20 to 30 feet”.

Wanless states: But if seas rise 20 feet or more over the next 100 to 200 years—which is our current trajectory—the outlook is grim. In that scenario, there could be two feet of sea level rise by 2040, three feet by 2050, and much more to come.”

That link in there leads to “NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 083 — GLOBAL AND REGIONAL SEA LEVEL RISE SCENARIOS FOR THE UNITED STATES” [ .pdf ] which you will not be surprised says no such thing. The NOAA document does not say that the most extreme (RCP8.5) scenario is our current trajectory at all. And it does not, under any of the scenarios, predict 2 feet of sea level rise by 2040 or three feet by 2050, not even under RCP8.5 (a scenario which is now widely considered highly improbable to impossible).

Even under impossible RCP8.5 conditions, NOAA predicts only 16 inches (2040) and 25 inches (2050) [yellow highlight] – but in the real world, we saw only the 0.03m (30 mm) predicted for 2010 to 2020 for the very lowest scenario [blue highlight]. Wanless apparently gets his claimed our current trajectory to 20-30 feet from the lower right corner, highlighted in red, RCP8.5 at 2200.

Adding insult to injury, Wanless goes on to claim in his article that “Today, oceans are rising six mm a year (over two inches a decade), and this pace will continue to dramatically accelerate.” The only thing correct in this sentence is that 60mm is over two inches. Wanless’s link to a CSIRO page is broken but current sea level rise, according to NOAA:

Not 6 mm/yr, but 3.3 mm/yr, and level for the last two or three years. [source: https://climate.nasa.gov/ to see this graph select Sea Level from right hand bottom section of the graphic at the top of the page.]

You may ask, “How can any article with so many obvious, egregious errors – wild exaggerations, inaccuracies and falsehoods —  get published in The Nation?” That might be the wrong question. Better to ask, “How did it get published by the AGU in  EOS in its science news section?”

The answer is: The NationAGU and EOS are all partners of CCNow.

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) and its associated online magazine, EOS, have abandoned even the pretext of science and opted to join forces with the acknowledged propaganda effort, Covering Climate Now, with its anything-goes push to convince the world that there is a Climate Emergency so they will willingly give up fossil fuels. This example today shows that that effort extends to publishing wild exaggeration and egregious lies to forward The Message – propaganda’s Big Lie in play.

I honestly don’t know how it has come to this and am simultaneously saddened and outraged.

This has now gone far, far beyond the go-along-to-get-along mutual back-patting of climate alarmists at AGU meetings of the 1990’s. Where are the real scientists who are members of the AGU? How can they remain silent when EOS publishes such articles without even a disclaimer. Shame.

May 6, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | 1 Comment

Promoting and Profiting from Mass-Toxification

By Stephen Lendman | May 6, 2021

Founded in 1823, the Lancet calls itself “an independent, international weekly general medical journal (that) strive(s) (for) medicine (to) transform society, and positively impact the lives of people.”

Instead of fulfilling its pledge on all things covid, it’s been going the other way by promoting toxic mass-jabbing to be shunned, never used as directed.

In late April, the Lancet proved it can’t be trusted for falsely claiming the following:

Pfizer and AstraZeneca covid inoculations “have shown excellent safety and efficacy in phase 3 trials (sic).”

One in four people experienced mild, short-lived side effects, usually lasting one or two days (sic), it added.

Inoculations “decrease the risk of (covid) infection after 12 days (sic).”

Pharma-connected epidemiologist Tim Spector was quoted, saying:

“The data should reassure many people that in the real world, after effects of the (jab) are usually mild and short-lived, especially in the over 50’s who are most at risk of the infection (sic).”

“Rates of new disease are at a new low in the UK (sic) due to a combination of social measures and (mass-jabbing), and we need to continue this successful strategy to cover the remaining population.”

“The results also show up to 70% protection after 3 weeks following a single dose (sic), which is fantastic news for the country, especially as more people have now had their second jabs.”

Mathematician — specializing in statistical genetics — Cristina Menni defied reality by claiming that “results support the aftereffects safety of both vaccines with fewer side effects in the general population than reported in the Pfizer and AstraZeneca experimental trials and should help allay safety concerns of people willing to get” jabbed (sic).

All the above rubbish reported by the Lancet is fake news.

It’s part of relentless US-led Western mind-manipulating propaganda to get maximum numbers of unwitting people to self-inflict harm.

The Lancet allied with Western governments, their public health handmaidens, Pharma, and media press agents to all of the above in promoting what’s harmful to health, not beneficial.

There’s nothing remotely safe and beneficial from use of experimental, unapproved Pfizer/Moderna mRNA drugs or AstraZeneca/J & J vaccines for covid.

When used as directed, they risk likely irreversible harm to health or death — sooner or later.

State-sponsored coverup in the West is concealing slow-motion genocide.

According to an unnamed UK National Health Service health professional whistleblower, what’s going on is “genocide… Your children are next.”

In the US, the Pharma-connected FDA is set to OK mass-jabbing emergency use authorization for children aged 12 – 15.

If contract seasonal flu-renamed covid, their risk of serious harm or death is virtually nil.

The survival rate for flu now called covid for individuals under age-70 is 99.95% — 95% for people over age-70.

Mass-jabbing for covid should be banned.

It’s well known that toxins in experimental covid inoculations risks serious harm, nothing beneficial.

Mass-jabbing children should be criminalized, not OK’d and promoted.

State-sponsored draconian social control and depopulation hugely benefit Pharma.

Since mass-jabbing for covid began last December, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J & J have been cashing in big on a bonanza of huge profits.

If things go as planned, the diabolical scheme will be a gift that keeps on giving.

One or two jabs aren’t enough. Plans are for perpetual mass-toxification of unwitting people annually or semi-annually worldwide.

In Q I 2021, about one-fourth of Pfizer’s pharmaceutical revenue came from jabbing with its hazardous mRNA covid drug.

For 2021, the company projects around $26 billion in revenue from covid mass-jabbing — an annual revenue stream it aims to be permanent.

Perhaps so if countless millions of mass deceived people continue to self-inflict harm — the more covid jabs taken, the greater the harm to health near-or-longer-term.

All of the above goes on while the myth of a nonexistent pandemic persists because of the power of establishment media promoted mass deception.

Followers of my writing and likeminded others on this cutting-edge issue of our time know what’s deceptively called covid is garden variety seasonal flu.

It shows up annually without perpetual mass deception fear-mongering.

Until last year, non-beneficial/potentially harmful flu shots were promoted annually.

When for the first time ever, flu disappeared last year — because it was renamed covid — draconian mandates and recommendations have effectively manipulated the public mind in the West and elsewhere to harm health instead of protecting what’s too precious to lose.

If what’s going on continues unchecked because of public ignorance, harm to health in the West and elsewhere is highly likely to be unprecedented and suppressed — so most people will remain unaware of state-sponsored genocide.

It’s unfolding in real time below the radar — Western dark forces and their media press agents convincing most people that what’s harmful and deadly is beneficial.

I’ve stressed before and it bears repeating.

No matter how many times people have been fooled before, they’re easy marks to be duped again and again and again ad infinitum.

It’s because of the power of state-sponsored/media promoted fake news, along with the failure of most people to do minimal due diligence fact-checking.

Every literate person connected online can learn the truth on most all issues that affect their rights, health, and well-being with minimal effort.

Yet most people are easily distracted by bread and circuses.

They’re putty in the hands of manipulative dark forces and their hostile to truth-telling press agents.

We’re consistently lied to and mass deceived about all important domestic and geopolitical issues.

Yet most people are too out-of-touch with reality to notice.

My personal interfacing with individuals intelligent enough to know better but fooled like most others bears out the above reality.

May 6, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

Silicon Valley Algorithm Manipulation Is The Only Thing Keeping Mainstream Media Alive

By Caitlin Johnstone | May 3, 2021

The emergence of the internet was met with hope and enthusiasm by people who understood that the plutocrat-controlled mainstream media were manipulating public opinion to manufacture consent for the status quo. The democratization of information-sharing was going to give rise to a public consciousness that is emancipated from the domination of plutocratic narrative control, thereby opening up the possibility of revolutionary change to our society’s corrupt systems.

But it never happened. Internet use has become commonplace around the world and humanity is able to network and share information like never before, yet we remain firmly under the thumb of the same power structures we’ve been ruled by for generations, both politically and psychologically. Even the dominant media institutions are somehow still the same.

So what went wrong? Nobody’s buying newspapers anymore, and the audiences for television and radio are dwindling. How is it possible that those same imperialist oligarchic institutions are still controlling the way most people think about their world?

The answer is algorithm manipulation.

Last month a very informative interview saw the CEO of YouTube, which is owned by Google, candidly discussing the way the platform uses algorithms to elevate mainstream news outlets and suppress independent content.

At the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Technology Governance Summit, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson that while the platform still allows arts and entertainment videos an equal shot at going viral and getting lots of views and subscribers, on important areas like news media it artificially elevates “authoritative sources”.

“What we’ve done is really fine-tune our algorithms to be able to make sure that we are still giving the new creators the ability to be found when it comes to music or humor or something funny,” Wojcicki said. “But when we’re dealing with sensitive areas, we really need to take a different approach.”

Wojcicki said in addition to banning content deemed harmful, YouTube has also created a category labeled “borderline content” which it algorithmically de-boosts so that it won’t show up as a recommended video to viewers who are interested in that topic:

“When we deal with information, we want to make sure that the sources that we’re recommending are authoritative news, medical science, et cetera. And we also have created a category of more borderline content where sometimes we’ll see people looking at content that’s lower quality and borderline. And so we want to be careful about not over-recommending that. So that’s a content that stays on the platform but is not something that we’re going to recommend. And so our algorithms have definitely evolved in terms of handling all these different content types.”

Progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski has a good video out reacting to Wojcicki’s comments, saying he believes his (entirely harmless) channel has been grouped in the “borderline” category because his views and new subscribers suddenly took a dramatic and inexplicable plunge. Kulinski reports that overnight he went from getting tens of thousands of new subscriptions per month to maybe a thousand.

“People went to YouTube to escape the mainstream nonsense that they see on cable news and on TV, and now YouTube just wants to become cable news and TV,” Kulinski says. “People are coming here to escape that and you’re gonna force-feed them the stuff they’re escaping like CNN and MSNBC and Fox News.”

It is not terribly surprising to hear Susan Wojcicki admit to elevating the media of the oligarchic empire to the CEO of a neoconservative publication at the World Economic Forum. She comes from the same elite empire management background as all the empire managers who’ve been placed in charge of mainstream media outlets by their plutocratic owners, having gone to Harvard after being literally raised on the campus of Stanford University as a child. Her sister Anne is the founder of the genetic-testing company 23andMe and was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Google itself also uses algorithms to artificially boost empire media in its searches. In 2017 World Socialist Website (WSWS) began documenting the fact that it, along with other leftist and antiwar outlets, had suddenly experienced a dramatic drop in traffic from Google searches. In 2019 the Wall Street Journal confirmed WSWS claims, reporting that “Despite publicly denying doing so, Google keeps blacklists to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results.” In 2020 the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet admitted to censoring WSWS at a Senate hearing in response to one senator’s suggestion that Google only censors right wing content.

Google, for the record, has been financially intertwined with US intelligence agencies since its very inception when it received research grants from the CIA and NSA. It pours massive amounts of money into federal lobbying and DC think tanks, has a cozy relationship with the NSA, and has been a military-intelligence contractor from the beginning.

Then you’ve got Facebook, where a third of Americans regularly get their news. Facebook is a bit less evasive about its status quo-enforcing censorship practices, openly enlisting the government-and-plutocrat-funded imperialist narrative management firm The Atlantic Council to help it determine what content to censor and what to boost. Facebook has stated that if its “fact checkers” like The Atlantic Council deem a page or domain guilty of spreading false information, it will “dramatically reduce the distribution of all of their Page-level or domain-level content on Facebook.”

All the algorithm stacking by the dominant news distribution giants Google and Facebook also ensures that mainstream platforms and reporters will have far more followers than indie media on platforms like Twitter, since an article that has been artificially amplified will receive far more views and therefore far more clicks on their social media information. Mass media employees tend to clique up and amplify each other on Twitter, further exacerbating the divide. Meanwhile left and antiwar voices, including myself, have been complaining for years that Twitter artificially throttles their follower count.

If not for these deliberate acts of sabotage and manipulation by Silicon Valley megacorporations, the mainstream media which have deceived us into war after war and which manufacture consent for an oppressive status quo would have been replaced by independent media years ago. These tech giants are the life support system of corporate media propaganda.

May 5, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Climate Propaganda Cabal

By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | May 5, 2021

If you’ve recently read a newspaper, popular magazine, science journal or watched a major television news outlet, you have probably seen news item after news item regarding the Climate Crisis or the Climate Emergency. Story after story, covering medicine, weather, ecology, biology, psychology, emigration, international conflict and pet care, all converge on the single story-line that there is an ongoing, ever-present terrifyingly dangerous Climate Crisis, affecting every aspect of human existence.

As Dr. Judith Curry pointed out,TIME Magazine has published cover story titled Climate is Everything

Where is all this coming from? One of the major sources is Covering Climate Now, which characterizes itself this way:

CCNow collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to produce more informed and urgent climate stories, to make climate a part of every beat in the newsroom — from politics and weather to business and culture — and to drive a public conversation that creates an engaged public. Mindful of the media’s responsibility to inform the public and hold power to account, we advise newsrooms, share best practices, and provide reporting resources that help journalists ground their coverage in science while producing stories that resonate with audiences.

Co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation in association with The Guardian and WNYC in 2019, CCNow’s 460-plus partners include some of the biggest names in news, and some of the smallest, because this story needs everyone. In addition to three of the world’s biggest news agencies — Reuters, Bloomberg, and Agence France Presse — each of which provides content to thousands of other newsrooms, our partners include CBS News, NBC and MSNBC News, Noticias Telemundo, PBS NewsHour, Univision, Al Jazeera; most of the biggest public radio stations in the US; many flagship newspapers and TV networks in the Americas, Europe, and Asia; and dozens of leading magazines and journals, including Nature, Scientific American, Rolling Stone, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, and Mother Jones.

You may have thought the news was produced by independent news organizations and journalists. That is simply no longer the case when it comes to climate news. The most powerful news agencies and news outlets are shaping and coordinating coverage of every news beat to include “the climate emergency” in every story – whether or not there is any factual basis to do so.  It is not even any longer true the journals of science – Scientific American and The Lancet are both members.

Notably, The New York Times and the Washington Post reportedly declined membership on the basis that the effort “seemed like activism”. Both of these newpapers rightfully didn’t wish to appear to be engaged in activist journalism but both have their own Climate Crisis editorial narratives. Don’t be fooled though, both papers write climate activism – they are just not guided in doing so by CCNow.

Just how slanted, just how bizarrely biased, is the coverage promoted by CCNow? Here is their “Best Practices” list:

1. Say yes to the science. There are not two sides to a fact. For too long, especially in the US, the media juxtaposed climate science—a matter of overwhelming global consensus—with climate skepticism and denialism—seldom more than thinly-veiled protections of the fossil fuel industry. The resulting implication that these positions are equal, or that the jury is somehow still out, is in large part responsible for the public disengagement and political paralysis that have met the climate crisis so far. As journalists, we must write about climate change with the same clarity of the scientists who have been sounding the alarms for decades. Platforming those scientists’ detractors in an effort to “balance” our stories not only misleads the public, it is inaccurate. Where climate denialism cannot be avoided—when it comes from the highest levels of government, for example—responsible journalistic framing makes clear that it is counterfactual, if not rooted in bad faith.

2. The climate crisis is a story for every beat. At its core, the climate story is a science story. But whether you cover businesshealthhousingeducationfoodnational securityentertainment, or something else, there is always a strong climate angle to be found. And climate need not be a story’s central focus to merit mention. Also, journalists should be sure to emphasize the human-side of the climate story. For political reporters, for example, Biden’s climate agenda obviously deserves coverage. But audiences will likely be more engaged by stories that start with how the climate emergency is seen and felt by ordinary people — and then discuss how government policy can make a difference. In the words of renowned climate author Bill McKibben, climate change is “an exciting story filled with drama and conflict. It’s what journalism was made for.”

3. Emphasize the experiencesand activismof the poor, communities of color, and indigenous people. Environmental justice is key to the climate story. The poor, people of color, and indigenous people have long suffered first and worst from heat waves, floods, and other climate impacts. Yet their voices and stories are too often omitted from news coverage. Good climate reporting not only highlights these people’s trevails, it also recognizes that they are frequently leading innovators at the forefront of the climate fight. Coverage that focuses overwhelmingly on wealthy communities and features only white voices is simply missing the story.

4. Ditch the Beltway “he-said, she-said.” There are of course plenty of urgent climate stories to be told from halls of government. But when we treat the climate story first and foremost as a political dogfight, we give the narrative over to the same intractable partisanship that so degrades the rest of our political coverage. (One side wants to act. The other doesn’t. Looks like nothing can be done.) By foregrounding partisanship in our climate coverage, we also risk losing huge swaths of audiences that likely feel they get more than enough political news as it is. And, for those readers, viewers, and listeners whose political views are ensconced in one camp or the other, we forego opportunities to challenge assumptions.

5. Avoid “doom and gloom.” We can and must understand the epochal consequences of climate change. If our coverage is always negative, however, it “leaves the public with an overall sense of powerlessness,” in the words of former NPR reporter Elizabeth Arnold. “It just reaches this point where people feel hopeless and overwhelmed,” Arnold told Journalist’s Resource in 2018. “And when we feel that way, psychologists say, we tend to just avoid and deny, and tune out.” Indeed, for every wildfire or galling instance of denial by the powerful, there are untold multitudes of innovators and activists who are pioneering solutions. By elevating those stories, we show that climate change is not a problem too big to understand—or to tackle.

6. Go easy on the jargon. This is a tried and true tenet of journalism generally, but it especially applies here. The climate story is chock full of insider-y verbiage—parts per million of carbon dioxide, micrograms of particulate matter, and fractions of degrees Centigrade. The meanings and implications of these terms might be familiar to those who’ve been on the beat for decades, but they may be quite unfamiliar to some who are reading or watching our coverage. Always assume that your target audience is not scientists or fellow climate journalists and ask yourself: How can I help someone new to the problem understand it easily and accurately? Where possible, avoid clustering technical terms. And when attempting to quantify climate change, try to employ simple analogies. For example, when explaining how global warming contributed to the record wildfires in Australia, John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist, likened it to baseball players on steroids: a great slugger will hit plenty of home runs in any case, but a great slugger who takes steroids will hit more of them.

7. Beware of “greenwashing.” Companies around the world are waking up to public demands for eco-conscious business practices. Pledges to “go green,” however, often amount to little more than marketing campaigns that obscure unmitigated carbon footprints. So shun the stenography and cast  a skeptical eye on grand promises of net-zero or carbon-negative emissions, especially from big-name companies that have historically been a big part of the problem.

8. Extreme weather stories are climate stories. The news is awash in hurricanes, floods, unseasonable snow dumps, record heatwaves, and drought. They are not all due to climate change, but the increased frequency and intensity of such extreme weather certainly is. Yet much news  coverage makes little to no mention of the climate connection, leaving audiences without context and unaware that humanity is already experiencing climate disruption. (Worse still, some coverage greets this bad news with cheer. An alarmingly unseasonable heat snap, for example, is “a much welcome break from the cold.”) The climate connection need not dominate coverage, nor distract from the vital information audiences need in the face of  emergency weather conditions—but mentioning it is a must.

9. Jettison the outdated belief that climate coverage repels audiences and loses money. Climate stories have a bad reputation as low-traffic ratings killers. This might have been true in the past, but demographic shifts and growing public awareness have brought increased demands for smart, creative climate coverage—especially from young audiences, for whom the climate emergency is often top-of-mind. Indeed, there’s good evidence that strong climate coverage can actually boost a news outlet’s bottom line.

10. For God’s sake, do not platform climate denialists. We understand as well as anyone that opinion pages occasionally need to push the envelope with unpopular takes. But there is no longer any good faith argument against climate science—and if one accepts the science, one also accepts the imperative for rapid, forceful action. Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus, or ridicule climate activism, don’t belong in a serious news outlet.

Note: Some of the bolded intros to each section are in newspeak, in which the words used don’t necessarily mean what they say. The “Say yes to the science”, for instance, really means “only speak of science that dictates a climate crisis – never mention contrary facts or opinions”. Worse than that, CCNow recommends that if contrary science must be presented, then it should be framed as “inaccurate” and counterfactual, if not rooted in bad faith.” It is forbidden by CCNow to report facts or opinions not in alignment with the Climate Emergency meme. This is reinforced in item 10: “For God’s sake, do not platform climate denialists.” Insisting that “there is no longer any good faith argument against climate science—and if one accepts the science, one also accepts the imperative for rapid, forceful action. Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus, or ridicule climate activism, don’t belong in a serious news outlet.”

This whole CCNow effort is the very definition of the antithesis to journalism. Journalism is meant to inform the public of the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of issues facing the populace.  CCNow wants to propagandize the public.

Propagandize?  Yes, precisely the correct word.

prop·a·gan·dize /ˌpräpəˈɡanˌdīz/
verb derogatory

  1. promote or publicize a particular cause, organization, or view, especially in a biased or misleading way. Similar: advocate
  2. attempt to influence (someone) with propaganda.
    “people who have to be emotionalized and propagandized by logical arguments”

Whenever there are demands to present only one side of any issue, and to actively denigrate opposing views and those who hold those views, one is dealing with propaganda.  The rules and methods of effective propaganda have been honed over the decades:

BQ

Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts in order to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language in order to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda is often associated with material which is prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies, religious organizations, the media, and individuals also produce propaganda. [ source ]

CCNow acknowledges that it is a propaganda effort in its own words.

Are these people just a bunch of liars? No, I suspect that many of them are “True Believers” having grown up and been (mis)educated during the Global Warming/Climate Change era since the late 1980s. They want to believe and they want everyone else to believe too. They seem willing to do and say anything to make others believe. Unfortunately, they seem short on critical thinking skills, stubbornly remaining ignorant of any opposing facts, and suffer from varying degrees of Jor-El syndrome. They’ve been trained in a type of non-journalism, in which they are all imaging themselves to be the new “Woodward and Bernstein”  — exposing the evils of society and – in this case – Saving Krypton The Planet.

This article is an introduction to the story-lines being pushed by CCNow and their partners. I will be analyzing many of these stories over the next few weeks, but I start with this one simple example (out of many) from the CCNow page intended to assure their partners that there really is a Climate Emergency: “Who Says It’s a Climate Emergency?”

In early 2021, two-thirds of the world’s people think climate change is a “global emergency,” according to a new poll, the largest ever on climate.

Shocking news – two-thirds – two out of every three – “of the world’s people” (all 7.7 billion of them) “think climate change is a ‘global emergency’”. Really? Let’s see what this is really about. Let’s find out: what have they really counted?

The Guardian (a founding member of CCNow) published this:

UN global climate poll: ‘The people’s voice is clear – they want action’

Biggest ever survey finds two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency”

This headline and subsequent story are based on a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) survey. Here’s what they really did (please, don’t laugh, this is serious!):

UNDP Peoples’ Climate Vote

“The Peoples’ Climate Vote was conducted from 7 October to 4 December 2020 by distributing poll questions through adverts in popular mobile gaming apps to 50 countries. When a person played a popular mobile game – such as Words with FriendsAngry BirdsDragon City or Subway Surfers – the poll would replace the traditional in-game advert. This innovative approach led to a huge, unique, and random sample of 1.22 million people of all genders, ages, and educational backgrounds. It also meant that the Peoples’ Climate Vote reached people who are sometimes hard to reach in traditional polling, such as those below the age of 18.”

“Voters were first asked two questions about whether they believe climate change is a global emergency and, if so, what kind of action they think the world should take (see Box 1). Then they were asked a series of questions about the different kinds of climate policies – across the six key policy areas of the Mission 1.5 game – that they would like their government to enact. The data were collated and processed by analysts at the University of Oxford, who used official statistics to weight the data to create representative estimates of public opinion. With such a large sample size, and rich socio-demographic information, the margin of error of the results is on average +/- 2%.” [ source – full report pdf ]

Stop laughing, please.

Having collected 1.22 million responses from kids playing silly, online video games on their phones, every one of whom gave their serious and well-considered and true answers and never ever lied about themselves having a college degree or their age, the United Nations Development Programme, after “analysts at the University of Oxford . . . used official statistics to weight the data”, concluded confidently that:

“The Peoples’ Climate Vote found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of people in 50 countries believe that climate change is a global emergency”

Not one of CCNow’s partners have mentioned the absurdity of the finding and seem perfectly happy to pass it on as a Scientific Fact. The survey results are being used by CCNow and their 460 news partners to show just how real the Climate Emergency really is – after all, a lot of videogame playing kids say so.

Watch this space for further examples of what other propaganda is being churned out, and echoed again and again and again, in the world press.

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

This propaganda effort is playing on and amplifying – in a feedback loop similar to the one that occurred with Covid-19 —  the Mass Hysteria surrounding the weather.

I could spend the rest of the year exposing both the subtle and the egregious lies being foisted off on the public through this pernicious effort.

I don’t hold out much hope of making a difference by doing so.

I do hope that I can offer little bits of Propaganda Fighting Tidbits to your personal arsenals.

May 5, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Iran Meddling In Scottish Election – Think Tank

By Richie Allen | May 4, 2021

A think tank has claimed that Iran is using online specialists to try and influence the outcome of this weeks Scottish election. The Henry Jackson Society produced a report yesterday, that claims Tehran is using fake social media accounts to break up the UK.

The think tank offers no proof mind, but it doesn’t matter. This morning, the nation’s presstitutes are repeating the baseless claims as if they are fact. Nobody is asking for evidence. Heaven forbid someone should actually do their job.

The report states that Iran has “put considerable effort into developing its political relationships with Scottish political elites who advocate independence.” Does it name these elites? Of course not.

It also says that:

“Iran has shown itself to be a country which engages in Russian style disinformation campaigns, repeatedly establishing fake websites and internet accounts in an effort to disrupt the political systems of liberal democracies.

Judged within this context, Iran is almost certainly looking to disrupt our current elections, most likely those under way for the Scottish parliament.”

Once again, the report provides no evidence that Iran (or Russia for that matter), is using fake websites and accounts in an attempt to influence elections here or anywhere else.

This is one of the most pathetic and ridiculous stories that has ever crossed my desk. I had a good laugh at the line about Iran trying to “disrupt the political systems of liberal democracies.”

The UK is a liberal democracy is it? I’ve been listening to government ministers all weekend telling us that soon we’ll have permission to hug our parents and grandparents and meet our friends indoors.

On Sunday, I witnessed the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab tell the BBC’s Andrew Marr that social distancing and face coverings will be with us for the foreseeable future. His government is about to introduce vaccine passports for work, international travel and for socialising.

His government also plans to vaccinate the nation’s children for an illness that is no danger to them whatsoever.

A liberal democracy? Give me a break.

Iran hasn’t raised so much as a finger against a neighbouring country in centuries. It’s preposterous to claim that Tehran is trying to interfere in the outcome of the Scottish election.

Think tanks and spooks can make any claims they like. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous. The media will just rinse and repeat.

May 4, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 4 Comments

India’s “COVID outbreak” & the need for scientific integrity – not sensationalism

Reality versus hysteria in latest fear fest

By Colin Todhunter | OffGuardian | May 4, 2021

Western media outlets are currently paying a great deal of attention to India and the apparent impact of COVID-19. The narrative is that the coronavirus is ripping through the country – people are dying, cases are spiralling out of control and hospitals are unable to cope.

There does indeed seem to be a major problem in parts of the country. However, we need to differentiate between the effects of COVID-19 and the impacts of other factors. We must also be very wary of sensationalist media reporting which misrepresents the situation.

For instance, in late April, the New York Post ran a story about the COVID ‘surge’ in India with the headline saying, “footage shows people dead in the streets”. Next to it was an image of a woman lying dead. But the image was actually of a woman lying on the floor from a May 2020 story about a gas leak in Andhra Pradesh.

To try to shed some light on the situation and move beyond panic and media sensationalism, I recently spoke with Yohan Tengra, a political analyst and healthcare specialist based in Mumbai.

Tengra has carried out a good deal of research into COVID-19 and the global response to it. He is the co-author of a new report: ‘How the Unscientific Interpretation of RT-PCR & Rapid Antigen Test Results is Causing Misleading Spikes in Cases & Deaths’.

For India, he says:

We will never know statistically if the infections have really increased. To be certain, we would need data of symptomatic people who have tested positive with either a virus culture test or PCR that uses 24 cycles or less, ideally under 20.”

He adds that India is experiencing mainly asymptomatic cases:

For example, in Mumbai, they declared two days back that of total cases in the city, 85 per cent were asymptomatic. In Bangalore, over 95 per cent of cases were asymptomatic!”

In his report, Tengra offers scientific evidence that strongly indicates asymptomatic transmission is not significant. He asserts that as these cases comprise most of India’s case numbers, we should be questioning the data as well as the PCR tests and the cycles being used to detect the virus instead of accepting the figures at face value.

As in many countries across the globe, Tengra says people in India have been made to fear the virus endlessly. Moreover, they are generally under the impression that they need to intervene early in order to pass through the infection successfully.

He notes:

The medical system itself works to boost the number of positive cases. Even with a negative PCR test, they are using CAT scans and diagnosing people with COVID. These scans are not specific to SARS-CoV-2 at all. I personally know of people who have been asked to be hospitalised by their doctors just based on a positive test (doctors can get a cut of the total bill made when they refer a patient to a hospital). This also happened to a Bollywood celebrity, who was asked to be admitted by his doctors with no symptoms and just a positive PCR.”

Faulty PCR testing and misdiagnosis, says Tengra, combined with people who want to intervene early with the mildest symptoms, have been filling up the beds, preventing access to those who really need them.

Addressing the much-publicised shortage of oxygen, Tengra implies this too is a result of inept policies, with exports of oxygen having increased in recent times, resulting in inadequate back-up supplies when faced with a surge in demand.

According to Tengra, the case fatality rate for COVID-19 in India was over three per cent last year but has now dropped to below 1.5 per cent. The infection fatality rate is even lower, with serosurvey results showing them to be between 0.05 per cent to 0.1 per cent.

The directors of the All India Institute of Medical Science and the India Council of Medical Research have both come out and said that there is not much difference between the first and second wave and that there are many more asymptomatic cases this time than in the so-called ‘first wave’.

Tengra argues that the principle is the same for all infectious agents: they infect people, most can fight it off without even developing symptoms, some develop mild symptoms, a smaller number develop serious symptoms and an even smaller number die.

Although lives can be saved with the right prevention plus treatment strategies, Tengra notes that most of the doctors in India are using ineffective and unsafe drugs. As a result, he claims that mortality rates could increase due to inappropriate treatments.

As has occurred in many other countries, Tengra notes the way that death certificate guidelines are structured in India makes it easy for someone to be labelled as a COVID death just based on a positive PCR test or general symptoms. It is therefore often difficult to say who has died from the virus and who has been misdiagnosed.

And the issue of misdiagnosis should not be brushed aside lightly. In a recent article by long-term resident of India Jo Nash, ‘India’s Current ‘COVID Crisis’ in Context’, it is noted that the focus of the media’s messaging and the source of many of the horrifying scenes of suffering – Delhi – is among the most toxic cities in the world which often leads to the city having to close down due to the widespread effects on respiratory health.

Nash also argues that respiratory diseases like TB and respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis leading to pneumonia are always among the top ten killers in India. These conditions are severely aggravated by air pollution and often require oxygen which can be in short supply during air pollution crises as happens at this time of the year.

As a result, it is reasonable to state that all is not what it might seem to be with regard to media reporting on the current situation.

It is interesting that this ‘second wave’ has correlated with the vaccine rollout (Nash provides official sources to support this claim). Tengra feels this might not be coincidental. He says that the ‘aefi’ (adverse events following immunisation) data vastly underestimates how many vaccine adverse reactions are taking place in the country.

Tengra says that, based on ground surveys and data collected by himself, there is a tremendous number of people who have fallen ill post vaccination, many of them then testing positive for COVID and becoming hospitalised.

The financial incentive for doctors to diagnose people with COVID could also mean many of the people who are ill with other conditions are being placed as COVID patients, while beds are under occupied for people for non-COVID health issues.

Two months ago, there was a lot of vaccine hesitancy in India and many people were not taking the jabs. Tengra notes that the government has had to up the ante in order to get people scared.

He argues:

We are at a crossroads right now in terms of deciding the fate of our country and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.”

Tengra is working with lawyers and other concerned citizens to file legal cases to challenge the idea of asymptomatic transmission and the testing of healthy people. The aim is to also improve the testing in line with evidence-based protocols.

But that is not all:

We will also be challenging the current vaccine rollout, highlighting the issues with trials that have been conducted, adverse events, deaths, vaccine passports and other issues surrounding the subject.”

Tengra is not alone in challenging the mainstream narrative.

A recent article in India’s National Herald newspaper by clinical epidemiologist Professor Dr Amitav Banerjee argues that the current situation in India is not due to the lethality of the virus but by the numbers who are ending up in hospital, which are exposing cracks in India’s public health infrastructure and the inequitable distribution of health services. Even at the best of times, he argues, there is a mismatch of supply and demand. Little wonder, therefore, that we now see an emergency – not squarely due to COVID.

Like Yohan Tengra, Banerjee questions the scientific integrity of the responses to COVID and this includes the rollout of vaccines and the problems which this in itself could bring:

Going all out for mass vaccination with uncertain input on effectiveness is a big gambit. We have a vaccine against tuberculosis for decades which has zero effectiveness in preventing tuberculosis in the Indian population. Moreover, there are concerns that haphazard and incomplete vaccination of the population can trigger mutant strains.”

Referring to an editorial in the British Medical Journal by K. Abbasi (‘Covid-19, Politicisation, Corruption, and Suppression of Science’), Banerjee raises concerns about the suppression of science by politicians and governments and the conflicts of interest of academics, researchers and commercial lobbies.

He says:

In a global disaster, world leaders, their scientific advisers, including career scientists, are under tremendous pressure. They have to give the impression of being in control and may resort to authoritarian ways to camouflage their uncertainties. Such tactics deviate from the scientific approach. The present pandemic is full of such uncertainties and therefore a vicious cycle of repression has set in when the authorities and their advisers are faced with rising case numbers.”

None of what has been presented here is meant to deny the existence or impact of COVID-19. People in India are dying – some from the virus, others ‘with’ the virus but most likely mainly due to their pre-existing underlying conditions, and there are others who are being misdiagnosed.

Although excess mortality figures are currently unavailable, Yohan Tengra notes the average age of those who died in the first wave was 50. This time it is 49.

Professor Banerjee says that there is opacity and obfuscation instead of transparency. He calls for moral courage among scientists in advisory positions to the Indian government: scientific integrity is the need of the hour.

In finishing, let us place COVID and the global media reporting of the situation in India in context by returning to Jo Nash.

Even as the alleged COVID deaths reach their peak, more people die of diarrhoea every day in India and have done for years, mostly due to a lack of clean water and sanitation creating a terrain ripe for the flourishing of communicable disease.”

Readers can access the report How the Unscientific Interpretation of RT-PCR & Rapid Antigen Test Results is Causing Misleading Spikes in Cases & Deaths by Yohan Tengra and Ambar Koiri here.

May 4, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

BBC gets government funding for global crusade against ‘fake news’

RT | May 3, 2021

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has given the BBC World Service an £8 million funding boost to “tackle harmful disinformation.” What that means is unclear, but the BBC has a history of waging infowars for the UK government.

Broadcast in more than 40 languages to 350 million listeners per week, the BBC World Service brings news and debate from London to the furthest reaches of the globe. Funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the British taxpayer, and some limited advertising, the service gives the British government worldwide messaging power via a news organization Raab described on Saturday as “unbiased and impartial.”

Behind the veneer of impartiality, the World Service is viewed by the British government as a tool. This year’s ‘Integrated Review’, a document that lays out London’s foreign policy and defense priorities, identified the World Service as an instrument of “soft power” for Britain – one of a range of tools to be used against “systemic competitors like Russia and China.”

Based on that report, Raab announced on Saturday that the World Service would receive £8 million in extra funding to “tackle harmful disinformation, challenge inaccurate reporting around the world and improve digital engagement.” The fresh funding comes on top of the £378 million the service has received from the FCDO since 2016.

Raab accused “some states” of producing “harmful content” and “fake news around the coronavirus pandemic,” including content “encouraging scepticism around vaccines.” Promoting vaccines has been a key goal of the British government for several months now, to the point where military intelligence units and Government Communications Headquarters spies have reportedly been deployed to wage “information warfare” against anti-vaxx internet posts.

The messaging war around the coronavirus is the only clear example cited by Raab, and his announcement speaks of a broader war against “global disinformation,” “inaccurate reporting,” and “states and criminal gangs” who “twist the news to exploit others.” These terms are not backed up with examples, and are contentious in their own right. “Fake news,” for instance, was a term made famous during Donald Trump’s presidency, and was used by both Trump and the press to describe each other’s messaging.

The BBC’s funding, as well as its vague mission to fight “fake news,” may indicate that it will engage in an information campaign for the geopolitical benefit of the British government. The broadcaster reportedly has a history of doing this, and documents leaked in March revealed that BBC Media Action, the outlet’s charitable arm, overtly cultivated Russian journalists, established influence networks within and outside Russia, and promoted pro-Whitehall, anti-Moscow propaganda in Russian-speaking areas, all at the FCDO’s behest.

FCDO Counter Disinformation & Media Development chief Andy Pryce, explained the government’s mission in no uncertain terms at a 2018 meeting, during which he said its ultimate goal was to “weaken the Russian state’s influence” via the co-option of journalists and media organizations.

The BBC isn’t the only “impartial” news service involved in the FCDO’s influence campaign. The Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF) also volunteered its services, establishing news outlets in “countries of interest” to the FCDO. A cited example of this activity is Aswat Masriya, an “independent” media outlet in Egypt, created by TRF in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Given the history of partnership between the BBC and the FCDO, the latest investment is likely aimed more at ensuring the British government’s version of the truth wins out against foreign powers than it is in fighting falsehood and disinformation.

May 3, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

CNN tries to make case for trusting anonymous-source echo chamber despite steady stream of fake news

RT | May 3, 2021

CNN took a holier-than-thou approach to explaining away mainstream media’s penchant for telling anonymously sourced stories that later prove to be false, saying that unlike “MAGA media,” it tries to get the news right.

“There are safeguards in place,” CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy told ‘Reliable Sources’ host Brian Stelter on Sunday. “Unfortunately, human error is still at play, and news organizations sometimes do get burned like this.”

Darcy was referring to the latest correction debacle involving multiple MSM outlets that supposedly confirmed each other’s anonymously sourced reports – only to later issue corrections admitting that their central claim was completely false. The New York Times, NBC News and the Washington Post said on Saturday that their reports claiming that US law enforcement had warned Rudy Giuliani and One America News that they were being targeted by a “Russian influence operation” were not true.

The false claim was so integral to the story that correcting it was not as simple as changing a name or recasting a sentence. “The premise and headline of the article below have been changed to reflect the corrected information,” NBC said in its correction.

Stelter lamented that “a bogus report of this magnitude” tars all mainstream outlets and allows “bad-faith actors” to lump them in with less credible outfits. Darcy argued that “responsible” media outlets set themselves apart by correcting their mistakes, whereas publications such as the New York Post avoid admitting their errors.

“Sometimes, it seems like they are intentionally promoting falsehoods and moving on, some of those folks in MAGA media,” Darcy said.

The Post last week removed an article from its website that said copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Kamala Harris were being put in the welcome kits given to migrant children being held at a shelter in California. In an updated version it issued a correction, saying it turned out there was only one known copy of the book at the shelter.

However, it was the New York Post that broke bombshell news last October, reporting on alleged influence-peddling by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, after obtaining emails from a laptop that the younger Biden had allegedly left at a repair shop. At the time, with the presidential election just a couple of weeks away, CNN called the reports “dubious” and cited anonymous people saying that “US authorities” were investigating whether the Hunter Biden emails were part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said there was no connection between Hunter Biden’s laptop and Russian disinformation, but only later did the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post admit that the evidence-free conspiracy claims were apparently false.

The Washington Post has had its share of falsehoods lately. In March, the newspaper corrected a January story accusing former president Donald Trump of pressuring a Georgia official to help overturn the election’s result. The Post admitted that it had misquoted the official. In fact, it said that claims Trump urged the official to “find the fraud” and that she would be a “national hero” if she did were completely false.

CNN technical director Charlie Chester suggested that such “mistakes” weren’t accidental – at least at his network. Chester was shown on video telling an undercover Project Veritas reporter that CNN’s main focus was to help oust Trump from office through propaganda and that it purposely fearmongered about Covid-19 to boost ratings. He added that CNN also endeavored to make Black Lives Matter look good, a task made more difficult by the group’s conduct.

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped break the Edward Snowden NSA scoops in 2013, said MSM outlets are able to “independently confirm” each other’s false reports because their meaning of “confirm” is misleading. Rather than confirming that a report is true, they merely get the same anonymous source to make the same false claims to them.

“It’d be one thing if this were some rare occurrence,” Greenwald said. “The opposite is true. Over and over and over, these same big corporate outlets purport to have ‘independently confirmed’ one another’s stories that turn out to be totally false. Is that trustworthy?”

May 3, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

CLAIM: THE FLU HAS DISAPPEARED NOW THAT COVID IS HERE

By Mac Slavo | SHTFplan.com | April 30, 2021 

Imagine that. The seasonal flu that has infected hundreds of thousands of Americans every year has magically disappeared since COVID-19 has surfaced.

If you want to read the most blatant propaganda on Earth that only those with absolutely no critical thinking skills would believe, look no further than Scientific American’s reason why there is no more flu:

The reason, epidemiologists think, is that the public health measures taken to keep the coronavirus from spreading also stop the flu. Influenza viruses are transmitted in much the same way as SARS-CoV-2, but they are less effective at jumping from host to host. Scientific American

If that’s the truth, why aren’t the masks and “public health measures” stopping COVID-19? People who mask religiously are still getting it. Below is an article about a study conducted by the ruling class and their own alphabet agency that has shown that most of those who get sick follow their commands and wear the muzzle around all the time.

CDC Study: Most COVID-19 Cases Were Admitted Mask Wearers

Or are people getting the flu and the PCR tests that aren’t diagnostic tools are set to show a positive COVID-19 test for almost anything? How about you decide. Since the mainstream media can’t be bothered to ask questions, only follow orders, it’s up to us to use our discernment.

As Scientific American reported last fall, the drop-off in flu numbers was both swift and universal. Since then, cases have stayed remarkably low. “There’s just no flu circulating,” says Greg Poland, who has studied the disease at the Mayo Clinic for decades. The U.S. saw about 600 deaths from influenza during the 2020-2021 flu season. In comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there were roughly 22,000 deaths in the prior season and 34,000 two seasons ago. Scientific American

It kind of makes one ponder when they’ll bring in COVID-21 to panic the masses? Is that what all the variants in India are for?

The Fear-Mongering Continues: Over 7,000 COVID-19 Mutations In India, Variants Spread In CA

We had better open our eyes and start really asking some questions about this massive hoax. Time will be up eventually and then there is no going back. With massive amounts of the population already convinced to take a falsely labeled “vaccine” that no one knows the long-term side effects of, things could get interesting, to say the least.

More COIVD-19 Vax Deaths: Think They’ll Blame This On COVID-21?

Never stop asking questions. Stay alert and prepared. If we lose our discernment we will be pulled around by the invisible chains the ruling class is desperately trying to fasten on us. Double-check your preps every few weeks because this is not over. They tell us that much several times a day. But what’s next, is anyone’s guess.

May 3, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment