Old Mortality: How the Corona Coup Tortures the Elderly – and Everybody Else
By Michael Lesher | OffGuardian | March 25, 2021
I want to report a crime.
Here are the facts:
About a year ago, my 85-year-old mother was kidnapped by a gang of charlatans and dragged off to Coronavirus Neverland – whence, on her captors’ instructions, she’s been making frightened phone calls to me and other relatives ever since.
What did she say, you ask? Well, in one of the first of those calls, she warned me that I was never to bring my shoes inside my apartment. If I did, according to her kidnappers, something terrible would happen – to me, if not to her.
She also cautioned me against bringing my clothes inside the apartment once I had been exposed to the outside world. Instead, I was to shower and change after each walk or shopping trip. The kidnappers insisted, further, that I was to disinfect all my apartment’s walls and floors at least once each day. (I didn’t tell my mother that the drug store and supermarket shelves were practically bare of cleaning fluids in those days, as panicked shoppers grabbed everything they could carry for daily orgies of sterilization. Apparently, she wasn’t the only kidnap victim.)
As for my hands – well, they had to be scrubbed carefully every few hours, no matter how blistered they might already be from a day spent soaping, showering, sanitizing, mopping, shampooing and sterilizing everything in sight with whatever cocktail of disinfectants my mother’s captors had told her about the previous evening.
All this came garnished with a threat: if my mother and her family didn’t obey all of the kidnappers’ commands, no matter how absurd, we might never see her again.
That was a year ago.
Now things are even worse.
Recently, my mother’s kidnappers have bullied her into submitting to the injection of an experimental drug for which the manufacturer bears no liability, for which there is absolutely no medical necessity, and which our government refuses to subject to the same testing regimen it applies to contraceptive pills or routine antibiotics.
That’s the crime. Now, can’t someone be punished for this?
Yes, I know my mother isn’t the only one being tortured – forgive me if I seem to be minimizing the scope of the rights-busting, society-destroying coup that is abusing us all.
But there is a certain justice in singling out the crime committed against my mother. Haven’t the lockdown-lovers singled her out already, making harmless old people the prime targets of their toxic benefactions?
Bad as the whole coronavirus charade certainly is, it’s hard to find a parallel for the sheer perversity of the propagandists’ abuse of the aged. The “experts” are never more self-righteous than when they thunder at us that the smallest deviation from their New Normal prescriptions amounts to killing off our elders. But no one has ever treated the old with more cynical cruelty – or with less justification.
Think of the title of an article published by one Rabbi Shai Held in the Atlantic – one of the most relentless purveyors of coronavirus propaganda – a year ago:
The Staggering, Heartless Cruelty Toward the Elderly.”
When I first saw those words, I thought the Atlantic editors had suddenly seen the light and wanted their readers to know about the evils of the harsh nursing home confinements recently ordered by governors-turned-dictators in states like New York and New Jersey.
But no. The Atlantic was only showcasing a spiteful sermon from the rabbi about some obnoxious people – Trump supporters or similar unworthies, I assume – who, it was said, were claiming that COVID19 wasn’t really so bad if it only killed old people, who after all were going to die soon anyway.
I don’t know of any real people who said such things – not that facts would have mattered to the Atlantic. What I do know – and what the Atlantic’s Rabbi Held never mentioned – is that officials like Governor Andrew Cuomo, to the applause of the propagandists, forced old people into crowded nursing homes where they were isolated from friends and relatives, forbidden to leave, told they were surrounded by a deadly disease they could not escape, and otherwise either neglected or “helped” by terrified attendants dressed in space suits – a grotesque scenario that could only have added to their sense of danger and hopelessness.
Not surprisingly, many of those inmates died.
Now that’s cruelty.
I’m still hearing stories of people who have not been allowed to visit elderly relatives for months on end; many of us have friends or acquaintances who were prevented from saying goodbye to a dying friend or cousin or grandparent or uncle. This is taken almost for granted nowadays.
Some of the stories I hear are even worse. One man reports being told that his aged mother, a patient last spring at a crowded New York hospital, would not be treated for her COVID19 infection as a matter of “hospital policy” because she had signed a “do not resuscitate” order: since the hospital staff didn’t know how to treat COVID19, a nurse told him, they were treating her illness as terminal.
In other words, they would let the old woman die even if they believed that giving her oxygen could save her life.
A policy like that – if indeed it existed – violated New York law. And when propagandists point to the high death rates at those New York hospitals in March and April as “proof” of the dangers of the coronavirus, I can only wonder how many of the patients they have in mind were killed not by an infection but by medical malpractice.
And what about reports – this time not from patients’ relatives but from a medical professional with first-hand experience – that another New York “hospital policy” involved excessive use of ventilators, likely resulting in damage to the patients’ lungs and possibly hastening their deaths?
The propagandists never mention this; such things, too, are taken for granted.
And these people have the nerve to complain about “cruelty toward the elderly”? If you ask me, they should be giving lessons on the subject.
I’ll say it again: I know that lots of younger people are being tortured too. If you want evidence of how bad things really are – and from the horse’s mouth – take a look at this sadistic effusion in the Atlantic’s February 4 issue, from a woman who watched her husband suffer:
At about 2am on Thursday morning, I woke to find my husband shivering beside me. For hours, he had been tossing in bed, exhausted but unable to sleep, nursing chills, a fever, and an agonizingly sore left arm. His teeth chattered. His forehead was freckled with sweat.
A cautionary tale about the ravages of the “deadly virus”? That’s what it would have been if the poor man had tested positive for COVID19 six months earlier. But now her spouse’s torment is the cue for a flood of joyous propaganda:
[A]s I lay next to him, cinching blanket after blanket around his arms, I felt an immense sense of relief. All this misery was a sign that the immune cells in his body had been riled up by the second shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and were well on their way to guarding him from future disease.
Ah, the innocence of ideological purity! For the Atlantic apparatchik, her husband’s “misery” meant “an immense sense of relief,” just as being burned alive in a bombed building in 1941 moved a British Communist Party member to bless Joe Stalin (as related years later by her friend Teddy Prager):
My feet, she screamed, it’s burning my feet, and I kept chopping at the beam [that trapped her], but nothing moved. Poor Freddie…. It’s no good, she was now crying, I’m done for. And then, as I wept with desperation and smoke, too exhausted to lift the axe any longer, she cried out: Long live the Party, long live Stalin…Long live Stalin, she cried out, and Goodbye boys, goodbye Teddy.
Isn’t it nice to know that indoctrination still works? Long live Pfizer! Long live experimental drugs and human guinea pigs! Hurray for Joe Biden! Who cares what happens to my husband, so long as the corporate bosses and mask-maniacs and police-state enthusiasts get everything they want?
So yes, every detail of this sinister farce is ugly. But the lockdown-lovers have always claimed to be driven by particular solicitude for the aged. And so it is especially disgusting to watch them lie to old ladies in order to make them submit to dangerous drugs, after terrorizing them for a solid year with fictions intended to leave them more vulnerable to the next round of fraud.
And let’s not mince words: fraud is the right name for what they’ve done to my mother (and so many others). The evidence of all-cause mortality figures in the US (and elsewhere) demonstrates clearly enough that COVID19 has had no significant impact on medical death rates, at least since last summer.
On top of that, a study conducted by several prestigious scientists, chaired by the estimable John Ioannidis, recently concluded that the drastic lockdowns imposed in 2020 did not stem the spread of the virus any better than far milder measures would have done. There is no COVID19 emergency – and if there ever was, which is doubtful, the hysterical official response did more harm than good.
And yet most of the United States still languishes – illegally – under quasi-dictatorial rule, with the acquiescence of mainstream media, which apparently never thought ordinary people should be allowed to control their own lives in the first place. One result of this coup (the only accurate word for it) was the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, engineered in significant part through dishonest COVID19 reporting, and spurred by mail-in voting procedures that almost certainly would not have been approved by the legislative processes required by the relevant state constitutions.
But don’t expect any outrage about this political chicanery from the people who regularly denounce illiberal government in places like China or Venezuela. Representative democracy was largely scrapped in the US a year ago, so it just doesn’t matter that the presidential voting system was illegally altered in order to promote a Democratic victory – just as it doesn’t matter that the mainstream media produced a torrent of worthless claims about Trump’s “mishandling” of the virus in order to make voters blame him for 200,000 deaths as they cast their ballots.
Mention these facts and you are a “conspiracy theorist.” Pretend not to know them and you are “following the science.”
And what if you happen to care about the welfare of elderly people – or of children, whose vulnerability has always been supposed to entitle them to special consideration? Well, if you take your cues from coronavirus propaganda, there’s only one right way to treat both groups: cynically exploit them so as to spread the fear porn as thickly as possible.
Consider, for example, a bizarre January “news” story in which children in California were described making tearful apologies to their grandparents as the latter died, allegedly from COVID19, in off-limits hospital rooms.
The “experts” and the reporter just knew those kids must have infected their elders after attending a Thanksgiving or Christmas party. True, there’s little real evidence that children function as contagious carriers of COVID19, let alone that any have actually passed the infection to an elderly relative. But why let facts get in the way of cruelty? The kids had to learn a lesson: enjoying an innocent holiday celebration meant killing off Granny.
No one in mainstream media challenged that piece of cynical sadism, as far as I know – just as no one challenged the claims of California “health” officials during the same period that the state was experiencing death tolls from COVID19 of over 400 per day. (In fact, for the week ending January 9, the putative daily death tolls for the state edged closer to 500.)
But was that even true?
According to the all-cause mortality figures shown on the CDC website, during the weeks ending January 2 and January 9 there was a total of 8,958 deaths in California, as compared with a total of 11,761 deaths during the same period a year earlier, before any “pandemic” was declared.
In other words, during the same period when California “experts” were screaming about 400-500 extra deaths each day from a disease that presumably wasn’t killing anyone the previous January, the total number of deaths actually decreased by an average rate of 200 per day as compared with the same period a year earlier.
To square California’s claimed coronavirus deaths with those facts, we would probably have to suppose that heart disease, cancer, traffic deaths, diabetes and so on were all so drastically reduced in California that their daily death tolls diminished by more than 600 per day since the previous year.
Yes, miracles do happen, as Forrest Gump reminded us. But the more reasonable interpretation is that the COVID19 horror story California “health” officials were telling us in January was a fiction made out of numbers-juggling. Which is pretty much what the whole “deadly plague” story has been from the start – a combination of alarmist and unscientific “projections,” unreliable and over-used tests, arbitrary diagnoses, fear-mongering and politically-driven cause-of-death classifications, which were then fanned to hysteria by power-hungry politicians and a compliant “news” media, not to mention corporate behemoths that stood to gain from the panic.
So I return to my mother – now 86 – and her psychological kidnapping by a bunch of frauds and fear-porn peddlers pretending to be “experts.” Since no one in a position of authority will help, what can I do for her?
Well, one thing I can’t do is to remain silent.
Our country – hers and mine – is being torn apart by measures that the public and its elected representatives have never been permitted to debate, let alone to approve. Maybe I can’t persuade my mother that she’s being lied to. But at least I don’t have to lie myself. Maybe, one of these days, something I say will help her – or if not her, then someone else’s mother who has fallen into the clutches of the same captors.
Can I preserve the principles of civil rights in an era when the very notion of freedom is scoffed at from the headlines of every “liberal” newspaper in the West? I don’t know. But I can do my best to ensure that it won’t happen with my consent, that I won’t be an accomplice in my own victimization – or my mother’s.
And I’m confident of one thing: that when I am 86 years old, I will not be telling my grandchildren that when the chips were down I was too busy washing my hands and marching to the police state’s every command to speak up against the destruction of everything I believe in.
The crimes against us all may continue. I will not contribute to them.
Michael Lesher is an author, poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. His latest nonfiction book is Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities (McFarland & Co., 2014).<
WHO IS SHAKING THE JAR?
The Burning Platform | March 22, 2021
“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?” – Shera Starr
A few weeks ago, I saw the above quote in Jeff Thomas’ article Learning from Ants, and it has been reverberating in my mind ever since. It is a perfect analogy for what has been happening in this country for years, with the jar lately being shaken at a rate faster than a Biden vote count increase at 3:00 am in a swing state. Everyone in this country, and the world, is at each other’s throats. Who is shaking the jar? Why are they shaking the jar? Why do they want us fighting each other?
If they keep us focused on fighting each other, they believe we will not notice their reprehensible criminality, as they manipulate the masses through psychological engineering and the employment of propaganda techniques to push their desired narrative. If you ask someone – who is shaking the jar? – they will likely answer based on the standard left vs right, liberal vs conservative, white vs black paradigm which has been created by those benefiting from conflict. It is always a safe bet to follow the money when trying to identify the culprits.
The elevated intensity of manipulation by those pulling the strings of societal discontent reveals much about their level of desperation in creating more chaos, because the awakening of more to the truth, endangers their wealth, power, and control. They have turned the shaking power up to eleven in the last year, as an implosion of the Ponzi financial system was looming as we entered 2020, and the Deep State oligarchs needed cover to implement a massive injection of liquidity into the veins of Wall Street bankers, the medical industrial complex, and mega-corporations like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target.
The weaponization of a contagious, but highly non-lethal to anyone under 80 years old, flu became the perfect camouflage of fear to bailout the teetering financial system and creating turmoil, chaos, and distrust among the populace. The non-stop fear mongering was purposely ramped to keep the public distracted while the national wealth pillaging operation proceeded at a breakneck pace behind the scenes. $600 for you and $10 trillion for them.
The monstrous effort to polarize the country by the psychopaths in suits pulling the strings of societal disgruntlement has the ultimate purpose of subjugation and dominion over every aspect of our lives. They no longer feel the need to conceal their treachery, as they openly proclaim their Great Reset, where you will own nothing and be happy – living in a 200 sq ft shipping container, eating synthetic meat, drinking Gates endorsed reprocessed piss, snacking on bugs, and praying their windmill and solar power works on calm cloudy days as a frigid winter storm front arrives.
None of this is an accident. It is not occurring naturally. This is the result of a designed blueprint to control and rule the world by a relatively small cadre of billionaire oligarch globalists, Big Tech despots, bought off politicians, the banking cabal fronted by their puppets at the Federal Reserve, surveillance state operatives, military industrial complex parasites, captured corporate media, mega-corporations, and mid-level government apparatchiks sucking on the teat of the Deep State.
These people are the real government who had been pulling the strings behind the curtain, but now feel emboldened to openly execute their plans, after observing how easily the masses could be manipulated and controlled through fear during this conveniently engineered pandemic. Decades of dumbing down the populace through government run public school indoctrination disguised as education, has produced millions of non-critical thinking barely sentient consumers who have their beliefs fashioned, choices formed, and opinions dictated by manipulative men operating in the shadows.
Those pulling the strings understand the psychological processes, societal relationships, and technology driven social media addictions of the masses. They know how to sell a narrative based upon the emotions, feelings, fears and biases of the masses. With so few capable of critical thinking and seeing through their deceptive manipulation of the story-line, complete control over mainstream and social media gives those pulling the strings tremendous power over the direction of society.
And if they can keep the majority at each other’s throats, distracted by trivialities, minutia, false narratives, and unable to decipher the truth, they can keep us subjugated and constrained while they pilfer and pillage the wealth of the nation. It is a despicably audacious plan but is working to perfection. But, as always with humans, their hubris and myopia have convinced themselves they are infallible and immune to defeat. Their greed and arrogance will ultimately lead to their downfall.
Glenn Greenwald recently called out the faux journalists working in the corporate media complex for their shamefully pathetic attempt to twist the truth into the false narrative required by their Deep State puppet masters. They are nothing but highly paid whores doing tricks at the behest of their oligarch pimps.
“If you think the real power centers in the US are the Proud Boys, 4Chan & Boogaloos rather than the CIA, FBI, NSA, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and spend most of your time battling the former while serving the latter as stenographers, your journalism is definitionally shit.” – Glenn Greenwald
Real journalists like Greenwald and Tucker Carlson are not afraid to confront those shaking the societal jar. That is why there is a concerted effort by those shaking the jar to try and destroy Substack, where Greenwald writes, after The Intercept began to censor his articles, and to force Fox to cancel Carlson by pressuring advertisers to boycott his show. This Cancel Culture tactic is being employed by those in control to crush dissent and free speech, so their narrative can dominate the airwaves and social media platforms, drowning out the truth.
There is a war for the soul of America underway and only one side is fighting – the globalist cabal along with their billionaire backers (Gates, Soros, Bloomberg), Big Tech tyrants, Big Media, Big Pharma, and Big Corporations. They have positioned their troops as attorney generals, governors, mayors, and legislators; in universities; in K-12 classrooms; in the media; on Wall Street; at the Fed; and in the Swamp of D.C. They now have a senile useful idiot in the White House, with a compliant cackling diversity hire waiting in the wings to become their new stooge.
The technique of using propaganda to manipulate the opinions of the masses, put forth by Edward Bernays almost one hundred years ago, has been enhanced and perfected by the deceitful and traitorous psychopaths operating as the shadow government, as they purposely construct false narratives and bogeymen, so they can expand their supremacy, dominion, and fortunes. It has always been this way, as human nature never changes, but the level and intensity has been ratcheted up to a degree never seen before in human history.
Technological advances have allowed these evil men to reinforce their narrative, while suppressing the truth tellers, and brainwashing the masses to do as they are told. Over the last five to ten years, they have convinced a vast swath of the population to believe utter nonsense, cower in their basements on command, and buy into false narratives and fake news that a sixth-grade level IQ should be able to see through. I have never lived through the final days of an empire, but this must be how it feels.
Those shaking the jar understand the mental processes of the ants because the indoctrination curriculum instilled in their brains by government controlled public schools through sub-mediocre, union worshiping, social justice warrior teachers has been designed to make them obedient, non-thinking, susceptible to psychological manipulation consumers.
The controllers know which buttons to push to keep the masses at each other’s throats: Democrat vs. Republican; liberals vs. conservatives; black vs. white; male vs. female; gay vs. straight; young vs. old; rich vs. poor; capitalists vs. socialists; white collar vs. blue collar; essential vs. non-essential; police vs. citizens; military vs. civilian and numerous variations on these categories of warring factions. Below is only a partial list of false narratives, fake news and outright lies over the last several years used by the powers that be to keep the ants fighting each other:
- The Russiagate conspiracy created by the Obama and Hillary acolytes, in conspiracy with the leaders of the FBI, CIA, and DOJ to take down a duly elected president was a coup built upon nothing but lies, fomented and spread by the seditious corporate media. If the country were ruled by honest, forthright, law abiding people, Obama, Hillary, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and dozens of underlings would be in prison for this plot to unseat Trump.
- The Mueller investigation cost the American taxpayer tens of millions; produced thousands of hours of fake news reports by CNN, MSNBC, the NYT and the rest of the left-wing media; ruined the lives and reputations of dozens; distracted Trump from governing for two years; and resulted in absolutely zero proof of any wrongdoing or collusion with the Russians. The entire episode was created to distract from Hillary’s emails, the murder of Seth Rich for providing the info to Julian Assange, and the filthy dealings of the Clinton Foundation.
- The lies about kids in cages and children being torn from the arms of their loving parents at the border, with photo shoots of AOC crying in an empty parking lot, was nothing but tripe. The “cage” pictures were taken during the Obama administration. It seems those cages are being used again, with Biden inviting millions to cross our unprotected border, but now the narrative is one of humanity and caring. The hypocrisy of these feckless idiots knows no bounds.
- The “fine people” hoax regarding the Charlottesville protests and clashes in 2017 had been used by the Democrats and their media mouthpieces for three years to make it appear Trump supported white supremacy. It was a complete and utter lie, and they knew it. Of course, the full airing of his real comments was played during the latest impeachment hoax, clearly vindicating Trump. But liberals still latch onto this false narrative like an infant with a bottle. The infantilization of the masses appears to be working, as they cry at every perceived micro-aggression.
- George Soros and his Open Society organization is intent on destroying all societal norms and community standards which have bound us together for generations. His desire is to destroy the family unit and replace it with the state. He openly funds anything and anyone who will further this agenda. He encourages things like Drag Queen Story Hour at public libraries where purveyors of pedophilia freaks teach five-year-olds how to twerk and attempt to legitimize their mental illness as normal. This brain washing of children is child abuse. Soros has spent tens of millions to get sociopath District Attorneys elected in Democrat run urban shitholes, whose sole purpose is to encourage crime, not prosecute murderers and thieves, and allow havoc and chaos to engulf their cities. Mission accomplished, as murder rates have skyrocketed in every Democrat run urban paradise in America – and the killing is not being committed by white supremacists. Soros is tearing down our society so it can be built back in his dystopian communist vision of the future.
- The entire Jeffrey Epstein episode is another false narrative created by the jar shakers because they were the perverts, pedophiles, and deviants who Epstein was blackmailing with secret videotapes and whatever took place on his private island. Clinton, Gates, Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, John Roberts and dozens more sociopaths were all implicated. Everyone knows Epstein did not kill himself. He was murdered by those at the top to shield themselves from revelations of their perversions and crimes. When you control the narrative, you can get away with anything. Maxwell will not talk. She knows her fate if she does.
- The faked chemical weapons attack in Syria, blamed on the Assad regime, was completely fabricated and staged. It resulted in president Trump launching a missile attack against the Syrian government. Everything reported by the corporate media over the last decade has been built upon lies. Obama created ISIS, with the support of McCain and the neo-cons, to overthrow the regime of Assad. They did such a bang-up job turning Libya from the richest country in Africa to a 3rd world ungovernable hellhole, they wanted to accomplish the same in Syria. It was only after Putin’s military began obliterating ISIS, the U.S. was shamed and reluctantly joined, and then took full credit for their defeat.
- Blaming Russia for everything bad that happens in our country, run by incompetent corrupt boobs, has become the go to lie by Democrats and their media lapdogs at CNN, Washington Post, NYT and MSNBC. They were accused of hacking into our electrical grid in 2016, with the entire story debunked in days. The Washington Post claimed 200 websites had been infiltrated by the Russians, accusing Ron Paul and Tulsi Gabbard of being Russian assets. The laughability of these claims by Hillary’s army did not stop useful idiots from believing. The Russians were accused of using sonic and microwave weapons to cause brain damage to U.S. personnel in the US embassy in Cuba. It was determined the sounds were male crickets during mating season. The bullshit continues to this day, as Biden has accused Putin of interfering in the 2020 election and calling him a killer. Maybe the Russians interfered to get Biden elected, knowing he is a dementia racked bumbling fool.
- The first ridiculous impeachment of Trump was based on a phone call with the Ukraine president regarding the actual corruption and payoffs to Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family to influence U.S. policy in the Ukraine. The U.S. had already funded and aided in the coup against the democratically elected president and encouraged the civil war that followed. The real crimes were committed by Hunter selling influence and the Big Guy having the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Hunter fired. Ironically, two key figures in the impeachment hearings Eric “the farter” Swalwell and Diane ‘the crypt keeper” Feinstein had much bigger skeletons in their closets – sleeping with a Chinese spy and employing a Chinese spy for almost twenty years as her driver.
- The second, more ridiculous, impeachment of Trump was such a shitshow, John Roberts refused to participate in the farce. This travesty of justice was conducted to send a message to all Trump supporters they will be painted with the brush of insurrectionists and white supremacists. The absurd charade was conducted after Trump was already out of office. Swalwell and his parade of woke jokes doctored evidence, lied and exaggerated the claims against Trump, and were ultimately eviscerated and embarrassed by Trump’s defense team on national TV. But they convinced their faithful intellectually deficient dupes Trump had provoked an armed insurrection, no matter the verdict.
- The false narrative of the January 6th “armed insurrection” is blatantly false and continues to be flogged by the dutifully deceptive defecators on the payroll of CNN and MSNBC. There is only one requirement for an armed insurrection. Somebody must be armed. Not one firearm was used by any of the selfie taking boobs wandering around the Capitol. I guess someone could have been gored by the buffalo dude. The fake news about a Capitol cop beaten to death with a fire extinguisher was peddled for months by CNN and MSNBC. It was 100% fake news. He died of a stroke a day after the protest. The only person killed was an unarmed female who posed no threat to anyone. They still have not revealed the name of the cop that executed her. The presence of ANTIFA plants, paid by CNN, instigating the crowd, has been memory-holed by the malleable media.
- The “armed insurrection” by “white supremacists” false narrative has been exploited by the hateful shrew Pelosi to turn D.C. into an armed fortress with national guard members pretending to protect the Capital from imminent attack by the Trump militia armies. The FBI does their part by fear mongering about non-existent right wing domestic terrorists, while Democrat run cities continue to be terrorized and burned by real ANTIFA and BLM terrorists, with Federal buildings under armed attack and set on fire. The diversity hire Defense Secretary is busy purging white Trump supporters from the ranks, while encouraging the feminization of his forces, to the delight of Russia and China. Pelosi and Schumer will never tear down those walls. They know their far-left agenda will ultimately result in chaos and revolution. They want to extinguish our exiting civilization, so they can “build back better” as a globalist utopia where the few, like Gates, Soros and Schwab, rule over the many, and you will own nothing and be happy – or else.
- The false narrative they have been beating to death since the election is the Qanon conspiracy of a vast array of right-wing domestic terrorists planning a takeover of the government. They were blamed for the January 6th non-insurrection and are being used as the excuse to keep 12-foot walls around the Capitol. This entire storyline is laughable, except brainless twits in the corporate media flog it to benefit Pelosi and her parade of congressional dimwits as they intentionally mislead the public about the real threats in this country. If 5% of Trump voters had ever heard of Qanon, I would be shocked. If .00001% of the public believed the fairy tales spun on 4Chan or 8Chan or whatever Chan, then I would be flabbergasted. In retrospect, it is evident this was a Psy-Op conducted by the surveillance state to lure people into a trap of hope, and now is being used to paint all Trump supporters as crazy white supremacists, intent on overthrowing the government. Mission accomplished by the jar shakers.
In Part 2 of this article, I will detail the extraordinary efforts by those in power to cover-up the ultimately fatal levels of debt endangering the American Empire, by creating trillions more in debt, and pondering what happens next on our road to perdition.
Charade of a Biden Presser
By Stephen Lendman | March 26, 2021
While the real Joe Biden was out to lunch or napping, his double held a charade of a presser.
The real Biden is too cognitively impaired to carry out duties of the office he was selected, not elected, to hold.
The real Biden lost touch with reality, affairs of state handled by others in his name — including contacts with foreign leaders by unelected president-in-waiting Kamala Harris.
Biden’s double needed cheat sheet notes to answer questions —including names and images of reporters to know who asked questions.
Gaffe-filled answers didn’t surprise from a figure uninvolved in daily White House affairs — showing up solely to represent the real Biden in public because he’s cognitively unable to represent himself.
How much longer this charade can go on is an open question.
If not for establishment media keeping things under wraps, it would have been publicly exposed long before last November’s selection process.
An unelected president is largely hidden from public view because he’s too mentally impaired to complete a sentence without mumbling, bumbling, being able to maintain his train of thought or get his facts straight.
All the while, hardliners in charge of his regime’s domestic and foreign policy are running wild.
They’re inflicting enormous harm on ordinary Americans — notably by pushing seasonal flu-renamed covid mass-jabbing with toxic drugs — and heightening tensions by threats against China, Russia and other nations free from US control.
The deplorable state of America today is disturbing and frightening.
Things shifted from a billionaire, bombastic, reality TV president to a hollow one.
The self-styled world’s leading nation is a laughing stock on the global stage — a hugely dangerous one with nukes and other WMDs it used before and may again.
The New York Post said “Biden seem(ed) confused during” his first presser.
He “repeatedly los(t) his train of thought… forgetting questions (asked) and relying heavily on cue cards from a binder he brought along.”
Asked about the state of US infrastructure, he said it ranks 85th in the world.
After checking cheat sheet notes, he corrected himself, saying the US ranks 13th globally.
NY Post editors called his first presser “a trip into an alternate reality.”
“In fact after fact, his statements were either grossly misleading or downright false.”
“New photos reveal several cheat sheets used by” Biden… including one with the headshots and names of reporters he planned to call on.”
He “only took questions from a list of journalists whose names and outlets he read from a cue card.”
“A photo of the card shows circled numbers around select reporters.”
At the end of the presser charade, he said “but folks, I’m going” — exiting without permitting one or more follow-up questions.
Separately the Post said “GOP leaders rip(ped) Biden’s ‘hard to watch’ first presser — maybe his last after Thursday’s gaffe-filled fiasco.
Questions appeared as scripted as unacceptable answers.
According to former White House press secretary Sean Spicer:
Biden “took 30 (including follow ups) questions from 10 friendly reporters for 59 minutes covering 5 subjects.”
Fellow former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted:
“Right out of the gate, the White House press corps” showed support for Joe Biden.
“Would have been nice if they would have routinely shown that level of respect for” Trump.
Wall Street Journal editors called some of Biden’s remarks “dishonest.”
He’s acting as “prime minister of the Pelosi-Schumer” regime.
Fox News slammed Thursday’s charade, saying “(i)f Joe Biden is not capable of doing the job, he shouldn’t be in the job.”
Sean Hannity called him “dazed and confused… (a) pathetic and embarrassing” performance.
“(W)ho is running the (White House) show,” he asked?
“Is it (Kamala) Harris? Is it chief of staff Ron Klain? Is it Schumer? Is it Pelosi?”
“Is it Barack Obama? Is it Susan Rice?”
“Because it’s certainly not the frail, the weak, and the cognitively struggling guy we all witnessed today.”
An RT op-ed accused the White House press corps of “sycophantic… boot-licking.”
An early March Rasmussen poll found that around half of Americans don’t think Biden is physically or mentally capable of conducting affairs of state.
Given his deteriorated state, he’s likely unaware of what’s being done by others in his name.
You Refuse to Get Vaccinated, But Are You Ready to be an Outcast?
By Mike Whitney | Unz Review | March 25, 2021
Let’s assume for a minute, that the vaccination campaign is led by people who genuinely want to end the current crisis and restore the country to “normal”. Let’s also assume, that they believe that mass vaccination is the best way to achieve that objective by preventing the spread of the virus and, thus, reducing the death toll. Is that sufficient justification for silencing vaccine critics and conducting a nation-wide brainwashing operation aimed at controlling public opinion?
No, it’s not. People need to hear both sides of the story, in fact, that’s the only way they can make an informed decision about how they wish to proceed. The media has no right to commandeer the airwaves and control whatever people hear and see. And they have no right to deliberately exclude the medical professionals and other experts whose views conflict with the official narrative. The only way that people can offer their informed consent for vaccination, is if they’re able to weigh the risks and benefits for themselves. But that’s only possible if they have access to many diverse sources of information which, at present, they don’t. Increasingly, the only message that most people hear is the one that is provided by the government in collaboration with industry honchos and other elites. Traditionally, this type of state media is called “propaganda” which is a term that certainly applies here.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how this has affected the debate on vaccines, namely, there isn’t one. The skeptics have been dismissed as antivaxx loonies while an entirely new regime of experimental vaccines is being praised as a “miracle drug”. At the same time, the government –which has aligned itself with the industry it’s supposed to regulate– is doing everything in its power to pressure people into getting vaccinated. What we’re seeing is the most extravagant Madison Avenue “product launch” in America’s 245-year history, and it’s coming at us full-throttle from all sides. It’s virtually impossible to turn on the TV or radio without being deluged by one emotive vignette after the other all of which are aimed at promoting vaccination. How does this respect the right of the individual to make his own informed decision free from government coercion?
It doesn’t. This is flagrant indoctrination and yet no one talks about it. It’s shocking. Have you noticed how the critics of the mRNA vaccines have been prevented from expressing their views in the media? Have you noticed how the doctors, scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and public health experts have all been blocked from appearing on the cable news channels or excluded from the nation’s leading newspapers? Have you noticed how these critics have been attacked on social media, censored on FaceBook and removed from Twitter? Have you noticed the lengths to which the media has gone to eliminate any challenge to the “official narrative” and to denounce, ridicule or blacklist anyone who dares to offer a conflicting opinion?
Why? Why is the media preventing these experts from articulating their reservations to the American people directly?
It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s because the people that are managing this campaign don’t want anything that veers from the “official narrative”. They don’t want people thinking for themselves, they don’t want people searching alternate websites that challenge the new prevailing doctrine on vaccines, they don’t want people to read the details about the trials or the medical journals or the research papers. They don’t want you to question their motives, or weigh the risks and benefits of getting vaccinated. They don’t want you to notice that their vaccine never completed long-term trials or met the normal standards for product safety. They don’t want you to consider the fact that mRNA is a relatively new technology with a checkered past that includes some very disturbing animal trials in which all the animals died. They don’t want you to think about any of this. They want you to shut up, stand in line, turn off your brain, and roll up your sleeve. And, anyone who disagrees with that sentiment, is being censored.
Am I being unfair?
That’s not my intention. And –believe it or not– my intention is not to criticize the vaccines themselves, but the manner by which they are being shoved down our throats. That, I object to strongly because it violates the people’s right to informed consent. A lopsided, nationwide public relations blitz that relentlessly glorifies vaccines while deliberately excluding even the slightest criticism from respected professionals, does not respect the rights of the people. It’s brainwashing, pure and simple.
And why have behavioral psychologists been employed by the government to promote the vaccination campaign? Why have they concocted a strategy designed “to change people’s beliefs and feelings about vaccination” to inform “people about the prosocial benefits of vaccination”, and to “intervene on behavior directly”, which means that you’re given an appointment, and told that you will be getting your vaccination at the end of the session.” Psychologists call this a “presumptive recommendation” which effectively eliminates the element of personal choice by creating a scenario in which getting vaccinated is a fait accompli. How is this not coercion?
It is coercion, subconscious coercion. The doctor is strong-arming the patient into getting vaccinated by making it look like its standard procedure. That puts pressure on the patient to follow the path of least resistance, which is compliance. It’s a clever tactic, but it is also transparently manipulative.
The behavioral psychologists who have helped to shape the government’s policy, believe that the emphasis should be placed on the “safety and effectiveness” of the vaccines. That’s the cornerstone for building public support. At the same time, they show no interest in providing evidence that would support their claims, which suggests that “safe and effective” is nothing more than a meaningless bromide that is invoked to dupe the sheeple into getting inoculated.
You might have also heard the term “vaccine hesitancy” used to describe the people who have decided not to get vaccinated. The moniker is clearly intended to denigrate vaccine skeptics by suggesting that they have a mental condition, like paranoid schizophrenia. This is an effective way to discredit one’s enemies, but it also shows the glaring weakness of the pro-vaccine position. If the proponents of vaccination had something of substance to offer, they would rely on facts and data rather than ad hominin attacks. As it happens, the facts do not support their position. Besides, “vaccine hesitancy” is not a character flaw or a mental condition, it’s the sign of someone who has taken responsibility for his own health and welfare. Ask yourself this: Why would a normal, rational person be eager to have an experimental cocktail injected into his bloodstream potentially triggering all manner of long-term ailments or death? Is that the choice a normal person would make?
As far as I can see, behavioral psychologists are playing a critical role in this mass vaccination campaign. According to a report put out by the National Institutes of Health, it appears that a rapid response team has been formed to attack the opinions of people who challenge the “official narrative”. Check out this blurb from the report titled “COVID-19 Vaccination: Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence”:
Mitigate the impact of COVID-19-related misinformation…
The spread of health-related misinformation was a significant public health concern well before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the last decade, vaccine-related discourse online and in the media has been plagued by misinformation. Anti-vaccine groups have leveraged political and social divisions to diminish trust in vaccines, pushed false narratives questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, spread false claims about adverse outcomes, and downplayed the risks the disease’s vaccines protect against.…
COVID-19 vaccine communication efforts cannot ignore misinformation and must take actions, informed by behavioral and communication research, to identify emerging rumors and respond in a way that is informed by behavioral science. Real-time, agile, and scalable monitoring of discourse concerning COVID 19 vaccination—including conspiracy theories, rumors, and myths—can support a swiftly developed and implemented response. “Misinformation surveillance” efforts should identify the most prominent sources of misinformation, the tactics being used, and the groups most at risk of being exposed to and influenced by the rumors. This information, in addition to data regarding the dynamics and patterns of misinformation spread, could help inform the appropriate response and best targets for intervention efforts…
Correcting the false claim contained in the message, exposing the tactics used by disinformation agents, and inducing skepticism by highlighting the ulterior motives of these actors are all potentially effective strategies for mitigating the impact of misinformation…” (“COVID-19 Vaccination* Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence,” the National Institutes of Health)
Repeat: “Misinformation surveillance”… “disinformation agents”…“the ulterior motives of these actors“??
Really? Now who’s sounding paranoid?
This is very scary stuff. Agents of the state now identify critics of the Covid vaccine as their mortal enemies. How did we get here? And how did we get to the point where the government is targeting people who don’t agree with them? This is way beyond Orwell. We have entered some creepy alternate universe.
Here’s more on the topic from a statement by Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, CEO of the American Psychological Association, in response to the approval by an advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration of a vaccine against COVID-19:
“We recognize that there are pockets of resistance to vaccines, distrust of the medical establishment and misinformation about vaccines generally… Some populations are understandably less likely to accept vaccinations due to a legacy of mistrust rooted in unethical public health practices.
“It is critical that leaders across the political spectrum unite behind messages of vaccine safety and transparency.” …
Enlist credible spokespeople who can connect with diverse communities, especially those where mistrust and skepticism run high. When leaders talk about vaccines as standard practices, as opposed to options, people are more likely to accept them. Research suggests building trust and providing clear information about vaccines can improve vaccination uptake rates. It is critical that leaders across the political spectrum unite behind vaccine safety and transparency, clearly explaining what is in the vaccine and what it does and doesn’t do in the body.
Consider the wide variety of factors that motivate human behavior. Behavioral science indicates that people are more likely to adhere to vaccine recommendations when they believe they are susceptible to the illness, when they want to protect others, when they believe the vaccine is safe or at least safer than the illness, and when their concerns and questions are managed respectfully by doctors and experts.” (“APA Welcomes Step Toward First U.S. Vaccine Approval,” American Psychological Association)
Is it really ethical for the APA to be involved in a mass vaccination campaign? Is this the role an organization like this should play in a democratic society? Should the APA use its unique understanding of human behavior to persuade people on behalf of the government and big pharma? And, more importantly, if behavioral psychologists helped to shape the government’s strategy on mass vaccination, then in what other policies were they involved? Were these the “professionals” who conjured up the pandemic restrictions? Were the masks, the social distancing and the lockdowns all promoted by “experts” as a way to undermine normal human relations and inflict the maximum psychological pain on the American people? Was the intention to create a weak and submissive population that would willingly accept the dismantling of democratic institutions, the dramatic restructuring of the economy, and the imposition of a new political order?”
These questions need to be answered.
Surprisingly, the resistance to vaccination is nearly as strong today as it was a year ago. According to PEW Research:
(only) “69% of the public intends to get a vaccine – or already has…
Those who do not currently plan to get a vaccine (30% of the public) list a range of reasons why. Majorities cite concerns about side effects (72%), a sense that vaccines were developed and tested too quickly (67%) and a desire to know more about how well they work (61%) as major reasons why they do not intend to get vaccinated.
Smaller shares of those not planning to get a vaccine say past mistakes by the medical care system (46%) or a sense they don’t need it (42%) are major reasons why they don’t plan to get a vaccine; 36% of this group (11% of all U.S. adults) say a major reason they would pass on receiving a coronavirus vaccine is that they don’t get vaccines generally.
The new national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Feb. 16 to 21 among 10,121 U.S. adults. (“Growing Share of Americans Say They Plan To Get a COVID-19 Vaccine – or Already Have,” PEW Research)
So, despite the nonstop propaganda blitz, a significant portion of the population remains unconvinced, unimpressed and steadfast. Go figure? Of course, this is just Round 1. Soon, persuasion will turn into coercion, and from coercion to outright force. It’s already clear that air-travel will require vaccine passports, and that public transit, concerts, libraries, restaurants and, perhaps, even grocery stores could follow soon after. Vaccination looks to be the defining issue of the next few years at least. And those who resist the edicts of the state will increasingly find themselves on the outside; outcasts in their own country.
Western media quick to accuse Syria of ‘bombing hospitals’ – but when terrorists really destroy hospitals, they are silent
By Eva Bartlett | RT | March 24, 2021
As legacy media again bleat the unsubstantiated “Syria is bombing hospitals” chorus of its war propaganda songbook, let’s pause to review the relatively unknown (but verifiable) reality of terrorists bombing hospitals in Syria.
Following recent allegations of a hospital being targeted Al Atarib, western Aleppo, the US State Department repeated the claim, in spite of any clear evidence to back it up.
Instead, reports rely on highly questionable sources like the White Helmets, the USAID-funded Syrian American Medical Society and the usual unnamed “witnesses” and (clearly impartial!) “rebel sources,” as per a Reuters’ report on the recent claims.
In fact, Reuters even acknowledges being unable to verify the authenticity of videos purporting to show “a ward damaged and civil defence rescuers carrying bloodstained patients outside.”
Let’s recall that Idlib is occupied by Al-Qaeda in Syria – a fact emphasized (as I wrote) by the US’ own former special envoy, Brett McGurk, who deemed the northwestern Syrian province the “largest Al-Qaeda safe-haven since 9/11.”
The presence of Al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups makes it impossible for independent, neutral bodies to assess what is going on.
Facts matter, they say. But really, not so much when it comes to war propaganda.
In Sarmada, Idlib countryside, one of the targets was a Tahrir al-Sham (Al-Qaeda in Syria) fuel market, the smuggled fuel tankers obliterated.
A White Helmets video supposedly filmed in Al-Atarib alleges a hospital was bombed there. It indeed shows what looks like a medical facility covered in dust, and a lot of bulky men of fighting age. Glaringly absent are women or normal looking civilians.
Given the White Helmets’ penchant for working only in areas controlled by terrorist factions, working with them and even numbering among them, dabbling in organ trade, and having lied many times in the past, the video proves nothing.
There is, on the other hand, a precedent for “hospitals” or medical centres being weaponized by terrorists. And not just once or twice, but repeatedly in terrorist-occupied areas throughout Syria.
I’ve seen them in Aleppo and eastern Ghouta.
The Eye and Childrens’ Hospitals, a large complex in eastern Aleppo, was militarized and occupied by terrorists including the Tawhid Brigade, Al-Qaeda and even IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS). Prisoners were held, and tortured, in nightmarish prisons and solitary confinement cells deep below.
As journalist Vanessa Beeley noted, in eastern Ghouta, medical centres, “provided treatment almost exclusively to extremist armed factions.” They were also built underground, “linked by a vast maze of tunnels that snaked below most of the districts controlled by the armed groups, providing cover for the fighters during SAA [Syrian Arab Army] military campaigns.” (An aside, see one of these massive tunnels in Douma, at the location of the underground “hospital.”)
In Idlib, a “hospital” that the New York Times claimed Russian warplanes bombed in May 2019 was a cave used as a terrorist headquarters. Another fortified cave in Khan Sheikhoun was well-stocked with weapons, medical supplies and gas masks, and a prison with solitary confinement cells.
In areas liberated from terrorists, the Syrian Army routinely finds such caves, with tunnels connecting terrorist bases so they can avoid moving above ground.
In the past, Russia has provided satellite imagery when the question of a building allegedly being bombed arose. Until we have conclusive evidence either way, it is a question of he said, she said, although common sense (and the history of such lies) points to more media fabrications.
Hospitals bombed, media yawns
Since the media and pundits clearly care so much about Syrian hospitals being bombed, and even destroyed, it’s worth reviewing some of the major hospitals damaged or destroyed by terrorist factions.
However, unsurprisingly, not a lot of information is available. The following is a partial list, with me filling in details from attacked hospitals that I have gone to.
- The September 2012 Free Syrian Army (FSA) bombing of and complete destruction of Al-Watani Hospital in Qusayr, Homs province.
- The September 2012 FSA bombing and complete destruction of two hospitals in Aleppo.
- The December 2013 FSA & Al-Qaeda bombing and complete destruction of Aleppo’s Al-Kindi hospital, one of the largest and best cancer hospitals in the Middle East.
- The April 2015 FSA bombing and siege of the National Hospital in Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib.
- The May 2016 IS horrific multiple suicide bombings in Jableh (and also in Tartous the same day), including inside Jableh’s National Hospital.
- The May 2016 attack outside Aleppo’s Dabeet maternity hospital, a missile hit a car parked outside, which then exploded, killing three women at the hospital and injuring many more.
I went to Aleppo in July 2016 and spoke with the director, who confirmed his hospital was gutted in the blast, and noted that a week later terrorists’ mortars hit the roof of the hospital, destroying the roof and injuring construction workers.
In May 2018, before Daraa was fully liberated, I went to areas which were under fire from terrorists (including the day I went), and took a perilous high speed ride in the taxi I had hired in Damascus to the state hospital, down a road exposed to terrorist sniping from less than 100 metres away.
The hospital was battered and partially destroyed from terrorists’ mortars, and mostly empty of patients. The director showed me destroyed wards (dialysis and laboratory), and off-limits areas due to high risk of sniping (gynecology, operations, blood bank, nursing school, children’s hospital).
When I returned to Daraa in September, after the region was liberated, the hospital was full of patients, since it was finally possible to access without risk.
Behind the hospital, roughly 50 metres away, I saw a building which I was told had been occupied by terrorists. Hence the extreme risk of being sniped while inside the hospital.
I never saw any Western outlet speak of this hospital, although it serviced civilians and was quite visibly partially destroyed.
In November 2016, I met Dr. Ibrahim Hadid, former Director of Kindi Hospital, who said that he wanted medical colleagues and institutions to exert some of the concern they have for “hospitals” allegedly bombed in terrorist areas.
They, and Western corporate media, have done the opposite, of course.
Another chemical song and dance routine?
Meanwhile, Russia is warning of a possible new staged chemical provocation by Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation says, “militants are plotting to stage a fake chemical attack near the settlement of Qitian,” to again accuse the Syrian government of using chemicals on the people.
As anyone following the war on Syria knows, although the West desperately wants to prove Syria committed one or more chemical attacks, it has failed, to the point where even OPCW experts spoke out, contradicting the claims.
As I wrote last week, in spite of incessantly lying about Syria for ten years, Western (and Gulf) media, pundits and politicians steam ahead with more lies – recycled accusations and war propaganda.
So, it is likely the “hospitals bombed” theme will surge anew, and then the “chemical attacks” theme. And then maybe we’ll have another new Bana al-Abed to ask Biden to bomb Syria or “holocaust” Idlib…
On and on it goes, ceaseless war propaganda.
The irony is of course, as I feel the need to make clear nearly every time I write, those script-readers claiming that Syria (and Russia) are bombing hospitals, or using chemicals, or whatever lie is next recycled, don’t actually care about the lives of Syrians.
If they did, they would stop whitewashing terrorism in Syria, aid the country and its allies in liberating Idlib and the Aleppo countryside, stop pillaging its oil, leave Syria, and lift the sanctions.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Is Joe Biden Enabling Russiagate 2?
His national security team provides the script
By Philip Giraldi | Unz Review | March 23, 2021
The old expression that “lightning never strikes the same place twice” is frequently used in the aftermath of a truly awful experience, meaning that the odds are that something exactly like that will never occur again. Unfortunately, however, we Americans will now have to endure lightning striking twice due to the emergence of President Joe Biden and whoever is telling him what to say. I am referring specifically to Russiagate, which is possibly the single most discredited bit of politically motivated chicanery that this country has seen in the past twenty years. Joe is relying on the “evidence” provided by a conveniently timed new declassified “Intelligence Community Assessment” entitled “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Election.” The document was dated March 10th but released by Director Avril Haines of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) on March 16th.
The new report consists of eleven pages of text and charts. It specifically discounts any direct evidence to alter votes electronically, but asserts that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed his spies and proxies to turn the US election in favor of Donald Trump. Based in part on the report, Joe Biden subsequently labeled Putin a “killer” and vowed that both Russia and its president would “pay a price” which we will be “seeing shortly” for their claimed meddling in American politics. The Bidenesque grotesque overreach has led to the Kremlin recalling its ambassador in Washington home for “consultations” and will at a minimum put US forces in the Middle East at risk.
Does it sound more than a bit like the Democratic Party is still looking for revenge for 2016? You bet, and the name calling that took place during the 2020 campaign made it predictable that they would turn on Russia as soon as an opportunity presented itself, if only because it is always convenient to have a foreign enemy to blame one’s own failings on. And there is also payoff personally for Joe and his sons in the report, which strongly suggests that the claims and evidence of Biden family corruption were actually just disinformation put out by the Kremlin’s spy agencies.
Anyone who reads the report and tries to assess its credibility from the viewpoint of the evidence that it presents to make its case will notice that there is very little solid to back up the conclusions, which themselves are weasel worded. The report in fact concludes with the disclaimer “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.” There is, to be sure, no evidence that even a single vote was changed or that anyone succeeded in influencing any persons or policies that emerged from the election. And, as a former CIA field officer, I found that whoever drafted the final report in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) really doesn’t have a clue regarding how and why nations spy on each other, much less still how one runs what it is referred to as “covert action.”
The most important key judgement of the report, number two, reads as follows: “We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the US.”
Every foreign government with an external intelligence capability, including that of the United States, does exactly what Russia is being accused of. If there is another country that is either seen as an adversary or even a threat, the intelligence agencies will attempt to influence opinion of the public and elites in that country to avoid their doing things that do damage to one’s own interests. That is accomplished through placements in the media and direct contact with influential politicians in the country being targeted. As the Russians correctly saw a Democratic victory as detrimental to their interests, it is inevitably that they should use their own media resources to surface alternative views that might help the other candidate, in this case Donald Trump.
Lying is, after all, a traditional role for intelligence services. The Romans had a spy service run out of the imperial palace that provided military and political intelligence all across their vast empire. It included what might be called deception operations carried out to confuse enemies about intentions and capabilities. In more recent centuries, the British became masters of both spying and deception. Major influencing intelligence operations run against the United States can be credited with having led to American involvement in both world wars.
Currently, the world’s preeminent spy agency in terms of manpower, resources and global reach is undoubtedly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That is not to suggest that it is necessarily the best intelligence agency, as smaller, more nimble, focused organizations can outperform the spies from the large countries in the niche areas that they consider important.
America’s federal government’s various intelligence agencies are in fact into deception big time, so much so that they have a number of euphemisms that permit them to lie about lying. The CIA regards spreading false information as part of its “covert action” activity while the military prefers variations on “perception management.” Both occasionally refer to “influence” or “influencing” operations. Either way, it is in reality a form of “information warfare” in which words and ideas are used to shape a perspective favorable to the country engaging in the practice and damaging to one’s adversaries.
The United States Department of Defense defines “perception management” as “Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator’s objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.” In other words, perception management is a multi-tasked mechanism designed to get an adversary to think or believe what one wishes, no matter what the truth actually is.
The CIA has historically disseminated disinformation primarily through press placements, using agents and collaborators worldwide to circulate stories that were presumed to be supportive of presumed U.S. interests. When possible, local politicians or journalists might be recruited and paid to support the effort, but the ODNI report does not accuse the Russians of doing that. In fact, given the U.S. disinformation efforts vis-à-vis Venezuela, Iran, China and regarding Russia itself, it would be wise to consider that the largest portion of disinformation circulating on the internet is produced by the United States government itself. And when all of that doesn’t work, the U.S. is more than willing to directly interfere in foreign elections. In fact, it has played an active role in elections worldwide, up and including regime change in places like Ukraine, at least 81 times according to its own publicly available data.
The ODNI report also mentions other countries that “interfered” or attempted to do so in 2020, naming Iran as a Biden supporter in Key Judgment Three: “We assess that Iran carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects— though without directly promoting his rivals— undermine public confidence in the electoral process and US institutions, and sow division and exacerbate societal tensions in the US.” China was let off this time around, with the assessment even conceding that there was no evidence that it had been involved in the election, but reports from Washington suggest that it will be sanctioned anyway, along with Iran and Russia as a consequence of being out of favor with the White House and Congress.
One suspects that in drafting up the report the neoconnish Avril Haines saw what she wanted to see because there is scant evidence to condemn the behavior of either Russia or Iran acting in their own interests without breaking into voting machines or suborning officials. Even the New York Times in its own reporting on the “Assessment” included a judgement taken directly from the document, that “Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions” before admitting that “The declassified report did not explain how the intelligence community had reached its conclusions about Russian operations during the 2020 election. But the officials said they had high confidence in their conclusions about Mr. Putin’s involvement, suggesting that the intelligence agencies have developed new ways of gathering information after the extraction of one of their best Kremlin sources in 2017.” In other words, the Times is taking the assertions in the report as an act of faith as it has no idea what evidence actually supports the claims that are being made.
To be sure the release of the report was welcomed by the usual players in Congress, including Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who enthused that “The American people deserve to know the full truth when a foreign government seeks to interfere in our elections, and today’s release of the Intelligence Community’s Assessment is an important step.” Schiff predictably does not know what “interfere” means, for which there is no evidence, and he exhibits no curiosity about the report’s omission of the one country that does regularly interfere in American elections down to the local level. That country is, of course, Israel, which Noam Chomsky has referred to, observing that “Israeli intervention in U.S. elections ‘vastly overwhelms’ anything Russia has done.” It seems that Biden, Haines and Schiff all missed that little detail.
So here we go again. New president, new national security team, same old nonsense. Russiagate one more time around will not render the entire argument being made about a vast conspiracy to destroy democracy any more credible. Yeah, nations spy on each other and try to influence things their way but get over it. If the whole world is out to “get” the United States it just might be because the whole world has finally realized that Washington is neither exceptional nor a force for good. Leave everyone else alone and they will leave you alone. That’s a law of nature.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
Putin’s secret kill list revealed by anonymous & erratic ‘spy’ sources beloved by Western media
RT | March 22, 2021
Russia’s security agencies are set for a busy few months planning a bloody Godfather-style killing spree to take out political opponents across the West, two of the UK’s best-read tabloids have claimed in an explosive new expose.
Popular red-top newspapers the Sun and the Mirror ran the sensational allegations over the weekend, in which President Vladimir Putin was said to be plotting a post-pandemic assassination campaign against a “kill list” of targets, six of whom live in Britain.
Former Yeltsin-era oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and one-time Moscow-based vulture capitalist Bill Browder are supposedly being earmarked for a hit by the FSB and SVR, Russia’s domestic and foreign intelligence agencies. Christopher Steele, the MI6 analyst who compiled a dossier of anonymous sources alleging Moscow’s spooks had ‘kompromat’ on ex-US president Donald Trump, is also apparently among those on the list.
However, the story may prove to be based on more tenuous sources than Western media outlets seem prepared to admit. The Sun writes up the revelations as coming straight from the mouth of “a Russian intelligence official,” leaving readers to imagine a reverse modern-day Kim Philby type character has broken his silence.
As the Mirror makes clearer, the anonymous supposed spook at the heart of the top-secret operation has reportedly taken “complex measures” including putting messages on USB sticks and using burner mobile phones to communicate with the West. The one document published to support the allegations is a rambling, strangely phrased and hand-redacted excerpt in which the source insists the plot comes straight from Putin.
This Cold War intrigue is made all the stranger given the source has decided to tip off one of the purported targets of the scheme, telling a high-profile individual that “they are out to shut you up completely. Take the precaution of quickly changing your place of residence, even if only temporarily.”
Given the cloak-and-dagger communications, there is no way of independently verifying whether the source is actually a security officer rather than, for example, an internet hoaxer or a crackpot conspiracy theorist.
It seems unlikely that, if there was indeed a mole inside Moscow’s spy agencies, his or her warnings would be revealed, alerting bosses to that fact and sparking an internal manhunt. Even less clear is why intelligence agencies would allow invaluable intel to be used for a scaremongering front-page splash.
Within the reports, there is also a curious warning that a black ops team is gathering in Ireland, ready to cross into Britain to carry out the plan. Quite why the Emerald Isle makes for the best staging ground, given direct flights from Russia haven’t been operating for the best part of a year during the pandemic, was unclear. It is also possible that a newly arrived group of elite Russian assassins carrying sniper rifles in violin cases might stand out in locked-down Dublin.
Despite the inconsistencies, the strange communique has sparked outrage online and was reported with little to no nuance by conspiracy-loving reporters. At least one of those listed as a target has also, unsurprisingly, expressed concern. However, based on the erratic nature of the supposed leak, it appears unlikely that they need to change their names and go into hiding just yet.
Hearing Loss, Tinnitus & Vertigo Linked To Covid – “Scientists”
By Richie Allen | March 22, 2021
UK scientists have claimed that hearing loss and vertigo may be caused by coronavirus. Researchers from The University of Manchester and Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, compiled data from 24 studies.
They believe that 7.6 per cent of people infected with covid experience hearing loss, while 14.8 per cent suffer tinnitus. They also believe that 7.2 per cent of coronavirus patients develop vertigo.
Speaking to SKY News, Professor Kevin Munro, director of the Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness said;
“There are big implications for clinical services if this means there could be a big increase in the number of people coming forward. There are some people who say the symptoms are ongoing. There are others who say it seems to have settled down a bit so there are lots of unknowns right now.”
In other words it’s just more scaremongering by UK scientists enabled by a totally inept media. Temporary hearing loss isn’t uncommon. It can be caused by a variety of viruses including the common cold, exposure to loud noises, a build-up of fluid, earwax or an ear infection.
SKY News acknowledged on its website:
The researchers’ data primarily used self-reported questionnaires or medical records to obtain coronavirus-related symptoms, rather than the more scientifically reliable hearing tests.
It’s garbage dressed up as science. No self-respecting journalist would touch it. They’ve previously linked coronavirus to depression, heart palpitations, hearing voices, sore toe, memory loss and rashes. They use terms like “may” or “might” and the media publishes as if it’s a fact.
Covid-19 is harmless to nearly everybody. It has a 99.7 per cent survival rate. The average age of someone dying WITH it, is 83. Yet every other day a scientist claims that covid may lead to other serious conditions. The evidence is always anecdotal. That isn’t science.
The reason for this is obvious. The public is waking up to the fact that covid isn’t nearly as dangerous as it was led to believe. The public wonders why society hasn’t reopened. Therefore, the public needs to be scared into complying and having the vaccines.
This isn’t about a virus. By now, the most vulnerable people in the UK have been vaccinated. We were told it was all about them. They’ve had their jabs and yet the government will not end the lockdown.
Now scientists are claiming that mask wearing and social distancing may be with us for years. See my previous article. Apart from a few Tory backbenchers, there is no opposition to any of it.
This week, the government will ask parliament to permit it to extend powers to impose restrictions until September 25th. This despite Boris Johnson’s stated aim to remove most restrictions by June 21st. Labour and The Liberal Democrats will wave it through.
Life will never return to the way it was in January 2020. It was never meant to.
Vaccine: twenty countries suspend injections; does that make you “hesitant?”
By Jon Rappoport | No Mre Fake News | March 19, 2021
The Guardian : “Several European countries have halted using the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine…”
The Guardian has a brand new definition of “several.” Their own article lists the following nations: Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Romania, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, The Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Cyprus, Sweden.
Bulgaria and Thailand have also stopped the jab.
The reason for the “pause?” A “small” number of people have developed blood clots.
And now, as I write this, the Wall St. Journal is reporting that European Union medical regulators have decided everything is OK—“the benefits of the shots outweigh the risks.” Standard boilerplate language for: “we don’t have to explain the vaccine injuries or deaths.”
If you believe just a few people with blood clots caused 20 countries to stop giving the jabs, I have condos on Mars for sale.
Hidden behind the firewall of the vaccine establishment, MANY people are keeling over.
And why wouldn’t they? Governments and pharma companies have rushed a new experimental RNA technology into use, for the first time in history. Prior to the COVID injection, all attempts to force approval of RNA tech had failed; dangerous and deadly over-reaction of the immune system was the reason.
Since I seem to be one of the only people saying this, I’ll say it again: Bill Gates, Fauci, and other rabid vaccinators are in love with RNA tech. It allows vaccines to be produced far more quickly, easily, and cheaply.
For any purported virus, at the drop of a hat, companies can come up with a vaccine. It doesn’t take four years. It takes three months.
“We just discovered a virus that crossed over from geese. And here’s a new one from Easter bunnies. And another new one just drifted in from Jupiter. We’ll have vaccines ready by Christmas. The seventh mutation of SARS-CoV-2 has its own vaccine as of yesterday. If you want to take the kiddies to Disneyland, find one of those pretty pink vans parked in your town, take the shot and receive your updated Immunity Certificate…”
Then there is this: the COVID vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna are completely ineffective at preventing serious illness. BY DESIGN.
Months ago, a NY Times piece, by Peter Doshi and Eric Topol, spelled it out.
September 22, 2020: “These Coronavirus Trials Don’t Answer the One Question We Need to Know” :
“If you were to approve a coronavirus vaccine, would you approve one that you only knew protected people only from the most mild form of Covid-19, or one that would prevent its serious complications?” [Clue: “most mild” means cough, or chills and fever, which cure themselves without the need for a vaccine.]
“The answer is obvious. You would want to protect against the worst cases.”
“But that’s not how the companies testing three of the leading coronavirus vaccine candidates, Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, whose U.S. trial is on hold, are approaching the problem.”
“According to the protocols for their studies, which they released late last week, a vaccine could meet the companies’ benchmark for success if it lowered the risk of mild Covid-19, but was never shown to reduce moderate or severe forms of the disease, or the risk of hospitalization, admissions to the intensive care unit or death.”
“To say a vaccine works should mean that most people no longer run the risk of getting seriously sick. That’s not what these trials will determine.”
The COVID shot: dangerous AND ineffective.
Trump’s coronavirus task force knew the truth. Biden’s task force knows the truth. But they don’t care.
The CDC and the WHO know. They don’t care, either.
But these authorities are very nervous, because droves of people are avoiding the vaccine. It’s not “hesitancy.”
It’s utter rejection.
Sensible rejection.
It began soon after the initial rollout of the Pfizer vaccine. NBC News, December 31, 2020:
“A large percentage of front-line workers in hospitals and nursing homes have refused to take the Covid-19 vaccine…”
“About 50 percent of front-line workers in California’s Riverside County have refused to take the vaccine…”
“Anecdotally, an estimated 60 percent of Ohio nursing home employees have refused the vaccine already…”
“A survey of 2,053 New York City firefighters found that more than half said they would refuse the Covid-19 vaccine when it became available to them…”
And all that was long before 20 countries suspended the injection.
I’ll close, for now, with two statements about the role vaccines have played in eliminating deaths from diseases—because true history matters:
“The combined death rate from scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles among children up to fifteen shows that nearly 90 percent of the total decline in mortality between 1860 and 1965 had occurred before the introduction of antibiotics and widespread immunization. In part, this recession may be attributed to improved housing and to a decrease in the virulence of micro-organisms, but by far the most important factor was a higher host-resistance due to better nutrition.” Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis, Bantam Books, 1977
Robert F Kennedy, Jr.:
“After extensively studying a century of recorded data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Johns Hopkins researchers concluded: ‘Thus vaccinations do not account for the impressive declines in mortality from infectious diseases seen in the first half of the twentieth century’.”
“Similarly, in 1977, Boston University epidemiologists (and husband and wife) John and Sonja McKinlay published their seminal work in the Millbank Memorial Fund Quarterly on the role that vaccines (and other medical interventions) played in the massive 74% decline in mortality seen in the twentieth century: ‘The Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century’.”
“In this article, which was formerly required reading in U.S. medical schools, the McKinlays pointed out that 92.3% of the mortality rate decline happened between 1900 and 1950, before most vaccines existed, and that all medical measures, including antibiotics and surgeries, ‘appear to have contributed little to the overall decline in mortality in the United States since about 1900 — having in many instances been introduced several decades after a marked decline had already set in and having no detectable influence in most instances’.”
Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX.
Twenty Five Years Of Settled Science
By Tony Heller | Real Climate Science | March 17, 2021
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
― Mark Twain
Twenty five years ago, experts blamed a huge snowstorm in New York on global warming.
TimesMachine: January 14, 1996 – NYTimes.com
In 2000, experts said snow was a thing of the past.
“According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.”
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past – Environment – The Independent
In 2003 experts said skiing was doomed because global warming was going to make it too hot to snow.
Reading Eagle – Google News Archive Search
On the rocks: the grim forecast for winter sports as global warming increases | World news | The Guardian
This story was repeated in 2012. Skiing was doomed because of global warming.
Climate Change Threatens Ski Industry’s Livelihood – The New York Times
And now experts say record cold and snow is caused by global warming, and they predicted it all along.
Record Northeast snow totals could be connected to climate change – The Washington Post
But the reality is that September-March snowfall has been increasing for 50 years, and climate academics and journalists are science fiction writers with no connection to reality.
Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab
This is what I saw when I stepped outside this morning.
How the US Marines secretly advised on the hit movie Avatar, despite later framing it as being anti-war
By Tom Secker | RT | March 21, 2021
New documents show the makers of the film – the highest-grossing in history and now re-released – secretly liaised on its plot and dialogue with the Corps. The subsequent attack on it was all about military control over Hollywood.
The 3-D sci-fi epic Avatar was recently re-released in China, and revenues from the People’s Republic have seen the movie overtake Avengers: Endgame and reclaim its position as the highest-grossing film of all time.
This tidbit about box office statistics has resulted in a flurry of news coverage, but hidden behind the endless reports from journalists with dollar signs in their eyes is a tale of covert military propaganda, and how the DOD pressures filmmakers to produce more pro-war content.
Flashback: When the Marine Corps slated Avatar
Shortly after its original release in 2009, Avatar met with a wave of criticism, despite its enormous popularity with moviegoers. A Vatican newspaper commented that the picture “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature,” while a review on Vatican Radio said it “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.”
American conservatives accused Avatar of being anti-American and anti-capitalist, while liberals skewered the film for its supposed racism, for the storyline of blue-skinned natives being saved by a noble white man – Jake, a paralysed former Marine.
Likewise, the semi-official Marine Corps Times reported how “Avatar has been the target of anger and backlash from some who see it as an affront to the Marine Corps and a negative allegory for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
They also published a letter from the then-director of Marine Corps public affairs, Bryan Salas, which said that Avatar “Takes sophomoric shots at our military culture and uses the lore of the Marine Corps and over-the-top stereotyping of Marine warriors to set the context for the screenplay.”
James Cameron apologises to the military for the movie
Salas’ public criticisms were widely reported and led James Cameron – the producer of Avatar – to reach out to the public affairs chief to discuss his concerns. Cameron then gave an extended interview to Marine Corps Times where he effectively apologised for the movie, and denied that it was anti-military.
Cameron told the Times, “I am also concerned that some people are simplistically saying that Avatar is ‘anti-military’. The highly sympathetic main character of the film, through whom the audience experiences almost every moment of the story, is a former Marine. His courage in the face of overwhelming odds makes him a hero of mythic proportions by the end of the story.”
He continued, “While the enemy force in the film are mercenary troops, who are clearly stated to be acting as corporate security contractors, it is not a goal of the film to criticize legitimate military forces, especially the courageous men and women who defend this country.”
The producer, who worked closely with the Marine Corps on his action blockbuster True Lies, went on to explain that his youngest brother John David Cameron joined the Marines in 1985 and fought in Operation Desert Storm. Cameron added, “After that conflict, Dave has worked for me, along with several of his fellow Marines, until the present. And I still have several former Marines working directly for me who have become like family.”
Cameron explained that his brother worked on Avatar as a technical advisor to Sam Worthington, who plays Jake in the film. He concluded, “So even though the US Marines are not mentioned specifically in dialogue, I felt it was important to make this association as a tribute to the calibre of people created by the Marine Corps’ training, spirit and values.”
Documents reveal the truth about the military and Avatar
Years later, in response to Freedom of Information requests, the Marine Corps released nearly 1,700 pages of activities reports from the Corps’ entertainment media liaison office. The documents tell a radically different story to the media storm that followed the release of Avatar, and reveal a close relationship between the Corps and Cameron during the film’s development.
A report from April 2009 lists Avatar as a supported project, and details how Hollywood liaison officers “Met with director/writer James Cameron on 28 March for a sci-fi feature that finds a Marine paraplegic war veteran on another planet. In the project, the main character encounters a humanoid race with their own language and culture, which later comes to odds with humans.”
The reports goes on to say they offered “support for verbiage in the script dialogue” and that they “expected to meet with Mr. Cameron again to continue with script changes.” Another document from two weeks later records how they met with the producer on set to continue providing support.
Exactly what script changes were made as a result of these meetings is not recorded in the documents, but a draft script treatment by Cameron offers a glimpse into what disappeared.
In the draft version, Jake was paralysed when he “fell out a window, drunk, at a base party.” This detail went missing from the final film, replaced by Jake getting wounded in combat, and dialogue such as “I became a Marine for the hardship. To be hammered on the anvil of life. I told myself I can pass any test a man can pass.”
In December 2009, officers from the Marine Corps media liaison office attended the Avatar premiere, and later reports noted how the film had passed the $1 billion mark at the box office. The liaison office got back in touch with Cameron to arrange screenings on CENTCOM military bases, as well to have the actors and producers take part in a “Navy Entertainment Program visit to 11th MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit] and other units in the AOR.”
The updates on Avatar continued for months after the Salas letter and Cameron’s interview responding to it. Emphasising how the military actually saw the film as a propaganda success, an Army report from 2011 refers to a military panel at Comic Con featuring entertainment liaison officers. It lists several officials who appeared on the panel along with some of the projects they worked on – including Avatar.
How the Pentagon gets Hollywood to make more pro-war movies
In light of these documents, we need to take a more nuanced view of the military’s relationship with Avatar, and the public criticisms made by Salas. It was around this time that the DOD embarked on a more proactive approach in Hollywood, seeking greater influence in Tinseltown. The DOD-Hollywood chief at the time, Phil Strub, began giving more public interviews, liaison officers started having meetings with studio heads to discuss projects before they had even asked for support, and all the different military branches stepped up their outreach efforts.
By publicly criticising an apparently left-wing, anti-military film, Salas’ letter played into the narrative that Hollywood is full of peaceniks who hate the military, and thus pressured filmmakers to make more pro-military, pro-war films.
This same narrative, that Hollywood makes too many anti-military films, was repeated by several participants at an online conference hosted by the US Naval Institute last October. The conference featured several current and former military-Hollywood officials as well as retired military officers who work as technical advisors to the entertainment industry, and was likely a part of the same efforts to increase the Pentagon’s influence on the movie business.
However, there is no evidence to support the narrative that Hollywood is anti-military – seven of the top ten highest-grossing film franchises of all time have benefited from DOD and other government support, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Bond and The Fast and the Furious. Other major franchises supported by the Pentagon and/or CIA include Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean and Mission: Impossible.
Indeed, the only $200 million dollar tentpole movie that deviates from the norm and could possibly be seen as anti-military or anti-war is Avatar, and it was publicly criticised by the Marine Corps even though they had a hand in rewriting the script. Thus, the Avatar episode only serves to highlight how the Pentagon won’t tolerate major movies having even a marginally anti-military vibe, and are seeking full-spectrum dominance of Hollywood.
Tom Secker, a British-based investigative journalist, author and podcaster. You can follow his work via his Spy Culture site and his podcast ClandesTime.
They Said Things Would Be Much Worse in States without Lockdowns. They Were Wrong.
By Ryan McMaken – Mises Institute – 03/18/2021
Like nearly all US states, Georgia imposed a stay-at-home order in March 2020 in response to demands from public health officials claiming a stay-at-home order would lessen total deaths from covid-19.
But unlike most states, Georgia ended its stay-at-home order after only five weeks, and proceeded to lower other restrictions quickly.
The legacy media responded with furious opposition. For example, an article in the Atlantic declared the end of Georgia’s lockdown to be an “experiment in human sacrifice.” The Guardian approvingly quoted one Georgian who insisted the end of the stay-at-home order was “reckless, premature and dangerous.”
A few weeks later, other states began to end their stay-at-home orders and to end other restrictions as well. Florida was the largest among these states.
Shortly thereafter the Daily Beast declared that the scaling back of restrictions in Georgia and Florida was “terrifyingly premature,” and quoted one expert who insisted, “If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don’t want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now.”
All this hyperbole about human sacrifice and recklessness leads us to conclude that states which ended lockdowns quickly must have experienced far worse numbers of deaths from covid than states which maintained lockdowns longer. Indeed, when it came to lockdowns, we were told, the longer the better. Ideally, lockdowns shouldn’t be loosened up at all until everyone can be vaccinated.
But things didn’t turn out that way. Experts have scrambled to come up with explanations for why this is the case, but the fact remains some of the most strict states (i.e., New York and Massachusetts) have covid deaths at far worse rates than the “reckless” states like Georgia and Florida.
Moreover, with little to show for their lockdowns in terms of “public health,” these states with extreme lockdowns also have some of the worst unemployment rates. This occurred in spite of the fact that experts insisted that a failure to impose lockdowns would doom a state’s economy to later economic disaster.
State-to-State Comparisons Aren’t Helping the Prolockdown Narrative
A year after stay-at-home orders began, even the usual media outlets are being forced to recognize the outcomes aren’t what was predicted. The Associated Press reported earlier this week:
California and Florida both have a COVID-19 case rate of around 8,900 per 100,000 residents since the pandemic began, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And both rank in the middle among states for COVID-19 death rates—Florida was 27th as of Friday; California was 28th.
Connecticut and South Dakota are another example. Both rank among the 10 worst states for COVID-19 death rates. Yet Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, imposed numerous statewide restrictions over the past year after an early surge in deaths, while South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, issued no mandates as virus deaths soared in the fall….
Like Florida, Missouri had no statewide mask mandate, ended business restrictions last June and has a cumulative COVID-19 death rate similar to California’s.
Even the LA Times was forced to admit this reality, although they insisted that when you consider the higher levels of poverty and “overcrowding” in California—translation: California is a filthy breeding ground for disease—California should have had far worse rates than Florida for covid deaths. Thus, the LA Times concludes, “California better controlled the virus.”
The LA Times goes on to point to the fact Florida’s covid death rate, while similar, is nonetheless 6 percent higher than California’s, and this translates to three thousand deaths that presumably wouldn’t have happened if Florida had adopted lockdown rules similar to California.
But the numbers don’t stack up so well in favor of lockdowns if we use the LA Times‘s method to make other comparisons. For example, New York’s total deaths-per-million rate is 67 percent higher than Florida’s. Translated into raw numbers, that means if Florida were like New York, Florida would have experienced 54,000 deaths instead of the 33,000 that the CDC now attributes to covid in Florida. (New Jersey’s outcomes are even worse than New York’s.)
Similarly, if Florida were like Massachusetts in its outcomes, Florida would have experienced 54 percent more deaths.
If the LA Times is going to claim overcrowding should translate into more death in California, it should also note that Florida fares worse than California in terms of median age and incidence of obesity. Since advanced age and obesity are major factors in covid hospitalizations and deaths, we might conclude it is Florida, and not California, that is primed for especially bad covid numbers.
(According to the CDC, Florida and New York are evenly matched in terms of obesity, Florida has more obesity than Massachusetts, and Florida has the highest median age of them all.)
And what about Georgia, that experiment in human sacrifice? Well, the CDC reports Georgia’s total deaths-per-million rate at 1,720. That’s worse than California’s rate of 1,400, but Georgia is still far and away better than New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, which have rates of 2,530, 2,690, and 2,400, respectively.
What about Economic Performance?
Meanwhile, it is likely that the economies of Florida and Georgia have suffered less. Although the Daily Beast assured us that the “damage will be substantial both medically and economically” if a state ends lockdowns “too soon,” we now find that the unemployment rates in Florida and Georgia are 4.8 and 5.1, respectively.
In California, the picture is quite different, where the unemployment rate now sits at 9 percent. New York doesn’t fare much better, with an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent. New Jersey clocks in at 7.9 percent.
In other words, the dire predictions surrounding states that first canceled stay-at-home orders have been spectacularly wrong. Many lockdown enthusiasts will now do what the LA Times did: quibble over small differences between Florida and California to show that California did a little bit better. New York, of course, will just be completely ignored.
As one doctor at UC San Francisco admitted: “One might’ve expected that the Floridas of the world would’ve done tremendously worse than the Californias of the world … ” Places like Florida and Georgia were supposed to be overwhelmed by an absolute tsunami of death if they were “reckless” in ending covid restrictions. That didn’t happen.
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From the Archives
Inside Job? Inside What?
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | July 28, 2016
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Sixth part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
In his chapter on “Left Gatekeepers” and the “Shame of Noam Chomsky,” Barrie Zwicker refers to the the “New World Order” as the “diaboligarchy’s” directing agency. Less compelling is Zwicker’s reference to the “New World Order” as the “diaboligarchy’s” directing agency. To me this unfortunate choice of words is much too closely associated with the often crude and chauvinistic populism of Alex Jones and his Infowars media network. Many have come to see Jones’ lucrative media operation as a limited hangout set in place by handlers trying to hold the activities of the 9/11 Truth Movement within manageable constraints.
Due to the important findings over fifteen years of the citizens’ investigation into 9/11, the culprits most deeply implicated in the crime can be identified with much more specificity than an entity vaguely described as a “New World Order.” As Kevin Barrett and many others insist, the time has come to name the names of the probable culprits, Noam Chomsky prominent among them.
While Alex Jones ultimately serves the same masters as Chomsky, the former’s media product is often much closer to the mark of what is really going on than the content of Noam Chomsky’s more magisterial pronouncements. Jones goes at least part of the way into realities of the deep state politics of the twenty-first century. Chomsky, however, sacrificed his capacity to contribute cogently to sensible discourse on contemporary geopolitics by making himself a primary instrument of the most consequential deep state deception of recent times. As a leading agent of disinformation in the psychological trenches of the ongoing Global War of False Flag Terrorism, Chomsky has reduced himself to the level of skeptic pretender Michael Shermer. In the style of Shermer, the elder Chomsky has become an establishment TV professor readily available on Netflix. … continue
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