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Veteran War Correspondent: Blast In Golan Heights Not From Hezbollah Rocket

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 29.07.2024

On Saturday, an explosive fell onto a sports field in Majdal Shams in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children. Israel blamed the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah. The group has denied the accusation.

Veteran war correspondent Elijah Magnier told Sputnik on Monday that what little information is available on the Golan Heights explosion that killed 12 Arab Druze Muslim children contradicts the official story offered by the Israeli government.

“First, [Israel has] refused any Western investigation by Israeli allies. So they don’t want anyone to investigate the type of rockets and/or the debris,” Magnier explained. “And the technical details of the explosions are very telling. The Falaq rocket that Hezbollah fires is a 50 kilogram explosive. Now, a warhead with such a quantity of explosive doesn’t leave the damage that was left by the explosion that happened in Golan Heights, [it would be] much bigger.”

Magnier, who has over 35 years of experience covering conflicts in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, says that the evidence the Israelis have provided has been unconvincing.

“We have not seen any picture… of the guidance system, or any component that [we] need to understand what kind of rocket [or missile] that exploded in this place,” Magnier began. “They showed us two pieces with serial numbers that match the Falaq, but not on the same scene of the explosion. They’re completely different on a white plank. So, we don’t know where these pieces were taken from.”

“Normally, when the forensic team is on the scene, [they] take hundreds of photographs with every single piece before they touch anything. We haven’t seen all that, but we’ve seen a rush of accusing Hezbollah,” Magnier added.

“The diameter of the crater [from a Hezbollah Falaq rocket] can [be] between four to six meters and the depth can be… between 1.5 to 3 meters, which is not the case at all of the explosion we’ve seen,” Magnier described. “We’ve seen in this explosion only a small part of the fence [was] damaged and the other part of the fence is still intact. So, even the fragment of the explosion is different. The shrapnel is different.”

On Sunday, Israel bombed 12 settlements in Lebanon after saying that Hezbollah had crossed a “red line” in the attack. Hezbollah has vehemently denied it was involved. Magnier pointed out that they do not have a reason to attack Druze Muslims in Golan Heights, which is illegally occupied by Israel but still contains a large Muslim population.

“Hezbollah has thousands of civilian objectives [it could hit] that are close to the borders of Lebanon, and it can really destroy any village or any Israeli occupied city without the need to go to another village that is occupied by Druze Muslims who have [influence] in Syria and Lebanon and want to declare their support to the Palestinians,” argued Magnier, who added that Hezbollah has not been hitting civilian targets since it started shelling Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Magnier argued that a faulty Israeli air defense missile was a more likely culprit in the Golan Heights explosion.

“I can say that there are malfunctioning missiles and there are malfunctioning rockets that can fall anywhere and these incidents are very frequent, in particular with the Israeli interception missiles, where they say that only 60 to 65% reach their target and the others miss,” he said. “A strong possibility… an Israeli interception missile of the type Tamir… they carry around 10 to 15 kilograms of explosive and they have a very similar impact to what we’ve seen in the pictures provided on the ground by the people of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights.”

Magnier noted that the size of the crater matched what the Tamir could create and that there was still grass from the field around the crater, which would not happen with a larger Falaq rocket.

“Everything there indicates that we’re talking about a small-sized missile [and] not a big sized rocket of 50 kilograms.”

On Monday, US and Israeli media reported that an Israeli official said its response was still coming and that it would be “limited but significant” in order to avoid an all-out war.

“So, we understand that Netanyahu is really trying to avoid being involved in a war that he doesn’t know what the consequences would be. He can start, but he can’t end it,” concluded Magnier. “What is the ultimate objective [in attacking Hezbollah]? Destroy Lebanon? Destroy the airport? He will have his airport destroyed. Attack the Capital? He will have Tel Aviv destroyed. So this is where we see that things are not as smooth as the Israelis are trying to show.”

July 29, 2024 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 2 Comments

Does the new study on face masks show they prevent respiratory illnesses?

A new randomised trial in The BMJ is being touted as proof that surgical face masks are effective at an individual level for reducing respiratory infections

Maryanne Demasi, reports | July 28, 2024

Whether to wear a face mask to prevent respiratory illnesses has been one of the most divisive debates during the pandemic.

After a Cochrane review in 2023 found that face masks made “little or no difference” to the spread of respiratory viruses, the issue became highly politicised.

Tom Jefferson, lead author of the Cochrane review, told me “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop.”  The interview was picked up by media such as the New York Times and CNN, sparking an international furore.

New York Times columnist, Zeynep Tufekci pushed back in her own column arguing that despite no high-quality data, we could still conclude from less rigorous observational studies, that masks do in fact work.

Well-known science historian and co-author of Merchants of Doubt Naomi Oreskes agreed with Tufekci, claiming the public had been “misled” by the Cochrane review because it prioritised high-quality studies and excluded less rigorous ones.

When former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was challenged about her controversial mask mandates in light of Cochrane’s findings, she lied to Congress claiming that the review had been “retracted” when it had not.

Then, in September 2023, former White House physician Anthony Fauci told CNN, “There’s no doubt that masks work.” Fauci said that while studies might show masks do not work at a population level, they do work “on an individual basis.”

Could this be true?

Well, a new study published in The BMJ is being touted as proof that face masks are effective at an individual level for reducing respiratory infections.

The study

Researchers in Norway performed a ‘pragmatic’ randomised trial in the off-peak period of “the normal influenza season” to determine if wearing a surgical face mask in public could reduce the risk of contracting a respiratory illness.

This study was sufficiently powered to detect a difference in outcomes in a real-world setting.

Over a 14-day period (between Feb-April 2023), 4647 participants were randomly assigned to either wear a surgical mask in public places (shopping centres, streets, public transport) or not to wear a surgical face mask in public places (control group).

The group wearing masks showed an absolute risk reduction of ~3 percent in “self-reported symptoms consistent with respiratory infection” (8.9% mask group; 12.2% control group, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.87; P=0.001).

The authors concluded, “Wearing a surgical face mask in public spaces over 14 days reduces the risk of self-reported symptoms consistent with a respiratory infection, compared with not wearing a surgical face mask.”

In an accompanying editorial, the authors of the study anticipated their findings would inflame an already divisive debate, and called for more “open and nuanced discussions” about face masks.

“We know exactly what to expect,” they wrote.

“Mask non-believers will describe the effect size as too small to be of interest, and they will intensively highlight any source of potential bias that might have inflated the results in the wrong direction. Of course, the mask believers will do the same but in the opposite direction.”

The authors said they would welcome “a nuanced debate around the potential biases and the interpretation” of the study findings, so here I go….

Analysis

I would argue that an absolute reduction of 3% in self-reported symptoms from people wearing masks is not a clinically meaningful result.

There are several reasons why.

First, in such a study, you obviously cannot blind the participants to one group or the other. People know they’re wearing a mask and may be less likely to report symptoms if they feel “protected.”

In fact, a pre-specified subgroup analysis showed a “beneficial effect was estimated for participants who reported that they believed face masks reduced the risk of infection,” indicating the study suffered from ‘reporting bias.’

Second, the study found wearing a mask changed people’s habits which may have accounted for the small difference between groups.

For example, people in the control group were more likely to attend cultural events than people wearing a mask (39% and 32%, respectively; P<0.001). Also, a larger percentage of people in the control group visited restaurants compared to those wearing a mask (65% and 53% respectively; P<0.001).

This is similar to the cluster-randomised trial of community-level masking carried out in Bangladesh. The study found a small effect of face masks which could be explained by changes in behaviour; 29% of people in villages wearing masks practiced physical distancing, compared to only 24% in the control (non-masking) villages. The apparent small effect of masks could therefore be due to physical distancing.

Third, masks were mandated across the world to reduce the burden of covid-19. But in this study, there was no difference in the number of self-reported or registered covid-19 infections between the control group and those wearing masks.

Fourth, the study showed people wearing a mask in public places sought healthcare for respiratory symptoms at a similar rate to people who weren’t wearing a mask, indicating that the mask was not reducing the burden on the healthcare system.

Fifth, with an intervention like surgical masks, compliance is always an issue because participants can feel uncomfortable or self-conscious wearing a face covering in public, and a small reduction in risk may not be worth it.

In this trial, only 25% of participants reported “always wearing a face mask” in public and 19% wore them less than 50% of the time. Had the trial been longer than 14-days, it’s likely that compliance would have diminished along with the small benefit.

The most reported adverse effect of wearing masks in public places was the unpleasant comments from other people.

This may also explain the difference in dropout rates. At follow-up, 21% of people assigned to wear masks did not respond to the questionnaire, compared to 13% in the control group, which again, suggests reporting bias.

Conclusion

What this study shows is that wearing a face mask in public during the flu season, might reduce the sniffles by a small percentage, but it won’t change whether you seek healthcare and might actually make you less inclined to go out and have fun.

This study does not show that community masking reduces the healthcare burden of disease associated with respiratory illnesses, which was the justification for mandating face masks during the pandemic.

I’d add that viruses are smaller than the pores in surgical or cloth masks (and masks are rarely worn properly), so it’s unlikely to be an effective public health intervention.

At the start of the pandemic before masking became political, Fauci had the right idea when he told 60 minutes, “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.”

As shown in the 2023 Cochrane review, hand hygiene is likely to be more effective at reducing the burden of respiratory illnesses, and has no real downsides.

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Majdal Shams residents mourn martyrs, reject any Israeli presence

Al Mayadeen | July 28, 2024

Residents of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan held a funeral ceremony on Saturday for the victims of the Israeli attack that targeted a football field in the town.

An Israeli Iron Dome interceptor missile struck a playground in the town, which is made up entirely of Druze Syrians, killing at least 12 civilians, including children, and wounding at least a dozen others.

“Israel” was quick to pin the blame on Hezbollah and claimed that the Lebanese group targeted the town with an “Iranian rocket”.

The Israeli Channel 13 reported that residents of Majdal Shams attacked members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party who attended the funeral.

Meanwhile, the Israeli news website Walla mentioned that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was met with rejection and protests upon his arrival in the town.

“Get out of here. We don’t want you here, you killer,” the residents told Smotrich, accusing the Israeli Minister of making use of their children’s blood.

Following the Golan incident, Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that “Israel will not let this murderous attack go unanswered and Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for it, a price it has not paid before,” according to a statement from his office.

Hezbollah denied Saturday that it targeted Majdal Shams, a Druze town where many residents have rejected Israeli nationality since the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights in 1967.

In a statement, the Lebanese Resistance group said it “categorically denies the allegations reported by certain enemy media and various media platforms concerning the targeting of Majdal Shams.”

“The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident,” it affirmed.

Later, Axios cited an American official as saying Hezbollah officials told the UN that the Golan Heights incident was the result of an Israeli interceptor missile hitting the playground in Majdal Shams.

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

War of Attrition & the Dishonest War Propaganda

Ukrainian FM Tells Beijing Kiev is Ready for Peace Talks, As Russian Troops Advance

By Glenn Diesen | July 26, 2024

In a war of attrition, the army of the adversary is destroyed before seizing territory. Storming well-fortified positions creates high levels of casualties, which undermines the main objective of favourable attrition rates vis-a-vis the adversary.

The narrative-driven media have called the conflict “stagnant” as the frontlines have moved very slowly, and pretended that Ukrainian casualties have been very low. This deception has been deliberate to sell the illusion that Ukraine can win as a requirement for maintaining public support in the West for keeping the war going.

Much like in Afghanistan, the obedient media committed themselves to the narrative. The unreported reality was that the Ukrainian army was being destroyed, while Russia built a powerful army. Now that Ukraine’s army is at breaking point, Russia has begun taking territory with much less resistance.

How can we end the war? There is overwhelming evidence that Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat. As NATO refuses to negotiate about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, which was lost in February 2014, territorial conquest is perceived by Moscow to be the only solution.

Yet, the media shames anyone who recognises this reality by denouncing them as carrying water for Putin as they are “legitimising” or “supporting” Russia’s invasion. Those calling for peace negotiations are smeared as traitors, while the war propagandists can claim to “stand with Ukraine” as their Ukrainian proxies fight and die in a war that cannot be won.

Calls for negotiations are dismissed as it is unacceptable to surrender Ukrainian territory, which would embolden Russia to pursue similar conquests. In reality, this only became a conflict about territory after negotiations about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality were rejected. NATO refused to accept a neutral Ukraine between 1991 and 2014 when approximately only 20% of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership, and they knew it was a red line for Russia. NATO undermined the Minsk agreement for 7 years despite announcing it was the only peaceful path to resolve the conflict. Negotiations with Russia were then rejected in 2021 even as the US and NATO acknowledged Russia would invade if NATO did not end its bid to expand. In the Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022, Russia agreed to withdraw all its troops from Donbas if Ukraine restored its neutrality, although the US and UK sabotaged the agreement. Yet, the political-media elites insist that the territorial dispute is the source rather than the consequence of the NATO-Russia conflict.

The result? Ukraine loses territory and a horrific amount of men every single day. The war is also entering a new stage as casualties increase dramatically when frontlines collapse and an army must pull back. Russia is now breaking through all the frontlines and Ukraine is about to be hit by a powerful Russian fist. Yet, the political-media elites who purportedly “support Ukraine” have criminalised diplomacy and negotiations. Hungary, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, is even punished by the EU for simply engaging in diplomacy with Ukraine, Russia, and China to end the war.

In every war, the call for peace is denounced as support for the adversary while in-group loyalty and patriotism must be expressed as war enthusiasm. After every war, we also acknowledge that the war narrative was full of falsehood and we believe that we have learned an important lesson for the next war.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Video | , , , , | 1 Comment

Whatever Happened to ‘Rising Sea Levels’?

By Buck Throckmorton | The Pipeline | June 21, 2024

It’s hard to keep pace with all the ways the climate cult blames naturally occurring phenomena on “climate change,” be it natural disasters, violent storms, or “record” temperatures. While the weather is not getting “more extreme” as the climatistas claim, their apocalyptic rhetoric certainly is, and it’s also getting more dishonest. The conflation of shifting sands on barrier islands with rising sea levels is another scientifically dishonest claim being made by the climate alarmists.

Back in the 1980s, the first generation of global warmists promised that a catastrophic rise in sea levels was likely to submerge the Maldives, among other coastal areas, before 2020. Not only did that never happen, but the Maldives has a greater landmass now than it did when its imminent submersion was a “scientific fact” three decades ago. So, with the oceans not cooperating in rising as prophesied by “climate scientists” 30-plus years ago, the climate hysterics and the credulous media are now blaming the naturally occurring movement of barrier islands on “climate change” and rising seas.

Whenever a beach house on a barrier island is lost to shifting sands, it is now being reported as a harbinger of the coastal doom that is being caused by our carbon sinning. Just a few weeks ago, the American media was somberly reporting about yet another house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks being lost to the rising waters of the Atlantic Ocean. From an AP story dated 5/29/2024:

Another house has collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean along North Carolina’s coast, the sixth to fall along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s beaches in the past four years, according to U.S. National Park Service officials. North Carolina’s coast is almost entirely made up of narrow, low-lying barrier islands that are increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and to being washed over from both the bay and the sea as the planet warms. As sea levels rise, these islands typically move toward the mainland, frustrating efforts to hold properties in place.

There is so much that is wrong in just those three sentences. For starters, it describes a barrier island as if it is the crown of an otherwise submerged mountain or coral atoll, and thus vulnerable to being completely submerged as the seas rise up around it. But barrier islands are nothing of the sort. They are impermanent deposits of sand, which reshape, move, merge, appear, and disappear due to tides, winds, and storms.

The movement of barrier islands is not due to rising sea levels, it is due to a naturally occurring force called “longshore drift.” Where there are man-made efforts to stabilize barrier islands with jetties and sea walls, this produces other impacts on currents that cause erosion in some waterfront areas and new sand deposits in others. Beach houses in the Outer Banks are not being lost due to rising sea levels, they are being lost due to shifting sands.

This short video shows how longshore drift moves a barrier island. Winds blow the tide in at an angle against the island, not perpendicularly, but the backflow of seawater will follow gravity, which is effectively perpendicular to the island. This has the effect of slowly moving the barrier island in the direction that the wind is “pushing” it.

From NOAA’s website, “Longshore drift may also create or destroy entire barrier islands along a shoreline. A barrier island is a long offshore deposit of sand situated parallel to the coast. As longshore drifts deposit, remove, and redeposit sand, barrier islands constantly change.”

Tucker’s Island, just north of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is an example of a once populated barrier island that completely disappeared. It did not get submerged by rising tides, rather, the island’s sands were shifted by longshore drift until the island no longer existed. The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story about Tucker’s Island in 2015 titled The Mystique of New Jersey’s Atlantis.

The small, picturesque island off the southern end of Long Beach Island was once a popular seaside resort. It had a lighthouse, life saving station, two rustic hotels, 20 summer cottages, and a community meetinghouse that served as a church and school. Vacationers from Philadelphia and southern New Jersey relaxed there as long ago as the late 1860s, enjoying its peaceful solitude, cool breezes, fishing, hunting, sailing, swimming and clam bakes. But Tucker’s Island’s days were numbered. Year by year, ocean tides and storms eroded it. The hotels closed in 1910 and later collapsed and were washed away. The lighthouse fell in 1927.

This NOAA link shows a series of historical maps of the New Jersey shore dating back to 1856, showing the constantly changing shape, size, and location of Tucker’s Island, until it eventually disappeared, to ultimately be replaced by growth on the southern tip of Long Beach Island.

Near Corpus Christi, Texas, the Lydia Ann Lighthouse on the intracoastal waterway is a popular destination for fishing, birding, and kayaking. Its location as a navigational aid makes little sense when looking at current maps, but current maps do not reflect the islands and channels as they existed in 1857 when the lighthouse (then knows as the Aransas Pass Light Station) went into service.

The purpose of the lighthouse was to guide ships from the Gulf of Mexico into the Aransas Pass, which lay between San Jose Island to the north, and Mustang Island to the south. At the time, the lighthouse aligned with the channel, but over the years, longshore drift pushed the pass well to the south. The Aransas Pass between the two islands is now about one mile south of where it was when the lighthouse was erected, as both San Jose Island and Mustang Island shifted south.

Like so much else related to the phony “climate crisis,” stories of rising seas eating away at barrier islands are dishonest misrepresentations of naturally occurring events.

Buck Throckmorton is a writer (“co-blogger”) at the Ace of Spades HQ blog. His career includes many years in banking and commercial lending, as well as a stint with an American auto manufacturer. Buck’s writing often takes a critical look at electric vehicles, “green” energy, and woke capital. Twitter: @BuckThrockmort; email: buck.throckmorton@protonmail.com

July 21, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

DONALD TRUMP AND THE TOLL OF VITRIOL

The HighWire | July 18, 2024

Nearly a decade of increasingly dangerous rhetoric and bias from corporate ‘journalists’ and those in power have prepared the grounds for violence. Who is to blame??

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | | Leave a comment

Iran rejects claim about Trump assassination, asserts will pursue Soleimani case legally

Press TV – July 17, 2024

Iran has roundly rejected claims of devising plot to assassinate former US president Donald Trump, but vows to pursue legal channels to consign him to justice for his ordering the assassination of the Islamic Republic’s top anti-terror commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani made the remarks on Wednesday after US media alleged that American authorities had obtained “intelligence from a human source in recent weeks on a plot by Iran to try to assassinate Trump.”

It followed an assassination attempt against Trump that took place while he was campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump survived the attempt, suffering an ear injury.

Kan’ani said Iran strongly rejected allegations of any involvement in the armed attack against Trump or claims of harboring any intention to take such action, Kan’ani said.

The Islamic Republic considers such claims to be a product of malicious political goals and intents, he added.

The country, however, is determined to legally pursue Trump due to his direct role in the assassination of General Soleimani, the spokesman asserted.

Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and their companions were assassinated in a US drone strike authorized by Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.

The commanders were highly revered across West Asia due to their key role in fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations also reacted to the US media report earlier on Wednesday, considering its claim to be “unfounded and malicious.”

The mission, nevertheless, asserted that “from the Islamic Republic’s standpoint, Trump is a criminal, who should be tried and punished in court for [issuing] General Soleimani’s assassination order.”

“Iran has chosen the legal pathway to hold him accountable,” it stated.

July 17, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

They Think We Are Stupid, Volume 9

By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | July 15, 2024

The media bent over backwards to avoid saying that the assassination attempt against former President Trump was an assassination attempt — not just in the moment but the next day when facts were clear.

In the same vein, Elon Musk posted this parody…

July 15, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Mainstream media fails again

The botched assassination attempt of former US president Donald Trump has shone a light on the failing mainstream news media.

Maryanne Demasi, reports | July 14, 2024

If you’ve been off grid, former president Donald Trump narrowly escaped death at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday July 13, 2024, at approximately 6:15 p.m.

Trump’s speech was being live streamed, so video footage of the attempted assassination went viral across social media.

Several mainstream media outlets, however, delayed coverage or reported inaccurately on the events, frustrating the public and inflaming criticism of the legacy media.

When the first bullet clipped Trump’s right ear, narrowly missing his skull, he ducked down at the podium before secret service jumped to his aid.

Onlookers say Trump was calm. The podium microphones picked up his audio. “Get my shoes” he said to one of his secret service agents.

Trump then stood up and turned to his supporters with a bloodied face and fist in the air, mouthing the words “fight, fight, fight” before being rushed off the stage.

The crowd erupted.

Iconic moment: Trump acknowledges his supporters after the botched assassination attempt.

Regardless of your politics, the attempt on Trump’s life was morally bankrupt and an attack on democracy. Any sort of violence, political or otherwise, should be condemned.

Trump released a statement soon after the assassination attempt, confirming that he’d been shot, and that one bullet had “pierced” his right ear.

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” wrote Trump on his Truth Social platform.

The suspected gunman, who was positioned on a rooftop 150 yards away, managed to fire multiple shots at the stage where Trump was standing, before he was neutralised by a secret service sniper.

One person who attended the rally was killed and two other spectators were critically wounded.

Alleged shooter on a nearby rooftop shot dead moments after the failed assassination attempt.

No doubt there will be a lot of speculation about the incident over the coming days and weeks, but it was the coverage by mainstream media that left many fuming.

Left leaning news outlets began downplaying the seriousness of the situation.

USA Today and The Washington Post, for example, both reported that Trump was escorted off stage after hearing “loud noises” at the rally, as if it was something innocuous like balloons popping.

CNN published a headline claiming that Trump had to be rushed off stage after a “fall” as if to imply that he had tripped over.

Another CNN headline claimed that Trump’s speech was “interrupted by secret service” instead of describing it as an assassination attempt.

CNN even criticised Trump for his display of defiance on stage, attacking him for not urging calm.

“That’s not the message that we want to be sending right now,” remarked one CNN commentator.

In my own country, Australia’s free-to-air broadcaster Channel 10 was slammed for taking more than an hour to cover the attempted assassination.

Instead of immediately cutting their regular programming to cover the unfolding attack, Channel 10 continued to air cooking shows.

People jumped on social media to get the latest information, and express their frustration with how politicised and biased mainstream media had become.

One X user mocked CNN’s coverage. “‘Loud noises’ made Trump ‘fall’ which ‘interrupted’ the rally. Thank you mainstream media for never failing to fail.”

Another posted, “Trump gets shot at on live television and this is the headline the mainstream media goes with?! This is what the mainstream media has become – a propaganda machine. They don’t want you to believe what you see with your own eyes.”

A different X user wrote, “Mainstream media is the cancer of society.”

People were glued to X, one of the few social media platforms that provided immediate and transparent access to video, photographic and audio recordings of the attack.

As someone who worked in mainstream media for over a decade, this comes as no surprise as I’ve watched the industry slowly rot.

People are cancelling subscriptions to newspapers and cable providers in droves. Mass layoffs, job cuts and hiring freezes have all precipitated the substantial contraction of small and large media outlets and seen massive declines in ratings and audience engagement.

Last year, media companies slashed over 20,000 jobs in the sector, and the culling of journalists has continued into 2024. In January, the Los Angeles Times axed 20% of its newsroom and laid off its entire Washington DC bureau in an election year.

Many people have watched as journalism – once a frank and fearless pursuit for truth – has become a running commentary of consensus statements and government propaganda.

I think legacy media is slowly dying and the coverage of Trump’s assassination attempt has only emboldened my view.

Now, more than ever, independent journalists (like me) need to be funded because we are not constrained by politics, official narratives or advertising revenue.

July 14, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Pro-Pentagon Media Calls on DoD to Step Up Anti-Houthi Info War Amid Blows to US Navy’s Reputation

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 11.07.2024

The Houthis resumed their attacks on suspected Israel and US-affiliated merchant ships Tuesday after a ten-day pause. Armed with mostly older missile designs and cheap drones and possessing no blue water navy to speak of, the militants have managed to effectively shut down the Red Sea to Western interests, humiliating the Pentagon in the process.

The US Navy’s inability to lift the Houthis’ self-imposed partial blockade of the Red and Arabian Seas or to meaningfully degrade the militia’s missile and drone capabilities in six months of air and missile strikes has given rise to embarrassing questions from allies and adversaries alike about whether the US military is a mere “paper tiger,” and not the “all powerful,” global and “omnipotent force” it’s cracked up to be.

In testimony by senior Pentagon officials on the state of America’s air and missile defenses earlier this year, Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces chairman Angus King complained that the US has proved not only unable to defend against peer competitors like Russia and China, but ineffective against smaller adversaries, including Iran and the Houthis, as well.

His concerns were echoed by media reports that the US has already spent over a billion dollars fighting the Houthis, with the USS Eisenhower supercarrier’s Super Hornet jets racking up tens of thousands of flight hours, and US warships firing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of interceptor missiles to target the militia’s simple missiles, UAVs and maritime drones.

Amid the Houthis’ successes in humbling the American goliath, panicky voices have emerged in Washington and US military-affiliated media calling for something to be done to stop the Yemeni militia’s humiliation of the US Empire in the Middle East from spreading online.

The “Navy should hit back harder against Houthi online disinformation,” Max Lesser, a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a DC neoconservative think tank, wrote in an op-ed that appeared in the Navy Times on Wednesday.

“While the US military and allies regularly hit back with airstrikes against Houthi missile launchers and other assets in Yemen, the Pentagon is less prepared to defend against the online lies and disinformation that the Houthis are spreading,” Lesser complained.

The think tank analyst pointed to a series of social media posts from late May shared by “Houthi supporters” of digitally altered images and videos of damage purportedly done to the USS Eisenhower in one of the militia’s attempts to retaliate to US-UK strikes into Yemen.

The manipulated images apparently proved prolific enough for the carrier’s captain, Captain Christopher Hill, to invite journalists to inspect the warship’s flight deck to show it had not in fact suffered any damage in Houthi attacks.

Lesser suggests that the “deluge of deceptively labeled images” spread by “pro-Houthi accounts” has generally not been sufficiently challenged or debunked by the Pentagon, despite the operation of a DoD Joint Maritime Information Center stood up specifically to report on the situation in the Red Sea region. The analyst urged the military to include any “Houthi disinformation” it finds into its weekly updates, noting that for now, “debunking” the false images is falling to lone “independent” OSINT analysts.

“The challenge is not limited to the Red Sea or the Middle East,” Lesser stressed. “Military forces in every command should have public affairs and open-source intelligence personnel working together to debunk false and exaggerated claims of enemy success on the battlefield.”

Lesser’s calls for the US to step up its game in online disinformation warfare are the latest in a long-running effort by Western officials, media and corporations to rein in the free-flow of information, whether through outright broad brush censorship like the scrubbing of entire websites, comments and social media posts, or ‘softer’ means, like private ‘fact checking’ organizations set up explicitly and exclusively to challenge anti-establishment narratives.

Given the US military’s proven track record of covering up information the Pentagon finds inconvenient, there’s no guarantee that any DoD-led campaign to combat Houthi “disinformation” online won’t result in the creation of new falsehoods spread by the Defense Department.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | 1 Comment

Iran dismisses NATO allegation it supplies ballistic missiles to Russia to be used in Ukraine war

Press TV – July 11, 2024

Iran has categorically rejected allegations it is providing ballistic missiles and related technology to Russia, raised by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to be used in the military campaign against Ukraine.

In a statement on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said NATO has made “totally baseless and politically-motivated” claims.

In their declaration issued on Wednesday, the NATO leaders claimed that North Korea and Iran were fuelling Russia’s military operation against Ukraine by providing direct military support to Moscow, such as munitions and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), which they said impacted Euro-Atlantic security and undermined the global non-proliferation regime.

They said any transfer of ballistic missiles and related technology by Iran to Russia would represent a substantial escalation.

The Iranian spokesman, in reaction, said the ongoing developments in Ukraine are the result of NATO’s “provocative” policies and measures led by the United States.

Kan’ani added that any attempt to link the war in Ukraine to the cooperation between Iran and Russia is “politically-motivated” with the aim of legitimizing the West’s interference and their military aid to Ukraine.

He once again reiterated Iran’s unwavering strategy to play a constructive role in promoting durable security in the region and across the world.

Iran has never provided Russia with any type of drones during the military conflict in Ukraine and still emphasizes the importance of settling the crisis and establishing lasting peace through political channels, the diplomat pointed out.

Iran has repeatedly rejected accusations that it has supplied weapons to Russia for direct use in the war in Ukraine. It has also discarded allegations of supplying weapons to anti-Israeli and anti-US groups in the region.

Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly warned that a flow of Western weapons to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the US, alone, has provided approximately $51.4 billion in military assistance to Kiev, the US State Department said in early July.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

Le Pen slams witch-hunt after investigation launched into 2022 presidential campaign funding

BY DÉNES ALBERT | REMIX NEWS | JULY 10, 2024

An investigation has been launched in France into the suspected illegal financing of Marine Le Pen’s 2022 presidential election campaign, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Tuesday.

According to BFMTV, preliminary proceedings were opened on July 2 into investigating a loan from a legal entity, the prosecution said. However, no further details related to the investigation were provided.

Since 1990, the financing of French election campaigns has been managed and controlled by an independent body, the National Commission for Campaign Accounts (CNCCFP), which approves the reimbursement of part of campaign expenses to candidates by the state.

It is this authority that reported the suspicion of irregularities in the financing of the campaign of the presidential candidate of the National Constituency to the Paris prosecutor’s office in 2023.

The investigation is being conducted by the financial department of the Paris criminal police under the direction of an independent investigating judge, the prosecutor’s office said.

“My client has never been heard in any capacity on any of the facts of this general accusation,” Marine Le Pen’s lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut said in a statement. “She is now facing a media campaign to which she cannot yet respond or defend herself, as she is not aware of any specific complaints that could be the subject of a detailed response,” the lawyer added, indicating that it was “in vain” that he had asked the prosecutor’s office for further details.

“The proceedings are a vague accusation that cannot be challenged or questioned, and so to pillory my client in the media is dishonest,” Marine Le Pen’s legal representative stressed.

The AFP news agency quoted an unnamed source within the National Rally (RN) who recalled that Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign account was approved by the competent authority in December 2022 and the state reimbursed part of the costs in February 2023.

July 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | 1 Comment

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