Think tank experts pushing for endless conflict in Ukraine share a common benefactor
By Rachel Marsden | RT | August 18, 2023
Experts with important-sounding titles linked to academic-sounding entities have been shaping hearts and minds in the press, both at home and abroad, in favor of endless conflict in Ukraine. Guess what deep-pocketed benefactor lurks beneath the surface?
During the Iraq War, the Pentagon guided retired generals in making the rounds of TV and radio shows as ‘military analysts’ to promote the Bush administration’s agenda in the Persian Gulf. It was like inviting Ronald McDonald on a program to debate and discuss the merit of Big Macs. You could almost see the strings attached to the puppets, linked to the military-industrial complex that benefited from war without an off-ramp.
Fast forward 20 years, and the sales tactics have drastically changed. The generals have been replaced by various experts with academic credentials, typically linked to one or more ‘think tanks’. Far from the neutral academic centers of intellectual integrity that the names suggest, these entities are little more than laundromats for discreet special interests. I should know – I used to be a director of one.
Every Wednesday, some of the highest-ranking figures of the Bush administration would come to our Washington, DC office to deliver their main agenda points for the week, requesting assistance in placing and promoting them to both grassroots activists sympathetic to the cause and to the general public. The experts within the think tank were hired based on political litmus tests, no doubt to ensure that their views aligned with the organization’s. When they no longer do, you’re either fired or you leave.
The donors, many of whom were well-known millionaires and billionaires driven by a passion for certain issues, would come straight out and ask for bang for their buck in exchange for the opening of their wallets. In some cases, an entire project or department would be mounted at the think tank with the understanding that it would be fully funded by a single donor. These rich, influential folks typically had business or investment interests that benefited from shaping the establishment narrative in their favor, and they wanted to do so without leaving any footprints. What better way than to have it all fronted by a shiny veneer of expert credibility?
So while the generals of the Iraq War era had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in representing the interests of the military-industrial complex, the new salesmen of endless armed conflict in Ukraine have overwhelmingly adopted the more subtle model. A study published in 2020 found that the top 50 think tanks received over a billion dollars from the US government and its defense contractors and manufacturers, including some of the biggest beneficiaries of weapons production today ‘for Ukraine’. The top recipients of this funding include the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America Foundation, RAND Corporation, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Stimson Center.
Some of these black boxes are more ideologically-driven than others. The Heritage Foundation, for example, leans overwhelmingly neoconservative and interventionist. Others, like the Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund, are effectively force multipliers for NATO talking points. But the RAND Corporation also houses systems analysts and scientists specializing in space and computing. The fact that not all of these entities – or even the people who work within some of them – can be tossed into the same basket and labeled mere parrots for the special interests of their organization’s benefactors helps to muddy the waters.
In an analysis published in June of media coverage related to US military involvement in Ukraine, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that, when a think tank is cited regarding the issue, 85% of the time it’s a think tank with “financial backing from the defense industry.” Taken at face value, this risks being interpreted by the general public as expert ‘consensus’ on the need for US taxpayers to continue flooding Ukraine with weapons, unaware that it’s really just a bunch of Pentagon-backed actors agreeing with each other about the need to pursue the most profitable course of action on behalf of their War Inc. sugar daddies. Just like when climate scientists, who have parlayed climate change into endless funding and a perpetual justification for their existence, aren’t going to kill their cash cow by arguing that the climate can’t be controlled by man and that throwing cash at the issue – or at them – is futile.
Many of the Ukraine think tank experts are quick to attack analysis and information published on platforms they don’t like – such as RT – as ‘Russian-backed’. You’d have to be living under a rock these days to not know that RT is linked to Russia. No transparency issues there. But there is far less transparency around their own organizations’ financing. Where is their insistence on being above board about the use of defense industry cash to influence not just the general public but the course of the conflict itself? Around a third of top foreign policy think tanks don’t disclose this Pentagon funding, according to the Quincy Institute. Nor is it unheard of for these experts to springboard from these establishment-friendly platforms and the public notoriety they provide, right into public office – where they can translate the same agenda that they promoted into actionable policy. Isn’t it important for voters to consider the powerful hidden hand who helped to get them there?
Western press fetishizes Ukrainian amputees as limb loss epidemic grows
BY KIT KLARENBERG · THE GRAYZONE · AUGUST 15, 2023
With Ukrainian forces reportedly suffering a level of amputations reminiscent of WWI, a New York Times proxy war propagandist is spinning amputees as sex symbols and painting their gruesome injuries as “magical.”
After 18 months of devastating proxy warfare, the scale of the depletion of the Ukrainian military is so extensive that even mainstream sources have been forced to concede the cruel reality. On August 1, The Wall Street Journal reported that “between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians” have “lost one or more limbs since the start of the war.” What’s more, the outlet notes, “the actual figure could be higher” because “it takes time to register patients after they undergo the procedure.”
By comparison, around 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons underwent amputations during the entire four-year span of the First World War. The publication quotes the head of a group of former military surgeons who train Ukrainian military medics who maintained that “Western military surgeons haven’t seen injuries on this scale since World War II.”
While the implications of the Journal’s report have largely been studiously ignored by Western media, at least one mainstream journalist has displayed a keen interest in Kiev’s amputees. The New York Times’ columnist and ardent liberal interventionist Nicholas Kristof practically fetishized the mass disfigurement of Ukrainian combat veterans in the name of Washington’s war du jour.
In a July 8 op-ed titled “They’re Ready to Fight Again, on Artificial Legs,” Kristof insisted that rather than resenting being used as cannon fodder, Ukraine’s newly-disabled veterans “carry their stumps with pride.”
Citing one soldier who expressed hopes of returning to the frontline despite missing three limbs, Kristof framed such “grit and resilience” as a sure sign Kiev is winning the proxy conflict, and will inevitably emerge victorious over Russia.
The gut-wrenching homage to crippled and mangled Ukrainian soldiers even spun amputation as a means of getting laid, quoting the wife of one amputee as saying, “he’s very sexy without a leg.”
Another amputee cited in the op-ed claimed he had never dared ask his hometown crush out on a date before being hospitalized for “mortar injuries that took his leg and mangled his arms.” But after suffering irreparable and life-altering injuries, he and his sweetheart have been together ever since, the disabled soldier claimed.
Kristof quoted the soldier as follows: “It’s magical. Someone can have all his arms and legs and still not be successful in love, but an amputee can win a heart.”
Hyping Russian losses, covering up Ukraine’s
Throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western officials and journalists have taken a decidedly asymmetrical approach to reporting combat losses. Since the conflict’s first days, legacy media has dutifully repeated the vast, unverifiable figures that NATO-affiliated analysts insist Moscow suffered on the battlefield. In April 2022, the BBC even went as far as to publish the names and photos of Russian soldiers allegedly killed during the war.
But when reporting on Ukrainian casualties, major news outlets typically refer to the figure as a “closely guarded state secret.” The same senior US intelligence and defense officials who are heavily involved in assisting Kiev on military planning and strategy appear to be genuinely in the dark. On the rare occasion that these sources comment publicly on Kiev’s losses, they invariably caution that they’re merely offering an “estimate.”
From the perspective of Kiev and its foreign backers, the proxy war’s informational component is among its most impactful, and the propaganda utility of concealing losses is clear. Shielding Western audiences from the devastating human cost of the conflict makes the ever-fanciful prospect of Ukrainian victory seem more attainable, and keeps public support for the fight high, arms shipments flowing, and the profits of major weapons manufacturers soaring.
A Ukrainian veteran receiving care at the US-based Medical Center and Orthotics & Prosthetics
Ukrainian amputee centers “must be common as dentists”
As the Wall Street Journal explained in early August, Ukraine’s healthcare system “is now overwhelmed… with many patients waiting more than a year for a new limb.” In Zaporizhzhia alone, 40 to 80 wounded veterans reportedly arrive at hospitals with battlefield traumas each day, including amputees from the frontline 25 miles away.
The outlet quoted a Ukrainian medical director who insisted that facilities dedicated to treating and rehabilitating amputees are now needed “in every town across Ukraine,” and, ideally, “must be as common as dentists.”
Unlike recent US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing proxy conflict in Ukraine is a high-intensity battle of attrition between two near-peers. Under such circumstances, the primary sources of amputation injuries are essentially the same as they were during the grinding trench battles of World War One — artillery, missiles, and mines.
According to a 2014 policy brief published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, “the typical ratio of those wounded to those killed in conflict has historically hovered around the 3:1 mark,” though “with recent medical advances, however, the U.S. wounded-to-killed ratio today ranges anywhere from 10:1 to 17:1.”
But as the proxy war’s most vocal defenders are quick to point out, Ukrainian soldiers do not have access to the same medical technology as Americans.
Beyond the year-long wait for new limbs, a severe shortage of doctors and technicians to tend to amputees has been reported as well. And despite receiving well over $100 billion in aid from Western nations, Kiev still clearly lacks the technology, infrastructure and expert staff required to match Washington’s contemporary casualty record.
Over the course of two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, around 1,650 US veterans underwent amputation, according to the most recent figures available. And though that relatively small number has often been attributed to improvements in medical technology, American troops were also fighting lopsided skirmishes against poorly equipped adversaries operating without the benefit of air cover.
A January 2008 analysis of data published by the US Army Institute of Surgical Research’s Joint Theater Trauma Registry found that as of June 2006, 423 US soldiers who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan suffered one or more “major limb amputations,” a rate of 5.2% among serious injuries overall.
Eerily, the researchers responsible for the study noted that the percentage of amputees among the Vietnam War’s roughly 96,000 seriously injured casualties was also 5.2% — the same ratio recorded in Afghanistan and Iraq decades later. The paper’s conclusions were stark:
“Amputation rates [in war] have remained at roughly 7% to 8% of major-extremity injuries for the past 50 years. This is despite increasingly rapid evacuation of casualties, dramatic improvements in surgical technique, and far forward deployment of specialist care. However, over the same period, the degree of primary tissue destruction associated with modern weaponry has also increased dramatically. Unfortunately… we believe the rate of amputation following major limb injury is likely to remain unchanged in the current combat environment.”
However, The Wall Street Journal acknowledged that deaths on the Ukrainian side dwarf those suffered by the US military in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere during recent conflicts:
“Out of 100 soldiers wounded within about three miles of the front line, 36% suffered very severe injuries, while between 5% and 10% of all deployed troops were killed, according to Ukrainian military estimates shared with a group of US military surgeons. In comparison, only 1.3% to 2% of U.S. troops deployed in recent conflicts died in action.”
A study this June by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology which found that 78 percent of Ukrainians have had close relatives or friends injured or killed as a result of the conflict suggests the casualty figures are orders of magnitude greater than those publicly admitted by the Ukrainian military.
Mass death in “an investment trap”
Despite the best offers of liberal interventionists like the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, who attempted to reframe war amputees as an indicator of Ukrainian fearlessness, rather than unambiguously grim symbols of an utterly catastrophic situation, Western citizens are increasingly repelled by the deluge of pro-war propaganda.
On August 4, a CNN poll found that a majority of Americans opposed Congress authorizing more funding for Ukraine, with 51% of respondents saying Washington had “already done enough.” Markedly, there was “slim backing for US military forces to participate in combat operations” – just 17%.
With US elections rapidly approaching, and Biden administration officials openly worrying their Ukraine policy will be a decisive issue on polling day, the conflict’s conclusion could be near. Even Democratic Party loyalists like Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment (a think tank formerly directed by now-CIA director William Burns) are lamenting that the Ukraine proxy war has become a quagmire.
“It’s sad,” Miller wrote. “But [the] US is in an investment trap in Ukraine with no clear way out. Chances of a military breakthrough or a diplomatic solution are slim to none; and slim may have already left town. We’re in deep and lack the ability to do much more than react to events.”
Since publishing its grim survey of Ukraine’s amputation epidemic, The Wall Street Journal has churned out another depressing read for proxy war boosters. On August 13, the WSJ reported that Kiev’s failure to make headway in its vaunted counteroffensive has forced military planners to look ahead to Spring 2024 for another opportunity that “might” tip the balance.
First ‘confirmed’ cases in America were on U.S. aircraft carrier …
Or this should have been the obvious conclusion from a strangely-ignored antibody study
The USS Theodore Roosevelt left San Diego on January 17, 2020. Some sailors had shore leave at a port of call in Vietnam March 5-9. There seems to have been little interest in the question of how crew members were first infected or when “case zero” on the ship experienced symptoms. In a future article, I’ll point out that an “outbreak of norovirus” occurred on the ship Feb. 2-22. Only 382 of the ship’s 4,800 crew members “voluntarily” participated in the antibody study. At one time, officials said at least 1,000 crew members would participate in the antibody study.
BY BILL RICE, JR. | AUGUST 14, 2023
For a few weeks in early spring 2020, the drama of an outbreak of COVID-19 on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was world news.
Inexplicably, however, journalists and Covid researchers missed or ignored several blockbuster findings that could re-write key (and, I believe, false) narratives about this novel virus. In this author’s opinion, this possibly represents an intentional disinformation campaign perpetrated by “trusted” Naval and public health officials.
A later antibody study of a sample of the ship’s crew members produced several eye-opening findings. In my view, two findings qualify as particularly significant:
Information contained in the study strongly suggests that at least two crew members (and most likely several other crew members) had already been infected with the novel coronavirus when the ship sailed from San Diego on January 17, 2020.
The date is significant as this would be three days before the CDC reported the first “confirmed” Covid case in America. (This case was “confirmed” on January 20, 2020 but the PCR sample was taken on January 18.)
Language in the Roosevelt study definitely “confirms” that at least two sailors, both of whom later tested positive for antibodies, experienced Covid symptoms between Jan. 12-17, 2020.
For more than three years, “official” Covid histories state the first “confirmed” case in America was a man from Washington who’d recently returned from Wuhan, China. As developed below, crew members of the USS Roosevelt could, in fact, be listed as “confirmed” cases and by themselves debunk the narrative that America’s first cases came from travelers returning from Wuhan.
The same antibody results suggest that at least 59.7 percent of the ship’s approximately 4,800 crew members had already been infected by mid to late April 2020. This means approximately 3,000 crew members had contracted the virus by this date.
Sadly, Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr., 41, passed away on April 13, 2020 reportedly from complications of Covid. Officer Thacker tested positive for Covid March 30th and was in isolation in housing on Guam when he was found unresponsive April 9th. According to published reports, Thacker was receiving twice-a-day medical evaluations. He had gone to the Naval hospital in Guam on April 4th, but had been discharged back to his isolation quarters. It’s unclear how his medical condition deteriorated so rapidly without anyone knowing. It’s also unclear if he was staying by himself or with other sailors in isolation. I hope CDC and Navy officials can provide more details in a future interview, which I’ve requested. According to antibody and PCR test results, approximately 3,000 Roosevelt crew members were infected by Covid and Thacker was the only death. As of April 16, six of 4,800 crew members were hospitalized. Many sailors who were hospitalized seemed to have been hospitalized as a precaution, according to various press reports.
According to news reports, only one crew member, age 41, died from “complications of Covid.” (A future article will provide details that make me think the public hasn’t learned the full story of the death of Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr.).
As the vast majority of Roosevelt crew members were under the age of 40, this one death reveals that the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) for crew members under age 41 was 0.0000 percent.
In my opinion, the second big headline from this antibody study should have been: “Covid poses virtually no mortality risk to anyone middle age or younger … even in the worst and most intense spread environments.”
Instead, the prevailing narrative remained that Covid was a serious threat to “everyone” in the world, even though lessons from the Roosevelt proved this was not the case.
Two other naval vessels had ‘outbreaks’ where antibody tests
The above finding was further reinforced by two other “outbreaks” on military vessels from approximately the same time period.
Sixty percent of crew members on the French air craft carrier The Charles De Gaulle tested positive for antibodies after an outbreak said to have begun in March 2020.
According to this chart, 74.75 percent of crew members of this French aircraft carrier either had “confirmed” or “suspected” cases of Covid (60 percent of de Gaulle crew members tested positive for antibodies, the same percentage as the Roosevelt study)
None of the 1,739 sailors on the de Gaulle died. Also, an outbreak that infected at least 41 percent of the 333 crew members on the guided missile destroyer USS Kidd resulted in no deaths.
This means that Covid outbreaks that spread through three military ships between January – April 2020 – potentially affecting almost 7,000 Navy personnel – resulted in only one (presumed) Covid death.
According to results of antibody and PCR tests administered to crew members of these three Naval vessels, a total of 4,408 sailors were either “confirmed” or “probable/suspect” Covid cases.
As only one crew member died from Covid, the Infection Fatality Rate was 0.022 percent – which is significantly lower than the infection fatality rate for influenza (which is often reported as 0.1 percent).
Most news reports in the early months of the official pandemic said the IFR from Covid was between 1 and 4 percent, meaning that at least 1 in 100 people infected with this virus would later die from complications caused by this new and contagious virus.
However, among Naval personnel believed to have contracted this virus while serving on these three vessels, only 1 of 4,408 likely-infected sailors died from Covid.
Expressed as a fraction, the IFR for flu (0.1 percent) corresponds to 1 death in 1,000 flu cases. From this statistic, one could state that influenza is at least four times more deadly than Covid … at least among healthy young and middle-aged sailors.
It should also be emphasized that sailors on all three vessels lived with the virus in extremely-cramped quarters with the virus circulating for weeks or months. In other words, it’s hard to produce a more virulent environment for virus spread.
In the opinion of this journalist, neither of these two findings have received the attention they warrant. Study findings which should have been Page-1 news around the world have barely been cited by researchers, with most members of the public probably unaware of these two narrative-shifting findings.
See top graph … Figure 3 from the Roosevelt antibody study presents information on the number of sailors who tested positive for antibodies between April 20-24. The two cases on the far right would pre-date the fist confirmed Covid case in America. At least six antibody-positive crew members had symptoms before the ship’s port-of-call in Vietnam (March 5-9, 2020). The study does not address how these sailors – isolated and confined to the ship for many weeks – contracted the virus. Note also that most of the antibody positive sailors either did not test positive with a PCR test or had yet to receive a PCR test, which begs the questions of how and when these crew members contracted the virus their positive antibody tests say they’d definitely contracted. None of the positive sailors were interviewed by CDC or Navy officials.
Roosevelt Antibody Study key findings …
On April 20-24, 382 Roosevelt crew members “voluntarily” donated blood for antibody tests. (Positive results on an antibody tests show/suggest “prior infection.”)
Quick Comments:
- 382 crew members is only 7.9 percent of the crew of approximately 4,800.
- Earlier reports said the Navy and CDC were going to test at least 1,000 crew members for antibodies. I’ve never learned why the study was down-sized dramatically or wasn’t made mandatory, which one thinks might have been the case in time of an alleged medical crisis and world-wide pandemic.
– As I will show in a future article, 98.1 percent of the crew of the Charles de Gaulle were tested for antibodies.
60, 62 or “nearly” 66 percent infected …
All three figures are used in the Roosevelt study, with 60 percent being the most common percentage. From the study:
N = 382 – Survey respondents/participants
N = 228 positive (antibody) ELISA result (59.7 percent)
N = 238 had “previous or current Covid infection (62 percent)
One sentence in the study reads:
“Nearly two thirds of persons in this sample had positive ELISA test results, which indicate previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2.”
In my opinion, these could be labelled as ‘confirmed’ cases …
In several places in the study, authors define a “current or previous infection.” For example:
- “Current or previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is defined as a positive RT-PCR test result or a reactive antibody result determined by testing performed at CDC laboratories on specimens collected during April 20–24, 2020.”
“… (4) Previous or current SARS-CoV-2 infection was defined as a positive real-time RT-PCR result or positive ELISA (antibody) result.”
Quick comments:
Although different semantic interpretations might be offered, in my opinion, the above language says at least two Roosevelt cases should be “confirmed” as “early cases” that happened before the first “confirmed” case in America.
That is, all 228 sailors who tested positive via ELISA antibody tests satisfied the definition of individuals who had “current or previous” Covid infections. This figure would include the two sailors who tested positive and experienced Covid symptoms 98 and 99 days before receiving their antibody tests.
As far as I’m aware, this might be the only CDC study that defines a Covid case as someone who tested positive on an ELISA antibody test.
This language is extremely significant as hundreds of other early cases in the world could/might be “confirmed” if the same definitions used in the Roosevelt study also applied to these likely early cases.
Move the birthday of Covid spread up several months …
If this criteria applied to other likely/possible cases, the timeline of the “start date” of virus spread would be moved up at least three months. The first “confirmed cases” would be November 2019, or October 2019 if not September 2019 … but certainly not January 20, 2020.
For example, I’ve identified many Americans – as well as citizens from France, Italy and the UK – who tested positive via antibody tests (including several/many who tested positive with ELISA antibody tests). These possible/likely cases include many citizens who experienced Covid symptoms in late 2019. None of these citizens have been “confirmed” as Covid cases.
Almost all other studies define or confirm Covid cases as individuals who tested positive via a PCR test. As almost no PCR tests were administered to Americans prior to March 2020, it is literally impossible to “confirm” an early case via the “PCR-positive” confirmation protocol.
Again, modifying the definition of “previously-infected” individuals to include those who tested positive via an antibody test should be viewed as very significant and represents a stark departure from other CDC statements.
Symptoms and symptom onset dates matter …
Significantly, Roosevelt study participants filled out questionnaires, providing information on when sailors experienced Covid/ILI symptoms. Participants reported what symptoms they experienced, how many symptoms and, most significantly, self-reported dates where they first experienced these symptoms. (Most antibody-positive sailors experienced at least four symptoms; many experienced six or more symptoms).
The data that immediately jumped out to me (but apparently no one else) was the two crew members who self-reported symptoms 99 and 98 days before donating blood for this serology test (donation dates were April 20-24, 2020).
Working backward from April 20-24, 2020, the crew member who experienced symptoms 99 days before donating blood would have been symptomatic January 12-16, 2020. The sailor who experienced symptoms 98 days earlier would have been symptomatic January 13-17.
Comments:
Inexplicably, Navy and CDC medical personnel did not interview either of these sailors, both of whom could/would have qualified as “case zero” in America. In fact, no sailor in the survey was questioned about their symptoms.
From study: “… although the date of any symptom onset was collected, information on timing, duration, and severity of individual symptoms was not collected.”
“Symptom onset” typically occurs two to 14 days after infection. This means these two sailors, if they had Covid, were infected even earlier in January. For the sailor who experienced symptoms 99 days earlier, the infection date could have been between December 29, 2019 and January 15, 2020.
While the ship left San Diego January 17, 2020, I’ve yet to learn when sailors began to board the ship. My assumption is sailors boarded the ship at least several days before the ship got underway to prepare for its deployment, which lasted approximately 70 days.
If any crew members were symptomatic or infected with Covid on or before January 17, these crew members would almost certainly have begun to infect any “close contacts” who didn’t already have natural immunity.
(The possibility some crew members might have already been infected as early as November 2019, or perhaps even earlier, does not seem to have been considered by any public health official or journalist. At least to me, The Red Cross antibody study proves that residents of California had been infected by November 2019. If this was the case with some Roosevelt crew members, these crew members would likely have come on board the ship with natural immunity.)
In my opinion, if the CDC and Navy had tested the vast majority of the crew for antibodies, and these crew members had also filled out symptom questionnaires, the number of possible cases pre-dating the first confirmed case in America would have been much larger than two possible American “case zeroes.”
That is, by severely limiting the size of this antibody study, CDC and Navy authors limited the number of other possible early cases the study might have identified.
At least four other crew members who tested positive for antibodies (six in total) self-reported symptoms before the ship arrived at port in Vietnam Mach 5-9.
Twelve crew members who later tested positive for antibodies self-reported symptoms 41 or more days before giving blood for their antibody tests. Again, if the study size was much larger, many more sailors would have likely reported “symptom onset” dates before the ship’s port of call in Vietnam, as well as other crew members who were perhaps infected prior to January 20, 2020.
MORE DISCUSSION …
I can’t say the Navy/CDC “concealed evidence” of early spread because the information that made me suspect this is included in the study. Indeed, the key information is depicted on a graph (“Figure 3”) of the study. Also, text in the study makes this conclusion almost impossible to miss. For example:
“Among 12 participants with positive ELISA results >40 days after symptom onset, eight maintained positive microneutralization test results, including two participants who were tested >3 months after symptom onset.”
The Roosevelt antibody study, which was published online on June 8, was covered by prominent news organizations, including The New York Times and Reuters. The NY Times actually put the key information in its sub-headline:
Headline: “After Outbreak on Carrier Roosevelt, Many Have Antibodies”
Sub-headline: “A C.D.C. study found that some sailors showed protection against the coronavirus three months after the onset of symptoms”
FWIW, the sub-headline is not entirely accurate as 99 and 98 days would be “more than three months” after onset of symptoms. I mention the Times’ headline only to point out that no Times’ journalist or editor seems to have figured out that the first known case in America could have been a member of this ship (although the newspaper’s own headline should have told them this).
The story also quotes the study’s corresponding author Daniel Payne, who highlighted the fact some crew members had apparently had Covid antibodies for several months. (I have requested an interview with Dr. Payne).
“This is a promising indicator of immunity,” said Daniel C. Payne, an epidemiologist and one of the lead authors of the study … “We don’t know how long-lasting, for sure, but it is promising.”
Previous stories mentioned the growing number of “positive cases” on the ship, but none reported anywhere close to 60 percent of the crew being infected. For example, by April 21 (one day after the antibody tests had begun), 678 sailors had tested positive via a PCR test (14.1 percent of the crew).
Reuters’ journalist correctly highlighted the fact the study’s “results could indicate a far higher presence of the coronavirus.”
However, the journalist seems to de-amplify the significance of such a large percentage of positives with this latter text:
“… one of the Navy officials said that may not be the case because of the way the study was carried out … The outbreak investigation did not encompass the entire crew, and the results of this study cannot be generalized to the entire crew,” the official said.
The article later includes this disclaimer: “Medical groups, such as the American Medical Association, have warned that serology tests can lead to false positives.”
Like all journalists who wrote articles about this study, the Reuters reporter never asked why the project didn’t encompass the entire crew nor does this journalist question the assumed predicate (that a larger sample might have produced lower antibody-positive percentages than the study/sample that was performed. As noted, a sample of almost 100 percent of French sailors produced the identical percentage of antibody positives – 60 percent).
Nor do the journalists challenge the AMA’s statement that antibody tests “can” produce “false positives.” The author and the AMA could have noted, accurately, that serology tests “can” also lead to false negatives.
That is, if antibody tests are producing more “false negatives” than “false positives,” serology “prevalence” percentages in many/most antibody studies might be even higher than reported.
Such (requisite?) sentences support my belief that any antibody test that suggests much higher percentages of “early” cases will be routinely maligned or spun as being somehow insignificant.
One of the most disturbing take-aways from my “early spread” research is that, as far as I can tell, 100 percent of mainstream or corporate journalists, are not going to investigate credible evidence of early spread.
I understand why government and public health officials might want to cover-up evidence their “virus-origins” narrative was wrong all along, but I don’t understand why the “skeptical, watchdog” press would participate in what must be a massive conspiracy to conceal the truth.
I’ve harvested too much previously-unreported information from my research into Navy ship antibody studies to include in one article. Future articles will highlight other findings which have received little or no scrutiny to date – findings I believe deserve scrutiny, even if belated.
***
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Anyone with relevant information about the outbreak on the Roosevelt or any Naval vessel can email the author at: wjricejunior@gmail.com.
I would be very interested to hear from any Roosevelt crew members. Confidentiality will be protected.
The “Wellness-to-Fascism Pipeline” Baffles Experts as Truth Marches On
Congregating and Caring about Your Health is Dangerous to our Democracy
BY IGOR CHUDOV | AUGUST 13, 2023
Be careful with your workouts! An article from the Guardian alerts us to a “wellness-to-fascism pipeline.”
“People who study conspiracy theories” are worried that joining gyms and trying to get healthy makes people descend into what these experts describe as fascism, explains author James Ball.
James has a peculiar idea of what fascism is, however:
According to James, only fascists question masks, lockdowns, or the BBC. Good people mysteriously become “fascists” when they join gyms or look after their wellness.
Some of the most dangerous people, believe it or not, are personal trainers!
Some people’s problems escalated when their personal trainer learned about their work. “I had three successive personal trainers who were anti-vax. One Belgian, two Swiss,” I was told by a British man who has spent most of the past decade working in Europe for the World Economic Forum, which organises the annual summit at Davos for politicians and the world’s elite.
The poor WEF chap above was even dropped by his personal trainer when his employment at the WEF was revealed:
When the trainer found out the man worked for the World Economic Forum, he was immediately cut off.
Most worryingly for the “conspiracy expert” Peter Knight, people of all political persuasions, right or left, end up in the same place when they realize that “everything is a lie”:
Peter Knight has the strangest explanation, by gender, as to why people “get sucked into conspiracy theories.”
He explains that men are drawn into conspiracies because of the “involuntary celibacy” movement.
It is not that difficult to imagine why young men hitting the gym might be susceptible to QAnon and its ilk. This group spends a lot of time online, there is a supposed crisis of masculinity manifesting in the “incel” (involuntary celibacy) movement and similar, and numerous rightwing influencers have been targeting this group.
Mind you, at the beginning of the article, James Ball discussed how personal trainers are the superspreaders of conspiracies. Have you ever seen an involuntarily celibate gym personal trainer?
His explanation of why women believe the same theories could not be more different! Women, it turns out, believe the same conspiracies as men because of the “female data gap”!
“Far too often, we blame women for turning to alternative medicine, painting them as credulous and even dangerous,” she says. “But the blame does not lie with the women – it lies with the gender data gap. Thanks to hundreds of years of treating the male body as the default in medicine, we simply do not know enough about how disease manifests in the female body.”
There is a much simpler explanation as to why people believe the “Covid was lab-made” conspiracy theory, “Covid vaccine does not work” conspiracy theory, or “15-minute cities are promoted by the World Economic Forum” theory.
The explanation is that these theories are true. Both genders are capable of critical thinking, seeing the truth, and sharing it.
This simple explanation does not insult millions of thinking men by portraying them as “incels,” nor does it portray women as stupid creatures confused by the imaginary “gender data gap.”
Trying to find explanations for complicated but important events affecting us and not believing dishonest press is not fascism. God gave us brains for a reason – to think for ourselves! Critical thinking is the opposite of fascism, which requires uncritical obedience to the state ideology.
Despite its stupidity, the Guardian’s article exposes the most important social network that the press, fact-checkers, and the powers-to-be cannot control.
This social network is people physically and directly interacting with each other and sharing news and opinions.
It cannot be suppressed by means other than drastic lockdowns, which kept people at home in 2020. The gyms, far from being uniquely instrumental in developing critical thinking, are simply places where people congregate and share stuff while doing something pleasant. Thus, not surprisingly, gym-goers share explanations of current events with their peers without any censorship or any algorithmic intermediary.
The Guardian recognizes this:
Society’s discussion of QAnon, anti-vaxxers and other fringe conspiracies is heavily focused on what happens in digital spaces – perhaps too much so, to the exclusion of all else. The solution, though, is unlikely to be microphones in every gym and treatment room, monitoring what gets said to clients.
The conspiracy experts are baffled by this development and ironically blame “isolation,” even though the phenomenon they observe is rooted in physical interaction between people:
Jane has her own theory as to why her wellness group got radicalised and she did not – and it’s one that aligns with concerns from conspiracy experts, too. “I think it’s the isolation,” she concludes, citing lockdown as the catalyst, before noting the irony that conspiracies then kick off a cycle of increasing isolation by forcing believers to reject the wider world.
“It becomes very isolating because then their attitude is all: ‘Mainstream media … they lie about everything.’”
I do not think of myself and my dear subscribers as isolated: we congregate here, we read newspapers, although critically, and we interact with friends or relatives. Anyone can say anything they want in the comments. Am I wrong?
How Americans released in swap deal engaged in espionage activities in Iran
By Khosro Mokhtari | Press TV | August 12, 2023
Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday issued a statement confirming reports of a prisoner swap deal between Tehran and Washington, which includes the unfreezing of Iranian funds abroad.
“Iran has received the necessary guarantee for the US commitment to its obligations in this regard,” the statement noted, adding that the transfer of funds has always been a priority for the ministry.
Prior to the ministry statement, IRNA cited official sources as saying that five American prisoners will be released from Evin Prison “within the framework of an agreement mediated by a third party.”
The report further said that more than 10 billion dollars of Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea and Iraq will be unblocked under the agreement that was reached following extensive two-year negotiations.
Five prisoners each from Iran and the US will be exchanged under the deal. The exchange, however, will happen only once the money is deposited into Iranian accounts.
Five Iranians who would be freed as part of the swap agreement were jailed for trying to circumvent US sanctions, according to Washington’s claims, while five Americans in Iran were booked for espionage.
Late on Thursday, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce that the process of releasing billions of dollars of Iranian assets had commenced.
“Tehran has received the guarantee of Washington’s commitments. The release of several Iranians who were illegally detained in America is in this context,” he wrote.
Foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, in a tweet on Saturday, said since the beginning of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s government, dynamic diplomacy was put into action to “obtain the maximum national interests and the rights of the great nation of Iran.”
“In addition to continuing the process of neutralizing illegal sanctions, the path of negotiation and diplomacy was never abandoned. Efforts continue to obtain final results and full realization of Iran’s rights,” the top diplomat wrote, in reference to the unblocking of Iranian assets abroad.
Among three American prisoners who will be freed as part of the swap agreement include Emad Shargi, Murad Tahbaz, and Siamak Namazi. The other two have not been publicly identified.
Emad Shargi
Emad Edward Sharqi, who was born in Iran and holds American citizenship, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 2021 on charges of espionage and gathering military information.
He entered Iran in 2016 in the guise of a businessman, but the economic activity was actually a cover for his espionage in the military field, especially in the field of transportation and helicopter warfare.
With the help of his accomplices, Sharqi collected information about Iran’s helicopter industry. The documents recovered from his possession show his activities were in the field of military espionage, not business or trade as was reported in sections of Western media.
The purpose of these actions was to help the US policymakers implement the sanctions regime against Iran to hit the international supply chain for helicopter spare parts intended for the country.
Sharqi was arrested for the first time in April 2018 and remained in prison until December of that year before he was released on bail. But before the appeals court was held, he planned to escape from Iran.
While staying in a private home, unaware of Iranian intelligence monitoring, he contacted the American spy network and asked them to arrange for him to be secretly transferred abroad.
On the day of the planned escape, he met with a spy aide, removed the SIM card and turned off his cell phone to prevent tracking. After that, they headed to western Tehran’s bus terminal where, using a false identity, he bought a ticket to travel to Iran’s western border.
Iranian intelligence services deliberately allowed the escape to proceed almost to its planned point, with the aim of discovering and arresting his accomplices.
Sharqi and several others were eventually arrested and convicted under Iranian law.
Murad Tahbaz
Murad Tahbaz, who was born in the United Kingdom and also holds an American passport, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November 2019 for being the ringleader of a spy network that operated under the guise of environmentalism.
Tahbaz co-founded the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, formally a conservation organization whose primary concern was the endangered Asiatic cheetah which lives mainly in the northern Dasht-e Kavir desert of Iran.
The same geographical area is also home to two of Iran’s largest rocket sites, which are under strict surveillance, and long-term observation of the activities of these self-proclaimed environmentalists revealed that they were more interested in those facilities.
Furthermore, monitoring of Tahbaz’s contacts revealed that he was in close contact and communicating on a regular basis with American, British and Israeli spy agencies.
The investigation showed that certain individuals involved were misled about the true intent of the project, which was falsely presented in Western media as alleged evidence of collective innocence.
Siamak Namazi
Siamak Namazi was born in Iran and moved to the United States with his wealthy family in the early years of the Islamic Revolution.
In October 2016, Namazi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and cooperation with the US government and foreign intelligence networks.
At the end of the 1990s, he tried to become an intermediary in making deals between American and Iranian companies, founding the consulting company “Atieh Bahar Consulting” in Tehran.
Namazi’s company concluded a gas agreement with the UAE-based company “Crescent Petroleum” on the export of gas to Sharjah, but the project resulted in costs only for the Iranian side and an Emirati lawsuit of $32 billion.
Evidently, it was a well-planned fraud aimed at harming Iranian interests, for which Namazi was rewarded with the position of head of strategic planning at Crescent Petroleum.
Over time, it was revealed that “MIC” was actually a covert network filled with US government employees who later held numerous other anti-Iranian positions.
These include the position of editor-in-chief of the VOA Persian propaganda channel, jobs at the US government’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the Pentagon’s National Defense University, the Office of Iranian Affairs at the US State Department, etc.
Namazi himself participated in gathering information about the Iranian pharmaceutical network, whose extensive study he presented at the US government’s Wilson Center (WWICS).
This activity under the guise of humanitarian work had the purpose of making it easier for American hawks to increase sanctions on Iran, that is, to show them how and where to hit the Iranian pharmaceutical industry.
Namazi was eventually arrested in October 2015.
His father, Iranian-American businessman Baqer Namazi, who had been convicted in Iran on spying charges, was released and allowed to leave the country in October last year on humanitarian grounds.
Namazi, 85, was arrested on February 22, 2016, when he came to Iran on the pretext of visiting his jailed son. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “collusion with an enemy state.”
US politicization of cases
The cases pertaining to these American spies were subjected to politicization by the US government, whose official narrative was followed by all Western media organizations, without a single exception.
The legal basis of cases filed against them by the Iranian judiciary was ignored, according to observers, and the same clichéd stories about groundless arrests, show trials and harsh prison conditions were repeated by the US officials and the mainstream media.
According to legal researcher Alireza Sadeghian, Westerners jailed in Iran for spying are often described as “political hostages, businessmen, environmentalists, humanitarians, activists, human rights fighters to generate sympathy for them.”
“This American self-righteousness is not questioned in the West, as if the US is an authoritative legal model, not the country with the largest number of prisoners, a far higher incarceration rate and prison violence rate compared to Iran,” he said on the Press TV website, referring to blatant US duplicity and hypocrisy.
To influence public opinion in the West, US media would publish emotional statements from family and lawyers, describing them as “innocents” who were “wrongly framed” by the Iranian authorities.
After the senior Namazi was released last October, Jared Genser, an attorney and pro-bono counsel for the Namazi family, was quoted as saying by PBS that he was “wrongfully held in Iran for more than six-and-a-half years,” disregarding legal merits of the case.
In May 2022, an AFP report stated that Americans and Europeans have been held in Iran “as part of a deliberate policy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from foreign governments.”
‘Hostages & ransom’ narratives
Western pundits and so-called rights groups fail to mention Iranians languishing in US prisons, arguing that the Americans are being exchanged for “ransom,” which is the illegally frozen Iranian money.
Such rhetoric, according to experts, is reminiscent of the 1979-1981 American manipulations, when the staff of the US embassy in Tehran was detained, according to the Western narrative, due to Washington’s refusal to return billions of dollars stored in American banks.
Even at that time, Washington denied its widespread espionage activities in Iran, despite undeniable evidence in the form of discovered equipment and classified documents in the seized embassy.
The American audience was deprived of the true motives of the embassy seizure. The captives were called hostages, and the demand for the return of frozen assets was misrepresented as a ransom, alluding that billions of dollars in frozen funds were US property.
“The claims of Iran randomly arresting American citizens for financial and other benefits is simply false and empirically unproven, as evidenced by the cases of temporary detention of 10 American sailors, three mountaineers, and numerous other examples,” said Mahmoud Mortazavi, a political analyst.
“On the other hand, the released Iranians in the United States were not arrested for espionage but for trying to circumvent US sanctions, i.e. trade for mutual benefit.”
He hastened to add that, unlike American spies in Iran, they did not plan industrial espionage, plant sabotage, assassination of American commanders, or other destructive activities.
Ukrainian soldiers underestimated Russia – Western media
By Lucas Leiroz | August 12, 2023
Apparently, the Ukrainian armed forces were not aware of the defense capabilities of the Russian Federation, having underestimated the enemy during the counteroffensive. According to an article recently published by CNN, Ukrainian soldiers did not expect their opponents to be so efficient on the battlefield, which is supposed to explain why Kiev’s counteroffensive was so overrated – and is now being so criticized for its irrelevant results.
The article was written by on the ground reporters, war correspondents who interviewed Ukrainian troops to find out their opinion on what is happening in the frontlines. In the text, the interviewees unexpectedly “admitted” to have underestimated the Russian opponents, virtually assuming responsibility for the failure of the counterattack.
“It won’t be as easy as in [Russia’s tactical retreat from] Kharkiv. Here the enemy was ready, unfortunately. Everybody chatted for months that we would move here (…) We expected less resistance. They are holding. They have leadership. It is not often you say that about the enemy”, a tank unit commander named “Lotos” told CNN’s journalists. Also, “Vlad”, “a medic with the 15th National Guard”, stated: “You shouldn’t honor the enemy (…) But don’t underestimate him”.
The article, however, also shows some optimism about the future of the counteroffensive. It is said that the Ukrainians already learned “not to underestimate their enemy” and now they can do something really efficient, despite the difficulties. Interviewees claim that there is a kind of “thirst for revenge” that motivates them to keep fighting, which is why “CNN saw a palpable improvement in morale”.
Julia, another military medic interviewed by CNN, states that her colleagues are optimistic about the future of the offensive, since “revenge” and “hatred” would be motivating them. According to her, now there is a different optimism, possibly more realistic, knowing the enemy’s capacity, but still very strong, since the Ukrainians are enthusiastic about the possibility of attacking, as they spent more than 18 months just defending themselves. She says, for example, that the wounded soldiers she takes care of are eager to return to the front and resume their duties as their “thirst for revenge is very strong”.
“We are still optimistic but not as we used to be. Assaulting is emotionally easier. It was very hard standing in defense for 18 months (…) They (wounded Ukrainian troops) know it’s not going to be the same – they won’t be in the assault squad. But they want to come back. Because thirst for revenge is very strong. Hatred is very strong”, she said.
It is curious to read this type of information in the Western media when, on the other side, prisoners of war captured by the Russians claim that they learned about the existence of a “counteroffensive” through TikTok, since their officers had not told them anything on the battlefield. There is clearly an inconsistency between the data. Soldiers who were not aware of the counteroffensive cannot have overestimated the attack or underestimated the enemy. They did not even know what they were doing to have any critical assessment of the topic.
CNN’s interviewees speak as if they were to blame for military failure, when in fact those responsible for calculating the chances of victory are not military personnel on the frontlines, but intelligence officers who have access to sensitive data about the enemy. What seems most likely is that the media is manipulating the reports made by the sources saying that there were errors in calculating the possible results of the counteroffensive, blaming the Ukrainians and trying to clean up their own image.
Along with Ukrainian state officials, the Western media were primarily responsible for spreading the narrative that a large-scale attack was being planned by Kiev. Western journalists overestimated this alleged attack more than any Ukrainian military and now they seem to be trying to save their own credibility by bringing new “explanations” about what supposedly prevented the move from succeeding.
Furthermore, it is hard to believe that there really is so much motivation and high morale among the Ukrainian troops after so many recent defeats. What has been seen in recent months is a series of pessimistic statements by the Ukrainian military, with fewer and fewer people believing in any possibility of victory. In fact, the tendency is that territorial losses and battlefield defeats generate deterioration of credibility, moral discouragement and capitulation, not “thirst for revenge”.
In this sense, it seems more likely that the Western media itself is initiating a new propaganda campaign, focused on asserting that there will be a new wave of counterattacks in the near future, which is supposed not to repeat the errors of the previous one. An indication of this is the fact that in the article CNN journalists also made some criticisms of NATO’s weapons sent to Ukraine, stating that they are “donated” ones, “not always kept at NATO service standards”. This appears to be a psychological move to convince public opinion that what has been sent to Kiev so far is still “not enough” for the counteroffensive to succeed, and there needs to be more efficient, lethal weapons in the military aid packages.
In the end, the Western media outlets seem to be doing once again what they have been doing throughout the entire conflict: encouraging war, demanding more weapons and trying to disguise their own analytical errors.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
Coral at the Great Barrier Reef Holds on to Recent Record Gains, Defying All Doomsday Predictions
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 10, 2023
Coral at the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) faces another year of exile from the climate scare headlines with news that the record levels reported in 2021-22 have been sustained in the latest annual period to May 2023. A small drop in the three main areas of the reef was well within margin of error territory, with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reporting that regional average hard coral cover in 2022-2023 was similar to last year at 35.7%. Most reefs underwent little change during the year.
Coral at the reef has been bouncing back sharply for a number of years, with a record 36-year high reported in 2022. But the news of this spectacular recovery has been largely ignored in most media since it had previously been a go-to poster scare story for collectivist Net Zero promoters. But connecting the fate of tropical corals to global warming was always a difficult ask since they grow in waters between 24-32°C. Short boosts in local temperatures can cause temporary bleaching, but it is scientifically impossible to pin it on human-caused climate change, although pseudoscientific ‘attribution’ computer models try very hard.
In the latest year, there was a short local temperature rise, but little bleaching was reported during the 2023 summer. No cyclones hit the reef and crown-of thorns starfish attacks were limited. Nevertheless, natural stresses will always affect the eco-system and AIMS states that these paused the growth of hard coral on some of the reefs.
Like most state-funded scientific bodies, AIMS is fully signed up to climate extremism and delivering politically correct messages to promote the Net Zero solution. Despite reporting what is now a substantial multi-year recovery, it notes that the future is predicted to bring more frequent, intense and enduring marine heatwaves, alongside the persistent threat of crown-of thorns starfish outbreaks and tropical cyclones. More frequent mass coral bleaching is a sign that the GBR is experiencing the consequences of climate change, it claims. However, in a different part of its latest report, AIMS accepts that the recent substantial recovery occurred despite two mass coral bleaching events in 2020 and 2022. There is an acceptance that this underlines that “widespread coral bleaching does not necessarily lead to extensive coral mortality”.
But pockets of extremist catastrophism remain in the mainstream media, notably in the Guardian, fighting to keep the coral destruction story going. A year ago, the newspaper reported that the GBR still had “some capacity” for recovery, but the window was closing fast as the climate continued to warm. Of course the Guardian has form as long as your arm on this score. Back in 1999, George Monbiot told its readers that the “imminent total destruction of the world’s coral reefs is not a scare story but a fact”.
In last year’s Guardian report, Dr. Mike Emslie, who leads the AIMS monitoring service, said he felt a “couple of bullets” had been recently dodged. While the recovery is great, “the predictions are the disturbances will get worse”, he suggested. “The naysayers can put their heads in the sand all they like, but the frequency of disturbances is going gangbusters,” he claimed. Dr. David Wachenfeld from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority claimed “global heating” of 1.5°C is considered a “guardrail for reefs”, after which the bleaching comes along too quickly for strong recovery.
Coral reefs have been around in one form or another for hundreds of millions of years. Current global temperatures are towards the lower end of the paleoclimatic record. One might wonder how corals manage to survive temperatures up to 10°C higher in the past?
Back in the real world, we can see how the recent solid recovery was sustained across the three main areas of the GBR.
The recovery in the northern GBR actually started around 2017. Last year the coral declined slightly from 36.5% to 35.7%, and was easily within the margin of error calculated by the AIMS. Typhoon Tiffany passed through at the end of the previous reporting season, and could have been responsible for some loss.
In the centre of the reef, the strong recovery of hard coral cover to 32.6% last year eased slightly, but again, as the AIMS noted, it was within the margin of error.
The southern end of the GBR has generally had higher coral cover than elsewhere, but has shown greater variability over the observed record. Last year’s cover was 33.8%, compared with 33.9% the year before. Some coral was reported to have been lost due to starfish predations.
The GBR is the largest reef system on Earth and runs for over 1,400 miles down the eastern side of Australia. It is also the most surveyed reef in the world and the results of scientific endeavour are widely distributed. While this work is often politicised, it is clear that recent evidence shows that temporary spikes in temperature, which occur naturally in the oceans, can cause bleaching. However, this bleaching process can rapidly go into reverse when local conditions stabilise. These findings have been confirmed elsewhere, notably in the remote Palmyra Atoll, 1,200 kms south of Hawaii. A 10-year survey recently observed sudden changes in temperature up to 3°C on two occasions, leading to substantial damage to the coral. A 2015-16 spike led to 90% of the coral bleaching, but the researchers found that within a year only 10% of the coral had died. Within two years, the corals had returned to pre-bleached levels.
The researchers concluded that the coral structures “show evidence of long-term stability” – but don’t hold that front page.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor
Claims that ‘Global Boiling’ Led to “Shocking” Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet are Nonsense
The Ice Sheet is Currently Bigger Than Normal
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 8, 2023
The new era of ‘global boiling’ has brought a return of the much loved climate scare story featuring the imminent demise of the Greenland ice sheet. The Daily Mail recently ran a headline noting the ‘Impact of Global Boiling‘, saying it has “shocking” photos showing how much the ice sheet has melted during the “hottest month ever recorded on Earth”. Snow melt is said to be higher than the 1981-2010 average.
But, alas, those who strive for accuracy in these matters are likely to quibble. The Earth is not “boiling” – that is the unhinged raving of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – the claim about July comes from a computer model, while “ever” refers to data of varying quality going back barely 150 years. Furthermore, the surface balance of ice on the Greenland ice sheet is higher than the 1981-2010 average, and could improve on last’s year performance, when there was little or no loss of the surface mass after the brief summer melting season.
If the Mail is “shocked” by how much the Greenland ice sheet has melted this year, it probably didn’t consult the polar portal site run by Danish meteorologists, which updates an accurate record on a daily basis. Both graphs above show the effect of a cold June where the ice loss was considerably lower than the previous year. Warmer weather arrived from the south in late June in time for the peak summer melt season.
As the second graph shows, the accumulation of surface ice on Greenland is more than the 1981-2010 average, and a big improvement on a decade ago. But as the Daily Sceptic noted recently, the current improvement can be seen in an even better light. A number of scientific institutions still use a decadal 1981-2010 average for comparison purposes, despite data to 2020 being available. The cynical might note that the ice sheet lost just 51 gigatonnes a year in the 1980s, compared to an annual loss of 244 gts in the 2010s. Updating the average figure would greatly amplify the recent, and continuing, recovery in the surface ice mass.
The ”shocking” before and after photos revealing how snow melts in the summer, even in Greenland, were taken by NASA satellites over the Frederikshab Glacier running down to the warmer south-west coast. The information and photos came from a NASA blog aimed at educators headed ‘Wasting Away (Again) in Greenland‘. More than halfway through the 2023 melting season, reports NASA, “Greenland has seen a substantial transformation of its snow cover”. This line – if it’s summer in Greenland, the snow melts – is readily taken up by the Mail. “According to scientists, snow falls on the Greenland ice sheet every winter… but experts say hotter summer temperatures are reducing the amount of snow cover.” The NASA blog is heavily quoted: “More than halfway through the 2023 melting season, Greenland has seen a substantial transformation of its snow cover. … Changes are the result of the increasing warmth of summer weather that took hold across the region in late June.”
Hold the front page – snow melts during the summer in Greenland, not many dead.
It is not difficult to find areas of rock in Greenland, especially in the south-west where most of the population of 55,000 live. The climate in this area is characterised as ‘low Arctic’ and temperatures are well above freezing in the warmest months. Ice in the Arctic waxes and wanes on a cyclical basis, while the long-term Greenland temperature is fairly stable. At a time when the planet has seen a gentle period of warming over the last 100 years, Greenland even held back slightly on the general trend. The five-year moving average of -18.57°C in 1929 compares with a measurement in 2021 of –17.96°C. The largest boost, as with other areas of the world, occurred in a short period in the 1980s and 90s, as the World Bank graph below shows. Since that time, as elsewhere, the rate of warming has considerably declined.
The Greenland ice sheet is the alarmist scare story that keeps on giving because water flowing off the land can increase sea levels. The Mail notes that scientists have already warned this year that the Greenland ice sheet is the “hottest it has ever been” and will cause global sea levels to rise by 20 inches by 2100 if it keeps warming at the same pace. In fact this information is linked to an earlier article that referenced a science paper quoting temperatures between 2000-2011. The next paragraph of the current story reports a rise of four feet or 1.2 metres by 2300, “even if we meet the 2015 Paris climate goals, scientists have warned”. Scientists might “warn”, but all these opinions of greatly increased sea level rises are produced by climate models, often assuming outlandish future scenarios.
Again, as we have noted in numerous articles, sea level rises are notoriously difficult to calculate since land rises as huge weights are lifted from it. Many areas in the northern hemisphere show falls in coastal sea levels, and this process is ongoing since the Earth is currently in an interglacial phase. In fact, current rises of 2mm a year are tiny compared with the huge boosts between 12,000 to 4,000 years ago.
Again, hold that front page – shock 2mm annual rise will lead to civilisation being inundated in the next century by a catastrophic seven inch increase in sea levels. Not many expected to die.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
The Infuriating Climate Alarm
By Iain Davis | OffGuardian | August 8, 2023
In the UK, we all know that this summer has been rubbish. We had a few weeks of glorious sunshine in June and since then it’s been bloody miserable. It’s been cold, wet and the dog has got trench-foot. Which isn’t great because he stinks at the best of times—bless him.
Yet, according to the UN Secretary General and blithering buffoon, António Guterres, we’ve entered the “era of global boiling.” Though not in the UK—or anywhere else for that matter
Just as we were during the pseudopandemic, we are once again invited to reject the evidence of our own senses and “trust” whatever we are told by the “experts,” although Guterres is not a meteorologist. Mind you, Bill Gates isn’t an epidemiologist and everyone “trusted” his “expert” opinion during the pseudopandemic, so who cares?
I know! I know! Weather isn’t climate change. While climate constantly changes, the process can only be understood through the accumulation of evidence revealing a highly complex system that is subject to radiative forcing.
It is safe to say that no one who seriously questions “climate change” alarm, denies that climate changes. What they question are the claims made by organisations like the UK Met Office:
The evidence is clear: the main cause of climate change is burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal. When burnt, fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the air, causing the planet to heat up.
There isn’t one, published scientific paper, anywhere on Earth, that empirically proves that increased atmospheric CO2 precedes and causes global warming. The evidence is far from “clear.”
Climate change alarmists offer all kinds of convoluted arguments, usually by applying highly questionable statistical models, in their attempt to prove causality. Yet this very basic, empirical scientific proof is notable only for its absence.
But let’s not let scientific facts get in the way of a good story. The planet is boiling I tells ye!
If CO2 is the problem then the solution seems pretty simple, not to mention quite pleasant: plant as many trees as we can, wherever we can, and don’t cut them down to burn in biomass power plants that emit more CO2 than brown-coal fired power stations. But that is not a “solution” that anyone in power is interested in.
If CO2 is the problem then the solution seems pretty simple, not to mention quite pleasant: plant as many trees as we can, wherever we can, and don’t cut them down to burn in biomass power plants that emit more CO2 than brown-coal fired power stations. But that is not a “solution” that anyone in power is interested in.
No, the proposed solution to supposed planetary vaporisation is Sustainable Development debt slavery. Which all raises a few questions about, for example, UK Met Office gibberish. It’s almost as if there’s some sort of agenda at play. Which, of course, there is.
But we’re not going rehash arguments about the climate change woo-woo Science™. There’s no point anyway. Climate change alarm is a death cult, not an exercise in intellectual honesty.
Instead, let’s look at just a few examples of obvious climate alarm tripe. As we do, we’ll also ponder why, if anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory is so sound, so-called “climate scientists” and the mainstream media—legacy media—feel the need to perpetually lie about its alleged effects.
In 2009, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, which provides much of the HadCRUT data underpinning the IPCC’s climate change models, was caught fiddling the climate data in order to “prove” AGW theory.
Scientific fraud was evident and key “climate scientists” involved were subsequently unable to provide any data to support their misleading conclusions. Something that was later proven in court. Yet still the legacy media (LM), in this instance represented by the appalling propagandists at the Guardian, manage to deny the blatant scam.
This is all irrelevant because, irrespective of the fake science, all scientists agree that the planet is being cooked like a hard boiled egg. Except the Nobel laureate physicists who don’t. Oh, and all the other scientists who don’t either.
They are not “real” scientists and therefore must be cancelled and definitely barred from explaining to the IMF that the IPCC’s modelled predictions are drivel. Global financial institutions are set to profit from “da climate Science™” and are not interested in having their plans undermined by pesky, Nobel prize winning scientists.
Gutteres’ boiling planet yarn is based upon the recent LM alarm about the Cerberus and Charon heatwaves that supposedly plagued central and southern Europe. The LM used scary colours on their maps to make sure everyone soiled themselves. As if naming the summer after mythical devil-dogs and boatmen for the dead wasn’t enough.
Reuters said ambulances had been put on standby to rescue people from the sunshine; Sky warned that the fingerprints of climate change were forcing people to “shelter from the heat;” CNN reported that the heat was at “unbearable levels” and the constantly petrified Guardian, alleging that “human-caused climate crisis is supercharging extreme weather around the world,” added:
The European Space Agency (ESA) said the next week could bring the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.
While the Guardian mentioned the ESA, they neglected to report its subsequent data clarification. The ESA made it clear that they were providing satellite readings of “land surface temperatures” not the “air temperatures” that are commonly given in weather reports.
On a hot day, land surface temperatures tend to be considerably higher than air temperatures. The degree of difference varies, depending on numerous factors such as the heat absorption and radiation properties of the surface material and so on. As pointed out by the pro-climate alarm website SkepticalScience :
[. . .] on a sunny day in a heatwave, many land surfaces become hotter than the air – that’s how tarmac can melt in a sunny spot.
Contradicting themselves, and ignoring the ESA clarification completely, SkepticalScience then said that the reported air temperature high of 48.8°C on July 17th “did happen.” However, as pointed out by the genuinely sceptical What’s-Up-With-That (WUWT), this claim presents us with a major conundrum.
The LM consistently reported “air temperatures” that were the same as the ESA’s reported “land surface temperature.” The air temperature should have been notably lower, but wasn’t reported to be so.
Quite simply, that just can not be true. It is all very odd, because the actual recorded air temperatures were lower than those reported by the LM, such as the Guardian and the BBC.
This is not to say that it wasn’t very hot in southern and some parts of central Europe and the US. But the ridiculous, exaggerated LM claims that July was the hottest month in 125,000 years were unmitigated claptrap. As Kit Knightly, writing for the OffGuardian, rightly observed, there is simply no way to know this.
The University of Alabama and Hunstsville (UAH) Global Temperature Record is also a key data set for the IPCC. The UAH measures temperature anomalies and, using this measure—which is not the same as a consistent average—confirmed that July 2023 was the hottest July and the hottest single month since 1979, when satellite records began. Given, for example, that an “air temperature” anomaly of 50°C was recorded in Paris in August 1930—before satellite records began—the “hottest ever” claims don’t remotely stack up, even from an anomaly perspective, and certainly don’t constitute any evidence of the “ravages” of CO2 driven climate change.
Reports from European holiday makers that they had to avoid the midday sun, as they mingled with the crowds enjoying the lovely weather, is hardly a sign of the end-times. Noel Coward wrote the song “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” advising people to avoid sweltering midday temperatures, in 1931. It went down well because it was funny and something people could relate to. Probably because the 1930s was the hottest decade of the 20th century.
SkepticalScience is among the climate alarm pushers who assert that the heatwave was obviously caused by climate change. As noted by James Corbett and James Even Pilato, that notion is speculative to say the least.
Both NASA and the ESA reported that the Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai underwater volcano eruption in January 2022 increased the amount of stratospheric water vapour by a minimum of 10%, possibly up to 30%. So vast was this expulsion of H2O that it is likely to increase average global temperatures for several years to come.
If you are looking for LM reports on the staggering global climate impact of this event, don’t bother. There aren’t any.
Instead, the BBC, for example, published an article on July 14th 2023 which spoke about the amazing expulsion of lava and ash and the spectacular associated volcanic lightening. They even linked to the NASA report which said the additional volume of atmospheric water vapour was enough to “fill the equivalent of 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.” But the BBC propagandists couldn’t bring themselves to report the rest of the quoted NASA statement, which read:
The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.
Just eleven days later—July 25th—BBC amnesiacs told the world that the European and US heatwaves would have been “near impossible” without climate change. Despite previously citing the NASA and ESA findings which clearly show this claim is totally groundless.
The BBC offered a ludicrous report from World Weather Attribution (WWA)—deceptively calling it a “study”—to supposedly “confirm” that “climate change” had increased the heatwaves by 2.5°C. Based upon nothing but LM reports and speculative computer models, the WWA report was scientifically illiterate dross that presented absolutely no evidence at all to support any of its wacky conclusions.
The Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption and the ESA spawned media “confusion,” over the difference between surface and air temperatures, was entirely ignored by the BBC as it pumped out its climate change propaganda. Rounding off its disinformation, the BBC wrote:
[. . .] increased temperatures from burning fossil fuels was the main driver in the more intense heatwaves.
A conclusion, it is worth reiterating, for which there is no evidence. The BBC’s role is to make you imagine that the evidence exists.
SkepticalScience, which isn’t sceptical enough to explore atmospheric science or check what its scientific sources really said, didn’t deem it necessary to mention any of this either. But it did ram home that anyone who questions climate alarm is a “climate denier”:
People who create and/or circulate such myths are denying plain reality. That reality is that it got extremely hot across southern Europe for a prolonged period in July 2023. Such prolonged heat is a serious health-hazard, never mind the appalling wildfires.
Aah, the wildfires!
Presumably ignited by the 40+°C heat. Or so the LM would have us believe.
Reporting the “end of the world,” the BBC were certain that the “heatwave spreading across Europe is fuelling wildfires in Portugal.” Someone should tell the Portuguese the end of the world is nigh, because comments from people in Portugal during the “catastrophic heatwave” don’t give rise to any cause for alarm.
This is all reminiscent of the climate alarm that spewed out of the LM during the Canadian wildfires in June that sent a pall of smoke across the US eastern seaboard. The New York Times said this provide us with a “grim climate lesson;” CBS said that the fires were started by lightening caused by dry hot weather as “climate change continues to warm the planet” and the always unreliable BBC wrote “climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.”
But the prize for most outstanding baloney must go to the Guardian for its unhinged piece, “Canada’s Wildfires are Part of a New Climate Reality.” Claiming that the fires were the “harbinger of our climate future” and that climate change could “double the acreage burned by wildfires each year,” the Guardian exposed itself when it revealed that its headline “new climate reality” was “sourced” from a tweet by US politician Bernie Sanders. Probably after he read a New York Times or other LM article that told him what to think.
None of these wildly inaccurate LM affirmations were remotely plausible. In a fully referenced article, weather forecaster Chris Martz, outlined the many reasons why there is no foundation for the claims that the Canadian boreal forest wildfires were, in any sense, attributable to CO2 caused “climate change:”
Headlines and armchair experts articulated with boastful confidence that the primary cause of the Canadian fires [. . .] was climate change. Despite the fact these claims are neither supported by the greater body of peer-reviewed work nor the observational record.
The actual reasons for the Canadian wildfires were the encroachment of human settlements into woodland areas—increasing the human ignition risk, decades of poor forestry management and inclement weather conditions that produced the lightening strikes which appeared to simultaneously ignite some of the fires.
Prior to the heat driven thunderstorms, Canada had been experiencing average or below average temperatures for the time of year. As Martz accurately observed:
This justifies the case that the fire weather conditions were a transient response to ongoing weather conditions which primed the environment, not a long-term pattern that could be altered by the climatic base state.
Martz reported the Canadian government’s forest burn area records from 1959 to date. Contrary to all the claims spewed out by LM disinformation agents, the records clearly show that total burn areas and fires peaked in the late 1980s. They have steadily decreased ever since. There is, once again, no correlation with increased CO2 levels nor any evidence linking the boreal wildfires to “climate change.”
Like most people who question climate alarm, Martz is concerned about the environment and recognises that the obsession with CO2 reduction does nothing to address the real environmental problems. He wrote:
Sitting on our hands and blaming climate change for every abnormal environmental event is a waste of time when our efforts would be better spent on addressing how to manage risk and mitigate vulnerabilities.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 programme yesterday morning, some numpty—sorry, I didn’t catch her name—claimed that the seas were boiling. Because climate change … Duh! I’m sure she is a learned numpty, but seemingly clueless nonetheless.
This followed on from the usual BBC climate bunk highlighting that Florida seawater surface temperatures had achieved 37.8°C. This, we were authoritatively informed, was all caused by climate change. The Guardian piled in to ramp up the terror. That being said, Guardian columnists also think we should end farming to save the planet, so perhaps taking the Guardian’s word for anything isn’t the wisest course.
Both the BBC and the Guardian had simply parroted a story fed to them by the newswires. There was no more “journalism” than that. They investigated nothing, didn’t verify anything and just published whatever they were told to publish.
The high water temperature reading was taken from just one censor buoy in Manatee Bay, near Key Largo. Writing for WUWT, Jim Steele pointed out that the temperature reading of the same buoy had dropped to 29°C within a day. Other measurement buoys in the surrounding waters were consistently reporting much lower water temperatures. This was due to the fact that the Manatee Bay buoy floats in a sheltered, coastal “solar pond,” largely protected from cold water flows.
If CO2 propelled climate change caused the buoy reading to climb to 37.8°C, then it must have caused it to cool down again the next day. Equally, “climate change” must also be responsible for the much cooler waters surrounding Manatee Bay. This is, of course, an absurd contention. As Steele highlighted:
Clearly those water temperatures were being driven by dynamics other than rising CO2.
Clearly! So why couldn’t the LM figure that out? Are they all irretrievably stupid or is there something else going on?
As we noted earlier, weather is not climate change. Except when it’s really hot.
While it was scorching in Europe and the US, the LM regaled us with an slew of climate change fairy tales. However, as soon as the weather in the same European and US regions returned to at or below average temperatures they fell stony silent. According to LM propagandists like the Guardian, “climate change” always reverts back to weather when it is chuffin’ freezing.
Wherever we look, those who are pushing the idea that climate change threatens some sort of cataclysm just can’t stop misleading, manipulating, deceiving and propagandising. The question is why. If we accept that climate change is a concern, why do they feel the need to constantly lie about its alleged impacts?
It is never ending. Frankly, it has become infuriating. Maybe that’s the point.
Every nonsensical climate alarm story we have discussed deploys applied behavioural psychology to convince you to believe evident insanity. You are supposed to unquestioningly accept that the planet is “literally” on fire. Or, as the the UN Secretary General insists for no apparent reason, that the era of “global boiling” is upon us.
We are very close to climate lockdowns to “save the planet.” None of this has anything to do with climate change.
The only thing that is “literally” true is that the net-zero, sustainable development solution is “literal” population control. The mind-bending propaganda can only succeed if you ignore the view from your own window, which invariably reveals that it is actually pissing down.
When the farcical climate lockdowns arrive, may I suggest you dress for the weather, grab a bottle of water, and go out and enjoy yourself. What are they going to do? Lock us up in our own homes again?
I’ll see you out there.
US Whipping Up Tension Around Abkhazia, South Ossetia – Russian Ambassador
Sputnik – 08.08.2023
WASHINGTON – The United States is whipping up tension around Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and is not working on an agreement between Tbilisi, Sukhum and Tskhinval on the non-use of force, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said in a statement.
“If the Biden Administration is truly committed to ensuring peace in the region, then it must drop the accusations and threats of sanctions against Russia. As well as not try to disrupt the establishing of ties between our country and Georgia. It is important to focus on practical activities within the framework of the International Geneva Discussions on Security and Stability in the South Caucasus. First of all, work towards concluding a legally binding agreement of Tbilisi with Sukhum and Tskhinval on the non-use of force. It is not time to whip up tension, which is what the United States is doing now,” Antonov said.
He said the United States was deliberately turning the situation upside down, trying to put the blame on Russia, whereas the entire responsibility for the 2008 events lies with former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
“It was on his criminal order that a full-scale war was unleashed against the people of South Ossetia,” Antonov said.
“It is high time Washington admitted that this inhumane decision was also the result of a misguided policy conducted by the United States. After all, it was the West who brought to power, and then zealously supported the odious regime of Saakashvili. And still is continuing to lobby for the interests of this figure, as recently confirmed by the US Ministry of Justice,” he said.
Moscow on August 26, 2008, after Georgia’s armed aggression against Tskhinval, recognized the sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The leaders of Russia have repeatedly stated that the recognition of the independence of the two former Georgian autonomies reflects the existing realities and is not subject to revision. However, Tbilisi refuses to recognize the independence of the republics.
Watchdog or lapdog? West’s blatant hypocrisy on media freedom
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | August 7, 2023
The last few weeks have seen dramatic shifts in geopolitical alignment in Africa, especially in Niger. Growing resentment over Western meddling has led to the overthrow of West-friendly President Mohamed Bazoum and the establishment of a military junta.
But that’s not all. Anti-Western sentiment has grown with demonstrators burning French flags and chanting slogans outside the French embassy in Niger’s capital Niamey.
The West has condemned the country’s junta takeover. For centuries, France has maintained colonial control over countries such as Niger. A vast amount of resources are extracted from the landlocked West African country and brought to France, fueling its economy while keeping Niger’s stagnant.
The military junta has now banned the movement of these precious resources to France.
France is naturally furious – the EU is already suffering a major economic setback due to its dogged insistence to let the Ukraine war drag on, throwing billions of dollars into weapons and resources.
Now, it’s facing the additional burden of keeping its crisis-hit industries running – a glaring admission of the country’s colonial practices to this day.
With Niger banning the export of key natural resources like Uranium to France – French and other Western media are taking to the internet and airwaves to smear the junta.
The anti-Western sentiment has come to a boiling point from decades of Western abuse and hyper-exploitation of African countries. It is a completely organic phenomenon, and so the West will need to use its media apparatuses to counter and stifle the sentiments.
Western media outlets have unleashed an aggressive campaign to accomplish this task. Parroting the narratives of Western regimes, French media such as France 24 and Radio France Internationale condemned the junta while using fear-mongering tactics to draw support for Western intervention.
They also sought to reaffirm support for French and other colonial structures within Niger – all while threatening the very people wishing to break the shackles of colonialism with military intervention.
In response, the junta leadership in Niger moved to ban the hostile French media outlets.
French officials blasted the move: “France reaffirms its constant and determined commitment to press freedom, freedom of expression, and the protection of journalists,” the French foreign ministry stated.
A European Union spokesperson joined in: “This step is a serious violation of the right to information and freedom of expression. The EU strongly condemns these violations of fundamental freedoms.”
These statements should be a textbook study of hypocrisy. Time and time again, the EU and the collective West have unleashed mass censorship campaigns, banned outlets, and arrested journalists.
It was only last year when the EU outright banned Russia’s RT and Sputnik news.
European Union satellite providers have also directly collaborated in media censorship campaigns. It has been less than a year since French satellite company Eutelsat removed Press TV from the air.
Western countries brazenly allow media outlets that affirm their own imperialistic goals to remain on air and uncensored. This includes outlets that outwardly promote foreign meddling and violence.
“Iran International” – which has significant funding from Saudi Arabia – played a large role in drumming up Western support during the failed foreign-backed riots in Iran last year.
Based in Washington D.C, the outlet pushed anti-Iran narratives, reporting misleading information or withholding context. It is an open-propaganda outlet created specifically to attack a sovereign country.
However, it is welcomed by the West with open arms. Not a single sanction has been placed on it.
If an outlet carries water for the US and EU, it will be allowed to operate without a single hurdle. If you criticize the goals of the empire in any way, you may be sanctioned. Shadowbanned. Censored. Labeled “state media.” Your very website may be seized entirely, as has been the case with Press TV.
For the crime of journalism in the West, you can be locked up in horrific conditions, fearing for your life.
Does the West seem to have completely forgotten about their ongoing treatment of Julian Assange, who exposed the war crimes of the United States – only to be smeared and pushed into solitary confinement?
If you are aligned with the American Empire’s goals, then you can even get away with killing journalists – and Western officials will try to brush it under the rug.
When Israeli occupation forces deliberately murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the US dragged its feet to release a statement, ultimately claiming they can’t say for certain how the shooting death occurred – though all evidence affirms that she was targeted by regime soldiers.
And who can forget Jamal Khashoggi, an American journalist who actually did carry water for the West – only that he angered Saudi Arabia, so he was tortured, murdered, and dismembered on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS).
Instead of demanding any explanation or even condemning the act, the US granted the Saudi leader immunity over the killing.
“Freedom of the Press” is a mockery in the West. A joke with no punchline. Freedom of the press in the EU and the US does not exist – not really. Through loopholes, shadowy dealings, and outright hypocrisy Western regimes always have the final say in what media can operate and what can’t.
It boils down to the simple goal of advancing its own interests.
Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that Niger banned France’s colonial media outlets. Their specific function is to carry France’s interests in foreign lands. Their goal is not honest and objective journalism or asking difficult questions. Their goal is to maintain and push public opinion of their own regime. A more honest classification of their work would be regime stenography.
France and the rest of the EU can condemn Niger’s actions all they want, but ultimately they have set the precedent of banning media outlets. The West will go as far as killing journalists, and then point a finger using that same bloodied hand at countries that refuse to give them a podium.
Ultimately, the world can expect more of the same double standards from the West.
The question is: if Western media’s role is to carry out its imperialistic missions rather than question and report, then why should anyone allow hostile media to operate in their country?
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
PSYOP-19 UPDATE: New Variant Spreading Across UK – As Overall Cases Continue to Rise
2nd Smartest Guy in the World | August 5, 2023
The followup “pandemic” trial balloon intended to gauge the level of future societal “mandate” compliance has now been officially deployed.
According to the latest Mockingbird article by SKY NEWS entitled, COVID-19: New variant spreading across UK – as overall cases continue to rise:
A new COVID variant is spreading across the UK, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) – and already makes up one in seven new cases.
Scientifically known as EG.5.1, it is descended from the Omicron variant of COVID.
The UKHSA has been monitoring its prevalence in the country due to increasing cases internationally, particularly in Asia, and it was classified as a variant here on 31 July.
Since viruses never mutate into more virulent strains, we must ask: is this another gain of function (GoF) release by the usual Intelligence Industrial Complex criminals, and their useful idiot “expert” apparatchiks ahead of the fall and winter flu season, or is this a consequence of the “vaccinated” genetically modified humans incubating and transmitting new viral mutations as a function of the Modified mRNA slow kill bioweapon injections?
In the week beginning 10 July, one in nine cases were down to the variant.
The latest data suggests it now accounts for 14.6% of cases – the second most prevalent in the UK.
It appears to be spreading quickly and could be one reason why there has been a recent rise in cases and hospitalisations.
COVID-19 rates have continued to increase – up from 3.7% of 4,403 respiratory cases last week to 5.4% of 4,396 this week.
The latest data also shows the COVID-19 hospital admission rate was 1.97 per 100,000 population, an increase from 1.17 per 100,000 in the previous UKHSA report.
Officials say they are “closely” monitoring the situation as COVID case rates continue to rise.
It is no surprise that the wholly fraudulent PCR tests are what these “officials” are yet again referencing; in other words, they are up to their same old junk science tricks.
“We have also seen a small rise in hospital admission rates in most age groups, particularly among the elderly,” said Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at the UKHSA.
“Overall levels of admission still remain extremely low and we are not currently seeing a similar increase in ICU admissions.
“We will continue to monitor these rates closely.”
Senicide is the gift that keeps on giving, as said “officials” happily discharge liabilities and assets of the elderly useless eaters. Any eugenics program worth it’s salt always commences with the oldsters, and then works it way across ever larger swaths of society.
The Arcturus XBB.1.16 variant – another descendant of Omicron – is the most dominant, UKHSA figures show. It makes up 39.4% of all cases.
Another variant with a menacing name and lots of decimals, another opportunity for the One World Government’s main eugenics node in the WHO to fear-monger:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) started tracking the EG.5.1 variant just over two weeks ago.
As this Substack has exposed on several occasions now, the WHO’s director-general is a Marxist war criminal deliberately selected for his extreme sociopathy by the Rockefeller Crime Syndicate’s most prominent puppet and genocidal frankenmosquito advocate Billy Boy Gates:
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said though people are better protected by vaccines and prior infection, countries should not let down their guard.
“WHO continues to advise people at high risk to wear a mask in crowded places, to get boosters when recommended, and to ensure adequate ventilation indoors,” he said.
They also just can’t let up on the absurdly useless MK Ultra masks, because ensuring that the genetically ruined slaves reinforce their mass induced fear slavery is an effective means of self-policing into ever more mindless compliance.
“And we urge governments to maintain and not dismantle the systems they built for COVID-19.”
Of course, the WHO urges that their unconstitutional and anti-human systems for PSYOP-19 not to be dismantled because they need their said systems for their followup PSYOP-23 “pandemic” this fall.
What the WHO certainly does not want you to know is that inexpensive repurposed drugs will act as prophylaxis against all of their “pandemics,” along with the associated plethora of their “vaccine” induced adverse events like turbo cancers, and prion-based diseases, all while also protecting the genetically unmodified refuseniks from “vaccine” shedding, and environmental damage.
Do NOT comply.
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Guaido’s true colors: “President” to fix Venezuelan relations with Israel
By Jim Carey | Geopolitics Alert | February 13, 2019
Caracas – In an interview over the weekend, “interim President” of Venezuela Juan Guaido promised he would work on restoring relations with Israel.
Despite not actually having a government or being in any type of official position of power within Venezuela Juan Guaido is still somehow making big promises. Last week it was the promise to sell oil he doesn’t control to the US and this week he is setting foreign policy for a state, a military, and a diplomatic core that he doesn’t have.
Regardless of Juan Guaido’s material position, Israel has been more than willing to indulge in the US fantasy in Venezuela and was one of the early states to recognize the fraud as “interim President.” Now it seems Guaido is more than willing to repay the favor should he ever actually hold office.
Guaido made this promise in a recent interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper where he told the interviewer that he was “very happy to announce that the process of stabilizing relations with Israel is in full swing.” While what exactly that means when you’re a President with no power is rather ambiguous, for some reason Guaido has said restoring relations “is very important for us.”
Regardless of all these factors, there are still several reasons the new President has made this a high priority. Even without any actual diplomatic staff recognized by the state, Guaidó has still been in contact with Israel and has even discussed opening a new Venezuelan embassy in Israel, saying it “is one of the subjects we are talking about.”
Another reason Guaidó claims he wants to restore relations with the Zionists is due to the fact that there “are many Venezuelans in Israel and many Jews in Venezuela.”
According to Guaidó, this Venezuelan Jewish community “is very active and prosperous”… continue
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