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Fox News Decision to settle Dominion lawsuit for more than three-quarters of a billion dollars makes no sense

By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute for Political Economy | April 26, 2023

Something fishy here.

First, corporate executives don’t give away $787 million of shareholders’ money without a test of the claim in court. The uncontested amount is so large that one wonders if Fox News itself paid it or whether this almost $800 million was a gift funneled through an uncontested lawsuit to fund Dominion by our ruling elites. Once elections are determined by how voting machines are programmed, the people are disenfranchised.

Second, it is not defamation to report the news. Tucker Carlson reported the claims of experts. That is news reporting. Dominion’s defamation lawsuit should have been filed against the experts. It wasn’t, because the experts had the evidence.

Third, Experts supplied evidence that the Dominion voting machines could be programmed to count votes differently from how the votes were cast; experts supplied evidence that the machines could be hacked; experts supplied evidence that the voting machines were connected to the Internet. Fox News could have called these experts as expert witnesses. By agreeing to settle, Fox News refused the evidence its day in court. Why?

A possible explanation is that Fox News, voluntarily or involuntarily, participated in an orchestration that established the precedent that reporting news different from the narrative, or news that is unfavorable to a person, company, or government institution, is defamation. Think about what this means. A prosecutor who charges a person with a crime has defamed the person. Truth becomes unreportable. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh could be charged for defamation, and for being a Russian agent, for reporting that the US government destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline.

When we see the few truth-tellers who are the stars of their organizations jettisoned–Tucker Carlson from Fox News, Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone, Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept, James O’Keefe from Project Veritas, President Trump charged under a non-existent law, and Wikileaks’ Julian Assange imprisoned for a decade without due process, we must face the fact that there is an organized conspiracy to suppress truth. We are experiencing the completion of The Matrix in which expressed doubt or even unspoken suspicion of official narratives are criminal offenses.

Truth-tellers receive almost nonexistent support. The inescapable conclusion is that in the Western world truth has no future.

Tyranny is upon us.

April 26, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

“Freedom of Religion” and Other Lies

Christian and Muslim persecution in Israel ignored by the White House

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 25, 2023

The United States government, in its incessant bullying of foreign nations to get them to see the world the way that the cabal that runs Washington sees it, ironically often cites such fictions as the “rule of law” that guarantees such “rights” as “free speech” and “freedom of religion” to justify its illegal actions. Right at the moment, the United States maintains garrisons illegally in both Iraq, where the country’s parliament has asked it to depart, and also in neighboring Syria where the government is fighting an insurgency that seeks regime change and is supported by both the US and Israel. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is analogous to what Russia has done in Ukraine though Moscow certainly had stronger compelling national security reasons for doing what it did while the United States had to construct a series of lies to provide as an excuse to topple Saddam Hussein, an objective strongly supported by Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who added his own fabrications to the exchanges.

One has to look to the media to discern the reasons why some developments are wrapped in “religious freedom” or “democracy promotion” while other actions are ignored or even covered-up. Currently the right-wing Jewish extremists who have gained control of Israel’s government are engaging in something like genocide directed against the Palestinian population, many of whom are actually Israeli citizens though possessing second class rights when they are enforced at all. Israel regards itself legally as a Jewish state, so what is the “rule of law” for those who are not Jews and how does it perceive “religious freedom?” Considerable government pressure is being exerted to force the “terrorists,” as the Arab residents are frequently called, to emigrate or face the consequences if they choose not to. It is directed most particularly against those Palestinians who are leaders in their community and it has therefore focused on the major Arab religious groups, both the Christians and the Muslims.

Ironically, though one can read in the US media almost daily accounts of alleged surging anti-semitism and the myth of perpetual Jewish victimhood, the ongoing brutality against the Palestinians, including their religious foundations and practices, is hardly noticed. That is the fundamental problem as the silence or perhaps the willful connivance of the American media and entertainment industry, firmly in the grip of the Jewish community and its “standards,” has shaped the narrative and limited any propagation of contrary opinion. It is a process that is similar to what has taken place with any discussion of the Ukraine war in the mainstream media, where there is also a heavy Jewish footprint.

There have been two major incidents involving Jewish assertion of its occupation of and control over all of Jerusalem that have recently impacted on the country’s religious minorities during their holy seasons, Easter and Ramadan. The first consisted of two consecutive middle-of- the-night attacks by Israeli police and soldiers in full riot gear armed with stun grenades and clubs on Palestinians spending the night at the al-Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims. The Palestinian men were there in part to protect the building from Jewish settlers who have been threatening to destroy it. The Palestinians inside were beaten by police, who had broken into the mosque, and as many as 350 mostly young men were later arrested for resisting.

The second incident was an order by Israeli police limiting the regular Christian gathering on Holy Saturday, referred to as the “Holy Fire” celebration, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which normally attracts 10,000 worshippers, to no more than 1,800 attendees. On the day of the ceremony, Israeli police reacted with heavy-handed tactics to block hundreds of Orthodox Christians from gathering at the church, which is at the center of the old Christian quarter of the city. Several Coptic Orthodox priests were particularly targeted in front of the church and beaten with batons. Israeli forces closed off access to the site with roadblocks and barriers at the gates of the Old City, permitting only small numbers of Christians and those with government permits to enter.

Both steps restricting freedom of religion were taken without any consultation with the respective communities and without any evidence that there would be disorder or violence without the police interventions. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli action as a “blatant attack on the freedom of worship” and a “flagrant attack on the existing political, historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem and on Israel’s obligations as an occupying regime in Jerusalem” that
“violate international law, international humanitarian law and signed agreements.” The Christian churches’ leadership also separately objected to no avail and responded to the threat by observing that Palestinian Christians are themselves under increasing pressure from the Israeli government to force them to emigrate. Christians constituted 20% of the Israeli population in 1947 but now are fewer than 2%.

Indeed, since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history, Palestinian Christians frequently experience Jewish Israeli discrimination at all levels. They directly observe how their 2,000-year-old community in the Holy Land has come under increasing attack. In March, two Israeli men assaulted and beat a priest in the church sited at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary. In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalized by an American Jewish tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Jesus was flogged and sentenced to death while a month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were desecrated by two Jewish teenagers at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion, where Jesus’s Last Supper took place. In November, two soldiers from the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade spit at the Armenian archbishop and other pilgrims during a procession in the Old City. Christian clerics living in Jerusalem claim that they are frequently physically assaulted and spat on by settlers and other Jewish Israelis when they are walking in the streets. The Israeli government has also been increasingly confiscating church properties for various projects that benefit only the Jewish community. When Christians seek redress from the Israeli courts they are almost always denied justice.

Now one would think that the United States, with its dedication to “rule of law” and religious freedom would at a minimum condemn the Israeli actions, particularly the unprovoked violent attack on peaceful Muslims during their high holy days at al-Aqsa. But no, and this is how a State Department spokesman Vedant Patel described it: “We are concerned by the scenes out of Jerusalem. And it is our viewpoint that it is absolutely vital that the sanctity of holy sites be preserved. We emphasize the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardizes the status quo to us is unacceptable. We call for restraint, coordination and calm during the holiday season.”

So the State Department believes that Israel did not initiate the violence, which is, of course, false. And Patel felt compelled to add an additional comment on recent home-made rocket attacks coming from Lebanon in the wake of the police and army actions: “We condemn the launch of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza at Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and we recognize that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression.” Don’t you love the frequent assertion of the claim that Israel has a “right to defend itself?” Patel was in fact wrong about Gaza firing missiles – that was a fiction invented by the Israeli government to explain why it had responded with a bombardment of its own directed against the long-suffering Gazans. The hostile rockets, which did little damage and injured no one, actually came from a Palestinian group in Lebanon. Apparently, the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors do not have the right to defend themselves or to respond to Jewish violence. Rule of law and religious freedom appear to depend on who is attempting to exercise those rights and under what circumstances.

Interestingly, the New York Times had its own bizarre description of what took place at al-Aqsa. Their correspondent wrote how the crisis started when Palestinians “barricaded themselves” overnight inside the building before being “cleared” by police from the mosque in the middle of the night, to “protect Jewish worshippers” who were reportedly observing the Passover holiday in the vicinity. In other words, the violence was initiated by the Israelis but it was to prevent any threat against Jews, even though there is no evidence that anything like that was intended and why Jews were present at close quarters to a Muslim holy site is not clear. By one report, extremist Jews may have been preparing to sacrifice a goat.

On April 14th, to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Joe Biden demonstrated the he is not as brain dead as is often claimed. He knows exactly who owns him and knows how to pile it on. His proclamation reads: “During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Together with courageous survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our solemn vow: ‘never again.’”

Clearly Joe had not gotten the message that in America every day is de facto holocaust remembrance day as measured by the frequent appearance of that expression in the media. But he makes sure of the trans gay vote by including the LGBTQI+ folks as victims of the Nazis. Perhaps Joe should pay some attention to the Americans murdered by the Israelis, to include the 34 crewmen of the USS Liberty killed by the Israeli military in 1967, activist Rachel Corrie crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 and most recently Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israeli army last May. Israel has not been held accountable for any of those deaths and it knows it can get away with anything, including targeting and killing US citizens.

Next week, the GOP will be doubling down on the message as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy leads a delegation of twenty bipartisan fawning congress critters to Israel. He has carefully billed it as his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining what an important ally Israel is. He will address the Knesset on May 1st and there will no doubt be a lot of kissing and hugging with Bibi and many pledges of undying commitment to the Jewish state. The Israeli government is already describing it as “Speaker McCarthy’s speech in the Knesset will be a sign for the strong and unbreakable bond between Israel and the US.” And no doubt lots of money will appear in the pipeline so Israel can defend itself. Just don’t mention Israel’s recent premeditated murder of Shireen Abu Akleh back or “religious freedom.” And to hell with the Palestinian Christians. They have been hanging around for 2,000 years but are on their way out.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

We Are All Tucker Carlson

Stand Up and Emulate his Pursuit of Truth

Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method | April 25, 2023

No, not financially. He makes $20 million a year while producing $77 million in advertising revenue for Fox annually.

And no, not in terms of popularity. His daily audience was just south of four million viewers and now that he has been fired by Fox executives, he is among the most famous people in America, at least in this news cycle.

We may resemble him in one respect however: his truth-seeking. Yes, he got some things wrong. Unless we’ve lived a life of total perfection, the same can be said for us.

We admit to being annoyed at times by the extent to which he personally insulted people as being fat or stupid (one need not state the obvious). In a world sagging under the weight of vulgarity he should have maintained a higher standard of civility and decorum.

His hyperbole was frequent. Too many events, people, crimes and grievances became in Tucker’s parlance, the worst or the greatest in “all of history,” which is the conceit of pundits and philosophers of every age, who are tinctured with eschatological notions. The preceding examples are however, peccadilloes rather than discrediting offenses.

The one occasion on which he did cross the line was February 22, 2021 when he was fed disinformation about the late Wellesley College Prof. Tony Martin (1942-2013) and heedlessly parroted the character assassination on his show, as part of an attempt to discredit Kristin Clarke, Biden’s Assistant United States Attorney General, with a guilt-by-association slander.

When she was a student at Harvard University, Clarke invited Martin to speak on campus. That was enough for someone at Fox to persuade Tucker to denounce Dr. Martin. Tucker complied, calling him a “noted Trinidadian anti-semite” and, “the author of a “self-published manifesto called The Jewish Onslaught… He attacked Jews and Judaism as a religion. Tony Martin spent his final years giving speeches to holocaust denial organizations on topics such as ‘tactics of organized Jewry in suppressing free speech.’ Kristin Clarke strongly approved of Tony Martin.”

The preceding reads like a press release from one of the thought police organizations that are today celebrating Tucker’s removal. Tony Martin was not “anti” any ethnicity. He was a gentle Catholic scholar, a self-made man and a native of Trinidad who became an English barrister, a PhD., an authority on Marcus Garvey, and professor of African history at Wellesley, where he placed a book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, on his class reading list, from which sprang most of his troubles, including the subsequent “onslaught” which he scrupulously documented in his book. The Secret Relationship is one of the most banned books in America (we surveyed it here).

Prof. Martin endorsed its thesis as historically valid. What should have been a matter of rational debate between scholars was turned into the familiar “no debate with hate” hysteria too often used as a cover for denouncing a work of merit which self-appointed arbiters of approved history have not the scholarly means to challenge. The irony is that Tucker permitted himself (albeit briefly), to be a tool of the political correctness which ultimately cost him his employment with the Murdoch dynasty.

We believe that had Tucker known the facts about Tony Martin he would not have broadcast the segment. Unlike Sean Hannity and other Fox News talking heads, Tucker seldom trafficked in callous anti-Palestinian rhetoric or Israeli government talking points. On that score he will be walking on thin ice if he signs with the Newsmax television network, which is at least as beholden to the hasbara public relations of war Zionism and racist Israeli settler violence as any media outlet, Right or Left.

After years of broadcasting five nights-a-week Tucker was probably bound to blunder on occasion, as he did in wronging Prof. Martin. Nonetheless, the good he did far outweighed his mistakes.

In a comment briefly published on the website of the Wall Street Journal and then removed for “violating community standards,” we wrote:

“Ad hominem attacks on Tucker do not impress. His investigation of the death of Jeffrey Epstein in federal custody was brilliant. Part of his investigation included an exposé of Trump’s Attorney General William Barr on whose watch Epstein’s death occurred. Epstein’s molestation network included some of the most powerful and wealthy men on earth. If he was murdered in federal custody, this is an indication of profound corruption, and deserves the highest possible media scrutiny; and yet it was primarily Tucker who shined a light.”

To his credit, Tucker traveled to Las Vegas and broadcast his show from that city to focus attention on the anomalies in the 2017 slaughter of 60 Country and Western music fans blamed by the Federal government and it’s mouthpiece media on gambler Stephen Paddock (see our investigation, “The Route 91 Harvest Massacre” in Twilight Language).

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the only major news program to undertake a skeptical examination of the official story of the Las Vegas mass murder. Glenn Greenwald points to some of Carlson’s other valiant investigations:

“Tucker was the cable host who most opposed US proxy war in Ukraine; denounced CIA, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for systemic lies and corruption; devoted himself to a pardon for Julian Assange; objected to regime change efforts in Cuba; criticized the Trump administration’s militarism.”

(He also exposed the U.S. government’s role in the sabotage of the Baltic Sea Nord Stream pipeline, and helped to kindle the memory of the largely forgotten Christian victims of the Nashville school shooter).

Two authoritarians, New York Senator Schumer, the Democrat leader in the senate, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had demanded the government ban Carlson from the airwaves.

The Dominion Lawsuit

On her podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Kelly, a Fox News alumnus, stated in connection with Tucker’s firing and Fox Corpation’s $787.5 million out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems:

“This is a terrible move by Fox and it’s a great thing for Tucker Carlson. I don’t know what drove Fox News to make this decision, and it was clearly Fox News’ decision because they’re not letting him say goodbye. That’s my supposition. That’s not inside knowledge.

“The irony here is that — how did they get in trouble with Dominion? They called Arizona too soon, felt their critics, and ultimately that proved to be the case. They were under pressure by their audience to reverse the call.

“The audience started to leave them in droves because they felt betrayed. Like they didn’t understand the mission of Fox News, which is to be fair to especially the Republicans who don’t get a fair shake on other channels. And they (Fox) went into a panic as their audience started to flee. Then they over-corrected by covering the bulls**t claims about Dominion as though they were plausible and gave way too much credence to some of those claims on the air. He was not the reason for that $800 million settlement.

“So what do they do now in the wake of that settlement? They get rid of Tucker. Talk about misjudging your audience yet again. I think this is a massive error. I think this is a massive misjudgment of what their audience wants. If you are — this is a reaction to the Dominion lawsuit — why is Maria Bartiromo there? Why is Jeanine Pirro still there? Why is (Fox CEO) Suzanne Scott still there?”

Tucker’s Thought Crimes according to the New York Times

The New York Times, one of Mr. Carlson’s frequent targets after he stopped obsessing over small fry like CNN, could barely conceal its glee as Tucker was shafted by the “conservative” Murdoch family for whom he had made hundreds of millions of dollars. The Times haughtily charged him with begetting “misinformation.” This is a laugh coming from a newspaper that repeatedly states as an article of faith a lie of Brobdingnagian proportions: that individuals possessing xy chromosomes are “women.”  It’s on that hill that the credibility of the New York Times has died and is buried.

The Times (here and here) inventoried Tucker’s thought crimes:

“He seemed to shrug off his on-air popularization of a racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement’ … When Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Carlson’s show frequently promoted the Kremlin’s point of view, attacking U.S. sanctions and blaming the conflict on American designs for expanding NATO… Carlson warned his viewers that they were under assault from liberal elites and unchecked immigration, borrowing some of his central themes from the white nationalist and far-right web and polishing them up for a more mainstream audience.”

The New York Times doesn’t offer reasoned rebuttal to refute Carlson’s theses. The paper generates shabby guilt-by-association inculpation. If Carlson believes the billions spent on Ukraine would be better spent at home, that the U.S., in the wake of costly no-win wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, should halt its role as world policeman, and that risking nuclear war with Russia while undermining peace talks flirts, with planetary conflagration— well, he’s not articulating common sense, he’s promoting “the Kremlin’s point of view.” The  prestigious Times is the master of the cheap shot.

After much thought and observation, if an American honestly has arrived at the conclusion that President Biden’s far-Left open border immigration policies are disastrous for the country, then according to the New York Times that American is “borrowing central themes” of “the white nationalist and far-right web.” It is the brazen unfairness of that flimsy linkage, tossed recklessly for maximum effect, which Tucker shredded night after night amid peals of his own laughter. He was a merry warrior and his mirth was contagious.

The Times also avers that Carlson is guilty of the “racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement.” That concept puts forth the proposition that the U.S. government is conspiring to replace white Americans with a large immigrant population from south of the border. If that is a fact, it is not racist. Truth is not bias. The same obtains for statements of fact concerning our border. When you see facts subjected to politics you are in the presence of a commissar, not an individual interested in the advancement of knowledge.

Furthermore, the white nationalists enamored of the “You will not replace us!” slogan are in search of scapegoats to conceal their own failure. It is white people themselves who are at fault for voluntarily contracepting and aborting themselves out of existence. There’s no law in our nation that limits the size of one’s family, such as existed in Communist China. Get married; have at least three children. Train them up in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Quit whining.

The smear that “Carlson backs white racist talking points about replacement theory” is actually a matter of prerogative. The media does not grant to Carlson the prerogative it grants to the ADL, the thought cops they rely upon for lists of dissidents to libel with impunity. It appears that the ADL is somehow, without so much as denting its brand, entitled to promote a replacement theory of its own. In 2010 the ADL went on record warning against the replacement of Israelis by Arabs. The New York Times does not disclose that fact when it is lauds and relies upon the ADL for data.

The Times also reported that in March one of Carlson’s former producers filed a lawsuit against him, claiming that he “ran a toxic workplace.” The producer, Abby Grossberg, said in her suit that “she endured an environment ‘where unprofessionalism reigned supreme, and the staff’s distaste and disdain for women infiltrated almost every workday decision.’ She also accused her former colleagues on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ of making antisemitic remarks… she accuses Mr. Carlson of presiding over a misogynistic and discriminatory workplace culture. Ms. Grossberg said… that on her first day working for Mr. Carlson, she discovered the work space was decorated with large pictures of Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit.”

If this suit is as frivolous as it appears to be, then it is little more than harassment. The opinionated charges it raises are subjective at best and more suited to a talkshow scream session than a courtroom. As a basis of litigation, unflattering photos of Pelosi are a nullity.

We Are All Tucker

The illusion factory seeks to project an image of justice, democracy and decency. Those who penetrate their veil of hypocrisy are stigmatized as little better than demons, haters and Fascists.

The ideal of dialogue and debate is increasingly delegitimated because, as the tenets of our Overlords become ever more preposterous, they can be readily exposed by granting a voice to doubters and dissenters. For most of us not in Tucker’s league, the suppression of us translates into censorship, online deplatforming and demonetization.

Many of us began our Internet outreach using YouTube to broadcast our discussions and lectures across America and around the world, and Paypal to efficiently process credit card orders for our book sales. When YouTube and Paypal were controlled by libertarians with a respect for the free marketplace of ideas which is critical to the advancement of knowledge, the free enterprise system was largely untrammeled on the relatively new Internet. By 2017 however, Paypal was under new ownership and began to deny service to dissidents. YouTube has also purged tens of thousands of independent researchers and scholars. The anti-monopoly aspect of the Internet, competing as it does with the corporate media, had to be curtailed for the sake of the success of the Novus Ordo Seclorum.

The potential of the Internet was being obstructed prior to the recent inauguration of the Rumble video service, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the podcasting host Transistor, and the emergence of Substack. These four are paving the way back to the original promise of the Internet as expressed in 1996 by one of its pioneers, the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s John Perry Barlow:

“I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us… a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth… a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”

Tucker Carlson’s domain was the old media. He had a position within it that gained him nearly four million direct viewers and who knows how many others who obtained bits and pieces of his reporting from barber and breakfast shop conversations, podcasts, tweets and e-mail.

The Cryptocracy and its auxiliary, the Deep State, have a morbid fear of any opposition, however small, a trait visible in all totalitarian regimes, whether that of Lenin, Hitler, Stalin or Mao. As big as Tucker’s position was on cable television—and his footprint was huge—he was sacrificed to the gods of woke. “Thou showest the difference ‘twixt ourselves and thee, in this thy barbarous damned tyranny.” (Christopher Marlowe).

Even in this Revelation of the Method era where the crimes perpetrated against the people have been made manifest to such an extent that we are exhausted by the truth, even the slightest chance that Tucker might spark a peaceful populist uprising, militant in character and knowledgeable concerning the depth of media and government deception, had to be terminated.

The billions of dollars in the company’s coffers that Fox News chief executive Lachlan Murdoch commands were not enough to keep him from caving to the relentless pressure to can Tucker. This is not only a display of pusillanimity but of spiritual weakness. It serves as a tool for demoralizing us. A fearsome lesson has been reinforced, “Don’t buck the system. We are invincible.”

There has been a good deal of whistling in the dark in the aftermath, suggesting that Tucker will be better off and he’ll be going on to bigger and better things. We hope so. Godspeed, Tucker.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Nothing online or at the relatively puny and Zionist-compromised Newsmax can equal an hour in primetime five nights a week, on a television network like Fox that is viewed on almost any TV in America. The awesome power of that plugged in presence remains unequaled. Any job Tucker takes with any alternative will diminish his reach, though not, we trust, his message.

In that sense, Tucker Carlson, for all his accomplishments and the good he has done, is in the same boat with those of us who have been kicked off YouTube, Facebook and Paypal, had those who host our websites harassed, and our credit card acceptance terminated. It’s all one war on alternatives to the System, and for that reason we are all Tucker Carlson. For this week at least, he shares what we have experienced as veterans of the war of ideas.

…..

How did this come about? How do our enemies exhibit such solidarity and unwavering loyalty to their cause? Their cleverness, exertion, skill, planning and organization are generally outstanding.

It seems that the adherents of the diabolic can oft-times exhibit more dedication than the purported followers of Jesus. They are effective, tenacious and willing to suffer massive losses for their infernal cause; while with many of us, it is not that way. We will go only so far for Jesus and then, when our struggle for truth threatens our bank account or reputation, we meekly withdraw, with regret to be sure. Our absence from the field of battle strengthens the enemy immeasurably. “What treachery was used? No treachery, but want of men and money” (Shakespeare).

Jesus drew our attention to this ignominy 2,000 years ago when he observed, “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” (Luke 16:8).

Obviously, He who declared that all power in heaven and earth was given unto Him (Matthew 28:18), did not intend for those who love and follow Him to be powerless.

In Luke 16:8 Jesus was pointing out the perennial tendency of the diabolic to effectively fight the godly when we fail to use the instruments Jesus has placed before us for battle.

When we rise to our destiny by defending and invoking His holy name and recalling that our time on this earth is meant for spiritual battle, and that our rest is in the grave, then we will begin to equal and surpass the devotion and discipline of God’s opposers.

In the sight of the betrayal represented by Tucker’s defeat at the hands—not of his enemies, but of the people he served—we soldier on. We know that Jesus Christ has dominion and nothing happens on planet earth unless he allows it.

We help to curb evil when, seeing a truth-teller assaulted or overcome, we re-dedicate ourselves to the Cause and fill their shoes.

Let us put the Cryptocracy on notice that every time they take down a Tucker Carlson, millions of us will stand up to emulate his pursuit of truth. We are on firm ground here for the gospel of Jesus Christ is always and in every age, counter-cultural. Woe to us when we curry favor with men and the media speak well of us (cf.  Luke 6:26).

Because we are God’s people we reject demoralization. We remain more than ever resolved and stalwart in the face of what transpired at Fox News on the morning of April 24.

Hope is the virtue that expects God’s help. Truth is the witness we bear in order to receive it.


FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE CONTRA CANCEL CULTURE

Michael Hoffman is the author of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (2001), The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome (2017), Twilight Language (2021) and six other books, including two translated and published in Japan, and one in France. He hosts the podcast, Michael Hoffman’s Revisionist History®

Twitter: @HoffmanMichaelA

Copyright ©2023 by Independent History and Research

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 24, 2023

Politico cited unnamed US administration officials in their latest piece reporting that “Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive”. According to them, a dilemma of epic soft power proportions is in the making should this upcoming operation fail: hawks will blame the US for not giving Kiev everything that it demanded, while doves will demand the immediate commencement of peace talks. Left unsaid is the “politically inconvenient” fact that US’ own propaganda is responsible for this.

In particular, the SBU-backed fascist troll network known as “NAFO” played an unprecedented role in this respect. What began as an online campaign fundraising for war criminals morphed into an aggressive troll campaign whose members rarely get banned by social media for their toxic ad hominem attacks and doxing despite blatantly violating those platforms’ terms of service (with few notable exceptions). Although Twitter’s recent algorithmic tweaks have reduced their reach, they’re still very active.

What the combined efforts of infamous trolls like former congressman Adam Kinzinger and senior advisor at the Helsinki Commission Paul Massaro have done is generate unrealistically high hopes about Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted Western audience. This undeclared foreign agent and shameless glorifier of a genocidal World War II fascist movement respectively thought they were “helping the cause” but were in reality working against its soft power interests this whole time.

Those infamous NAFO trolls and their ilk continued pushing the information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach despite Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley publicly downplaying that scenario in late January by describing it as “very, very difficult”. These propagandists didn’t miss a beat even after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia several weeks later.

That second development was publicly shared just like Milley’s for the purpose of tempering everyone’s expectations about Kiev’s counteroffensive, with Stoltenberg’s drawing attention to how much more the West needs to ramp up military-industrial production to stand a chance of winning. It’s impossible for NATO to have made any serious difference in this respect in the two months since his candid admission so the difficult state of military-strategic affairs that Milley warned about still remains in effect.

A little more than one month ago, the Washington Post told its readers the truth about just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring. Several weeks later, the Pentagon leaks then confirmed this sobering assessment, which set the context within which Politico’s latest report was published. Accordingly, it’s now indisputable that leading Western officials and their allied Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets were preconditioning the public for the last quarter-year not to expect much from this counteroffensive.

NAFO’s failure to respond to those signals and instead defiantly redouble their information warfare narrative priming the public for Kiev’s ‘total victory’ sometime in the very near future therefore directly resulted in the present dilemma. Those average Westerners who are supportive of Ukraine didn’t extend any credence to those aforementioned figures’ warnings due to the social media echo chamber that they became trapped in since the special operation started.

These people preferred to surround themselves with fellow wishful thinkers who told them whatever they wanted to hear, sometimes even pushing the most absurd conspiracy theories to explain away the cognitive dissonance provoked by the difference between their claims and those officials’. The most popular one alleges that elements within the US Government, NATO, and the MSM are either under the influence of a “Russian disinformation operation” or even infiltrated by “deep-cover sleeper cell agents”.

For as amusing as this may be those who know better than to fall for that super paranoid conspiracy theory, so many people within the West seriously believe it that the US Government doesn’t consider this to be a laughing matter at all. In fact, it’s precisely because a critical mass of people still subscribe to these radical fringe beliefs despite leading officials’ best efforts since late January to correct their false NAFO-indoctrinated expectations that those US administration figures just spoke to Politico.

Simply put, their propaganda operation has gotten out of control and is now a major soft power liability. NAFO trolls won’t respond to those dog whistles being blown by American and NATO officials like Milley and Stoltenberg since they remain “loyal” to parroting whatever Ukrainian officials are saying at any given time. Those who stray from the dogmatic information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach are viciously attacked and expelled from this modern-day cult.

The felling of belonging that NAFO provides for many of its members, whose offline lives are rather dull and lonely to put it mildly, influences them to self-censor the sharing of any doubts they may have about Ukraine’s conspiracy theories in the face of growing Western public claims to the contrary. These interconnected gatekeeping and psychological dynamics result in narrative reinforcement, which in turn leads to Kiev’s average Western supporters retaining unrealistically high expectations about the conflict.

The reason why the US Government is recently scaling up its efforts to correct the public’s expectations is because the risk of deep disappointment affecting a critical mass of the population is assessed as being extremely counterproductive to their interests. Enough of them might become disillusioned in the aftermath of a failed counteroffensive that they decisively shift towards supporting the immediate ceasefire scenario, which works against those who want to indefinitely perpetuate this proxy war.

The most furious among them might even punish those politicians who they blame for this fiasco during the next elections, either by voting for pro-ceasefire candidates or not participating in the polls at all. Either way, administration figures fear that there’s a credible enough chance of tangible blowback from the false expectations that NAFO continued cultivating among the public in defiance of the dog whistles blown by top Western military officials that they’re now asking the MSM to help them avert this disaster.

The takeaway from Politico’s latest article is that the Biden Administration is still struggling to correct the public’s expectations after Milley first tried doing so a quarter-year ago. The US’ earlier NAFO-driven propaganda successfully instilled unrealistically high hopes of Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted audience, which is now a major soft power liability owing to credible fears that it’ll fail. Unless their expectations soon change, Ukraine’s supporters might be in for a very deep disappointment.

April 24, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Spy letter about Hunter Biden shows how Dems are undermining democracy

By James Bovard | April 21, 2023

In the closing address at last month’s Summit for Democracy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken piously proclaimed, “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident.

“It requires constant effort.”

Or in the case of the 2020 election, it required deceiving American voters.

The House Judiciary Committee revealed that Blinken, then a top Biden adviser, orchestrated the letter from 51 top intelligence officials claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing but a Russian disinformation campaign.

Blinken contacted former acting CIA chief Mike Morell, who swayed scores of other former top officials — including three ex-CIA chiefs — to sign that letter to debunk the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign.

In the final presidential debate on Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked that letter from former intelligence officials to deflect Donald Trump’s attacks on Biden family corruption.

Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.

Biden pretended that letter arose spontaneously from the patriotic sentiments of former officials.

But the letter was “triggered” by Blinken’s call to Morell, who then contacted his former colleagues.

Blinken’s ploy may have swayed Biden to appoint him secretary of state.

The media are mostly ignoring or downplaying the revelations of Blinken’s machinations.

If the roles were reversed, cable news and front-page headlines would be screaming about a villainous Trump operative pulling official strings to whitewash the Donald.

MSNBC would be howling about the death of democracy, and CNN hosts would be sobbing hysterically about the dirty deal.

But when Team Biden does it: nothing to see here, move along.

How many presidential elections can Democrats seek to dishonestly rig without suffering any penalty flags from media scorekeepers?

Shortly before the 2016 election, senior Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan peddled false claims linking the Trump Organization to Russia.

The Federal Election Commission last month levied a $113,000 fine on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for their deceptive funding to cover up their role in the Steele dossier.

The FBI, which was apparently willing to pay any price to defeat Trump, offered former British spy Christopher Steele $1 million in cash if he could prove the charges in that dossier before the 2016 election.

There was no proof — but that didn’t stop the FBI from using the dossier to get warrants to spy on Trump campaign officials from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Jake Sullivan is now Biden’s national security adviser.

Did he get that gig in part because of his willingness to lie for Democratic kingpins?

Avril Haines is Biden’s director of national intelligence.

Did signing the Hunter laptop letter help her snare that plum job?

The letter Blinken finagled would not have been so influential if journalists were not shamelessly docile to federal job titles.

Inside the Beltway, former intelligence kingpins are viewed like royalty or at least second-tier aristocracy.

But the CIA has a long record of secretly intervening in dozens of foreign elections.

In 2019, former CIA director Mike Pompeo summarized his agency’s motif: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses.”

Former CIA chief James Woolsey insisted in 2018 that the CIA intervenes in elections “only for a very good cause in the interests of democracy.”

Yet the letter from former spooks was instantly revered by journalists as if it were handed down from Mt. Sinai.

For the Washington political elite, defeating Donald Trump was the ultimate good cause to save democracy.

Biden talks as if his 2020 election victory was the result of practically a divine incarnation of the “will of the people.”

Unfortunately, presidential elections are irrevocable regardless of how many voters were conned.

How much official deceit can democracy survive?

Any notion of “informed consent” by voters is a mirage if federal agencies and former officials have the power to endlessly distort the news.

Shortly after he became secretary of state, Blinken boasted that the US government doesn’t sweep problems “under the rug. . . . We deal with them in the daylight, with full transparency.”

That pledge apparently did not extend to Blinken’s own tampering with the 2020 election.

What else is Blinken hiding, and when will the next shoe fall?

April 24, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

AOC Calls For Tucker Carlson to be Banned From Television

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | April 24, 2023

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for Tucker Carlson to be banned from television over the nebulous accusation that he is ‘inciting violence’.

AOC made the comments during an interview with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC.

The lawmaker highlighted, “Federal regulation, in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t.”

“And when you look at what Tucker Carlson and what of these other folks on Fox do, it is very very clearly incitement of violence, very clearly incitement of violence and that is the line that we have to be willing to contend with,” she said.

Despite accusing Carlson of “very clearly” inciting violence, AOC failed to provide one single example.

Commentators responded by asserting that AOC was simply using a nebulous justification to completely silence her political adversaries.

“Their goal is the criminalization of political opposition,” said Auron MacIntyre. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or a fool.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald argued that AOC was essentially calling for a form of fascism.

As we previously highlighted, Ocasio-Cortez has a history of making fake claims about people supposedly inciting violence.

She previously accused Ted Cruz of “almost” having her “murdered” during the January 6 riot, one of a number of claims about what happened that day that subsequently turned out to be false.

Some pointed out that AOC herself has legitimized violence before in the context of “marginalized communities” being encouraged to riot.

It’s okay when we do it!

April 24, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

West knows Ukraine weapons leaking to black market – Seymour Hersh

RT | April 23, 2023

Western-supplied arms are being sold by Ukrainian commanders to smugglers in Poland, Romania and other states, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.

The Pulitzer Prize winner, speaking to Afshin Rattansi on his program ‘Going Underground,’ said the West is aware of this black market trade, as some reports about missing arms shipments have even appeared in the US media.

Hersh claimed that, according to his data, almost immediately after the conflict broke out between Kiev and Moscow last February, “Poland, Romania, other countries on the border were being flooded with weapons we [the US and allies] were shipping for the war to Ukraine.”

“Often, it wasn’t generals, it was colonels and others, who were given shipments of some weapons, [who] would personally resell them… to the dark market,” he explained.

The journalist noted that there was concern in the West last year that some of the arms sent to Ukraine, such as Stinger shoulder-launched missiles, could be used to “shoot down an airplane at considerable height.”

As for Western-supplied weapons ending up on the black market, “CBS wrote a story about it that they were forced to retract,” Hersh said.

When asked about why the piece was retracted, the journalist said the media is supporting the stance of the US government that “we’re on the side of Ukraine. We all hate Russia.”

Hersh was likely referring to the documentary “Arming Ukraine,” which CBS aired last August. The promo for the film, which included a claim by the founder of pro-Ukraine NGO Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, that only 30% of military aid actually reached the frontline, was removed, while the documentary itself and the story accompanying it were redacted.

Russian officials have on many occasions warned about Western-supplied arms being smuggled outside Ukraine, thus deteriorating the security situation elsewhere around the globe.

“NATO military supplies intended for the Kiev regime end up in the hands of terrorists, extremists and criminal groups in the Middle East, Central Africa, Southeast Asia,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in October. At the time, she estimated the black market turnover at $1billion per month.

An investigation by RT last summer also revealed how various weapons supplied to Kiev by the West were being sold on the dark net. The journalists were able to swiftly negotiate to the purchase of a US-made kamikaze drone with smugglers. However, it impossible to confirm whether the sellers actually had the weapons in stock, as the reporters did not complete the purchase.

The full version of Going Underground’s interview with Seymour Hersh will be aired on RT on Monday.

April 23, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Broken Trust

Can the relationship with state healthcare ever be repaired?

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | April 21, 2023

For many people, the words ‘trust the experts’ now invoke a sort of pavlovian horror response. This trope serves as a visceral reminder of 3 years’ constant gaslighting for daring to question the narrative, the relentless stream of celebrity medics repeating the ‘safe and effective’ mantra and the bullying and coercion to take a ‘vaccine’ that millions of people didn’t feel they needed or wanted. It had all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship. Core medical ethical principles were destroyed, the weaknesses of protocolised top-down healthcare delivery were exposed and of course there was direct harm to individuals. Is it any wonder that a great many of the British public never want to hear the words ‘our NHS’ ever again, cringing as they remember the weekly clapping ritual.

An inclination to throw the baby out with the bathwater is now a strong instinct for many who feel completely let down. If the relationship with state healthcare stands any chance of being repaired, harms enacted in recent years need to be properly acknowledged and people’s concerns carefully listened to. The uncomfortable question as to whether the NHS can function in its current incarnation should be aired. For a lot of people a ‘great reset’ of the medical profession would be a necessary condition of return. Indeed, many medics wonder if they can remain in a system that is clearly failing those it is supposed to serve.

As one doctor with decades of experience laments:

“If I continue to practise conveyor belt and recipe book medicine under the current system, the benefit is only to the Medical Business Model; hospitals, laboratories, diagnostic centres and the pharmaceutical industry all benefit in a model designed to keep the patient sick.”

Another consultant doctor reflecting on the past few years, had the following comments:

“The most odious revelation to me was when early on the directive came forth forbidding doctors, on pain of GMC punishment, to use their own initiative to treat a Covid patient with any other substance, drug, or agent whatsoever than that which was approved officially (of course at this point there was nothing in that category), save only for using it in an officially approved Clinical Trial. I felt utterly betrayed as a doctor. The whole essence of the doctor-patient relationship was abruptly abolished. We were now in the CMO-patient relationship. My role was merely to be a minor minion box-ticking algorithm slave. No clinical discretion. No discussion along the principles of best interest of the patient with informed consent. Oh no, that’s old hat! I saw the moral authority and overshadowing support of the entire medical establishment wither up like Jonah’s gourd.”

Multiple articles are now appearing reporting that morale for those working within the NHS is at an all-time low.1,2,3 One can only imagine that bearing witness to some of the most inhumane policies in NHS history for 3 years straight has not helped. Add to this the long hours on low pay, with increasingly limited time to spend with patients due to unmanageable waiting lists, and you have a perfect recipe for abysmal job satisfaction. Do we really want those in charge of our healthcare decisions to be forced to work under these conditions?

So now to the question of trusting medical advice that has been co-opted, protocolised and politicised, not to mention censored and distorted by financial interests. The UKHSA is supposed to be the government gatekeeper that is ‘responsible for protecting every member of every community from the impact of infectious diseases’. Just yesterday the agency was still urging people on Twitter to go and get their first and second covid vaccine. This is now so ludicrously at odds with the available evidence that any sane member of the public should conclude that the regulatory system in the UK is officially broken. It is worth taking the time to read the comments under the tweet to see that the public’s natural survival instincts seem to have well and truly kicked in. This random selection suggests the UKHSA may need to read the room:

If you tuned in to the Twitter Space on Sunday ‘Are mRNA injections causing cancers?’ hosted by Dr Kat Lindley and Neil Oliver, you would have heard a heated exchange between consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ahmad Malik and London-based oncology professor, Angus Dalgleish. Dr Malik wanted to get to the bottom of why Professor Dalgleish felt moved to write an article advocating for young people to take the covid vaccine in July 2021 entitled:

What every young person who fears the jab MUST be told: Vaccine expert ANGUS DALGLEISH dismantles beliefs that have seen rates stall among the 18-30s

Well that seems like a pretty clear message. Get the damned vaccine.

Given his background in vaccine research, Prof Dalgleish would have been very clear that long-term safety data is not an optional extra when injecting young people or pregnant women. When questioned, Prof Dalgleish revealed that he did not actually write the article himself. There was a phone interview with a Daily Mail journalist, which he described as ‘bullying’ and the article was an entirely perverted representation of that call. Nonetheless, his name appears alongside the article with the effect that the message therein appears to come from a distinguished professor of medicine.

Professor Dalgleish dramatically revised his position on covid injections after his son suffered acute myocarditis following the shots. Whilst it is obviously a good thing that he was courageous and open-minded enough to change his stance, it is very worrying that he is still an outlier. One can count on one hand the working medics willing to speak out on this issue. And it begs the question, what if Professor Dalgleish’s son hadn’t been injured? Would there have been more advertorials in the Daily Mail with his name alongside? Why are journalists ‘bullying’ through a particular narrative on medical matters? This rather suggests they have a particular agenda. As one Dr Roger Hodkinson, an eminent Cambridge educated pathologist says, “when politics plays medicine, that’s a very dangerous game.” Notably Dr Hodkinson is now only available to view on Bitchute, having been deplatformed from the more mainstream channels such as YouTube. More media censorship of highly qualified counter-narrative voices.

Working for a monopoly such as the NHS, with a mortgage and a family to feed, one might well find medical ethics end up somewhere below personal financial obligations. This is regrettable but understandable. Medics are human beings. Perhaps it is the fault of an increasingly secular society that somehow medics have been elevated to demi-gods and as a result their word is often deemed infallible. However, many more people now realise that this is simply not the case. If this disordered power dynamic is to be realigned, certain conditions need to be met:

  • A genuine admission that mistakes were made. Not that ‘The Science™’ changed. It did not change and millions of people who resisted the military grade psy-op are fully aware of this;
  • An overhaul of medical training so that clinicians do not feel afraid to speak out when they see something is wrong, and in fact should be encouraged to do so;
  • The gaslighting must stop altogether. Those who have suffered injury or trauma need to be given proper air time and have their concerns addressed. They also need to be properly and fairly compensated.
  • Open and unfettered discussions need to take place, allowing medics to speak freely about what has happened during the past 3 years, identifying with honesty and integrity what must not be repeated.

Taxpayers spend in excess of £220 billion per annum on the NHS. Weekly excess deaths are presently consistently way above average, whereas after a period of high mortality in the frail and elderly it should be well below normal levels. The public (and indeed the staff) deserve better. If this is impossible, perhaps the entire system needs to be completely reimagined.

Footnotes

  1. Former Grange paramedic reveals morale in NHS at ‘all time low’
  2. Staff morale at an all time low at hospitals in York trust
  3. Staff morale at Bronglais Hospital at ‘all-time low’, doctor says ahead of strike vote

April 22, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Problems with Seoul’s efforts to intensify the human rights issue in North Korea

By  Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 17.04.2023 

On March 28, 2023 South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol stated that “the reality of the horrific human rights violations against the North Korean people must be fully revealed to the international community.

On March 31, 2023 the Ministry of Reunification of the Republic of Korea (ROK) published the 2023 Human Rights Report of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for the first time in seven years. Under the North Korean Human Rights Act passed in 2016, the Unification Minister is required to submit an annual report to the National Assembly on the human rights situation in North Korea. But the previous Moon Jae-in administration classified the reports as confidential, citing privacy concerns of North Korean defectors who gave interviews. In addition, South Korea was careful not to initiate discussions about human rights in the DPRK and not to co-sponsor relevant resolutions. According to conservatives, the Moon government did not release the report in the interest of appeasing the regime in Pyongyang for the purpose of inter-Korean dialogue, being duplicitous with human rights and indulging Kim Jong-un.

The 450-page document was compiled based on some 1,600 cases of human rights violations attested to by 508 North Korean defectors between 2017 and 2022. The ministry noted that through the publication of this report, it expects to reveal to the world the real human rights situation in the DPRK in order to improve it.

In the conservative media, the content of the report was presented as “there is no other place in the world where human rights are more brutally suppressed than here,” but is it all right? After all, the issue of “human rights,” as we well know, is quite often used to accuse North Korea of all possible sins, although we addressed the problems associated with collecting evidence back in 2014-2015, when the UN published a heartbreaking report that presented North Korea as a country “worse than Nazi Germany” in some respects. However, most of the “stories” were based on the testimony of Shin Dong-hyuk, who was later exposed as a liar and disappeared from big politics.

Since the new president of the ROK is clearly paying great attention to “human rights,” Seoul could not avoid touching on this topic. Alas, the submitted text has similar issues to the 2014 UN report. It is based on the accounts of defectors, most of whom appeared to be either retelling rumors or saying what interviewers wanted to hear. And while the list of the report’s main theses should theoretically horrify the untrained reader, it raises questions from more experienced ones. There are counterarguments to nearly every crucial point or sound bite.

Drug trafficking, dissemination of South Korean goods and content, religious practices and superstitions (such as keeping the Bible, and spreading Christianity), homosexuality, and prostitution all carry the death penalty (including execution in public). The regime also carried out the secret execution of a homosexual man in 2014 and a woman “who was accused of prostitution in 2013.”

The DPRK Criminal Code is available for public review. And from its text it is clear that, except for political crimes, the death penalty is imposed for premeditated murder or drug-related crimes with serious aggravating circumstances. There is no article for homosexuality in the DPRK Penal Code at all, and the punishment for prostitution or distribution of South Korean content is much more lenient.

Information about shootings for other crimes is taken from invalid sources, because as a rule, defectors retell rumors or adjust to the interviewer, understanding what he or she would like to hear. Sometimes anti-Pyongyang propaganda publishes supposed quotations from secret orders, but they are not copies of documents, so we “have to take their word for it.”

In addition, one can note that a single incident becomes mainstream. Data about a single incident (say, the execution of a gay man) are presented as “the regime executes homosexuals,” and this wording gives the impression that it happens systematically.

“In 2020, the North enacted a ‘rejection of reactionary ideology and culture’ law, with penalties of up to 10 years’ hard labor for people who bring and spread other people’s culture and information in an attempt to tighten state control over people’s ideology. The punishment is known to be more severe for those who watch and distribute South Korean dramas, movies, and music.”

As the author repeatedly noted, the problem with this law is that no one has seen its official text. Its description is given only by propaganda resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which had previously published falsehoods of this kind on more than one occasion. The problem is that, according to Western experts, if such data have no refutation, they are taken into account.

“The report states that a pregnant woman was publicly executed because of the 2017 distribution of a video in which she dances while pointing her finger at a portrait of the country’s late founder, Kim Il-sung. In 2015, six teenagers aged between 16 and 17 were executed in Wŏnsan for watching South Korean videos and using opium.”

The examples mentioned in the media show the breadth of interpretations and are reminiscent of the very famous case of the two teenagers from Iran who were hanged. It is alleged that they loved each other and were executed for homosexuality, but it later turned out that the reason for the trial and execution was the kidnapping of a 13-year-old boy, whom they had long tortured and raped.

Here we have the story of a group of students where it is not so much about watching soap operas as it is about opium. Given the past, the attitude toward opium in the DPRK is no less harsh than in China, and regularly watching movies while drugged is quite in line with the establishment of an opium den and the involvement of minors in drug addiction.

Most residents earn their living through private economic activity because the food supply system is not working properly.

The non-working food supply system actually works, but there are two comments: on the one hand, the rations are small and it is very hard to live on them. On the other hand, it is not planned. Against the backdrop of Kim Jong-un’s economic transformation, most rations are bought with wages and not obtained with ration cards – these remain only a symbol that the distribution system works.

There is discrimination against women who are subjected to various types of violence in the family, in educational institutions, in the army, and in places of detention.

There is discrimination against women victims of violence, but at the level of society, not the state. A mother whose daughter was raped by Shin Dong-hyuk complained that now no one would marry her daughter. But this problem is characteristic of the traditional society with its corresponding attitude toward premarital sex. Also, it is not up to South Korea to criticize someone for domestic violence or school bullying.

Students are often involved in extracurricular activities.

Involving students in extracurricular activities could be a feature of the mobilization economy or part of the learning process. But the authors of the report found this to be a violation of children’s rights.

The freedom of residence of persons with disabilities is restricted.

The author has seen disabled people in Pyongyang, and it is likely that “restricted freedom of residence” actually means that disabled people stay in boarding houses where there are comfortable conditions for them.

Prisoners in political prison camps, prisoners of war, abductees, and separated families face serious human rights violations such as executions, forced labor, surveillance, and discrimination.

Actually, the correctional system is built on surveillance and forced labor. Living conditions in DPRK prisons are indeed difficult, the problem is the verifiability of the information. Also, the author wonders, where have the prisoners of war come from since 2017?

The system of free medical care does not function adequately, and patients have to “thank” doctors in other ways (money, goods, etc.).

Just because doctors have been “thanked” since the Arduous March and there is corruption in the medical system, this does not mean that the healthcare system has collapsed. Otherwise, the country would not have coped with the coronavirus outbreak last year.

There are cases of “summary“ execution: for attempts to cross the border, unauthorized stay in the border area during the tightening of security in 2020-2022, in cases of prisoners caught trying to escape, etc.

As can be seen, “summary executions” in fact refer to the “sentry on duty shot a man who tried to cross the prohibited area” type of situation. The garrison regulations of any army give a sentry such an authorization. In this case, if all the procedures were complied with, he would not even be the subject of an investigation.

The DPRK has a total of 11 “camps” where political prisoners are held, of which five are currently operating.

In essence, there is a decrease in the number of camps, but the authors of the report chose not to publicize this point, although it is a very important indicator that the repressive burden on the masses is actually decreasing.

Meetings and public hearings are held once a week to address various life circumstances.

Interestingly, “self-criticism sessions” or party meetings in which certain elements of private life are discussed have been recorded as violations of human rights. Internet analogies with similar practices within the “culture of abolition” in the West or South Korean audiences are suggested on their own.

There are searches and inspections of homes, search and seizure, and wiretapping of phones.

This fact is hard to deny: even the leader of the people’s group (the neighboring communities) has such rights, but the authors of the report have remained silent about how often this is done and to what extent it is accompanied by abuse.

Discrimination based on “songbun” (social origin) in terms of education, employment and choice of place of residence.

All attempts to verify the use of “songbun” in the 21st century rest on the materials of the right-wing conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo. According to the author’s personal data, today’s songbun is more reminiscent of Soviet questionnaires of the 1980s, where questions about relatives abroad and presence in the occupied territories were still present. The author’s respondents also emphasized that personal qualities were placed above origin.

Forced mobilization for participation in major public events and rallies.

As far as the author knows, student meetings in the ROK, as well as participation in rallies by members of trade unions or Protestant sects are also held under the “attendance of all those who want is strictly mandatory” system, but like party meetings or homeroom periods at school, this is considered a violation of human rights.

Workers sent abroad work up to 17 hours a day for very little compensation.

North Korean workers’ living conditions abroad are, in fact, quite well known. And the author has repeatedly written in the pages of the IEE that the remaining portions of North Korean workers’ wages are enough to return home a respectable and well-off person. And talk of a 17-hour workday is more about the plight of defectors working illegally in China or Southeast Asia.

Torture, forced labor, sexual violence, and hunger in correctional institutions.

When it comes to the detention of prisoners, there are plenty of problems, but the authors of previous reports were compelled to note an improvement in the overall state of affairs.

Thus, the indication of practices typical of most authoritarian regimes is interspersed with outright lies, and will be another aggravating factor in inter-Korean relations.

It should be noted that this activity of the South is taking place against the backdrop of Seoul’s intense attempts to fit into the “universal” agenda in general. South Korea is in every way expressing its approval and support for the UN reports of the group. On March 28, the South Korean government welcomed a new UN human rights report condemning abductions and human rights violations in North Korea. In the report, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) highlighted the economic, social, and emotional suffering of victims of enforced disappearances. It also criticized North Korea’s systematic abductions and enforced disappearances as “crimes against humanity.”

The report is based on 80 in-depth interviews conducted between 2016 and 2022 with 38 men and 42 women victims of enforced disappearances. These included relatives of the enforced disappeared, North Koreans who fled their country, and foreigners who fled the North after being abducted. Unfortunately, there are not many details, which already leads to questions.

For example, it is not very clear to the author where “abductions and enforced disappearances” come from in North Korea. Regimes of this kind try to act according to the law, even when it comes to reprisals in the extrajudicial system. Enforced disappearances without trial are typical of other types of regimes, be they Latin American juntas or Lee Seung-Man-era South Korea, because even under Park Chung-Hee they tried to arrest and charge people.

A separate story concerns the kidnapping of ROK citizens. We’ve also written about it before, so let me remind you briefly: up to a certain time, persons with relatives in the North were subjected to reprisals because they were believed to have gone north with the Communists. But a loophole was found in the laws, and suddenly it turned out that if relatives were taken away by force, they were victims who deserved compensation. Of course, all those who wished to upgrade their official status changed their versions.

As for the foreigners who were kidnapped and managed to escape, it is assumed that we are talking about kidnapped Japanese citizens – this fact was recognized in 2002, after which those who survived did not escape, but were released.

On March 4, 2023, the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution condemning the gross human rights violations in North Korea. The UNHRC has been passing resolutions condemning human rights violations in North Korea since 2003, but importantly, the document was again co-sponsored by the ROK for the first time in five years. The ROK did not co-sponsor such resolutions between 2019 and 2022, seeking to avoid tensions in inter-Korean relations and to resume dialogue with the North.

The document criticized “widespread and systematic” human rights violations in the north of the Korean peninsula. It calls on the North Korean authorities to ensure freedom of speech, allow the creation of independent media outlets, and revise the law on blocking foreign cultural content. In addition, the resolution requires Pyongyang to disclose information about the whereabouts of foreigners who have been detained or abducted by North Korean secret services.

The resolution also calls on Pyongyang to disclose all relevant information, including the whereabouts of foreigners detained or abducted in the North, to the families of the victims. This appears to reflect a demand to clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of a South Korean fisheries official who was shot and killed by North Korean border guards during the “Yellow Sea incident” in 2020.

Pyongyang categorically rejected the resolution, calling it “the product of a political conspiracy.” As Han Tae-song, permanent representative of the DPRK to the UN office in Geneva, said in his address to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), “This document was written for the sole purpose of embarrassing the DPRK. It is aimed at realizing a pipe dream of overthrowing our society.” “The DPRK will never tolerate any hostile action by the US and the forces following it that infringe on our sovereignty and dignity, and will make every effort to protect the genuine people’s system and their rights.”

Thus, the topic of human rights in the DPRK is used by Seoul rather as an element of the general agenda, despite the controversial evidence base and the risks that playing on these strings will provoke an understandable reaction from the DPRK that is not conducive to easing regional tensions.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, is a leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

April 22, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Here’s Why The US Is Trying To Pin The Blame For Sudan’s “Deep State” War On Russia

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 21, 2023

Debunking The Latest Fake News Narrative

CNN published an exclusive piece on Thursday alleging that “Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army”. They claim that satellite imagery shows increased Russian military transport activity between Libya and Syria in the run-up to Sudan’s “deep state” war. According to CNN, this confirms rumors that General Haftar is supplying Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hamedti”) with surface-to-air missiles (SAM) on behalf of Wagner.

The Wall Street Journal published their own exclusive piece the day prior on Wednesday alleging that “Libyan Militia and Egypt’s Military Back Opposite Sides in Sudan Conflict”, so these two stories complement one another. Both Hamedti and Wagner have denied these claims, however. The Sudanese Ambassador to Russia also confirmed that “Russia is a friendly country to us so we have been in direct contact with [the] Russian Foreign Ministry since the very beginning of those events last Saturday.”

That diplomat’s reaffirmation of Sudan’s close ties with Russia is especially important since he represents the government that’s internationally recognized as being led by Chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, who commands the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and is one of the two figures vying for power. At present, Khartoum therefore doesn’t extend credence to the emerging US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) narrative that Russia is arming the RSF via Haftar-Wagner, but that could soon change.

Preconditioning The Public For Another Proxy War  

Unless the present three-day Eid ceasefire holds and leads to the start of peace talks that ultimately end this “deep state” war, which is unlikely since both sides made clear their intent to completely destroy the other, then this conflict is expected to resume in the near future. Should the SAF fail to defeat the RSF and possibly even be placed on the backfoot, then Burhan might gamble that it’s in his best interests to parrot the MSM’s anti-Russian accusations in an attempt to receive direct Western military support.

That scenario isn’t all that far-fetched either considering that the Associated Press and Politico both cited unnamed officials on Thursday to report that the US is assembling additional troops in nearby Djibouti to prepare for the possible evacuation of Americans from Sudan. This pretext could easily be exploited to arm the SAF and/or attack the RSF, especially if the Pentagon claims that the latter tried stopping its operation by building upon last week’s claim that its forces shot at an armored US diplomatic vehicle.

In the event that Burhan repeats the MSM’s emerging anti-Russian narrative and promises to rubbish Sudan’s naval base deal with Moscow upon defeating the RSF, then the Biden Administration can “justify” its military intervention on the basis of “defending Sudanese democracy from a Kremlin coup”. The public would then be told that the latest conflict was sparked by Russia’s support for the “insurgent” RSF, which the MSM would attribute to its interests in defending Wagner’s mining operations there.

American Meddling In Russian-Egyptian Relations

This would predictably precede an unprecedented but preplanned information warfare campaign painting Russia as a “destabilizing” force in Africa, which would be aimed at counteracting its hitherto highly successful efforts at presenting itself as a force of stability in support of legitimate governments. The purpose of this aforesaid operation would be to erode Russia’s newfound “Democratic Security” appeal across the continent with a view towards reversing the decline of Western influence there.

Furthermore, Burhan’s potentially opportunistic piggybacking on the earlier described emerging anti-Russian narrative could have serous implications for Moscow’s ties with Cairo due to the perception of them backing opposite sides in Sudan’s “deep state” war. Russian-Egyptian relations have recently been beset by scandal upon the latest Pentagon leaks alleging that Cairo abandoned its supposedly secret plan to supply rockets to Moscow under pressure from Washington and agreed to arm Kiev instead.

Considering this context, the scenario of Egyptian-backed Burhan blaming Russia for sparking the latest conflict could therefore lead to the rapid deterioration of Russian-Egyptian ties, especially if Cairo decides to indirectly retaliate against Moscow by curtailing its investment rights in Port Said. Those two signed an additional agreement on this industrial zone last month, which was first approved in 2018 and is supposed to help Russia expand its economic engagement with the broader region.

Punishing The Emirates For Its Close Relations With Russia

That goal could be jeopardized if Egypt decides to punish Russia through these means in response to Burhan opportunistically piggybacking on the MSM narrative in an attempt to obtain direct Western military support against the RSF. Furthermore, the UAE’s ties with Egypt and the US could also become much more complicated in that event too since Abu Dhabi is accused of backing reportedly RSF-allied Haftar, being favorable disposed to that armed Sudanese group, and secretly allying with Russia.

The last-mentioned accusation was brought to the public’s attentions as a result of the previously mentioned Pentagon leaks, which were denied by the UAE but coincided with the weakening of its ties with Washington that are partially over that Gulf country’s growing ones with Moscow. There are more factors at play than just the Russian-Emirati relationship, but the point is that the UAE’s problems with the US could be amplified by the MSM if Burhan accuses Russia of arming the RSF via Haftar-Wagner.

It also deserves mentioning that America’s other ulterior interest in its incipient propaganda campaign against Russia in Sudan is to complicate its geopolitical opponent’s logistical connections with the Central African Republic (CAR), which owes its continued existence as a state to Moscow’s military support. The Kremlin largely relies on transit across Sudan in order to supply its forces and its ally’s there, but this could be cut off if Burhan jumps on the anti-Russian bandwagon and revokes Moscow’s privileges.

The Chadian Connection

Lastly, another strategic factor behind this latest information warfare offensive against Russia is that it could ruin that country’s surprisingly solid relations with regional military heavyweight Chad. As explained in this recent analysis here, N’Djamena ended up expelling the German Ambassador earlier this month for meddling instead of the Russian one despite the US telling its counterparts in late February that Moscow is using Wagner in the CAR and Libya to arm anti-government rebels against it.

The Associated Press cited an African analyst from a Western risk assessment firm in their article on Thursday about 320 SAF troops fleeing to Chad to claim that this development could prompt N’Djamena into taking those forces’ side in Sudan’s “deep state” war. According to Benjamin Hunter, “N’Djamena is likely to oppose (Dagalo) due to fears that RSF dominance in Darfur could empower Chadian Arabs to unseat the (president’s) regime. Many within (Dagalo’s) Rizeigat tribe live across the border in Chad.”

If Chad becomes embroiled in Sudan’s “deep state” war on Burhan’s side, then it might be susceptible to Western suggestions that jumping on the anti-Russian bandwagon like he would have already done in this scenario could lead to them suspending their regime change campaign against N’Djamena. Should that happen, then this regional military heavyweight might also support any potentially forthcoming rebel/terrorist offensive that its historical French partner could soon plot against Russia in the CAR.

Concluding Thoughts

Putting everything together, the US plans to achieve the following strategic objectives by introducing the narrative that Russia is arming the RSF:

1. Entice Burhan to extend credence to these claims in exchange for US military support;

2. Demand that he also rescinds Russia’s naval base rights and cuts off its overflight access to the CAR;

3. Consider direct support to the SAF on the pretext of commencing an “evacuation operation” in Sudan;

4. Discredit Russia and the UAE’s African engagement policies by framing both as “destabilizing forces”;

5. Attempt to provoke a crisis in Russia’s relations with Sudan’s Chadian and Egyptian neighbors;

6. Exploit the above scenario to assemble a regional coalition for pushing back against Russia in Africa;

7. Encourage Chad to support a French-backed rebel/terrorist offensive in the Russian-allied CAR;

8. Plot a copycat proxy war in Russian-allied Mali in order to crush the Kremlin’s influence in the Sahel;

9. Perfect this new Hybrid War method prior to employing it all across the continent;

10. And thus turn Africa into the top proxy war battleground of the New Cold War.

The US therefore has many reasons to push this fake news campaign, though it’s unclear whether it’ll ultimately achieve any of its envisaged objectives or not.

April 22, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Head of Norwegian Shipyard Denies Presence of Spy Equipment on Russian Trawlers

Sputnik – 21.04.2023

Greger Mannswerk, head of Norwegian shipyard Kimek located in the town of Kirkenes, which borders Russia, said on Friday that the shipyard’s employees did not find any spy equipment on board Russian trawlers, commenting on recent reports from Norwegian media.

“We have a pretty good understanding of what’s on board and we have never found anything to indicate that they [Russian seamen] are engaged in intelligence gathering. We cannot know if there are any [Russian] intelligence officers on board today, but no fisherman enters a Norwegian harbor without the [Norwegian] police and armed forces having a full idea of who is on board,” Mannswerk was quoted as saying by the broadcaster.

This week, the media published the results of an investigation, which said that up to 50 civilian Russian ships could be involved in intelligence operations against Norway.

April 21, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Russia has no plan to ruin Western unity, Kremlin tells WaPo

RT | April 21, 2023

The Washington Post says it has obtained secret Russian documents detailing a plan to bring anti-establishment political parties together in Germany in an effort to sow discord in the West. The Kremlin has responded that it does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other nations.

The purported Russian documents, largely dated from July to November last year, were obtained by an unidentified European intelligence service, the US news outlet said on Friday. It did not explain how it gained access, but it also interviewed some German politicians for the story.

The article said Moscow’s plan was “part of a hidden front in Russia’s war against Ukraine” and an attempt “to undermine Western unity.” The Soviet Union harnessed anti-war sentiment in the same way, an anonymous German security official told the Post.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the alleged Russian plan “100% fake.” He told the Post : “We never interfered before and now we really don’t have time for this.”

The strategy, as described in the article, involves “marrying” Germany’s far-left Die Linke with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Sahra Wagenknecht, an MP from Die Linke, would have a chance of winning the chancellorship with such backing, the plan suggests.

The Post spoke to Wagenknecht’s former husband, Ralph Niemeyer, who assessed her electoral chances as high. He claimed that Russian officials told him that such an outcome would be in Moscow’s interest.

But Wagenknecht would never accept any support from Moscow, Niemeyer added, and the idea of a union with AfD did not sit well with her either. The politician herself told the Post that there would not be “any cooperation or alliance” between her “and elements of the AfD in any form.”

The Post claimed that the effort was led by Sergey Kirienko, the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, along with unnamed “political strategists” tasked with executing it. The documents do not show any attempts by the Russian government to communicate the strategy to German politicians or potential allies, the report said.

The article cited instances of Die Linke and AfD holding protests against Berlin’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict and the damage caused by anti-Russian sanctions to the national economy. Members of AfD interviewed by the newspaper said being on the same side of the issue was the result of an intersection of values rather than any Russian influence campaign.

April 21, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment