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When I covered climate change for Reuters I thought CO2 was certainly to blame for rising temperatures. I was wrong

BY NEIL WINTON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 23, 2023

The BBC and the mainstream media regularly frighten everyone with the latest climate disaster news with pictures of floods, fires and hurricanes, always followed by scary predictions that things will only get worse unless mankind mends its irresponsible ways.

My alma mater Reuters, the global news agency, used to be above all this hysteria and would relentlessly apply its traditional standards of fairness and balance, but even this mainstream outfit seems to have sold out to the hysterics and axe grinders.

The trouble is, many if not all of these disaster stories, far from being another step in a worsening scenario, are often nothing of the kind. In a recent book Unsettled. What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters, Steven Koonin uses the UN’s Intergovernmental  Panel on Climate Change data to show that if reporters took the trouble to do a minimum amount of checking, most of these incidents would appear to be natural disasters, yes, but not part of some ever worsening syndrome.

Economist Bjorn Lomborg has been pointing out for years that humans are having an impact on the climate, but technology will be a match for any problems. Current Government plans to combat climate change will squander massive amounts of taxpayers’ money and achieve very little in terms of stopping rising global temperature, Lomborg says.

Warmist politicians and lobby groups regularly trash the work of a significant group of climate experts, insulting them with unfounded accusations that they can’t be taken seriously because they have barely perceptible links with ‘Big Oil’ and are ‘climate change deniers’. Criticisms are mainly personal and not aimed at their work. Koonin and Lomborg also suffer the unethical ‘denier’ slur, so let’s destroy that canard first.

Every scientist knows the world’s climate has been gradually and occasionally irregularly warming since the last Ice Age over about 10,000 years. Nobody denies the climate is changing. The ‘denier’ charge is nonsensical. But it performs the useful function of making clear the user knows nothing about climate science. The argument is about the ‘why’ not the ‘if’. Warmists say all the warming is because of man’s activity. The rest say some, a little or none.

Education is another area where balance has been replaced by hysteria-inducing propaganda. Children shown demonstrating on the news are often borderline hysterical. No doubt their teachers didn’t bother to tell them that man-made global warming is a theory not a proven fact, and that it’s okay to talk about different opinions.

If you wonder why much of the mainstream media seem united in accepting that the world will soon die unless humans don hair shirts, freeze in winter and walk instead of driving, you need to know about websites like Covering Climate Now (CCN).

Reuters and some of the biggest names in the news like Bloomberg, Agence France Presse, CBS News, and ABC News have signed up to support CCN, which brags that it is an unbiased seeker after the truth. But this claim won’t last long if you peer behind the façade. CCN may claim to be fair and balanced, but it not only won’t tolerate criticism, it brandishes the unethical ‘denier’ weapon with its nasty holocaust denier echoes. This seeks to demonise those who disagree with it by savaging personalities and denying a hearing, rather than using debate to establish its case.

CCN advises journalists to routinely add to stories about bad weather and flooding to suggest climate change is making these events more intense. This is not an established fact, as a simple routine check would show.

I asked CCN about the nature of its dealings with Reuters and the likes of Bloomberg. Was it to thrash out a general approach to climate change reporting or to be more partisan?

CCN hasn’t replied.

I have a particular interest in Reuters’ attitude because I spent 32 years there as a reporter and editor. The global news agency’s traditional insistence on high standards in reporting makes this liaison with CCN seem questionable.

When Reuters announced its tie-up with CCN in 2019 it said this, among other things.

The (CCN) coalition, which includes more than 350 organisations [there are many more now] has no agenda beyond embracing science and fair coverage and publishing more climate change content.

That is clearly not true. It has a partisan agenda and encourages reporters to dismiss those with contrary opinions as ‘deniers’.

The statement went on to quote Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler:

Reuters is committed to providing the most accurate and insightful coverage of the climate crisis, as it threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people world-wide. Our hope is that our careful, factual reporting will help nations, businesses and individuals respond to the challenge rapidly and intelligently.

The idea of a ‘climate crisis’ is not widely accepted, but partisans shout about it. It is a very vague claim and hard to define or prove. By Reuters standards shouldn’t this include a balancing view? Certainly, many people believe that there is such a crisis, but lots of people don’t. The idea climate change threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people worldwide is an assertion, not a fact.

The involvement of Reuters in CCN seems to me to be in direct contradiction to three of its 10 Hallmarks of Reuters Journalism – Hold Accuracy Sacrosanct, Seek Fair Comment, Strive For Balance and Freedom From Bias.

I asked Reuters for its reaction to criticism of its CCN involvement in a new book Not Zero by Ross Clark, published by Forum, and it said this in a statement.

Reuters is deeply committed to covering climate change and its impact on our planet with accuracy, independence and integrity, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

When I became Reuters global Science and Technology Correspondent in the mid-1990s, the global warming story was top of my agenda. Already by then the BBC was scaring us saying we would all die unless humankind mended its selfish ways. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was the culprit and had to be tamed, then eliminated. I had no reason to think this wasn’t established fact. I was wrong.

My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO2 and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO2 was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO2 had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why. The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit.

My reporting reflected the wide range of views, with Reuters typical “on the one hand this, on the other, that” style. But even then, the mainstream media seem to have run out of the energy required, and often lazily went along with the BBC’s faulty, opinionated thesis. It was too much trouble to make the point that the BBC’s conclusion was challenged by many impressive scientists.

Fast forward 20 years and firm proof CO2 was warming the climate still hasn’t been established, but politics has taken over. Sure, there are plenty of computer models with their hidden assumptions ‘proving’ man is guilty as charged, and the assumption that we had the power and knowledge to change the climate became embedded.

The Left had lost all of the economic arguments by the 1990s, and its activists eagerly grabbed the chance to say free markets and small government couldn’t save us from climate change; only government intervention could do that. Letting capitalism run free was a certain way to ensure the end of the planet; smart Lefties should take charge and save us from ourselves.

The debate about climate change is far from over. I’m not a scientist so I don’t know enough to say it’s all man-made or not. But politicians and lobbyists have decided that we are all guilty. They are in the process of dismantling our way of life, ordering us to comply because it’s all for the future and our children. If we are going to give up our civilization, at the very least we ought to have an open debate. Journalists need to stand up and be counted. The trouble is that requires bravery and energy, and an urge to question conventional wisdom.

Reuters should be leading this movement. All it has to do is stand by its 10 Hallmarks. And maybe tell CCN thanks but no thanks; it needs to apply Reuters principles to its climate reporting.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Broadcaster sacks host after external influence probe

RT | February 23, 2023

French broadcaster BFMTV has fired an anchor following a probe into alleged external meddling into his work, AFP reported Thursday, citing an internal company email it had seen.

The host in question, Rachid M’Barki, was found not to have followed due editorial process in multiple news segments aired between 2021 and 2022, BFMTV Marc-Olivier Fogiel reportedly said in the correspondence. The faulty news segments included false information on assorted topics, ranging from Russian “oligarchs” to the situation in the Middle East and Western Sahara.

The anchor was suspended early in January, after the company became aware of the potential misconduct on his part. The affair became public this month, when the Forbidden Stories collective released an investigation into a secretive Israeli contractor group, dubbed ‘Team Jorge,’ which had specialized in assorted malign cyber activities to manipulate the outcomes of elections worldwide. To expose the group, the journalists fancied themselves as prospective clients seeking electoral meddling, while covertly recording hours of footage during meetings with the members of the clandestine contractor unit.

The group, run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli secret services operative, operated a vast social media bots network it used to affect public opinion in different countries. The team also reportedly used legitimate news outlets to plant the information it needed for its activities, with M’Barki identified among presenters which had been fed the misinformation.

The presenter had previously acknowledged receiving information from shady anonymous sources, but denied a deliberate spread of fake news on his part. Speaking with Politico after the investigation came out, M’Barki acknowledged that he “used information… received from sources” and that “they did not necessarily follow the usual editorial process.”

“They were all real and verified. I do my job… I’m not ruling anything out, maybe I was tricked, I didn’t feel like I was or that I was participating in an operation of I don’t know what or I wouldn’t have done it,” the journalist stated.

February 23, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

How Long Did Americans Support America’s Longest War?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 21, 2023

In an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times, Alexander J. Moytyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers, asks, “How long will Russians tolerate Putin’s costly war?” After pointing out the many negative consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moytyl makes a pointed observation: “And yet, almost a year after the invasion of Ukraine, Russians continue to support strongman Putin and the war.” Moytyl just cannot understand how this can be.

Well, maybe if we look inward, which Moytyl certainly does not do in his op-ed, we can figure out the answer. 

Let’s consider, for example, the U.S. government’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. There were lots of negative aspects of those two wars, beginning with the fact the U.S. invasions of both countries were illegal, both under International law and U.S. law.

It is undisputed that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq ever attacked the United States. That means that the U.S. was the aggressor in both wars.

Yes, I know, defenders of the Afghanistan invasion point to the fact that Osama bin Laden, who was accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, was supposedly living in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, under International law, the U.S. had no legitimate legal authority to invade Afghanistan to arrest or kill him. 

It is also undisputed that there was no extradition treaty between Afghanistan and the United States. Therefore, when President Bush demanded that the Afghan government extradite bin Laden to the U.S., under international law Afghanistan had the legitimate authority to say no. Under international law, Bush had no legitimate authority to invade the country simply because Afghanistan rejected his unconditional extradition demand. 

It is also undisputed that neither the Iraqi people nor the Iraqi government had any connection to the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. invasion of that country was a pure war of aggression, one based on the flagrant and fraudulent pretense of uncovering non-existent “weapons of mass destruction.” 

It is also undisputed that there was no declaration of war issued by Congress against either Afghanistan or Iraq, as required by the U.S. Constitution. That made both invasions illegal under our form of constitutional government. 

It is impossible to know exactly how many people in Afghanistan and Iraq were tortured, injured, or killed by U.S. forces in those two wars of aggression. That’s because, early on, the Pentagon announced that it would not keep track of enemy dead. That’s because the lives of Afghans and Iraqis didn’t count. 

However, according to the Watson Institute at Brown University, “Nearly 20 years after the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan, the cost of its global war on terror stands at $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths.”

That is a lot of money. And that is a lot of dead people. I would estimate that 99 percent of those dead people had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. 

Yet, many Americans supported their government throughout all this mayhem, just as the Russian people are standing with their government during its current mayhem. In fact, I remember church ministers all across the United States beseeching their congregations for years to “support the troops, especially those in harm’s way in Afghanistan and Iraq.” I also recall how we were all encouraged to “thank the troops for their service” whenever we saw them in uniform. I also remember all those critical things that were said against those of us who opposed these wars of aggression and resulting occupations. 

Supporting their government in time of war is what most citizens do in every nation, including Russia, the United States, and Germany. Most citizens are forced into the state’s educational system at a very young age, where their minds are molded to blindly come to the support of their regime during wartime. Children are inculcated with mindsets of deference to authority and blind trust in their political, military, and intelligence officials. That mindset continues well into adulthood. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I recall many people, including commentators in the mainstream press, exclaiming, “We need to trust our officials. They have access to information that we don’t have.”

So, what befuddles me is why Alexander J. Moytyl is befuddled by the overwhelming support by Russian citizens of their regime during wartime. If American citizens blindly support their regime during wartime, why would anyone expect that Russian citizens would respond differently?

February 21, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Iran reacts to uranium claim

RT | February 20, 2023

Tehran has rejected as misleading a Bloomberg report, which claimed that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was investigating how the country enriched uranium “to levels just below that needed for a nuclear weapon.”

The news agency cited two anonymous diplomats, who alleged that the UN nuclear watchdog found uranium of 84% purity, or “just 6% below what’s needed for a weapon” in Iran, Bloomberg explained in its article, published on Sunday.

Responding on Monday, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said the piece was “slander and a distortion of the facts”.

“The presence of uranium particles above 60% during the enrichment process does not mean enrichment above 60% level,” he told IRNA news agency, claiming that in publishing the story, Bloomberg was serving as a tool of anti-Iran pressure.

Bloomberg did, however, acknowledge the possibility that the sample was found after unintended accumulation in an enrichment centrifuge cascade.

The IAEA has commented on the news by stating that it was “discussing with Iran the results of recent Agency verification activities” and would report the outcome to its board of governors when appropriate.

Iran agreed to impose restrictions on its nuclear industry, including enrichment activities, under a 2015 deal with world powers. The agreement was torpedoed by US President Donald Trump, who pulled out in 2018 to pursue a so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions.

Iran eventually started reneging on its commitments, and announced it was enriching uranium to 60% purity at its Natanz facility in 2021 and at the Fordo site in 2022.

The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was touted as a way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, an ambition that Tehran denies having.

February 20, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Journalist Receives $100,000 From Bank For Promoting Climate Alarmism

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Another €100,000 (£88,000, $107,000) has been gifted to a climate journalist via the foundation of Spain’s second largest bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA). The money is an annual presentation and was recently given to the New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert. The bank said it gave her the cash “for her extraordinary ability to communicate in a rigorous, attractive manner the fundamental environmental challenges of our time”. BBVA is deeply involved in funding subsidy-heavy renewable technologies. It recently declared record profits for 2022 of €6.42 billion, and noted that it had channelled €50 billion into “sustainable business”. Past cash recipients include Matt McGrath of the BBC, the Guardian newspaper and Marlowe Hood of Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The foundation was particularly impressed with Kolbert’s 2016 seminal book, The Sixth Mass Extinction, which was awarded a ‘non-fiction’ Pulitzer Prize. This was said to have documented the dramatic loss of species that the planet is suffering. “One third of all reef building corals, a third of all freshwater molluscs, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of reptiles and a sixth of all birds are heading towards oblivion,” she said. For good measure, she claimed that around a half of all living species on the Earth could disappear by the end of the century.

Kolbert is a Climate Catastrophist straight from central casting. She fervently believes that humans can control the climate by adjusting levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a proposition that is disputed by many scientists. She compares climate ‘deniers’ to flat-earthers. What ‘deniers’ think of climate science, or rather her take on said science, is “completely irrelevant“. Like most people in her world, she says, “I have low tolerance for people who deny facts and disregard truths”.

The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles, and is heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). But it suffers from a major flaw – a lack of proof. Most of the claims are produced by models and are just opinions. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If you are in the Pulitzer prize winning territory of a sixth mass extinction, you might expect to be able to show more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.

The WWF has been responsible for much extinction alarmism since its Living Planet Index has estimated at least a 50% vertebrate decline since 1970. But a group of Canadian biologists recently cast considerable doubt on this claim, suggesting that it was a cherry pick. They showed that the estimate was produced from less than 3% of vertebrate populations. “If these extremely declining populations are excluded, the global trend switches to an increase,” they point out. “More informative indices are needed,” they conclude. The finding is perhaps not surprising since the small increases in CO2 over the last 40 years has produced 14% more vegetation across the globe.

Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian palaeontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.

As regular readers are aware, MIT Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen believes the entire climate narrative is “absurd”. However, he acknowledges it has near-universal acceptance, despite the fact that in a normal world the counterarguments would be compelling. “Perhaps it is the trillions of dollars being diverted into every green project under the sun, and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists, along with the political control offered to elite groups in society by Net Zero, that currently says it is not absurd,” he suggests.

Neil Winton spent 34 years working for the international news agency Reuters, including four years as science and technology correspondent reporting on global warming. He wrote a recent article noting that anyone who abused people by calling them a climate denier “betrays the fact they know little about climate science, or are too lazy to do their own research”. They are more interested in forcing their views on the public and silencing debate, he added. The idea that the science is settled, he says, won’t last long if the reporter can be bothered to use a search engine revealing “scores if not hundreds of highly qualified scientists who beg to differ”.

In his new book on Net Zero, Winton notes, the author Ross Clark accuses Reuters of joining an organisation “which is dedicated to presenting a partisan view of climate change, and silences those who dare to disagree by activating the obnoxious ‘denier’ assertion”.

This organisation is called Covering Climate Now (CC Now), and it specialises in ready-to-publish climate scare stories. The Daily Sceptic wrote about it in December under the heading ‘How billionaires fill the Media with climate fear and panic’. CC Now feeds over 500 media operations and its ‘partners’ include some of the biggest names in news publishing such as Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP, CBS News, ABC News and MSNBC News.

Winston notes that CC Now issues the advice: “For God’s sake do not platform climate denialists.” Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus or ridicule climate activism “don’t belong in a serious news outlet”, it says. Since when did Reuters require an outside organisation to advise it on how to report on controversial issues, asks Winton.

He adds: “If you dig deeper though you’ll find it uses weasel words only too familiar to those like me who’ve striven to provide real honesty and balance to the argument. It reveals itself as just another arrogant, warmist outfit dedicated to shutting down those with whom it disagrees. Not a thing Reuters should be associated with, surely?”

February 19, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

The climate scaremongers: Are hurricanes becoming more powerful?

By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | February 17, 2023

If you believe what the media tell you, you would think so. But you would be wrong. As the chart below for 1980 to 2022 shows, there is no obvious trend in the frequency of major hurricanes worldwide during the satellite era.

http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?arch&loc=global

The IPCC, the UN climate panel, can also find no evidence either, stating in their latest climate assessment: ‘There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multi-decadal to centennial) trends in Tropical Cyclone frequency- or intensity-based metrics due to changes in the technology used to collect the best-track data.’

The US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration says the same about Atlantic hurricanes: ‘There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in US landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes. Similarly for Atlantic basin-wide hurricane frequency (after adjusting for observing capabilities), there is not strong evidence for an increase since the late 1800s in hurricanes, major hurricanes, or the proportion of hurricanes that reach major hurricane intensity.’

But facts don’t matter to the climate warriors at the BBC, who published a ‘Reality Check‘ following Hurricane Ian last summer, which claimed that there was evidence that hurricanes were getting more powerful.

I fired off a complaint to the BBC at the time, which their Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) have now rejected. They presented no real data to counter any of the evidence I have outlined above. Instead they relied almost entirely on computer modelled projections of what might happen in future.

Their dismissal of my complaint sums it up better than I can: ‘The evidence would therefore appear to indicate climate scientists who have studied hurricanes and the effect of human-induced climate change agree the proportion of tropical cyclones which develop into hurricanes or major hurricanes is expected to increase, and those hurricanes are expected to have higher peak wind speeds ‘

Of course, it was not what could happen in the future which I was complaining about. It was their claim that such changes are already happening. In short, they created a straw man and knocked it down, while ignoring the actual complaint!

The real problem, of course, is that the ECU is part of the BBC, and will always back them up even when the evidence against them is overwhelming. The BBC will never be properly held to account until a truly independent complaints unit is set up.

February 19, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Rising Seas Threaten to Wipe Entire Nations Off the Map, UN Chief Warns

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 15, 2023

An increase in the pace at which sea levels are rising threatens “a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale” and whole nations could be drowned under the waves, the UN Secretary General has warned. The Guardian has more.

The climate crisis is causing sea levels to rise faster than for 3,000 years, bringing a “torrent of trouble” to almost a billion people, from London to Los Angeles and Bangkok to Buenos Aires, António Guterres said on Tuesday. Some nations could cease to exist, drowned under the waves, he said.

Addressing the UN Security Council, Guterres said slashing carbon emissions, addressing problems such as poverty that worsen the impact of the rising seas on communities and developing new international laws to protect those made homeless – and even stateless – were all needed. He said sea level rise was a threat-multiplier which, by damaging lives, economies and infrastructure, had “dramatic implications” for global peace and security.

Significant sea level rise is already inevitable with current levels of global heating, but the consequences of failing to tackle the problem are “unthinkable”. Guterres said: “Low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear for ever. We would witness a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale. And we would see ever fiercer competition for fresh water, land and other resources. People’s human rights do not disappear because their homes do,” he said. “Yes, this means international refugee law.”

The International Law Commission is assessing the legal situation. In 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that ​​it was unlawful for governments to return people to countries where their lives might be threatened by the climate crisis.

A new compilation of data from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) shows that sea levels are rising fast and the global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than at any time in the past 11,000 years. Sea levels rise as warmer water expands and ice caps and glaciers melt. …

In fact, sea levels are not accelerating and have continued rising at a modest 10-12 cm a century – not something that is going to give any nation an existential crisis any time soon. I somehow think that countries might be able to adapt to a one metre rise per millennium.

But why let facts get in the way of a good disaster narrative that justifies lots of Government intervention and control?

February 19, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

‘Finally’ The Lancet Acknowledges Natural Immunity Superior to mRNA COVID Vaccines

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 17, 2023

Immunity acquired from past COVID-19 infection provides strong, lasting protection against severe outcomes from the illness at a level “as high if not higher” than that provided by mRNA vaccines, according to a study published Thursday in The Lancet.

Researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 65 studies worldwide, providing overwhelming evidence to support what many scientists, doctors and studies have said since early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Lancet is finally acknowledging what doctors and scientists have been gaslit for saying for years — that natural immunity provides superior protection to experimental vaccines,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense.

“Only the tsunami of propaganda and censorship from the pharma/government biosecurity cartel and the controlled media persuaded the public that Pfizer and Moderna were better at protecting the human immune system than God and evolution,” he added.

The study found that immunity acquired from infection was often far more robust and consistently waned more slowly than the immunity from two doses of an mRNA vaccine.

The researchers found that natural immunity was at least 88.9% effective against severe disease, hospitalization and death for all COVID-19 variants 10 months after infection.

It also provided 78.6% protection against reinfection for all variants except omicron BA.1, for which protection was 45.3%.

At an October 2022 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting, the CDC presented data showing that vaccine-acquired immunity after two or three injections dropped to zero six months after injection, and then became negative.

The Lancet study stated that “although protection from reinfection from all variants wanes over time, our analysis of the available data suggests that the level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination using high-quality mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech).”

The study was funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Authors included Dr. Christopher Murray, director of The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Gates-funded institute that was “largely responsible for the notoriously exaggerated mortality calculations that overestimated COVID deaths by 20-fold at the COVID pandemic’s outset,” according to Kennedy.

The authors argued, based on their findings, that natural immunity should be recognized along with vaccines when authorities are considering restricting travel, access to venues and work based on immunization status.

Commenting on these conclusions, Dr. Meryl Nass, internist and epidemiologist, said:

“While framing this as an acknowledgment that natural immunity confers protection, what it is also doing is providing tacit agreement that government-imposed policies restricting travel are acceptable. It furthermore provides tacit approval of vaccine passports.”

The ‘cartel’s’ war on natural immunity

In October 2020, The Lancet published an article — “Scientific consensus on the COVID-19 pandemic: we need to act now” — by authors including CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, which was widely covered in the mainstream press. They stated that “there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection” and that “the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future.”

But in November 2021, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request forced the CDC to admit that it didn’t even collect data on natural immunity.

Then, in January 2022, the CDC was compelled to revise its position on natural immunity, acknowledging in a report that natural immunity against COVID-19 was at least three times as effective as vaccination at preventing people from becoming infected with the Delta variant.

The pharmaceutical companies were also aware of the benefits of naturally acquired immunity, although they suppressed that information, documents revealed.

In October 2021, Project Veritas exposed three Pfizer officials saying that antibodies lead to equal if not better protection against the virus compared to the vaccine, The Defender reported.

Later, in April 2022, Pfizer documents held by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and released under court order confirmed Pfizer knew natural immunity was as effective as the company’s COVID-19 vaccine at preventing severe illness, journalist Kim Iversen reported.

Most recently, the Twitter files revealed that a Pfizer board member who used to head the FDA lobbied Twitter to take action against a post accurately pointing out that natural immunity is superior to COVID-19 vaccination, The Epoch Times reported.

FOIA requests also revealed that Dr. Anthony Fauci and his boss, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, colluded to suppress the Great Barrington Declaration, which argues that natural immunity plays an important role in mitigating public harm from COVID-19, The Defender reported.

The vaccines are failing, which means we need more vaccines

Media that reported on the study, including NBC, ABC and U.S. News & World Report, continue to advocate for vaccination as the more important way to protect against severe disease and death from COVID-19.

This is despite the fact that even vaccine advocates Bill Gates and Fauci admitted that COVID-19 vaccines perform poorly.

In a paper published last month in Cell Host and Microbe, Fauci and his co-authors confirmed that the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses, including influenza, coronaviruses, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and common colds “have not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines.”

They concluded, “Durably protective vaccines against non-systemic mucosal respiratory viruses with high mortality rates have thus far eluded vaccine development efforts.”

Nass said that while it is quite significant for The Lancet to publish these findings about natural immunity, the authors’ framing, like the admissions by Gates and Fauci, “is intended to quietly, without apology, veer away from current COVID vaccines, while implying that more money is needed to develop new types of vaccines. No one made any mistakes. No one accepts any blame. Chris Murray never erred with his outlandish estimates. No, just send money and let us do the science.”

Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

February 18, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Mainstream Media Continues To Push False ‘COVID Heart’ Narrative To Explain Excess Deaths

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | February 17, 2023

CBS joins the chorus of mainstream media outlets promoting the false narrative that covid is the cause of a sharp increase in excess heart failure deaths around the world. The concept of “covid heart” has been thoroughly debunked by multiple studies, yet the lie continues to persist because of media disinformation.

An early report that set in motion fears of a Covid-heart disease connection was published in JAMA Cardiology on July 27, 2020. German researchers claimed that 78% of recently recovered Covid-19 patients had “abnormal” signs on their cardiac magnetic resonance scans and 60% showed signs of inflamed heart muscle, a condition known as myocarditis. Those astonishing numbers were covered in nearly 400 news outlets. The report has so far been viewed more than 900,000 times — a rarity for academic papers.

Soon after its publication, however, the paper was criticized for statistical and methodologic errors. It eventually underwent a long but much quieter correction that indicated that many of the abnormalities were only marginally more common among those recovering from Covid-19 than among similar control individuals who had not had Covid-19.

The assertion of the existence of covid heart serves a useful purpose, however, as it conveniently helps to distract from the very real threat of myocarditis caused by mRNA vaccines.  Studies show a direct connection between covid vaccination, boosters, and risk of heart failure, specifically in younger people. The corporate media continues to ignore these studies in favor of the covid heart claim.

The CBS report presents a correlation as proof of causation: The explosion in heart failure happened in parallel with the pandemic, therefore, they say it “must be covid” that is causing the damage. But there was one other event that also happened in parallel with the heart failure spike – The introduction of experimental mRNA vaccines which have never been used before.

In reality, there is no evidence of a significant increase in risk of heart problems from contraction of covid, and there are no studies yet that use unvaccinated people as a control group to determine if vaccines help or hurt a patient’s chances. Medical officials simply assume that the deaths of younger people are due to them being “less likely” to have been vaccinated. The complete absence of objective scientific analysis has contributed to a lack of understanding surrounding covid risks versus vaccine risks. Mainstream outlets have consistently proven they are only interested in repeating establishment positions and protecting the status quo.

Why don’t medical authorities use unvaccinated people as a control group for their observations? Why do they continue to promote assumptions rather than definitive evidence?  One can only theorize, but this behavior suggests a desire to hide certain findings and mislead the public rather than uncover the facts.

 

February 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , | Leave a comment

The MSM Never Was Objective—and It Never Questioned Power, Either

BY IAIN DAVIS | THE DISILLUSIONED BLOGGER | FEBRUARY 18, 2023

In his excellent exposé of the recent decision by the Knight-Cronkite News Lab (KCNL) to advocate journalism that goes beyond objectivity, and in light of the report from the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) confirming that RussiaGate was fabricated nonsense, genuinely independent researcher, writer and filmmaker James Corbett made a number of very salient points.

As Corbett points out:

As a moment’s sober reflection will immediately reveal, the mouthpiece mockingbirds of the controlled establishment media have never been objective and they have no credibility to damage.

But there is far more to this particular psyop than merely covering up the inconvenient history of media. The new narrative, sold to us in this instance by both KCNL and the CJR, is laying the foundations for a transformation of the media landscape.

The establishment wants us to believe that our “trust” in journalism is a vital component of our democracy—and, moreover, that the state can determine which news media organisation is deserving of our “trust.”

In truth, if democratic principles really matter to us, it is essential that we never trust any “news reports” from any journalist or news provider. Democracy places a duty upon us to be fierce critical thinkers. We should never unquestioningly accept anything we are told.

Journalism Is Story Telling

Every mainstream media (MSM) and “alternative media” outlet presents narratives. They are in the business of telling stories, not simply presenting “objective” facts.

Good journalism expresses an opinion and then cites the evidence that informs it. Well written journalism does this within the engaging and intriguing narratives it weaves. But no journalism is free from the journalist’s own conformation bias, and the tenor of the story is often directed by the editorial policy and allegiances of the publisher.

Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh’s recent investigation, in which he exposes the likelihood that the US government was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream II pipeline, is only available via independent outlets and on his own Substack. Despite this apparently being a story of enormous magnitude, the MSM seems extremely reluctant to bring it to wider attention. You can read about it only in the so-called “alternative media.”

While some MSM outlets report the official denial of Hersh’s piece, none have lent it much credibility, and many have been quick to cast aspersions on Hersh himself. Yes, the old game of attacking the messenger while avoiding the content of the message.

It is fair to say, based on the Hersh article alone, that no one can really verify his revelations in specific regard to Nord Stream II. He presents no evidence other than anecdotal accounts from unnamed sources. But nowhere in the MSM does there appear to be any interest in pursuing the needed investigation that Hersh’s piece demands.

Thus, it remains a piece of fantastic journalism, most notably because the very specific references it makes to orders given and operations undertaken during the BALTOPS22 exercise can be investigated. Detailed questions can be asked of officials. The blanket denials of Hersh’s story and his precise allegations are nowhere near enough to discredit it.

Given all the circumstantial evidence that also points towards US and NATO aligned culpability, his journalism—a great story—adds real fuel to the fire. This is real investigative journalism. That the story he presents in part reflects his own perspective is irrelevant.

The MSM Was Never Objective

One of the MSM’s main criticisms of the so-called “alternative media” is that it can often be described as activist journalism. This allegation implies that the perspective of the alternative news journalist biases their reporting. But such a criticism is itself a deception, because all journalism reports from a perspective.

There are basic commercial reasons why objectivity doesn’t suit journalism. Consumers of “news” don’t want to simply know what the facts are. They also want a steer on the broader implications of those facts. If that reaffirms their existing world view, all the better for sales. We all want to believe we are right and not be constantly reminded that we are probably wrong.

This is why very few Guardian readers also read the Daily Telegraph or Sun readers the Mirror, even when the presented “facts” are essentially the same. We pay for the perspective we agree with, not simply an objective reporting of the facts.

It is science, not journalism, that strives to achieve absolute objectivity in its pursuit of empirical facts. But the problem with scientific objectivity, beyond its corruption, is that it tends to introduce immense complexity and can be extremely boring to read. It doesn’t lend itself well to stirring up emotions or selling media content.

Other than a few obsessive researchers and the scientists themselves, few of us actually want to read highly technical and sterile scientific papers. We rely upon the journals and the MSM to tell us what the science says, wrongly assuming that their reporting of it is “objective.”

Our faith in the MSM places us in a vulnerable position, especially when it comes to the reporting of hard facts, such as those supposedly revealed by science. If those same alleged “facts” then become the basis for justifying government policy and/or our own decisions, then we had better be damn sure that our belief in the veracity of the story is well-placed.

The evidence that the MSM doesn’t even report the facts accurately is overwhelming. The CJR has exposed RussiaGate as the politically motivated nonsense it was. But this rubbish was relentlessly spewed out on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a year—alongside the equally baseless Skripal yarn—by a majority of MSM outlets. The obvious propaganda was designed to illegitimately demonise the Russian government.

Video link

The CJR report demonstrates that today’s Western MSM is a mass purveyor of mis- and disinformation. We are presently regaled with highly spurious Ukraine war propaganda. This is the culmination of the Russophobic Western MSM agenda that has been building for many years.

The scene has seemingly been set, and we have all been psychologically prepared for the current conflict. This makes it easier for us to imagine that the Russians are our enemy.

State propaganda partnerships with the MSM are nothing new. Three examples quickly come to mind:

— British military intelligence were feeding senior broadsheet correspondents “stories” for decades, long before the MSM made up tales about WMD in Iraq to convince the public to accept a fake casus belli for the Iraq War.

— The Church Committee formally exposed the “Operation Mockingbird” network in the US in 1975. The CIA had been manipulating the reporting of the US MSM for many years, feeding selected operative journalists intel that they then reported as “objective journalism.”

— The Mockingbird Operation PBSuccess employed public relations guru Edward Bernays to use the media to overthrow the Guatemalan government on behalf of the United Fruit Company in 1954.

While proven MSM disinformation operations and campaigns, such as these, have purportedly been assigned to the annals of history, disinfo activity is manifestly ongoing. If anything, state control of the MSM narrative for propaganda purposes has reached heights that even Bernays couldn’t have imagined.

State propaganda has been privatised. Governments channel taxpayers’ money to their global corporate partners, which in turn pay the MSM to produce the desired disinformation. During the pseudopandemic we saw whole teams of behavioural scientists at the World Health Organisation global governance level and in various nations states “use” the MSM to unethically deploy applied psychology and disinformation to tackle what the establishment and its MSM hypocritically called “the infodemic.”

When Spi-B—the team of behavioural change experts within the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)—recommended that the UK government should “use the media” to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” to convince British people that they were living through a pandemic, contrary to the evidence of their own eyes, the MSM dutifully obliged. They launched numerous corporate backed terror campaigns upon an unsuspecting public.

We are constantly told by the political class that “press freedom” is an essential part of our democracy. If the MSM really were a pluralistic and free media, it wouldn’t be possible to “use” it for propaganda. There would be too many dissenting articles by investigative MSM journalists to maintain a single, uniform narrative across all outlets simultaneously. But it isn’t a pluralistic and free media and never was, so it is entirely possible for the MSM to be co-opted. What does this say about our alleged democracy?

The so-called “infodemic,” identified by the World Health Organisation as being “just as dangerous” as an alleged global pandemic, included any and all information that questioned the diktats of our “democratic” policymakers. The MSM attacked all dissent—literally without question—on the behalf of governments and intergovernmental authorities and their corporate partners.

The infodemic, according to the establishment, was prompted by the public’s questions about government policy, about “science” as reported by the MSM, and about data that revealed statistical manipulation. The infodemic was also prompted by the MSM looking askance at sceptical scientific papers shared by people who dared question the reported “science” as well as at the millions of people who raised their voices in mass protests. These protests were either ignored by the MSM or the protestors views were distorted and their peaceful demonstrations labelled “extremist.”

There was nothing remotely “objective” about any of this mainstream “news coverage.” Rather, in total obedience to the state, the Western MSM attacked informed opinion, ridiculed all questions and demonised individuals who did not comply. Not because there was any justification for doing so, but because that is the role of the MSM. Objectivity is nowhere in sight, nor has it ever been.

The MSM Has Never Questioned Power

The Knight-Cronkite News Lab (KCNL) objective is to create a “set of standards for trustworthy news.” Indeed, maintaining the public’s “trust” is the overwhelming fixation of the MSM and its government partners. We are urged to place our faith in those who evidently lie to us and suppress facts all the time.

At one point the KCNL noted:

As early as the turbulent 1960s, some younger journalists, especially investigative reporters, began to question what objectivity really meant if it did not challenge power, privilege and inequality.

Similarly, the CJR report on RussiaGate states that “primary missions” of journalism include “informing the public and holding powerful interests accountable.”

We are told that “holding power to account,” or watchdog journalism, is the core principle of journalism. Yet nowhere in the International Federation of Journalists Charter of Ethics or in the UK National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct is there any mention of this alleged principle.

The American Press Association’s (APA) Principles of Journalism does say that journalism must serve as an independent monitor of power. But this “principle” speaks more about defending journalists’ alleged “rights” than it does about exposing any wrongdoing:

Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affect citizens. The Founders recognized this to be a rampart against despotism when they ensured an independent press; courts have affirmed it; citizens rely on it. As journalists, we have an obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it for commercial gain.

The APA’s watchdog principle is supposedly protected by the government and its courts. Yet it is not a “right,” but rather a permit bestowed upon American journalists by the establishment. This permit can be rescinded. The extent to which journalists in the US can question “power” is based solely on the protection that legacy journalism receives from the institutions it allegedly questions.

Demeaning something as frivolous is precisely what the MSM does when it labels people as conspiracy theorists, as science deniers or as COVID deniers. These attacks are rarely, if ever, based upon any exploration of the evidence. In fact, the labelling system itself is used to omit, obscure or “deny” the evidence.

All the APA’s principles mean is that certain subjects and certain kinds of evidence, characterised as “frivolous,” must not be reported by its members. What is or is not considered “frivolous” is entirely subjective. Given journalism’s legislative “protections,” it seems pretty clear what will be considered “frivolous.” A high degree of subjectivity, not objectivity, is the full extent of the APA members’ ethical commitment to “watchdog” journalism.

We only need look at the history we’ve discussed to understand that the news media barely and rarely holds power to account. Instead, the MSM is more frequently an extension of state and corporate power and is used to control the people through disinformation, omission and misdirection rather than to inform them and question power on their behalf.

This is not to say that good MSM journalism doesn’t exist. But, on those few occasions when MSM journalists do expose state crimes, they pay a terrible price for doing so. Julian Assange is among the small band of journalists who have dared to question power. He currently languishes in a British high-security prison precisely because he did so.

The MSM doesn’t question power when it deceives the public about chemical weapon attacks on behalf of the state. It isn’t holding power to account with its refusal to investigate, or even report, evidence of malfeasance in office. Its ignoring of state crimes can in no way be considered “watchdog freedom.” And it certainly does not act as any kind of watchdog when it simply reports whatever it is ordered to report by a centrally controlled global propaganda network.

We Are the Problem and the Solution

Social media has been lambasted for corralling its users into self-affirming information silos. While this is somewhat concerning, it isn’t anything new. The technological capability of social media to control opinion is an added dimension, to be sure, but the MSM has been doing exactly the same thing for more than a century.

Unfortunately, the MSM is able to propagandise us with relative ease. It does this partly by exploiting our own misconceptions. While we all seem to agree that the Russian and Chinese MSM are state propaganda, we Westerners, for some unknown reason, apparently imagine that our own mainstream media isn’t.

There is, however, a caveat with regard to this apparent gullibility. Research statistics show that there is a remarkable lack of trust in the MSM in the West. Notably, in the US “trust” in the news is as low as 26%. The UK fares little better, at just 34%. “Trust” in the news is higher in Scandinavian countries.

We only need have brief conversations with friends and family to realise that the propaganda does, in fact, work. But what explains this disconnect between our lack of trust in the MSM with our continuing willingness to believe what it tells us?

The answer lies in the greatest achievement of the Western MSM and the parasite class it serves: They have convinced us that our media is free and is pluralistic—this despite it never being true.

Consequently, it seems that while we are wary of spin and propaganda, we refuse to contemplate the likelihood that the MSM is out-and-out lying to us. Perhaps that is because we perceive the MSM as basically serving the public interest—even if we admit to ourselves that it bends the truth a little. In other words, our scepticism does not extend as far as disbelief.

We therefore remain unable to reconcile our credulous acceptance of MSM claims about itself with the reality that we are being misled en masse by that same institution. Cognitive dissonance—the uncomfortable psychological sensation we experience when we hold two or more contradictory thoughts at the same time—may account for our irreconcilable beliefs.

In other words, we are caught between not “trusting” the MSM, on the one hand, and, on the other, our inability to accept the fact that virtually nothing the MSM tells us is true. The implications of this dichotomy are beyond anything we want to contemplate. As a result, we still believe that “the news” is our window on the world.

If you think about it, the idea that all the important global events of the day can be condensed into a single “newspaper” or a 30-minute “evening news” broadcast is quite ridiculous. Even if it were composed of honest, unbiased reports, which it seldom is, “the news” cannot provide us with anything approaching a reasonable understanding of what is actually going on.

Therefore, if we genuinely want to know what’s happening, we have to actively seek information and critically evaluate it ourselves. As James Corbett wrote:

Granted, the realization that all media is constructed for us by someone with an interest in making us believe something is not a happy one for most people. Instead, it is a deeply unpopular realization, because it means we can’t just switch on the evening news, switch off our brain, and expect some totally neutral journalistic saviour to come along and hand us “the news” from on high.

Like it or not, it is our responsibility to think critically about all information, no matter who relays it. This responsibility applies equally to the stories we are fed by the “alternative media.” This article should be read critically! It is, after all, just information that’s being passed along to you.

The Knight-Cronkite News Lab suggests that journalists should give their “readers, viewers, listeners and users valuable information that helps them make better decisions and lead better lives.”

Here, the new breed of MSM journalists, no more nor less objective than their predecessors, has been given the task of reporting “the news” from a value-driven perspective. The aim is to change us by making us “better” people. So what are the values the new breed of journalists are being taught to advocate?

KCNL tell us:

There is broad consensus today about the reality of climate change and the threats that it poses. That may well inform how many resources a newsroom devotes to reporting on the issue as well as any point of view its stories reflect. The same might go for opposition to systemic racism, say, or support for LGBTQ rights. [. . .] One value we believe is worth stating out loud is support for democratic institutions, which are under attack on multiple fronts. Trustworthy news is essential to sustaining a healthy democracy.

Herein lies the problem. Every one of these “values” serves global political agendas and dovetails neatly with government policy and, perhaps most notably, with global governance policy. That is to say, the MSM’s new values are exactly the same as their old values. Their “new” objective, just like the old objective, is to advocate for power, not question it.

Contrary to the KCNL’s claims, democracy is not founded upon our acceptance of whatever we are told by government “institutions.” Rather, it is predicated upon our ability not just to question the state but to limit it. Thus, KCNL’s contention that a “healthy democracy” is one where “democratic institutions” assert sovereignty over us is entirely false.

To point out that these institutions have no authority over us whatsoever is not to attack “democracy.” On the contrary, doing so defends “democracy.” But you will never hear that from the MSM. The MSM’s continuing mission is to maintain the lies that ensure we never realise this “truth.”

It is ironic that the MSM attacks their alternative counterparts for advocacy journalism and yet the MSM’s own apparent solution to the trust issue that preoccupies it is to itself emulate advocacy journalism. The difference? The alternative media is far more likely to advocate the questioning of power, while the MSM looks set to continue advocating for power.

Seeing as how the concept of “news” is, in and of itself, absurd, the suggestion that news should be “trusted” simply adds another layer of misdirection to this new MSM advocacy journalism. So, if our “faith” in the stories we are told is part of the problem, a solution is self-evident. We should abandon any notion of “trust.” We should invest our efforts in being “better” critical thinkers.

The “alternative” media outlet UK Column sums up this point nicely. It asks:

Why should I trust the UK Column ? Put simply, you shouldn’t. The question of whether or not to trust a news organisation is a false choice. Making such a choice is promoted by government, the old media, and two new organisation types: the fact checker and the trust provider.

It disenfranchises readers, viewers and listeners. It is based on the principle that if you trust the media organisation you are visiting, there is no need for you to check the information they present. So we ask you not to trust us. Instead, view everything published here with a critical eye. Where possible, primary source material is made available for everything we publish: check it; make up your own mind.

In his previously referenced article, James Corbett provides a list of questions we should all ask ourselves whenever we encounter information offered by any source. We don’t need government or any other “democratic institution” to control information for us, nor we do need to be told what to think about it. We just need to think critically and answer these simple questions to our own satisfaction:

  • Why is this media outlet showing us this report?
  • What interest do they have in making us think a particular way about the issue presented?
  • Can the information in the report be independently confirmed or triangulated from other sources?
  • Whose viewpoint is being shown, and how is that viewpoint portrayed? Whose viewpoint is being excluded? Why?
  • What language is being used to frame the issue?
  • What does the report make us believe about the world?
  • Are we in agreement with the report? Why or why not?

Ultimately, as ever, the choice is yours. You can gather information from any source you wish. If you want to know what the state wants you to believe and what behaviour it expects of you, then go to the MSM. If you want to explore broader criticism of government and its policies, then the more independent “alternative media” provides richer pickings.

Treat these two impostors just the same. There is honest, high-quality journalism in both. There is also propaganda to be found in both. Fortunately, if you answer James Corbett’s suggested questions, you’ll be able to spot the difference more often than not.

February 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

WITNESS ONE OF THE MOST EVIL MRNA LIARS IN THE WORLD!

Ivor Cummins | The Fat Emperor | February 3, 2023

Title says it all. And this liar is apparently gonna replace Fauci in NIH!

Isn’t elemental evil so obvious – I mean WOW!

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February 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Scholz’s Judgement Under the Spotlight Now Over Nord Stream Bombs. But What About Bojo?

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 17, 2023

As the world holds its breath and gasps at the news that Germany has been egregiously used as America’s pawn in a sick power game which is filling the coffers of U.S. companies and making Joe Biden’s buddies in the military industry billionaires, many will reflect on the judgement of Olaf Scholz and ask whether he is fit to be the German chancellor. He may have known about Biden’s plan to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines which would guarantee that Germany would not only throw itself into the war against Russia, but stay at it in the long run, which is bad enough. Or he may not have known and was as shocked as anyone when it happened in June of last year during a NATO exercise.

In either case, Scholz’s judgement will be examined now for a very long time and a process of opprobrium has in fact already started in the same building where he announced that he would throw the lever on a 200 billion euro spending spree to ‘rearm’ the German army: the German parliament.

While the German press follows its lead from their masters in the coalition government which Scholz presides over by pretending that the Hersh piece doesn’t exist, MPs like Sevim Dağdelen regale the government in a bold speech. “Stop defaming the journalist & his sources! The German government must disclose its findings on the #terrorist attacks on #NordStream , considering that revelations by #SeymourHersh point to the responsibility of the #USA & #Norway” she summarizes in a tweet.

Scholz is of course in a quandary. Whichever way he turns he sees his career shot to shreds so the best course is to hope that the media will serve him admirably and help him with the ruse of simply closing one’s eyes and hoping the commotion will die down.

But the debate is actually gaining momentum in some strange places and this will only serve the purpose once again for social media to ask the critical questions for the incumbent journalists to write up, like stenographers.

In the UK, it is Boris Johnson who, despite no longer being PM, is still making the news for being an inept buffoon who can’t help getting entangled in sleaze and corruption scandals – some about him or others simply about bent MPs who he goes to some length to protect.

This time it is the appointment of the BBC chief, who, it turns out is a crony of Johnson’s who he owed a huge favour to. Richard Price, according to a parliamentary report, arranged for Bojo to have 800,000 pounds ‘loan’ from a Canadian businessman. After arranging such a kind gesture Price, who was an advisor of Johnson in Downing Street, made it be known that he wanted the top job. And he got it.

It’s this kind of ‘jobs for the boys’ corruption stories which most Brits wouldn’t be too bothered about as, apart from only expecting this from Johnson whose entire tenure in government is a trail of havoc of lies, deceit and sleaze, the UK public is getting used to the idea that Whitehall and Parliament are now fully-fledged US style centres of corruption.

The remarkable thing about the Richard Price story though is that it was not the fourth estate who broke it. Given the tawdry, unhealthy relationship between big media in the UK and the establishment most investigative journalists have taken up other professions as ‘graft’ as a subject isn’t an easy commodity to flog to those in the media who themselves are tacitly as corrupt as the elite they serve. Such journalists are in dwindling numbers in the UK.

And so it was Nicholas Wilson, an anti-corruption sleuth, who dug the dirt up and joined up the dots creating this latest sleaze story about a bent BBC boss, who, while a Johnson advisor managed to get 600,000 pounds from the government for one of his companies. This is how UK governments work these days. A little bit more sophisticated than brown envelopes or insider trading. But not much. Make yourself useful to a corrupt leader who has the morals of a sewer rat and then name your price in the form of a top job as payment.

But judgement is also an issue here. If Johnson was happy to harangue close friends for money and put it out that he was looking for a large cash donation, then surely any third-rate hack would ask “what about the Ukraine war?”. Does Johnson have a financial stake in this war? Recently he was in Kiev and then Washington doing his bit for lobbying. Given this new role and the fact that he was the first western leader to send ammo to Ukraine, is it not fair to ask “Is he on the Zelensky payroll these days?”. Was he also in the loop on the pipeline bombing plan? All reasonable questions that UK journalists would no doubt like to examine. Be patient. They’re no doubt waiting for an out of work activist to get onto Twitter and do their jobs for them.

February 17, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

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