Clooney Foundation for Justice is Globalist Policy Vehicle Disguised as Charity
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 17.06.2024
Hollywood star George Clooney headlined the Biden campaign’s June 15 fundraiser alongside other celebrities, helping Joe Biden collect over $30 million. Clooney has long been in the vanguard of the Democratic party machine, including through his charity the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ).
The ‘justice’ foundation set up by actor George Clooney and his human rights lawyer wife Amal is just a political slush-fund for globalist causes, Charles Ortel, Wall Street investigator, revealed to Sputnik.
Anna Neistat, the CFJ’s Docket Project legal director, told the US state-controlled Voice of America on May 30 that the organization was asking European countries to launch criminal proceedings against Russian journalists covering the Ukraine conflict.
Neistat said the NGO was deliberately not disclosing the names of targeted Russian reporters because it wanted them “to travel to other countries and be arrested there.”
However, Hollywood actor George Clooney, who founded the CFJ together with his wife Amal, denied on June 3 that his NGO was going after journalists. But the foundation’s apparent intent to suppress freedom of speech has already raised questions.
What is CFJ’s Agenda and Who is Behind It?
“Like the Clinton Foundation, this entity is a ‘public charity’,” Wall Street analyst and charity fraud expert Charles Ortel told Sputnik. “As such, it may not be controlled by one family and its board must be broadly representative of the public at large.”
Ortel noted that the foundation’s board was led by George and Amal Clooney as ‘co-presidents’.
“While substantial amounts are paid for ‘management’ to third parties, I suspect this is actually led primarily by Amal with George along for star power and fundraising,” he said.
“The Docket initiative does not provide details on revenues and expenses which are required,” continued Ortel. “The entity uses ‘cash’ accounting rather than required ‘accrual’ accounting — given its size — which is sloppy and more likely to create conditions prone to fraud.”
Ortel has previously run a private investigation into the Clinton Foundation’s alleged fraud — and sees similarities between the Clooneys’ and the Clintons’ charities.
The NGO’s major backers include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Co-Impact and the Ford Foundation. They promote a globalist liberal agenda and often cooperate with the Rockefeller Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. According to Influence Watch, the Clooneys also collaborate with the Obama Foundation.
Ranked first in the CFJ’s list of donors, the Gates Foundation has repeatedly drawn criticism over failed agricultural projects in Africa, Bill Gates’ ties with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, participation in the Clinton Foundation’s supposed pay-to-play schemes, and the Gates-funded biotechnology company Oxitec’s apparent involvement in the Pentagon bioweapon program — as exposed by Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense (RCB) Troops in July 2023.
Clooney and Co Go After Conservatives
The CFJ and its founders have earned their membership of the club of liberal charities. During Donald Trump’s presidency, Clooney and other Hollywood celebrities were vocal in their criticism of the Republican and US conservatives in general.
In August 2017, the Clooney Foundation gave $1 million to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), known for attacking US conservative PACs as “hate groups.”
In March 2018, the SPLC went even so far as to accuse a left-wing Radio Sputnik podcast of pandering to white supremacists, but later retracted its claim and apologized.
Clooney wrote an op-ed for the Daily Beast in June 2020 in support of the controversial and highly-politicized Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, as part of what appeared to be a concerted effort by liberal Democrats and progressives prior to the November 2020 elections.
The same year, Clooney attacked conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban while defending Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros from criticisms from his home country.
The actor vehemently denied any connection to Soros or his son Alexander, claiming he had met the tycoon only once at a UN meeting and had bumped into the heir to his international NGO network at an event in Davos.
Coordinated Infowar in Ukraine
When the Ukraine conflict erupted, Hollywood celebrities including actor Sean Penn flocked to Ukraine to portray the Kiev regime and its leader Volodymyr Zelensky as Winston Churchill-style patriots and freedom fighters.
George Eliason, a US investigative journalist who lived and worked in Donbass at that time, told Sputnik then that the flocking of celebrities to Kiev was nothing short of a “coordinated infowar operation” on the part of the West.
The Clooney Foundation’s Docket Project has been gathering “evidence” of alleged “war crimes” by the Russian military in Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict.
But the NGO has overlooked the Kiev regime’s eight-year-long war against the civilian population of the Donbass and the secret torture chambers run by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), neo-Nazi Mirotvorets website’s kill list targeting Russian and foreign journalists, politicians and children, and many other abuses human rights and media freedom of speech by Ukrainian authorities.
In October 2023, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that HiddenLight Productions, co-founded by Hillary Clinton, Sam Branson and Chelsea Clinton, was working with the Clooneys on their effort to investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The series, with the working title “The Swallows Will Return”, will follow Neistat in her search for stories of how Russians “murdered”, “raped” and “tortured” Ukrainian civilians and their families in a bid to smear and de-humanize Russians as was done the ‘Bucha massacre” hoax.
The Bucha provocation in early April 2022 was used as a pretext to tear up the peace deal struck between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul. In December 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov highlighted that no list of alleged victims in the town near Kiev had yet been published, and the incident had not been thoroughly investigated despite intensive media coverage in the spring of 2022.
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said in response to a request from Sputnik that it is not in contact with the Ukrainian authorities on the issue of the list of ‘Bucha victims’.
The lack of interest from international organizations shows that the incident was a staged provocation carried out by the hands of the Kiev regime, a Russian Foreign Ministry source told Sputnik, comparing it to Nazi Germany’s attempt to blame its massacre of civilians at Nemmersdorf in late 1944 on the advancing Red Army.
Repeated Western narratives of China’s nuclear ‘threat’ are what lead to a dangerous world
Global Times | June 17, 2024
In an interview with The Telegraph published on Sunday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg claimed that the bloc is in talks of taking missiles out of storage and placing them on standby in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China. While giving a stark warning about the threat from China, he said a world where countries like China have nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is “a more dangerous world.”
What truly constitutes a dangerous world is the world’s largest war machine hyping a nuclear war that could bring devastating consequences to mankind. Stoltenberg is telling the world that NATO would go beyond being just a conventional combat force, and become a nuclear alliance. He is trying to create an opinion condition favorable for NATO and the US to strengthen their nuclear-sharing capability. At a pre-ministerial press conference of NATO on June 12, Stoltenberg stated that the US is modernizing its nuclear weapons in Europe.
It is worth noting that the warnings of Stoltenberg came against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The just concluded two-day peace summit in Switzerland did not achieve much to solve the crisis. The US-led West has no will to end the conflict as soon as possible. Instead, it sent out a nuclear deterrence against Russia, which is nothing but adding oil to the fire, according to Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert.
Zhang believes that the fundamental reason that the NATO chief made the irresponsible remarks is to coordinate US strategies to suppress its adversaries.
“The Cold War bloc aims to expand its role to the world, including the Asia-Pacific. It acts as a pawn of Washington to contain Russia in Europe and contain China in Asia,” said Zhang.
On June 7, Pranay Vaddi, a senior White House aide, said that the US may have to deploy more strategic nuclear weapons in coming years to deter growing threats from Russia, China and other adversaries.
Coincidentally or not, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Sunday launched its annual assessment of the state of armaments, disarmament and international security, in which it said that China is amid a “significant” expansion of its nuclear capabilities and may have as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as the US or Russia by 2030. The Stockholm-based watchdog also claimed that China is believed to have some warheads on high operational alert for the first time.
Reading through SIPRI’s report, one can feel a strong intention of thwarting China’s development of nuclear weapons, despite the fact that the US has 10 times as many nuclear warheads as China. The report has quickly raised the eyebrows of major Western media outlets which rush to report on China’s “fast-growing” nuclear stockpile.
The fact that nuclear arsenals are being strengthened around the world is the result of global conflicts such as the ones in Ukraine and Gaza and the suppression of Western countries against non-Western countries. “The SIPRI’s report and Western media’s narrative of China’s ‘fast-growing’ nuclear stockpile are deliberate suppression of China and a kind of nuclear blackmail,” Cui Heng, a research fellow from the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times.
Now, the US has ripped off its veil of decency when dealing with China. The competition between China and the US will feature bilateral relations in the long run. Both sides strive to build “guardrails” to prevent relations from going off the track. However, China needs to show its strength. Strength can be best reflected by the nuclear weapons China owns. Nuclear power is the foundation of national security when China faces an increasingly hostile US with 10 times of nuclear warheads that China has.
Zhang, the military expert, noted that China’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal is imperative. It will help not only to effectively get by the West’s nuclear blackmail and threat, but also safeguard the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and break through the shackles and obstacles created by the West during the process of China’s development.
China is a nuclear power that formally maintains a no-first-use policy. Its nuclear policy is fundamentally different from that of the US and NATO. If the US and NATO do not want to live in a dangerous world, they should start by changing their own perception of China.
“Human Rights NGOs” and the Corruption of Civil Society
BY GLENN DIESEN | JUNE 10, 2024
The organisations operating under the banner of “human rights non-governmental organisations” (NGOs) have become key actors in disseminating war propaganda, intimidating academics, and corrupting civil society. The NGOs act as gatekeepers determining which voices should be elevated and which should be censored and cancelled.
Civil society is imperative to balance the power of the state, yet the state is increasingly seeking to hijack the representation of civil society through NGOs. The NGOs can be problematic on their own as they can enable a loud minority to override a silent majority. Yet, the Reagan doctrine exacerbated the problem as these “human rights NGOs” were financed by the government and staffed by people with ties to intelligence agencies to ensure civil society does not deviate significantly from government policies.
The ability of academics to speak openly and honestly is restricted by these gatekeepers. Case in point, the NGOs limit dissent in academic debates about the great power rivalry in Ukraine. Well-documented and proven facts that are imperative to understanding the conflict are simply not reported in the media, and any efforts to address these facts are confronted with vague accusations of being “controversial” or “pro-Russian”, a transgression that must be punished with intimidation, censorship, and cancellation.
I will outline here first my personal experiences with one of these NGOs, and second how the NGOs are hijacking civil society.
My Encounter with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is one of these “NGOs” financed by the government and the CIA-cutout National Endowment for Democracy (NED). They regularly publish hit pieces about me and rarely miss their weekly tweets that label me a propagandist for Russia. It is always name-calling and smearing rather than anything that can be considered a coherent argument.
The standard formula for cancellation is to shame my university in every article and tweet for allowing academic freedom, with the implicit offer of redemption by terminating my employment as a professor. Peak absurdity occurred with a 7-page article in a newspaper in which it was argued I violated international law by spreading war propaganda. They grudgingly had to admit that I have opposed the war from day one, although for a professor in Russian politics to engage with Russian media allegedly made me complicit in spreading war propaganda.
Every single time I am invited to give a speech at any event, this NGO will appear to publicly shame and pressure the organisers to cancel my invitation. The NGO also openly attempt to incite academics to rally against me to strengthen their case for censorship in a trial of public opinion. Besides whipping up hatred in the media by labelling me a propagandist for Russia, they incite online troll armies such as NAFO to cancel me online and in the real world. After subsequent intimidations through social media, emails, SMS and phone calls, the police advised me to remove my home address and phone number from public access. One of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee recently responded by posting a sale ad for my house, which included photos of my home with my address for their social media followers.
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee also infiltrates and corrupts other institutions. One of the more eager Helsinki Committee employees is also a board member at the Norwegian organisation for non-fictional authors and translators (NFFO) and used his position there to cancel the organisation’s co-hosting of an event as I had been invited to speak. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is also overrepresented in the Nobel Committee to ensure the right candidates are picked.
Why would a humanitarian NGO act like modern Brownshirts by limiting academic freedom? One could similarly ask why a human rights NGO spends more effort to demonise Julian Assange rather than exploring the human rights abuses he exposed.
This “human rights NGO” is devoted primarily to addressing human rights abuses in the East. Subsequently, all great power politics is framed as a competition between good values versus bad values. Constructing stereotypes for the in-group versus the out-groups as a conflict between good and evil is a key component of political propaganda. The complexity of security competition between the great powers is dumbed down and propagandised as a mere struggle between liberal democracy versus authoritarianism. Furthermore, they rest on the source credibility of being “non-governmental” and merely devoted to human rights, which increases the effectiveness of their messaging.
By framing the world as a conflict between good and evil, mutual understanding and compromise are tantamount to appeasement while peace is achieved by defeating enemies. Thus, these “human rights NGOs” call for confrontation and escalation against whoever is the most recent reincarnation of Hitler, while the people calling for diplomacy are denounced and censored as traitors.
NGOs Hijacking Civil Society
After the Second World War, American intelligence agencies took on a profound role in manipulating civil society in Europe. The intelligence agencies were embarrassed when they were caught, and the solution was to hide in plain sight.
The Reagan Doctrine entailed setting up NGOs that would openly interfere in the civil society of other states under the guise of supporting human rights. The well-documented objective was to conceal influence operations by US intelligence as work on democracy and human rights. The “non-governmental” aspect of the NGOs is fraudulent as they are almost completely funded by the government and staffed with people connected to the intelligence community. Case in point, during Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in 2004, an anti-corruption protest was transformed into a pro-NATO/anti-Russian government. The head of the influential NGO Freedom House in Ukraine was the former Director of the CIA.
Reagan himself gave the inauguration speech when he established the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1983. The Washington Post wrote that NED has been the “sugar daddy of overt operations” and “what used to be called ‘propaganda’ and can now simply be called ‘information'”.[1] Documents released reveal that NED cooperated closely with CIA propaganda initiatives. Allen Weinstein, a cofounder of NED, acknowledged: “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.[2] Philip Agee, a CIA whistle-blower, explained that NED was established as a “propaganda and inducement program” to subvert foreign nations and style it as a democracy promotion initiative. NED also finances the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The NGOs enable a loud Western-backed minority to marginalise a silent majority, and then sell it as “democracy”. Protests can therefore legitimise the overthrow of elected governments. The Guardian referred to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004 as “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing” for the purpose of “winning other people’s elections”.[3] Another article by the Guardian labelled the Orange Revolution as a “postmodern coup d’état” and a “CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days, adapted to post-Soviet conditions”.[4] A similar regime change operation was repeated in Ukraine in 2014 to mobilise Ukrainian civil society against their government, resulting in overthrowing the democratically elected government against the will of the majority of Ukrainians. The NGOs branded it a “democratic revolution” and was followed by Washington asserting its dominance over key levers of power in Kiev.
Similar NGO operations were also launched against Georgia. The NGOs staged Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” in 2003 which eventually resulted in war with Russia after the new authorities in Georgia attacked South Ossetia. Recently, the Prime Minister of Georgia cautioned that the US was yet again using NGOs in an effort to topple the government to use his country as a second front against Russia.[5] Georgia’s democratically elected parliament passed a law with an overwhelming majority (83 in favour vs 23 against), for greater transparency over the funding of NGOs. Unsurprisingly, the Western NGOs decided that transparency over funding of NGOs was undemocratic, and it was labelled a “Russian law”. The Western public was fed footage of protests for democratic credibility, and they were reassured that the Georgian Prime Minister was merely a Russian puppet. The US and EU subsequently responded by threatening Georgia with sanctions in the name of “supporting” Georgia’s civil society.
Civil Society Corrupted
Society rests on three legs – the government, the market and civil society. Initially, the free market was seen as the main instrument to elevate the freedom of the individual from government. Yet, as immense power concentrated in large industries in the late 19th century, some liberals looked to the government as an ally to limit the power of large businesses. The challenge of our time is that government and corporate interests go increasingly hand-in-hand, which only intensifies with the rise of the tech giants. This makes it much more difficult for civil society to operate independently. The universities should be a bastion of freedom and not policed by fake NGOs.
[1] D. Ignatius, ‘Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups’, Washington Post, 22 September 1991.
[2] Ibid.
[3] I. Traynor, ‘US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev’, The Guardian, 26 November 2004.
[4] J. Steele, ‘Ukraine’s postmodern coup d’état’, The Guardian, 26 November 2004.
[5] L Kelly, ‘Georgian prime minister accuses US of fueling ‘revolution attempts’’, The Hill, 3 May 2024.
Biden to Offer Saudi Arabia Treaty In Exchange for Official Ties with Israel
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 9, 2024
The White House is prepared to roll out a plan that will make Saudi Arabia a Japan-style ally in exchange for Ryiadh developing official ties with Tel Aviv. While the Biden administration has invested substantial effort to get the deal inked, it is likely dead on arrival because Saudi Arabia refuses to normalize with Israel unless Tel Aviv agrees to the creation of the Palestinian state.
According to American, Israeli, and Saudi officials speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Washington is prepared to sign an agreement to defend Saudi Arabia if Riyadh establishes regular ties with Tel Aviv. However, it would not be a peace agreement as the two countries are not at war.
Several hurdles must be cleared before the deal can be finalized, and it is unlikely that will happen. As Biden is seeking to make Saudi Arabia a treaty ally, it would need the approval of two-thirds of the Senate. Additionally, the deal would require Tel Aviv to end the onslaught in Gaza and take permanent steps toward a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to take either step.
Despite the obvious obstacles to the agreement, the Joe Biden administration has pressed forward with negotiations. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan explained last month, “We should not miss a historic opportunity to achieve the vision of a secure Israel, flanked by strong regional partners, presenting a powerful front to deter aggression and uphold regional stability.” He added, “We are pursuing this vision every day.”
If it went through, it would make Riyadh Washington’s only treaty ally in the Arab world, a status that even Tel Aviv does not have. The deal would also give the US access to Saudi airspace. The treaty is also part of negotiations of a larger deal that would also see the US transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
For President Biden, the deal could be politically problematic. As a candidate, Biden promised that he would treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah state for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
To add to the potential domestic resistance to the agreement, there are widespread protests in the US against Biden’s support for Israel amid its war on Gaza. As the treaty is a bribe to Riyadh to accept official relations with Tel Aviv, Americans may object to becoming an ally with Saudi Arabia to secure Israel’s regional interests.
EU-funded institution wants RT editor-in-chief arrested
RT | June 8, 2024
The EU-funded International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for several high-profile Russian media figures and officials, including former President Dmitry Medvedev and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, over alleged “hate speech.”
In a statement on Thursday, the IFHR called on the ICC to investigate what it called six “Russian propagandists,” including Medvedev, Simonyan, Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, TV host Vladimir Solovyov, TV presenter Sergey Mardan, and Alexey Gromov, who serves as First Deputy to the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office.
Like the US, Russia does not recognize the authority of the ICC, dismissing its rulings as “null and void.”
In its communication to the ICC, the IFHR alleged that Medvedev, Simonyan, Kiselyov, Solovyov, and Mardan “played a leading role in the dissemination of discriminatory hate speech targeting Ukrainians on the basis of their political views.”
The organization, which filed the document together with the Kharkov Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG), the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), and an undisclosed Russian NGO, also accused Gromov of “personally shap[ing] core propaganda narratives.”
The IFHR has also claimed that the targeted figures were “spreading false and distorted narratives,” including “portraying Ukrainians as Nazis” and claiming that Ukrainian “state ideology is hatred for everything Russian.”
Moscow has for years voiced concerns about a resurgence of Nazi ideology in its neighbor, pointing in particular to ample evidence of the Nazi symbolism being used by Ukrainian nationalists.
It has also repeatedly denounced what it terms a long-running campaign to eradicate the Russian language from all spheres of life in Ukraine as well as a crackdown on Russian and Soviet cultural heritage. Officials in Moscow have named the “denazification” of Ukraine as one of the main goals of the military campaign against Kiev.
The IFHR is mostly funded by grants and donations. In 2022, its sponsors included the French Development Agency ($6.6 million), the European Commission ($6.4 million), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency ($3.6 million), and the Open Society Foundations ($1.1 million). The latter was founded by activist billionaire George Soros.
Last year, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for allegedly participating in “unlawful” deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia. Moscow has said that the children were evacuated from the combat zone to ensure their safety, stressing that they could be returned to their parents or legal guardians upon request.
Commenting on the IFHR’s request, Medvedev called it an “acknowledgment of the effectiveness of our combined effort against the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.” He also said that such NGOs have essentially become accomplices of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian civilians.
Media Hall Monitors Are Annoyed About Investigations Into Demonetization Bias
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 31, 2024
A trade group representing the advertising industry, currently under scrutiny by Congress for possibly coordinating with large companies to demonetize conservative and independent media, has expressed concerns over the impact of this probe on their operations.
The group, identified by sources as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), told Business Insider that the congressional actions led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) are hampering their ability to focus on new initiatives.
Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has accused GARM of preventing companies from placing ads with media outlets that are seen as promoting “misinformation,” specifically targeting mainstream conservative platforms such as Fox News, The Daily Wire, Breitbart, and more.
Jordan contends that the group’s actions go beyond concerns over “brand safety” and veer into outright censorship of conservative and other disfavored viewpoints.
The sources within GARM lamented the diversion of major corporations into partisan conflicts, which they believe could harm their reputation and alienate consumers. They also expressed fears about potential lawsuits arising from document disclosures which could demonstrate that their brand safety initiatives are driven by partisan motives.
In response to the grievances aired by GUILD members, a Judiciary Committee spokesman highlighted the irony in large corporations feeling harassed by these inquiries, dismissing the notion as “laughable” given the evidence of long-term bias and censorship against conservative entities by GARM members.
America’s Ugly History with the International Criminal Court
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | May 30, 2024
On May 20, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Officials in Washington lashed out against the court and began preparations to pressure the ICC to back off on pursuing the arrests. Netanyahu and Gallant, the United States insisted, should be left alone or left to Israel’s courts.
The Hamas officials should be held accountable, according to the State Department, but not by the ICC. “The Israeli government should hold them accountable on the battlefield. And if not a battlefield, then a court of law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “We absolutely believe that Hamas should be held accountable. That could either be through the prosecution of the war effort by Israel. It could be by being killed. It could be by being brought to justice in an Israeli court.”
Congress is looking to take the lead in punishing the ICC. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “Congress is reviewing all options, including sanctions, to punish the ICC and ensure its leadership faces consequences if they proceed.”
During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the White House would cooperate on legislation that “includes the question of the ICC sticking its nose in the business of countries that have an independent, legitimate, democratic judicial system.” Blinken responded that he is “committed to doing that.” He added, “We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response” and that “there’s no question we have to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrong-headed decision.”
Blinken also told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee he would “welcome” working on “bipartisan” sanctions against the ICC. However, the White House may be considering other steps to deal with the ICC that do not include sanctions.
On May 28, White House spokesperson John Kirby said that sanctions were “not the right answer” to deal with the ICC arrest warrants. It is not that the White House would not punish the ICC, but that “Sanctions on the ICC are not an effective or appropriate tool to address U.S. concerns,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, adding that the White House “will work with Congress on other options to address the ICC overreach.”
Still, the White House remains firmly committed to thwarting the ICC deliberation into issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. “Let me be clear,” Biden said, “We reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.”
Washington has centered its argument on the grounds that a democratic nation’s legal system should be given priority to act first. Marjorie Cohn, emerita professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, told me that “the ICC operates under the principle of ‘complementarity.’ That means the Court will assume jurisdiction over a case only if the home country of the accused is unable or unwilling to hold him legally accountable.”
The White House also argued that Israel is not a member of the ICC, so the court lacks jurisdiction over Tel Aviv. Additionally, the Biden administration said that because the United States is not a member, it should not have to support or follow the court.
But, the U.S. fully supported the recent ICC arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over actions taken in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are also not members of the ICC.
Biden endorsed the arrest warrant for Putin. “Well, I think it’s justified,” he said. “But the question is—[the ICC is] not recognized internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.” Blinken urged all member nations of the ICC to comply with Putin’s arrest warrant. Asked if European allies should “turn over” Putin, Blinken answered, “I think anyone who’s a party to the court and has obligations should fulfill their obligations.”
A reporter asked if the administration’s policy for Israel would impact the Defence Department’s work “with the ICC to provide evidence about Ukraine.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin answered, “Regarding the question of whether or not we’ll continue to provide support to the ICC with respect to crimes that are committed in Ukraine, yes, we continue that work.”
The separate standard for friends and enemies has consequences beyond the ICC. It nourishes the perception of the global majority and the newly emerging multipolar world that the U.S. has abandoned the universal application of international law for the self-serving application of the rules-based order. In doing so, it further damages the United States’ standing in the world and its pursuit of hegemony.
The ICC had jurisdiction to issue an arrest warrant for Putin because Ukraine accepted ad hoc jurisdiction of the court in 2014, meaning that crimes against humanity or genocide, but not crimes of aggression, committed on Ukrainian territory can be tried by the ICC.
But Palestine is an observer state in the UN General Assembly and also granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory, including Gaza. On February 5, 2021, the ICC ruled that it does have jurisdiction over Palestine. What’s more, unlike Ukraine, Palestine is a signatory to the ICC’s Rome Statute.
The United States does not recognize the ICC. In 1998, 160 countries attended a conference to formulate the Rome Statute. Many of those countries advocated for universal jurisdiction that would give the new court jurisdiction over crimes committed anywhere in the world. The U.S. blocked that universal jurisdiction and insisted that the ICC have jurisdiction only over crimes committed in countries that voluntarily signed the Rome Statute. This was a loophole the U.S. planted for future exploitation.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute but did not send it to the Senate to be ratified. Two years later, President George W. Bush withdrew the signature. That ensured that the ICC could not prosecute Americans for war crimes.
That has always been an important concern for the United States. Current and former officials told The New York Times in 2023 that “American military leaders oppose helping the court investigate Russians because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans.” Following the decision to seek an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Mike Johnson said, “If the ICC is allowed to threaten Israeli leaders, ours could be next.”
To ensure that never happens, in 2002, the Bush administration enacted the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, or the “Hague Invasion Act,” as it came to be known. The act authorizes the U.S. to use “all means necessary… to bring about the release of covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons held captive by, on behalf, or at the request of the Court.”
To be doubly sure, the Act banned “the provision of U.S. military assistance… to the government of a country that is a party to the court.” That prohibition was extended in 2004 by the Nethercutt Amendment to include several other types of economic assistance. NATO countries and major non-NATO allies were exempt. For all other countries—unless the president deemed it important to the national security of the United States– there was only one route to exemption. That was by entering a Rome Statute Article 98 agreement with the United States, ensuring that they agree not to surrender Americans to the ICC, “preventing the International Criminal Court from proceeding against United States personnel present in such country.”
WikiLeaks revealed hundreds of cables that show how the U.S. used the threat of sanctions to force countries into Article 98 agreements. A confidential December 2002 U.S. cable from Honduras states, “The U.S. will help those countries that sign Article 98 agreements and cut aid to those that do not.”
The United States sought agreements from 77 countries who joined the ICC “to make extraditions of Americans to the Hague impossible.” They exerted significant pressure. Romania’s foreign minister said he “can’t remember anything they put so much weight or interest into.”
The European Union told member states that entering into an Article 98 agreement with the U.S. “would be inconsistent” with their ICC obligations. Human Rights Watch said the American goal was “to exempt U.S. military and civilian personnel from the jurisdiction of the ICC” and that signing the “impunity agreements… would breach their legal obligations under the Rome Statute.” In the end, at least one hundred countries signed Article 98 agreements with the United States.
The long list of sanctioned countries eventually boomeranged against the United States, leading countries to look to Russia and China for help and impeding the U.S. wars on terror and drugs. They were gradually dropped.
In 2020, when the ICC tried to investigate the American use of torture against terrorism detainees, the U.S. imposed sanctions on court officials. The Biden administration revoked the sanctions order in 2021. When the ICC resumed its investigation into Afghanistan, it decided to focus on the Taliban and the Islamic State in Khorasan Province and allow alleged U.S crimes to “take a back seat.”
Whatever the U.S. intent is—whether it is to protect its friend or itself—the hypocritically selective application of its policy undermines the universality of international law. It also reinforces the perception of the global majority and the newly emerging multipolar world that the U.S. is no longer a sponsor of international law but of a rules-based order that is invoked when it suits them or their friends and is not invoked when it doesn’t.
CDC Director Said All the Right Things in Commencement Address. So Why Does Her Agency Get Things so Wrong?
Reform Pharma Team | The Defender | May 23, 2024
On Monday, Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), delivered a commencement speech at Wake Forest University.
Although she was there to inspire, her overly rehearsed speech epitomized everything wrong within the healthcare system.
Cohen shared a story from early in her career when she did what she thought was right, but both her actions and the system she worked in failed.
“I didn’t do a good enough job learning about the person in front of me,” Cohen told the audience.
Cohen explained that she was treating “Jennifer” for unexplained hair loss, lethargy, weight loss and bloating. After running a series of tests over eight weeks — all of which came back normal — she was stumped by the patient’s results.
It wasn’t until a nurse tech instructed Cohen to ask the patient if she had had enough to eat that Cohen realized she missed the patient in front of her.
Cohen allowed her patient to needlessly suffer for eight weeks because she failed to ask the most basic foundational medical question. She, like many other doctors, followed protocol — or what Reform Pharma calls the Big Pharma agenda — rather than practice medicine.
While Cohen admitted she failed in caring for her patient, today she sits as the director for the CDC, the very organization creating the kinds of protocols that lead to patients being overlooked, misdiagnosed and victims of pharmacide — death and injury caused by Big Pharma corruption.
Doctors follow Cohen’s CDC recommendations. They treat patients as if they were products on an assembly line, giving the same treatment to everyone.
Patients are tossed into the “Pharma Sell Cycle” that guarantees continuous profits for Big Pharma and dependency on our failed healthcare system.
“The system I worked in made it super easy for me to miss the person in front of me,” Cohen said during her speech.
It’s the same system that makes it super easy for her and other healthcare providers to dismiss vaccine injury.
It’s the same system that watches and wonders why the rates of chronic disease and illness in children are skyrocketing while the system pushes toxic vaccines on children, pregnant women and adults, causing serious injury and death.
Cohen pointed out that it is easier to prescribe than it is to heal. It was easier to order tests than it was to be a doctor and connect a patient’s lifestyle to their health.
Who taught her to think like that? She said she is a “pretty smart person” with a “very pricey education.” Yet, she failed to look at the basic needs of her patient and instead, prescribed a Big Pharma solution.
“It was really easy to spend money on the wrong things, ordering blood tests, CAT scans. But it actually was really hard to connect her to the housing, counseling and food resources that she really needed to keep her healthy and thriving,” Cohen said.
Cohen’s story was intended to give testimony to how she now shows up for people and delivers “health in a way that puts people and their health at the center.”
But her claims ring hollow, as she has not had an active license to practice medicine in over 10 years and now works for an agency that only creates one-size-fits-all protocols.
Here is the advice Cohen shared:
- Actually show up.
- Look people in the eye.
- Listen.
- Bring your full self to the table
- Build trust by demonstrating your trustworthiness.
Cohen touts truth and transparency but so far, her words have been nothing more than scripted speeches and vague, dismissive testimonies that continue to erode the public trust.
Dr. Cohen has an opportunity to build trust by bringing her full self to the table as a mom, public servant and doctor to talk with Reform Pharma.
Reform Pharma has invited Cohen to have an open and frank, mom-to-mom conversation to discuss the disturbing and declining state of children’s health in the U.S.
The CDC responded by asking for additional information, which was provided. Reform Pharma hopes that Cohen will take this important opportunity to talk with us. We will come to Atlanta to make it easy for her.
Meanwhile, while she parades across the country, we sit in solace with those who have been and will be injured by her organization’s protocols — and we wait for Cohen to “actually show up,” “look us in the eyes” and “listen.”
Reform Pharma is an initiative of Children’s Health Defense. Our mission is to remove Big Pharma corruption and restore healthcare integrity. For more information visit ReformPharmaNow.org.
UK ‘fueling flames’ of Ukraine conflict – China
RT | May 23, 2024
The UK and its allies should stop “fueling” the Ukraine conflict instead of shifting the blame onto others, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Thursday. His comments came after London accused Beijing of providing “lethal aid” to Russia in its military effort against Kiev.
UK Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps claimed on Wednesday that Russia and China are “collaborating on combat equipment for use in Ukraine.” Shapps further alleged that he has “new evidence” provided by the US and British intelligence services which shows “lethal aid is now flying from China to Russia.”
Responding on Thursday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang said Beijing “condemns the groundless and irresponsible smear campaign against China by British politicians,” noting that Shapps’ remarks have not been supported by Washington. Speaking at a daily White House press briefing on Thursday, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Washington had not seen evidence of China directly providing weapons to Russia.
“It is the UK, not China, that is adding fuel to the flames on the Ukrainian issue… As early as two years ago, Russia and Ukraine were close to reaching an agreement on ending the conflict, but it was precisely because of the hurdles placed by the UK and other parties that the conflict continues to this day,” Wang stated. He urged London to rethink its own role in the conflict instead of “attacking China without reason.”
Wang reiterated that Beijing has “always stood on the side of peace and dialogue,” and vowed that China will continue its work to promote a diplomatic solution for the conflict.
Beijing has adhered to a policy of neutrality on the Ukraine conflict, and has firmly rebuffed Western calls to impose sanctions on Russia, opting instead to boost trade with its neighbor. This has led to accusations from the UK and its NATO allies that Beijing is fueling Russia’s military effort by supplying it with dual-use components that can be used for weapons production.
Beijing has repeatedly denied the accusations, stating that Russia and China have a right to trade. Wang earlier accused the West, which itself supplies the bulk of Kiev’s military equipment, of hypocrisy. He suggested that the US, UK, and other Western powers should work on bringing Russia and Ukraine to the negotiation table, instead of “shifting the blame” onto China for the continued hostilities.
Moscow has consistently spoken out against Western military aid for Kiev, arguing that it merely prolongs the conflict without changing its eventual outcome. During an official visit to China earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in which they reiterated their stance that the Ukraine conflict “must be resolved by political means.”
Stop taking advantage of Ukraine crisis, China warns US
RT | May 20, 2024
Washington is deliberately prolonging the Ukraine conflict and seeking to profit from it, while “smearing” Beijing with false accusations, the Chinese deputy envoy to the UN told the Security Council on Monday.
During the meeting about the Ukraine conflict, Ambassador Geng Shuang addressed US claims that China was supplying Russia with weapons components, calling them “groundless” and “totally unacceptable.”
“China is not the creator, or a party to the Ukraine crisis,” said Geng. “Nor have we provided lethal weapons to any party in the conflict. We have not done… what the US has done, which is to deliberately prolong the fighting and profit from the crisis. We will not do that.”
The Chinese diplomat warned that the fighting in Ukraine is being prolonged by large quantities of weapons and ammunition of “expanding variety and scope,” supplied to Kiev by the US and its allies. Meanwhile, Beijing has consistently advocated for a ceasefire and a diplomatic settlement of the crisis.
“Weapons may end wars, but they do not bring about lasting peace,” Geng told the Security Council.
He reiterated Beijing’s position that US and EU sanctions on Chinese companies doing business with Russia are unilateral and illegitimate.
“China has a right to carry out normal economic and trade cooperation with all countries in the world, including with Russia, and such cooperation should not be interfered with or undermined,” the diplomat said. “We urge the US to stop attacking, smearing, and slandering China and spreading fabrications, and stop unilateral sanctions against, and unreasonable suppression of, Chinese enterprises.”
While the US and its allies have poured over $200 billion worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition into Ukraine – while insisting that does not make them party to the hostilities – they have repeatedly accused China of helping the Russian military by exporting dual-use goods, and threatened Beijing with sanctions.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry addressed the accusations directly last week, telling Washington that “diverting attention and shifting the blame is not the right way” to solve the conflict.
On Monday, Geng added that the US needs to “stop taking advantage of the Ukraine crisis to advance its geopolitical strategy, provoke bloc confrontation, and serve its own agenda.”
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Book Summary
Medicalized Motherhood (2026)
Unbekoming | January 15, 2026
A healthy woman downloads a fertility app before she’s even trying to conceive. The algorithm tells her she’s “irregular,” suggests she might have a problem, builds a referral pathway to a fertility clinic directly into the interface. She arrives at pregnancy already a patient—monitored, tested, supplemented, optimized. Forty weeks later, she’s induced for passing an arbitrary due date, monitored continuously, confined to bed, augmented with synthetic hormones, numbed with an epidural, and delivered by cesarean for “failure to progress.” Her newborn is immediately clamped, separated, injected, tested, and supplemented with formula. A year later, her baby has a diagnosis for falling below the 10th percentile on a growth chart. Five years later, she’s still in the system—annual screenings, ongoing surveillance, carrying diagnoses that originated in pregnancy. She entered healthy. She never exits.
Medicalized Motherhood: From First Pill to Permanent Patient documents 123 medical interventions that operate through a single logic: each one creates conditions requiring the next. The induction requires monitoring. The monitoring requires confinement. The confinement slows labor. The slowed labor requires drugs. The drugs intensify pain. The pain requires anesthesia. The anesthesia impairs pushing. The impaired pushing requires surgery. This isn’t system failure—it’s the system functioning exactly as designed, converting healthy women into lifelong patients while generating revenue at every step. The book maps this cascade across six phases: pre-conception capture, pregnancy surveillance, labor management, immediate newborn intervention, infant pathologizing, and postpartum capture. No other single resource traces how a fertility tracking app connects to a cesarean scar connects to a “failure to thrive” diagnosis connects to permanent patient status. … continue
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