USS Liberty Veterans Association
Survivors and of the brutal Israeli military attack against the American communications vessel U.S.S. Liberty will gather at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. on June 8 to commemorate the memories of 34 Americans who were killed and host a 55 year reunion at the Holiday Inn Arlington, Virginia on June 6-9.
While patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the State of Israel.
Of a crew of 294 officers and men, including three civilians, 34 crew members were killed in action and 173 were wounded. Survivors of the attack insist that the attack was unjustified and that the Israelis knew the ship was American, but the attack has been covered up and the survivors have been abandoned by the U.S. Military which has sought to brush the tragedy out of history.
Survivor Joe Meadors said the Israeli attack was unprovoked and that the Liberty was clearly identified as an American vessel flying the American flag.
He said the U.S. response was to abandon the American soldiers during the attack and to disparage survivors and their claims rather than stand with them.
“In 1967, LBJ ordered the USS Liberty to be abandoned by Sixth Fleet aircraft while we were still under attack and calling for help. That order cost the lives of 25 of our shipmates,” Meadors said.
“The order to abandon us is being obeyed until this day with a devastating effect on USS Liberty survivors.”
Survivors have demanded a full and open investigation that has been rejected by every commander, president and the Congress.
“The Department of Defense has ignored its obligation under its own Law of War Program. Members of Congress have refused to include facts from USS Liberty survivors in their boilerplate responses,” Meadors said, noting the United States has officially abandoned the American veterans who were killed and the survivors.
“No Member of Congress has ever attended our annual memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery on the anniversary of the attack. We are condemned as ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘bigots’ simply because we have been asking that the attack on the U. S. S. Liberty be treated the same as every other attack on a US Navy ship since the end of WWII. All we have is ourselves. Not Congress. Not the Navy. Not the DoD. Just ourselves. We need a place where we are welcome. We need our reunions.”
Survivor Ron Kukal, Supervisory First Class Communications Technician, said the survivors have always hoped that one day the U.S. would acknowledge the true facts of the attack instead of marginalizing and covering up the attack.
“From day one I have always felt that the LVA holding together might just someday save this whole nation from itself, for your family and mine,” Kukal said.
“After all that is what the Liberty Veterans Association is all about, and that would be the truth.”
Kukal said that the Liberty survivors have been disparaged, insulted and denounced by pro-Israel activists and abandoned by the U.S. Military.
“How is it possible that considering three fourths of the crew had a Top Secret Clearance, we would all gather together after the attack, and suddenly become racist?” Kukal asked.
“Do you know what it took to get that clearance? Well, one of things you had better not be, was a racist. Need I say more? They would have known if any of us were, and we would not have gotten that clearance. I think they knew my grandmother’s address in Prague, before she came here. Now that is thorough.”
Survivor Moe Shafer said that despite the effort to bury the incident in history by Israel and the Department of Defense and the U.S. Congress, the memory of the attack against the Liberty and its shipmates continues.
“The Liberty is about fellowship with each other and honoring our fellow shipmates and most importantly honoring our fallen shipmates,” Shafer said.
“Spending an afternoon together at Arlington National Cemetery for our memorial service. The greatest honor is to be with those who we have grown to love over the last 55 years!! We urge other Americans to come and join us on June 6 at Arlington National Cemetery and demand that attack be fully investigated and exposed.”
Survivor Phil Tourney said that the patriots who served on the U.S.S. Liberty are demanding just and believe that true patriots will support them in getting the truth out.
“We are depending on the truth facts from patriots like you. Thank you, my young college friend, facts matter. We have been in this fight for our murdered shipmates most of our lives,” Tourney said.
“Survivors have been wounded and scarred forever by the treason from our own government. They wanted us on the bottom for political gain for Israel and the USA, period.”
Tourney said that he is shocked that after serving in the military honorably and with patriotism that he and others have been attacked for seeking the truth of the incident and justice for the survivors.
“Thus, the best held secret in American history by the Congress, turned their cheek at treason then and now. How deep does it go?” Tourney asked saying the tragedy has placed a heavy burden on all of the survivors and families of those who were killed.
“The public can help set us free and lift a heavy burden. Americans can overcome anything together, no matter if you have served or not. Facts, the truth are sacred. God saved us for this moment.”
The USS Liberty 55th Anniversary Reunion will be at the Holiday Inn Arlington, Virginia June 6 through June 9. No registration fee. Book your room by calling 703-243-9800 ask for the USS Liberty Room Rate. The banquet will be held on June 8, 2022.
U.S. Congressman Pete McCloskey will be honored along with the USS Liberty crew.
For more information on the U.S.S. Liberty visit http://www.USSLibertyVeterans.org.
For more information Contact:
Joe Meadors at joe@ussliberty.com
Or
Moe Shafer at Moe.shafer@harbingernational.com. Cell 770-363-3986
Keep Up to Date on the Effort of USS Liberty Survivors to Honor Our Fallen Shipmates by Persuading Congress to Investigate the Israeli Attack on Our Ship by Subscribing to our Blog Updates. https://bit.ly/3zU8nDf
May 23, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, United States, Zionism |
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By Dmitry Trenin | Global Affairs | May 23, 2022
The stand-off between Russia and the Western nations, which has been developing since 2014, escalated into an active confrontation with the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, back in late February. In other words, the Great Game has ceased to be a game. It has become total war, though a hybrid one so far, since the armed conflict in Ukraine is not of a full-scale nature at present.
However, the danger of it intensifying towards a direct collision not only exists, but is increasing.
The challenge Russia is facing has no equivalents in our history. It’s not just that we have neither allies nor even potential partners left in the West. Frequent comparisons with the Cold War of the mid and late 20th century are inaccurate and rather disorienting. In terms of globalization and new technology, the modern form of confrontation is not only of a larger scale than the previous one, it is also much more intense. Ultimately, the main field of the ongoing battle is located inside the country.
The asymmetry between the opponents is huge, particularly the imbalance between the forces and capabilities available to them. Based on this, the US and its allies have set much more radical goals than the relatively conservative containment and deterrence strategies used toward the Soviet Union. They are in fact striving to exclude Russia from world politics as an independent factor, and to completely destroy the Russian economy.
The success of this strategy would allow the US-led West to finally resolve the “Russia question” and create favorable prospects for victory in the confrontation with China.
Such an attitude on the part of the adversary does not imply room for any serious dialogue, since there is practically no prospect of a compromise, primarily between the United States and Russia, based on a balance of interests. The new dynamic of Russian-Western relations involves a dramatic severance of all ties, and increased Western pressure on Russia (the state, society, economy, science and technology, culture, and so on) on all fronts. This is no longer a source of discord between the opponents of the Cold War period, who then became (unequal) partners. It looks more like the drawing of a clearer dividing line between them, with the West refusing to accept even the perfunctory neutrality of individual countries.
Moreover, the shared anti-Russian agenda has already become an important structural element of unity within the European Union, while strengthening American leadership in the Western world.
In these circumstances, it’s an illusory hope that Russia’s opponents will listen to reason or be represented by more moderate political figures as a result of internal upheavals in their countries. There has been a fundamental shift towards disengagement and confrontation even in the political classes of countries where the attitude towards Moscow had until now been determined primarily by important economic interests (Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Finland). Thus, the systemic confrontation between the West and Russia is likely to be protracted.
This circumstance almost completely nullifies Russia’s previous foreign policy strategy towards the US and EU, which was aimed at the West recognizing Russian security interests, ensuring cooperation on issues of global strategic stability and European security, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, and building mutually beneficial economic and other ties with Washington and Brussels. However, recognizing that the previous agenda is now irrelevant does not mean we should abandon active politics and completely submit to the circumstances.
It is Russia itself that should be at the center of Moscow’s foreign policy strategy during this period of confrontation with the West and rapprochement with non-Western states. The country will have to be increasingly on its own. The outcome of the confrontation is not predetermined though. Circumstances affect Russia, but Russian politics can also change the world around it. The main thing to keep in mind is that no strategy can be developed without a clear set of goals. We need to start with ourselves, with an awareness of who we are, where we come from and what we strive for, based on our values and interests.
Foreign policy has always been closely linked with domestic policy, in the loose meaning of the word, including economics, social relations, science, technology, culture, etc. Facing a new type of warfare which Russia is forced to wage, the line is erased between what was called the “front line” and the “rear” in previous eras. In such a fight, it’s not just impossible to win, it is impossible to survive, if the elites remain fixated on further personal enrichment and society is left in a depressed and overly relaxed state.
“Re-establishing” the Russian Federation on a politically more sustainable, economically efficient, socially just and morally sound basis becomes urgently necessary. We have to understand that the strategic defeat that the West, led by the United States, is preparing for Russia will not bring peace and a subsequent restoration of relations. It is highly probable that the theatre of the “hybrid war” will simply move from Ukraine further to the east, into the borders of Russia, and its existence in its current form will be contested.
This enemy’s strategy should be actively countered.
In the field of foreign policy, the most pressing objective is clearly to strengthen the independence of Russia as a civilization, as a major independent global player, to provide an acceptable level of security and to create favorable conditions for all-round development. In order to achieve this objective in the current conditions – which are more complex and difficult than even recently – there is a need for an effective integrated strategy – general political, military, economic, technological, informational and so on.
The immediate and most important task of this strategy is to achieve strategic success in Ukraine within the parameters that have been set and explained to the public. It is necessary to clarify the stated objectives of the operation and use all opportunities to achieve them. The continuation of what many now call a “phoney war” leads to a prolongation of military activities, increased losses and a decrease in the global stature of Russia. The solution to most of the country’s other strategic objectives now depends directly on whether and when it succeeds in achieving strategic success in Ukraine.
The most important of these broader foreign policy tasks is not the overthrow of the US-centric world order by any means and at any price (its erosion is due to independent factors, but a Russian success in Ukraine would be a painful blow to US global hegemony) and of course, not a return to the fold of this set-up on more favorable terms, but the consistent building of a new system of international relations together with non-Western countries, and the formation, in cooperation with them, of a new world order and its consequent promotion. We need to work on this task now, but it will only be possible to act fully after a strategic success in Ukraine.
The framing of new geopolitical, geo-economic and military-strategic realities in the western part of the former Soviet Union, in the Donbass and Novorossiya, becomes extremely important and relevant in this context. A long-term priority here is the further development of allied relations and integration ties with Belarus. This category also includes strengthening Russia’s security in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
In the context of rebuilding foreign economic relations and creating a new model of the global order, the most important directions are cooperation with world powers – China and India as well as Brazil – and with leading regional players – Turkey, ASEAN countries, the Gulf states, Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, Argentina, Mexico and others.
It is in these areas, rather than in traditional Euro-Atlantic arenas, that the main resources of diplomacy, foreign economic relations, and the information and cultural spheres should be deployed. Whereas in the military sphere the main focus for Russia now is the West, in other areas it is the rest of the world – the larger and more dynamic part.
Alongside the development of bilateral relations, a new priority should be given to the multilateral interaction between states in the non-Western part of the world. There should be a greater focus on building international institutions. The Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Russia-India-China grouping, BRICS, and the mechanisms for dialogue and partnership between the Russian Federation and ASEAN, Africa and Latin America need a boost for further development. Russia is capable of playing a leading role in developing a framework ideology for these organizations, harmonizing the interests of partner countries and coordinating on common agendas.
In relations with the West, the strategy of Russia will continue to address the containment of the nuclear, conventional and cyber abilities of the US, and deterring it from exerting military pressure on Russia and its allies, or even attacking them. Never since the end of the Soviet-American confrontation has the prevention of nuclear war been more relevant than now. The new challenge after achieving strategic success in Ukraine will be to force NATO countries to actually recognize Russian interests and to secure the new borders of Russia.
Moscow needs to assess carefully the reasonableness, possibilities and limits of situational cooperation with various political and social groups in the West, as well as with other temporary potential allies outside the bloc whose interests coincide in some respects with those of Russia. The task is not to inflict damage on the enemy anywhere, but to use various irritants to divert the opponent’s attention and resources from the Russian focus, as well as to influence the domestic political situation in the US and EU in a direction favorable to Moscow.
The most important objective in this regard is developing a strategy for an emerging confrontation between the United States and China. The partnership nature of Russian-Chinese relations is the main thing that positively distinguishes the current “hybrid war” against the West from the previous cold one. Although Beijing is not a formal military ally of Moscow, the strategic partnership between the two countries has been officially characterized as more than a formal alliance. Russia’s largest economic partner has not joined the anti-Russian sanctions, but Chinese companies and banks are deeply integrated into the global economy and are wary of US and EU sanctions, thus limiting the possibility of interaction. There is mutual understanding between the leaders of Russia and China, and the people of the two countries are friendly towards each other. Finally, the United States views both countries as its adversaries — China as its main competitor and Russia as the main current threat.
US policy brings Russia and China even closer. Under a “hybrid war,” political and diplomatic support from China, and even limited economic and technological cooperation with it, are very important for Russia. Moscow does not currently have the opportunity to force even closer rapprochement with Beijing, but there is no necessity in too close an alliance.
If US-Chinese contradictions aggravate, Russia should be ready to support Beijing politically, as well as provide on a limited scale and under certain conditions, military-technical assistance to it, while avoiding direct participation in the conflict with Washington. Opening a “second front” in Asia is unlikely to significantly ease the pressure of the West on Russia, but it will dramatically increase tension in relations between Russia and India.
The transition from a confrontational, but still conditionally peaceful, state of economic relations between Russia and the West to a situation of economic war requires Russia’s deep revision of its foreign economic policy. This policy can no longer be implemented primarily on the basis of economic or technological expediency.
Measures aimed at de-dollarizing and repatriating offshore finances are under implementation. Business elites (often incorrectly described as “oligarchs”) who previously took profits outside the country are forcibly “nationalized”. Import substitution is underway. The Russian economy is shifting focus from the policy of raw materials export to the development of closed-cycle production processes. So far, however, the country has mostly been defensive and reactive.
Now it is necessary to move from retaliatory steps to initiatives that will strengthen Russia’s position in the total economic war declared by the West, allowing Russia to inflict significant damage on the enemy. In this regard, a closer alignment of efforts of the state and the business community’s activities is required, as well as implementation of a coordinated policy in such sectors as finance, energy, metallurgy, agriculture, modern technology (especially related to information and communications), transport, logistics, military exports and economic integration — both within the framework of the Eurasion Economic Union and the Union State of Russia and Belarus and taking into account the new realities in the Donbass and the northern Black Sea region.
A separate task is to revise the Russian approach and policy position on climate change issues under the changed conditions. It is also important to determine the permissible limits of Russia’s financial, economic and technological dependence on neutral countries (primarily China), and launch a technological partnership with India.
War is always the most severe and cruel test of durability, endurance and inner strength. Today, and for the foreseeable future, Russia is a country at war. It will be able to continue its trajectory only if the authorities and society unite on the basis of solidarity and mutual obligations, mobilize all available resources and at the same time expand opportunities for enterprising citizens, remove obvious obstacles that weaken the country from within, and develop a realistic strategy to deal with external adversaries.
Up to now, we have merely celebrated the Victory won by previous generations in 1945. The current challenge is whether we are able to save and develop the country. To do this, Russia’s strategy must overcome the circumstances surrounding and constraining it.
Dmitry Trenin is a member of Russia’s Foreign and Defense Policy Council. This article was prepared based of the author’s speech at the 30th Assembly of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.
May 23, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | China, Russia, United States |
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THE PLAN – The WHO plans for 10 years of pandemics from 2020 to 2030
More information, and to see all the documents featured in THE PLAN.
As the dust begins to settle from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easier to look back with clarity on the unprecedented events that have taken place over the last two years. Thousands of medical doctors and scientists now believe that the pandemic was planned and used to install a world dictatorship. Further, it’s unlikely to be the last.
The World Health Organization, in fact, has planned for 10 years of infectious diseases from 2020 to 2030, as revealed by WHO virologist Marion Koopmans in “The Plan,” featured above. When asked whether chances are high that there will be a second pandemic, she responds (translated from Dutch), “Yes, this has been in the WHO’s 10-year plan for some time. That plan says that there will be a major infectious disease crisis. Well, this was year one.”1
How could they know that an infectious disease crisis is imminent in the next decade? A series of shocking evidence reveals that this may have been the plan all along — a plan that hasn’t been hidden. On the contrary, it’s been stated openly for years that a pandemic was coming, setting the stage for widespread acceptance and compliance around the globe.
Proof the Pandemic Was Planned?
The WHO virologist’s acknowledgement that the agency has a plan for 10 years of ongoing pandemics mirrors a statement by Bill Gates that COVID-19 was “pandemic one” and “pandemic two” is coming. “We’ll have to prepare for the next one. That will get attention this time,” he says — while smiling.2
It’s important to understand that Bill Gates is WHO’s No. 1 funder, contributing more to WHO’s $4.84 billion biennial budget3 than any member-state government, via multiple avenues including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as GAVI, which was founded by the Gates Foundation in partnership with WHO, the World Bank and various vaccine manufacturers.
In short, Bill Gates is essentially the owner of WHO, and WHO’s 10-year pandemic plan is also Gates’ plan. As noted by Stop World Control:4
“In the globalist view, mankind as a whole must submit to the ‘World’ Health Organization, without them ever asking our opinion or even consulting with other medical experts. In fact, every medical expert speaking out against their decisions is censored.”
Other world leaders are also on board. England’s Prince Charles, for instance, has publicly stated, “There will be more and more pandemics, if we don’t do ‘the great reset’ now.”5
Millions of COVID-19 Test Kits Sold — in 2017 and 2018
It’s difficult to ignore the numerous announcements, both subtle and overt, that a pandemic was coming, which occurred in the years and months leading up to 2020. Data from World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) shows COVID-19 test kits were imported by different countries in 2017 and 2018. “Let this sink in for a second: Literally hundreds of millions of COVID-19 test kits were exported and imported, all over the world, during 2017 and 2018,” Stop World Control explains.6
The data was posted September 5, 2020, on social media and it went viral. The next day, WITS swapped “COVID-19 test kits” with “medical test kits,” but the Internet Archive Wayback Machine still has an image of the original.7 Meanwhile, in 2017, Anthony Fauci somehow knew that an outbreak was coming. In fact, he all but guaranteed it, stating:8
“There is no question there is going to be a challenge for the coming administration in the area of infectious diseases. There will be a surprise outbreak. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind about this.”
Gates also stated publicly in 2018 that a global pandemic was imminent, likely within the next decade, while Melinda Gates went so far as to state that an engineered virus in the coming years was humanity’s greatest threat.9
Then there’s the often-overlooked fact that the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored a novel coronavirus pandemic preparedness exercise shortly before the pandemic started.
The event, which took place October 18, 2019, in New York, was called Event 201, and it included a detailed simulation of a coronavirus outbreak with a predicted global death toll of 65 million people within a span of 18 months.10 December 19, 2019, shortly after the event, Gates tweeted, “I’m particularly excited about what the next year could mean for one of the best buys in global health: vaccines.”11
Moderna Had COVID-19 Shots in 2019
Here’s another unsettling fact: December 12, 2019, Moderna, together with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), sent mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill12 — again, that’s before the pandemic started. The confidential documents were revealed by The Daily Expose, which reported:13
“What did Moderna [and NIAID] know that we didn’t? In 2019 there was not any singular coronavirus posing a threat to humanity which would warrant a vaccine, and evidence suggests there hasn’t been a singular coronavirus posing a threat to humanity throughout 2020 and 2021 either.”
Going back further, in 2010, The Rockefeller Foundation released a report titled “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development,” which uses scenario planning to explore ways that technology and growth/development and government might play out over the coming decades. One of the scenarios they detailed was a pandemic with some eerie similarities to COVID-19:14
“In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been anticipating for years finally hit … The pandemic … had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and of office buildings sat empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.”
The scenario suggests that China fared far better than the U.S., due to its government’s “quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other countries and enabling a swifter post-pandemic recovery.”
As the pandemic continues, “national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets.”
The increased authoritarian control and oversight of citizens continued even after the pandemic ended, and was welcomed at first in exchange for “greater safety and stability.”
Pandemic Propaganda Has Been Ongoing for Years
So-called “predictive programming” prepares the public for future events via entertainment. In the 2003 series “Dead Zone,” a coronavirus pandemic is featured with chloroquine emerging as the cure. “V for Vendetta” is another example. This 2006 movie features the rise of dictatorship and fear-based propaganda due to a virus. Curiously, the film is set in 2020 as “an uncompromising vision of the future.”
In 2012, a comic book titled “Infected,” produced by the European Union for distribution among their employees only, also depicted a virus originating in a Chinese lab that sets stage for worldwide tyranny, described as the “one health approach.”15
Even the Summer Olympics in 2012 included the scenario of a pandemic — complete with nurses and hospital beds — in its opening show.16 Even in the months leading up to the pandemic, additional red flags were raised. Among them:17
- Months before the pandemic, a panel discussed the need for “a global disruptive event to make the world willing to accept experimental vaccines”
- In August 2019, Australia published a management plan for a pandemic18
- Six months before the pandemic, the Global Vaccination Summit prepared to vaccinate the entire world
- In September 2019, WHO instructed all governments to prepare for an imminent pandemic due to a “rapidly spreading lethal respiratory pathogen”19
And in 2022, a group of international lawyers, experts and scientists is now trying to spread the word that the COVID-19 pandemic is a criminal operation intended to increase control and establish a world dictatorship:20
“The power structures colluded to stage a pandemic that they had been planning for years … To this end, they deliberately created mass panic through false statements of fact and a socially engineered psychological operation whose messages they conveyed through the corporate media.
The purpose of this mass panic was to persuade the population to agree to experimental so-called “vaccinations” (which they are not). These have been proven to be neither effective nor safe, but extremely dangerous and even lethal.”
Thousands Standing Up Against the Tyranny
At this point, signs that an all-encompassing global totalitarian plan is being quietly put together, piece by piece, are all around us. The Rockefeller Foundation released a “National COVID-19 Testing Action Plan” that calls for the use of a digital “patient identification number” to track all Americans after testing them for COVID-19,21 and multibillionaire criminals are working to impose worldwide tyranny. As noted by Stop World Control:22
“Total world domination has been a diabolical desire of many powerful leaders throughout world history. Just think of the notorious world empires of Rome, Great Britain, the Persians, the Russians, and so on.
This perverse passion has never left the corrupt hearts of humanity, but the means to achieve this goal have changed. Instead of invading nations with tanks and bazookas, they now enslave humanity using the force of fear. Once they can create enough panic, they can present the ‘solution’. This solution, however, means removing our freedoms and submitting us to their control.
The main players in globalism are the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and particularly the many private banks that basically control the world already. These visible entities are, however, just a facade that hides the true powers, which are the many ‘Secret Societies.’”
Thousands have opened their eyes to the truth, however, and are making progress in sharing it with the world. This includes, among many others:
- America’s Frontline Doctors
- World Doctors Alliance
- World Freedom Directory
- Doctors for COVID Ethics
- Great Barrington Declaration
- World Freedom Alliance
If you want to be a part of positive change, know that there is hope — and it starts with information. With every fact you share with your inner circle, the knowledge grows and, with it, optimism for the future. A simple yet profound notion to remember is this:23
“The tyranny is 100% dependent on the ignorance of the public. The solution is therefore to inform the people around us. Once people know what is really happening, they will stop complying and start resisting.”
Sources and References
May 23, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Film Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Gates Foundation, GAVI, Human rights, Rockefeller Foundation, WHO |
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In recent days, concern over a global outbreak of monkeypox, a mild disease related to smallpox and chickenpox, has been hyped in the media and health ministries around the world, even prompting an emergency meeting at the World Health Organization (WHO). For some, fears have centered around monkeypox being the potential “next pandemic” after Covid-19. For others, the fear is that monkeypox will be used as the latest excuse to further advance draconian biosecurity policies and global power grabs.
Regardless of how the monkeypox situation plays out, two companies are already cashing in. As concern over monkeypox has risen, so too have the shares of Emergent Biosolutions and SIGA Technologies. Both companies essentially have monopolies in the US market, and other markets as well, on smallpox vaccines and treatments. Their main smallpox-focused products are, conveniently, also used to protect against or treat monkeypox as well. As a result, the shares of Emergent Biosolutions climbed 12% on Thursday, while those of SIGA soared 17.1%.
For these companies, the monkeypox fears are a godsend, specifically for SIGA, which produces a smallpox treatment, known by its brand name TPOXX. It is SIGA’s only product. While some outlets have noted that the rise in the valuation of SIGA Technologies has coincided with recent concerns about monkeypox, essentially no attention has been given to the fact that the company is apparently the only piece of a powerful billionaire’s empire that isn’t currently crumbling.
That billionaire, “corporate raider” Ron Perelman, has deep and controversial ties to the Clinton family and the Democratic party as well as troubling ties to Jeffery Epstein. Aside from his controlling stake in SIGA, Perelman has recently made headlines for rapidly liquidating many of his assets in a desperate bid for cash.
Similarly, Emergent Biosolutions has also been in hot water. The company, which has troubling ties to the 2001 Anthrax attacks, came under fire just under two weeks ago for engaging in a “cover up” over quality control issues relating to their production of Covid-19 vaccines. A Congressional investigation found that quality control concerns at an Emergent-run facility led to more than 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines being discarded. The Emergent factory in question had been shut down by the FDA in April 2021. They were allowed to reopen last August before the government terminated the contract. Given that the majority of the company’s business is tied to US government contracts, the loss of this contract, and the accompanying poor publicity, the news that its smallpox vaccine may soon be of international interest is likely seen as a godsend by the company.
Notably, this is the second time in a year that both companies have benefitted from pandemic or bioterror fears propagated by the media. Last November, speculation rose that a re-emergence of the eradicated virus that causes smallpox would soon take place. This first began with Bill Gates’ comments on the prospects of smallpox bioterrorism during a November 4th, 2021 interview and was followed by the November 16th announcement of a CDC/FBI investigation into 15 suspicious vials labeled “smallpox” at a Merck facility in Philadelphia. Now, roughly six months later, the same fears are again paying off for the same two companies.
A Killer Enterprise
Emergent Biosolutions was previously known as BioPort. The company was founded by Fuad el-Hibri, a Lebanese businessman, who leveraged his contacts with powerful US former military officials and politicians, to take control of a flailing Michigan factory. It was the only factory authorized to produce an anthrax vaccine.
The anthrax vaccine was known to have major problems even before BioPort had acquired it, and is believed by many investigators to be one of the main causes of “Gulf War” syndrome. The vaccine itself, originally developed at Fort Detrick, had little to no safety track record at the time it was administered to US troops in the First Gulf War – a problem that was never remedied. However, its chronic safety issues and its clumsy, multi-dose regimen would later prompt BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions to spend years developing a new formulation of its anthrax vaccine.
The creation of BioPort coincided with the Clinton administration’s efforts to mandate the anthrax vaccine for all members of the US Armed Forces. With control over the only source of anthrax vaccine, BioPort was poised to make a killing.
Once the company acquired the Michigan facility, it took large amounts of US government funds, ostensibly to make improvements at the site. However, the company declined to use the funds to make the necessary repairs, instead spending that money on its executives’ offices, as opposed to the vaccine factory, and millions more on bonuses for “senior management.” Pentagon auditors would later find that still millions more had gone “missing” and BioPort’s staff were unaware of the cost of producing a single dose of the vaccine. Despite the clear mismanagement and corruption, BioPort demanded to be bailed out by the Pentagon, and they were. Meanwhile, the Michigan facility lost its license after a government inspection found numerous safety issues.
However, by August 2001, BioPort stood to lose the Pentagon contracts – its only source of income. The Pentagon began preparing a report, due to be released in September 2001, that would detail a plan for letting BioPort go. Thanks to the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, that report was never released. Shortly thereafter, the 2001 anthrax attacks began.
Just months before, BioPort had contracted Battelle Memorial Institute to help rescue its flailing vaccine program. The deal gave Battelle “immediate exposure to the vaccine” and it was used in connection with the Pentagon-funded, gain-of-function anthrax program that involved both Ken Alibek and William C. Patrick III, two bioweapons experts with deep ties to the CIA. That program was housed at Battelle’s West Jefferson facility in Ohio. That facility is believed by many investigators to be the source of the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks.
The ensuing panic from the anthrax attacks led the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to intervene. They gave BioPort its license back in January 2002 despite persisting safety concerns at its vaccine production facility in Michigan. BioPort was not content to merely see its past contracts with the Pentagon restored, however, as it began lobbying heavily for new contracts for anthrax vaccines intended for American civilians, postal workers and others. They would get them, largely thanks to HHS’ then-counter-terrorism adviser and soon to be HHS’ newest Assistant Secretary — Jerome Hauer. Hauer would later join the board of BioPort, after it reformed as Emergent Biosolutions, in 2004.
Such examples of cronyism are more common than not when it comes to Emergent Biosolutions. Indeed, the company has frequently relied on individuals who spend their careers passing through the “revolving door” between the pharmaceutical industry and government, particularly those who also moonlight as bioterror alarmists. One of the main individuals critical to the company’s success over the years has been Robert Kadlec. Kadlec served as the top bioterror advisor to the Pentagon in the weeks leading up to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Months prior, he had participated in the June 2001 simulation Dark Winter, which “predicted” major aspects of the subsequent anthrax attacks. Kadlec subsequently crafted much of the legislation that would create the country’s subsequent bioterror/pandemic response policy, including BARDA and the Strategic National Stockpile.
Soon after leaving government, Robert Kadlec helped found a new company in 2012 called “East West Protection,” which develops and delivers “integrated all-hazards preparedness and response systems for communities and sovereign nations.” The company also “advises communities and countries on issues related to the threat of weapons of mass destruction and natural pandemics.”
Kadlec formed the company with W. Craig Vanderwagen, the first HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (a position Kadlec had helped write into law and would later hold himself). The other co-founder of East West Protection was Fuad El-Hibri, the founder of BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions, who had just stepped down as Emergent’s CEO earlier that year.
Kadlec then became a consultant. Kadlec’s consultancy firm, RPK Consulting, netted him $451,000 in 2014 alone, where he directly advised Emergent Biosolutions as well as other pharmaceutical companies like Bavarian Nordic. Kadlec was also a consultant to military and intelligence contractors, such as the DARPA-backed firm Invincea and NSA contractor Scitor, which was recently acquired by SAIC.
Kadlec would return to government as HHS ASPR under Trump, a position which he held at the time the Covid-19 crisis began. The year prior, in 2019, Kadlec had conducted a months-long simulation focused on a global pandemic originating in China called Crimson Contagion. Once the Covid-19 crisis began in earnest, he played a major role in securing Covid-19 vaccine contracts for Emergent Biosolutions, despite his conflicts of interest, some of which he had declined to disclose upon being appointed to serve as ASPR.
Emergent Biosolutions’ pattern of corrupt behavior, beginning with its anthrax vaccine, can be seen with its recent actions as it relates to its production of Covid-19 vaccines. Per the recent Congressional report, released just days before the recent spike in concern over monkeypox began, Emergent lab workers “intentionally sought to mislead government inspectors about issues” at its Baltimore-based plant and also repeatedly “rebuffed” efforts by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson to inspect their facilities. “Despite major red flags at its vaccine manufacturing facility, Emergent’s executives swept these problems under the rug and continued to rake in taxpayer dollars,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) stated upon the report’s release. Yet such “major red flags” can be found throughout the company’s entire history, for those willing to take the time to look.
Just days after the Congressional report was released, Emergent Biosolutions announced that it would acquire the exclusive worldwide rights to the “first FDA-approved Smallpox Oral Antiviral for all ages” from the company Chimerix. The drug, called TEMBEXA, is only for the treatment of smallpox, which the company refers to as “a high priority public health threat.” The press release on the company’s acquisition of TEMBEXA states that multi-million US government contracts for the product are anticipated. The FDA formally approved the drug last June.
Emergent Biosolutions also has the rights to the smallpox vaccine known as ACAM2000, which can also be used to treat monkeypox. The vaccine, originally produced by Sanofi, was acquired by the company in 2017. As a result, the company has an essential monopoly over smallpox vaccines as ACAM2000 is “the only vaccine licensed by the FDA for active immunization against smallpox disease for people determined to be at high risk of smallpox infection.”
Given their track record, it’s worth asking why Emergent Biosolutions has been working in recent months to pivot much of its business into smallpox treatments. However, there is no speculation needed when observing that the current monkeypox fears and helping rescue the company, whose shares had fallen some 26% year to date before concern over the recent monkeypox outbreak began to grow.
Whatever comes of the monkeypox situation, Emergent Biosolutions’ decades-long track record is undeniably one of corruption and cronyism.
“BioArmor” for Ron Perelman’s Flailing Business Empire
SIGA Technologies, which likens its products to “Human BioArmor”, features a quote from Bill Gates at the top of its about page. The quote reads: “[…] the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus […]” The quote is from Bill Gates’ speech to the 2017 Munich Security Conference, where he used the threat specifically of smallpox to argue that “health security” and “international security” be merged. Notably, last March, the Munich Security Conference hosted a simulation of a global pandemic caused by a “genetically engineered monkeypox virus.”
SIGA is one example of a company that seeks to find its niche in the middle of “health security” and “international security.” It specifically provides “solutions for unmet needs in the health security market that comprises medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, as well as emerging infectious diseases.” The majority of contracts for CBRN medical countermeasures in the US are funded by the Pentagon. While it promotes itself as a CBRN threat-focused company, SIGA is, for now, singularly focused on smallpox.
Indeed, SIGA Technologies is only currently profitable in the event of an actual outbreak of smallpox or a related disease, or when fear of a smallpox bioterror event is high. Specifically, concern over the latter has led to the company to win government contracts to produce TPOXX for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). This is because TPOXX is only used to treat active smallpox or monkeypox infection, not prevent it. This means that it is only useful if smallpox, monkeypox or a related disease is actively infecting people or if there is a high risk that one of these diseases will soon infect large groups of people. TPOXX was first approved in 2018 by the FDA and was approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) this past January. The FDA approved an intravenous version of TPOXX just this past Thursday. Overall, SIGA has received over $1 billion from the US government to develop TPOXX.
SIGA is currently partnered with HHS’ BARDA, the Department of Defense, the CDC and the NIH. Another partner is Lonza, a European pharmaceutical manufacturing firm that is partnered with both the World Economic Forum and Moderna. SIGA’s CEO, Phillip Gomez, is an alumni of PRTM Consulting, where he would have worked closely with Robert Kadlec, as the two men overlapped as directors of the firm and both worked advising government agencies on matters of public health and biodefense.
SIGA is also notable because it is possibly the only company in the business empire of corporate raider Ron Perelman that is not attached to growing mountains of debt. Perelman is one of the notorious corporate raiders from the 1980s who conducted corporate takeovers fueled by junk bonds, particularly those connected to Michael Milken’s Drexel Burnham Lambert. Perelman’s business tactics have long been informed by his volcanic temper and his ruthlessness, with former Salomon Brothers CEO John Gutfruend once remarking that “believing Mr. Perelman has no hostile intentions is like believing the tooth fairy exists.”
Perelman is also known for being a long-time patron of the Clinton family, even though, more recently he donated to Donald Trump’s political campaigns. Perelman apparently first became interested in courting influence with the Clintons after marrying Patricia Duff in 1994. Duff was deeply connected to the Democratic Party, having worked for Democratic pollster Pat Cadell, and she had also worked for the House panel that “investigated” the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Prior to marrying Perelman, she had been married to movie mogul Michael Medavoy and had “introduced Clinton to the Hollywood establishment,” according to the Washington Post.
As Perelman’s wife, Duff styled herself a leading Democratic fundraiser, with the 1995 fund-raising dinner being emblematic of that. Also, in 1995, Perelman attended a $1,000-a-plate dinner in New York for the Clintons, where Perelman sat across from the President, as well as a state dinner for Brazil’s president at the White House.
For Perelman, his generosity to the Clinton political machine resulted in an appointment by Clinton to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center in 1995. Other, less public gestures from the Clintons were likely, as Perelman offered much more to the First Family than he appears to have received in return. Perhaps most notable of Perelman’s favors for Bill Clinton was his offering of jobs to scandal-ridden members of his administration, Webster Hubbell and Monica Lewinsky, in the wake of their respective controversies. However, after the job offers were publicly reported, both Hubbell and Lewinsky were let go, though the offers later caught the attention of independent counsel Ken Starr. Starr never subpoenaed or investigated Perelman or the offers he had made to Hubbell or Lewinsky.
The controversial hirings had been arranged between Perelman and Clinton advisor Vernon Jordan, who sat on the board of Revlon, a Perelman-controlled company, while his wife was on the board of another Perelman-owned firm. Jordan was known as Clinton’s “conduit to the high and mighty” and had taken Clinton to the 1991 Bilderberg conference. On the decision to hire Lewinsky following the scandal, a former business associate of Perelman’s told the Washington Post that “It’s like the Mafia, it’s all done in code,” adding that “I can assure you that Ronald made the decision to give Lewinsky the job. And I can assure you he wouldn’t want to know why Jordan was asking.”
In 1995, Perelman held a Clinton fundraiser at his mansion, with guests including singer Jimmy Buffett, Miami Vice actor Don Johnson, actor Michael Douglas’ then-wife Deandra and DNC co-chair Don Fowler. Other guests included A. Paul Prosperi, a corrupt Clinton crony, and the now infamous Jeffrey Epstein. Clinton himself attended the fundraiser. According to the Palm Beach Post, guests had donated at least $100,000 to the DNC to attend the dinner with the President. This was, of course, in the lead up to the 1996 election, and the DNC would later come under heavy scrutiny due to illegal fundraising. This fundraiser was not Epstein’s only interaction with Perelman – Perelman would later be listed as a frequent dinner guest of Epstein’s in the 2003 Vanity Fair profile penned by Vicky Ward and is listed in Epstein’s black book of contacts.
For most of the 2000s, Perelman has sat atop a massive, ever-growing fortune. Yet, since 2020, Perelman has “been unloading assets ‘A lot of them. Rapidly.’” It started with sales of valuable paintings at Sotheby’s and soon extended to Perelman’s investment company MacAndrews & Forbes, which disposed of its interest in two companies that same year, including $1 billion in shares in Scientific Games. According to MoneyWeek, Perelman’s net worth dropped from $19 billion in 2018 to $4.2 billion in late 2020, “prompting speculation that he’s running out of money.” Over the course of last year, Perelman has continued to “downsize”, looking to sell off his estate in the Hamptons for $115 million, another 57-acre estate worth $180 million and two townhouses in Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $60 million.
Other assets held by Perelman’s company MacAndrews & Forbes are also drowning in debt. One of the few assets of the company that isn’t currently haemorrhaging money or struggling with debt is its shares in SIGA Technologies. Perelman’s main company, MacAndrews & Forbes, has long been one of SIGA’s biggest investors and remains its largest shareholder, controlling 33% of all shares.
Since Perelman got involved with SIGA, accusations of corruption have plagued the company. For instance, in May 2011, SIGA was given a no-bid contract worth about $433 million to develop and produce 1.7 million doses of anti-viral drug for smallpox. At the time there was no evidence the smallpox drug in question was capable of treating the disease and there was alarm among some HHS staffers that SIGA’s return on investment from the contract was “outrageous.” The contract began to be investigated over concerns that the contract had been awarded to SIGA precisely because it was controlled by Perelman, who had donated heavily to Barack Obama. At the time, CNN noted the following about Perelman’s connections to the Obama White House:
“Ronald Perelman is controlling shareholder of Siga Technologies and a longtime Democratic Party activist and fundraiser. He’s also a large contributor to Republicans, but has been a particular friend of the Obama White House.
Also on Siga’s board of directors is Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, who has had close relations with the Obama administration and who has supported President Barack Obama’s health care initiatives.”
As a result of these concerns and the potential conflict of interest, a congressional investigation began. Days after learning that this key government contract may be in jeopardy, SIGA executives sold off large amounts of company stock at an average price of $13.46 per share, netting its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer at the time millions of dollars. A month later, the company announced that its contract had been downsized and shares in the company fell to under $2 by that December.
Given past “pay-to-play” accusations around Perelman’s role in the firm during the Obama administration, when President Joe Biden served as Vice President, what are we to make of the recent media hype around monkeypox? Or concerns raised last year of a bioterrorism event involving smallpox?
Perhaps it’s more important to ask other questions – why has Perelman’s role in SIGA been largely obfuscated or totally ignored by recent reporting on the company? Similarly, why has Emergent Biosolutions’ horrific track record also been excluded from recent reports, including the major complaints from Congress made against the company less than two weeks ago? It seems the fear being generated around monkeypox is not only boosting shares for these two rotten companies, it’s helping the public forget their past sins.
Whitney Webb has been a professional writer, researcher and journalist since 2016. She has written for several websites and, from 2017 to 2020, was a staff writer and senior investigative reporter for Mint Press News. She currently writes for The Last American Vagabond.
May 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Emergent BioSolutions, Hillary Clinton, Obama, SIGA Technologies, United States, WHO |
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IT SAYS a lot about the primitive state of our knowledge of genetics that after two years of painstaking assessment, no consensus has been reached about the origins of coronavirus. Many geneticists have of course made up their minds based not on the highly unusual nature of the virus, but on its familiarity. It contains genetic sequences well known to science which appear to have been fudged together by researchers, possibly as part of a bioweapons programme.
Genetic engineers are the most dangerous people on the planet, putting serial killers and warmongers to shame. You may question whether it is possible to argue that genetic manipulation inevitably endangers the integrity of human DNA. The fact is that our DNA functions as part of a wider epidemiological network. Even disruption or alteration of this subsidiary network is quite sufficient to cause serious health problems.
Even fragments of genetic material pose dangers
A summary published by Nature on May 11 reports that viral fragments known as coronavirus ghosts are probably causing or complicating serious and lingering problems including long covid. They have been found to persist in the human gut for months where their continued presence can exhaust the immune system.
The extent of our current understanding of genetic function is wildly exaggerated. No geneticist can even construct a single cell organism from scratch. Not even close, a million miles away in fact. To date, what geneticists can do is fiddle about with natural genetic structures and maim their holistic function, or combine fragments from different organisms or biochemicals, rather like a five-year-old left with a book of matches and a box of fireworks.
DNA is a rigid taskmaster
Changes in genetic sequence, content, and function can and do have major consequences for genetic expression and that perforce includes our personality and social interaction. Our DNA is our rulebook, and it strictly enforces its own code in controlling our physiology and psychology. Change the rulebook and the consequences can be unpredictable.
You arrive at a football match at which, unknown to the players, the referee has been substituted. The new referee knows nothing about the rules of soccer, he has made them up and is about to rigidly enforce them. Imagine the ensuing chaos, consternation, and sheer disbelief.
Now imagine the situation if virtually all the players have such a deep belief in the authority of referees that anything that they do and say has to be accepted. There will be chaos, but no consternation or disbelief, just uninformed random mayhem.
Our genetic system commands acceptance much like the referee, our physiology and psychology has to comply. Change the DNA, its expression and function or its wider epidemiological network, even in a minor way, the physiology and psychology must respond. The consequences are going to be unpredictable, that is a known law of genetic manipulation.
Government control of the pandemic response has been a disaster
The New Zealand government claims that 95 per cent of the eligible population have received the mRNA vaccination, although only 70 per cent have been boosted, no doubt after the first shots left a bad taste and the prospect of endless jabs was daunting. mRNA inoculation has changed the way our immune system functions. Has this changed the temperament of the New Zealand population? You decide. The risks are real.
Last week Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins struck a positive note. Requirements for pre-departure Covid testing are being phased out. He also reminded us that the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act has an in-built sunset clause and must be repealed by May 13, 2023.
Be warned, Hipkins added that he planned to incorporate its provisions into existing legislation and added that the management of the virus should become a part of the normal functioning of government.
Do you think that our government is capable of managing the outcomes of uncontrolled biotechnology experimentation? No, it is not. Biotechnologists are not honestly warning the government of risks, just as the family members of criminals often shield their black sheep and provide them with alibis.
The biotechnology industry has been operating a fraud
The commercial biotechnology industry has been running a con. The technique is to make big promises to encourage investment and grants. There is nothing too large to promise – freedom from disease, long life . . . When nothing is achieved and problems inevitably occur, you make even bigger promises and ask for more money. Nothing is said about the risks.
As a result, biotechnology has become a highly influential part of our society accounting for much of university funding and speculative investment. At root, the hype is based on an improbable dream and phantasm. In actuality, biotechnology is presenting the world with an elevated risk profile that threatens to dwarf all others.
Just think, the whole basis of our society, health, creativity, kindness, intelligence, morality, happiness, and so much more relies on the optimal operation of our DNA. Risk that and you risk everything, including even topical issues like the integrity of the global supply chain and social stability.
Time to say it clearly: we made a big mistake. Millions have died from the cure and the cause. Only the cessation of genetic experimentation can protect us from more injury, mental turmoil, deaths and global catastrophes.
May 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19 |
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Over the past two years, no professional group has been silenced, threatened, or targeted more than Australian doctors. So many have stayed silent because of organisations such as AHPRA and various Medical Boards threatening to suspend or de-register them if they dare voice their genuine concerns as physicians.
For the first time in a conference of this nature, a group of brave Australian doctors have finally decided to speak out about what they and their patients have been subjected to, the ways the government and TGA have skewed the safety and efficacy data of the COVID-19 vaccines, purposeful suppression of early treatment that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and the danger of continuing the COVID-19 vaccination program.
Australia and the whole world is currently at risk. The World Health Organization who is largely responsible for millions of deaths globally is currently proposing a global Pandemic Treaty which seeks to give the WHO complete control over every country. More information about this can be found on zeeemedia.com.
Stay tuned for Part 2.
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Dr. Zelenko has saved thousands of lives through his Z-Stack protocol, and has recently launched Z-DTox which he advises will help prevent blood clots, and help protect those with a compromised immune system, including those who have been vaccinated.
To order Dr. Zelenko’s products today, visit the below link, and use referral code MARIAZEEE for 5% off your order:
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Dr. Peter McCullough’s new book can be found on the link below:
https://couragetofacecovid.com
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/?fbclid=IwAR2uqkj0PjHfvoi121HkBF7DkjALqBFUa3K_aHyQS-mU3Cq77GR651HcugQ#!po=24.2063
May 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Australia, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Damascus rejects Pentagon findings, demands troop withdrawal
Samizdat | May 21, 2022
The Syrian permanent mission to the UN stated on Friday that the US must withdraw its troops from the country at once and pay reparations for the deaths of dozens of civilians in a 2019 airstrike in the town of Baghuz.
Damascus categorically rejected a Pentagon report claiming it was not at fault for the attack, declaring its conclusions represent “an admission of negligence that calls for accountability.”
The Pentagon had released a report on Tuesday claiming the March 18, 2019 airstrike targeting an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) encampment in Syria’s Baghuz, initially believed to have killed some 70 people, did not violate the rules of engagement or laws of war.
Washington’s assessment ultimately claimed that of the 56 people it determined to have died in the 500-pound bomb blast, just four were civilians. The report also claimed that while “civilians were within the blast radius” resulting in civilian casualties, the decision to drop the massive bomb had “demonstrated awareness for non-combatants.” However, in determining who was considered a terrorist, it used an Obama-era standard classifying all killed military-age males as combatants by default.
The Syrian mission to the UN dismissed the Pentagon’s conclusions as a “clear attempt to absolve the US occupation forces in Syria of their direct responsibility for civilian casualties under the pretext of fighting the terrorist organization ‘ISIS’” and rejected any claims that “efforts have been made to distinguish between civilians and members of ‘ISIS’” as “empty justifications” for the murder of civilians.
“These biased investigations cannot deny the fact that a crime against humanity has occurred in Baghuz,” the mission told Newsweek on Friday. “Any justifications provided by the US administration for not violating the law of war or the rules of engagement are to circumvent the fact that the US forces deployed in Syria are illegal and they launch military strikes, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, without the approval or coordination of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic.”
Despite the report supposedly clearing the US military of any wrongdoing, the full text remains classified, with just a two-page summary released to the public. The site of the blast itself was quickly bulldozed, and the initial internal reports were “delayed, sanitized, and classified,” according to the New York Times.
The report’s conclusions stood in stark contrast to remarks from US personnel on the ground at the time, with one military analyst reportedly stating that “we just dropped [the 500-pound bomb] on 50 women and children” and others questioning whether they had just witnessed a war crime.
While US Central Command had previously admitted that 80 people had been killed in the strike and just 16 were alleged ISIS terrorists, the military defended its actions by suggesting 60 more could have also been terrorists, since “women and children in the Islamic State sometimes took up arms.”
The Pentagon’s recent report contradicted even those watered-down findings, admitting only that “administrative deficiencies contributed to the impression that the [Department of Defense] was not treating this [civilian casualty] incident seriously, was not being transparent, and was not following its own protocols” regarding civilian casualty incidents.
International civil society groups have eviscerated the Pentagon’s civilian casualty reporting protocols for their toothlessness, most recently following an incident in Afghanistan in which an Afghan NGO worker and nine family members – including seven children – were killed in an airstrike supposedly targeting an ISIS terrorist. That investigation, too, found no “misconduct or negligence” on the part of the killers.
May 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Syria, United States |
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The Israeli regime used weapons made and funded by the United States to destroy American projects and businesses in the Gaza Strip during its devastating 11-day war on the besieged enclave last year, according to a report.
In an article published on Thursday, The Intercept said it reviewed documents and reports that showed hospitals, water treatment facilities, and schools funded by US agencies destroyed during the Israeli regime’s incessant bombardment of Gaza in May 2021.
“Also impacted were the Foamco mattress factory — the main producer of mattresses for Gaza — the Abu Iskandar plastic factory, the Clever detergent factory, the Siksik plastic pipes factory, and the Al-Wadi food plant, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in damage. The factories employed 1,500 Palestinians and were severely impacted by the shelling in the early morning hours on May 17 and 18, 2021,” the report said.
It added that a Coca-Cola factory, built by a US citizen, served as yet another casualty of Israeli shelling during the May onslaught, in a “highly symbolic display of just how far Israel’s disregard for US material interests in Gaza extends.”
“Coca-Cola is also a shareholder, not just a licensor, and I am a shareholder as a US citizen, so this affected many US citizens,” Zahi Khouri, the factory’s owner, told The Intercept. “We had thousands of pallets burned, and there was damage to the logistics area. There was damage in the industrial estate, but what was also damaged was the investment of Coca-Cola in a project through Mercy Corps where we built a water purification station for a refugee camp.”
The Israeli war on Gaza, which commenced on May 10 last year and lasted until May 21, killed at least 250 Palestinians, including 66 children, and injured more than 1,900 others. The Israeli airstrikes also displaced tens of thousands of people and demolished, completely or partially, dozens of buildings, schools, and hospitals.
“The vast majority of ammunition used by Israel is manufactured or subsidized by the US,” Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, told The Intercept. “It’s fair to say that every Israeli munition is subsidized by the US one way or another, by US tax dollars.”
Israel is the largest recipient of US military aid. It has received over $150 billion in assistance from the US government since 1948. Nevertheless, the occupying regime has never been subjected to any inspections in Washington on how it uses weapons made or funded by the US.
Also, under that weapons assistance program, Israel is allowed to spend US tax dollars on its own weapons industry without disclosing how it spent the money to Congress or the American public.
Meanwhile, the first anniversary of the 2021 Israeli war on Gaza has been marked with intensified Israeli aggression against Palestinians in both the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military’s killing of Al Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh earlier this month once again attracted global attention to the Israeli regime’s atrocities.
“A major reason for the perpetuation of the Israeli occupation, and the deaths and suffering which accompany it, is the extraordinary military, diplomatic, and political support given to it, largely without conditions, by the United States,” said Michael Lynk, the recently departed UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
“This American military assistance is provided, notwithstanding the fact that congressional laws governing US weapons exports state that recipient countries cannot be engaged in consistent patterns of gross human rights violations,” Lynk added.
May 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Fauci gives viewers a teachable moment in gaslighting as he attempts to tell Americans that they didn’t experience any lockdowns over the last two years.
May 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19 |
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Two doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine “were found to be safe and effective in inducing immune responses and preventing COVID-19,” according to an analysis of the results of Moderna’s vaccine trial in children ages 6 to 11.
However, a closer look at the analysis, published May 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), finds the trial results showed the vaccine provided meager benefit when compared to risk, and the study was too small to assess serious and known adverse events such as myocarditis and pericarditis in children of this age.
The NEJM paper presented findings from both Phase 1 (complete) and Phase 2 and 3 (ongoing) trials of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine. Phase 1 results were used to determine an appropriate dose for the Phase 2 and 3 trials.
The authors of the analysis concluded:
“Two 50-μg doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine were found to be safe and effective in inducing immune responses and preventing Covid-19 in children 6 to 11 years of age; these responses were non-inferior to those in young adults.”
The scope of my analysis below is limited to the Phase 2 and 3 portions of the trial where 4,016 children were randomly assigned to receive two injections of mRNA-1273 (50 μg each) or a placebo.
How effective was the vaccine?
The effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine, as determined by immunogenicity (the ability of the vaccine to elicit an antibody response), exceeded that measured in adolescents in a separate trial.
However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains that antibody test results should not be used as an indication of immunity.
Moreover, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biologics Product Advisory Committee reached a consensus in April that antibody levels cannot be used as a correlate for vaccine effectiveness.
The FDA committee’s decision is consistent with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s executive summary of a science brief, released on Oct. 29, 2021, which stated:
“Data are presently insufficient to determine an antibody titer threshold that indicates when an individual is protected from infection.”
Nevertheless, the FDA used immunobridging as a means to justify authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, as The Defender reported here and here.
If the FDA authorizes the Moderna formulation for children age 6 and under, it would be another example of the agency making a decision that contradicts its own position.
With regard to “preventing COVID-19,” Moderna’s Phase 2 and 3 trials showed no deaths, hospitalizations or severe infections in either those who received the vaccine or those who were given the placebo.
Thus, the trial could not determine the benefit, if any, of the vaccine in preventing these outcomes.
Beginning 14 days after the second dose, 3 of 2,644 vaccine recipients developed COVID-19 (defined as a positive PCR test and a single symptom) compared to 4 of 853 placebo recipients (see Table S26).
Adjusting for the different number of recipients in each of the two groups, 12.4 cases of symptomatic disease would have occurred in a group of 2,644 placebo recipients.
This means that 2,644 vaccinations would prevent 9.4 (12.4 – 3 = 9.4) cases of COVID-19.
Put another way, more than 280 children in this age group would need to be fully vaccinated (two doses) to prevent a single case of non-severe, symptomatic COVID-19 — so 280 is the Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV), which is the key metric used to assess risk versus benefit as explained below.
The authors of the NEJM paper admitted their findings were limited because too few cases of COVID-19 occurred in this time window. They instead calculated a Vaccine Efficacy (VE) of 88% based on infections occurring 14 days after the first injection.
COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trials to date have all calculated VE starting from the time the product is thought to have maximum efficacy, i.e., 14 days after the second dose. This approach has been criticized as being impractical if not disingenuous as it will necessarily exaggerate the product’s benefit.
However, now faced with a dearth of outcomes, Moderna investigators chose to veer from their prior strategy. Using outcomes from 14 days after the first dose, we can calculate that 56 children need to be fully vaccinated to prevent a single symptomatic infection.
Was the vaccine ‘safe’?
Trial participants were assessed for local and systemic adverse reactions within 7 days of the first and second doses.
In the vaccine group, 94% of children experienced a local adverse reaction after the first dose, and 95% experienced a local adverse reaction after the second dose.
Local adverse reactions include pain, redness or swelling at the injection site or in proximal lymph nodes.
Also, according to the trial results, 58% of vaccine recipients suffered a systemic adverse reaction after the first dose, and 78% suffered a systemic adverse reaction after the second dose.
Systemic reactions include fever, chills, headache, muscle/joint pain, nausea, vomiting and fatigue.
The majority of these adverse reactions were mild. However, 4.1% of the vaccinated children experienced Grade 3 local and systemic reactions after the first dose, and 12.2% of vaccinated children experienced Grade 3 local and systemic reactions after the second dose.
Grade 3 events are serious and interfere with a person’s ability to do basic activities and may also require medical intervention.
Finally, 29.6% of vaccinees (891) reported an unsolicited adverse event.
Unsolicited events are those independently reported by a participant to investigators. There is generally a degree of underreporting of these adverse events because the reporting requires the participant to initiate the report, rather than reply to a survey initiated by someone else.
While solicited (via a survey) adverse events are assigned a grade, unsolicited adverse events are divided into “serious” and “not serious.”
In the Moderna Phase 2 and 3 trials, only three of these unsolicited adverse events were classified as serious. All three were deemed unrelated to the vaccine by the investigators.
However, the study reported only those unsolicited adverse events that occurred with a greater-than-1% incidence.
In other words, with a vaccinated pool of children of approximately 3,000, if fewer than 30 children had a particular adverse event, it was not reported in the trial results (Table S20).
Conclusions
The investigators admit their analysis of the vaccine’s efficacy is limited because of the limited number of cases that occurred during the study.
Nevertheless, they conclude, “… the mRNA-1273 vaccine at a dose level of 50 μg in children was protective against Covid-19 beginning 14 days after the first injection.”
They also wrote:
“These results extend the evidence of the safety and efficacy of the mRNA-1273 vaccine seen in adults and adolescents and provide support for the use of this vaccine to prevent Covid-19 in children.”
But at what price?
If we use an NNV of 56, and considering that 4.1% and 12.2% of vaccinated children will suffer Grade 3 local and systemic reactions, every one case of non-severe COVID-19 prevented through vaccination will result in two Grade 3 local reactions and nearly seven Grade 3 systemic reactions.
Using an NNV of 280 based on outcomes 14 days after the second dose predicts that 11 children will suffer a Grade 3 local reaction and 35 will suffer a Grade 3 systemic reaction for every COVID-19 case prevented.
The risk-benefit profile of this product in this age group should not reassure the public or the FDA.
Moreover, this study was conducted in the summer and fall of 2021, a time when Delta was the predominant strain.
A large observational study from the state of New York conducted during the time Omicron was the prevalent variant demonstrated Pfizer’s pediatric formulation had efficacy that plummeted to 12% within seven weeks.
There is no reason to believe Moderna’s product will fare any better.
Nevertheless, The New York Times, reporting on the May 11 NEJM analysis, highlighted the vaccine’s immunogenic power, running the headline, “Moderna Vaccine Provokes Strong Immune Response in Children 6 to 11.”
Despite the headline, which framed the analysis in a positive light, the Times did admit:
“The trial was not large enough to detect rarer side effects, such as the heart problems that have been observed in other age groups.
“Moderna’s trial measured the vaccine’s power against the Delta variant, and the researchers are still assessing its performance against Omicron. All of the vaccines have proven to be less effective, in all age groups, against the Omicron variant.”
Despite only tepid support from mainstream media, the FDA seems fixated on authorizing this product.
Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, recently hinted the FDA would not demand that pediatric vaccine formulations against COVID-19 meet the agency’s own Emergency Use Authorization guidelines requiring 50% efficacy.
Vinay Prasad, M.D., MPH, explained the implications of this potential shift in the FDA’s stance, stating it was “incredible” that Marks would sign off on a pediatric vaccine if it seems to be mirroring efficacy in adults but is less effective against Omicron.
“We have standards for a reason,” Prasad said. The standard chosen by the FDA was “arbitrary and, if anything, I’d argue it was on the low side — 50% isn’t as good as what we wanted.”
“Fifty percent is quite low, and if you have a very low vaccine efficacy […] you can have compensatory behavior that actually leads to a lot more viral spread,” he added.
Though an effective vaccine does not presently exist, finding and authorizing one does not pose a problem if the FDA somehow believes it can redefine “effective” while maintaining a semblance of a regulatory authority.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
May 19, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, New York Times, United States |
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I HAVE an article I want to direct your attention to. It is from our friends at the Guardian, who only now are pointing out the damage lockdown did to the youngest children.
In this piece we are told: ‘The youngest children have been most affected by lockdowns and closures during the Covid pandemic, with new research finding that the educational progress and social development of four- and five-year-olds suffered severely during their first year at school. Aggressive behaviour such as biting and hitting, feelings of struggling in class or being overwhelmed around large groups of children were among the difficulties reported by teachers.’
It may be new research but it is simply more confirmation of the shocking damage that was officially reported six weeks ago that Kathy commented on at the time on Mark Steyn’s GB News show. It was a cruelty that we witnessed first and reported on at the time, affecting seven- and eight- year-olds too, as reported here.
The Guardian article is worth reading in full, but where was this newspaper at the time? Castigating the teaching unions’ lockdown zealots? No. As you know I was very angry about the lockdown but nothing angered me more than when they closed schools. I could have lived with pretty much any other restriction but closing the schools was an evil, wicked thing to do. It is proven. The government sacrificed children on the altar of Covid. Boris Johnson should have refused to do it and have utterly shamed all those who pressured him to do so, not least the teaching unions as well as the left-wing press.
It is all a bit late in the day now to tell us what we already knew – that closing schools was doomed to cause the serious harm to the poorest and most vulnerable children, as Kathy said on Steyn. The Guardian report, while welcome, is all too little, too late. The damage is done.
May 19, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights, UK |
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