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The War Over Genetic Privacy Is Just Beginning

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead – The Rutherford Institute – June 8, 2021

When you upload your DNA, you’re potentially becoming a genetic informant on the rest of your family.”— Law professor Elizabeth Joh

“Guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in the technological age.

All of those fascinating, genealogical searches that allow you to trace your family tree by way of a DNA sample can now be used against you and those you love.

As of 2019, more than 26 million people had added their DNA to ancestry databases. It’s estimated those databases could top 100 million profiles within the year, thanks to the aggressive marketing of companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe.

It’s a tempting proposition: provide some mega-corporation with a spit sample or a cheek swab, and in return, you get to learn everything about who you are, where you came from, and who is part of your extended your family.

The possibilities are endless.

You could be the fourth cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II of England. Or the illegitimate grandchild of an oil tycoon. Or the sibling of a serial killer.

Without even realizing it, by submitting your DNA to an ancestry database, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.”

It’s what police like to refer to a “modern fingerprint.”

Whereas fingerprint technology created a watershed moment for police in their ability to “crack” a case, DNA technology is now being hailed by law enforcement agencies as the magic bullet in crime solving.

Indeed, police have begun using ancestry databases to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades. Who wouldn’t want to get psychopaths and serial rapists off the streets and safely behind bars, right? At least, that’s the argument being used by law enforcement to support their unrestricted access to these genealogy databases.

Except it’s not just psychopaths and serial rapists who get caught up in the investigative dragnet.

Anyone who comes up as a possible DNA match—including distant family members—suddenly becomes part of a circle of suspects that must be tracked, investigated and ruled out.

A few states have started introducing legislation to restrict when and how police use these genealogical databases, yet the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—is really only beginning.

Certainly, it’s just a matter of time before the government gets hold of our DNA, either through mandatory programs carried out in connection with law enforcement and corporate America, by warrantlessly accessing our familial DNA shared with genealogical services such as Ancestry and 23andMe, or through the collection of our “shed” or “touch” DNA.

According to research published in the journal Science, more than 60 percent of Americans who have some European ancestry can be identified using DNA databases, even if they have not submitted their own DNA. According to law professor Natalie Ram, one genealogy profile can lead to as many as 300 other people.

That’s just on the commercial side.

All 50 states now maintain their own DNA databases, although the protocols for collection differ from state to state. Increasingly, many of the data from local databanks are being uploaded to CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), the FBI’s massive DNA database, which has become a de facto way to identify and track the American people from birth to death.

Even hospitals have gotten in on the game by taking and storing newborn babies’ DNA, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. It’s part of the government’s mandatory genetic screening of newborns. In many states, the DNA is stored indefinitely.

What this means for those being born today is inclusion in a government database that contains intimate information about who they are, their ancestry, and what awaits them in the future, including their inclinations to be followers, leaders or troublemakers.

Get ready, folks, because the government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

The ramifications of these DNA databases are far-reaching.

At a minimum, they will do away with any semblance of privacy or anonymity. The lucrative possibilities for hackers and commercial entities looking to profit off one’s biological record are endless.

If you haven’t yet connected the dots, let me point the way.

Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup until circumstances and science say otherwise.

Suspect Society, meet the American police state.

Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful.

None of these technologies are foolproof.

Nor are they immune from tampering, hacking or user bias.

Nevertheless, they have become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to render null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

What this amounts to is a scenario in which we have little to no defense of against charges of wrongdoing, especially when “convicted” by technology, and even less protection against the government sweeping up our DNA in much the same way it sweeps up our phone calls, emails and text messages.

As history shows, the probability of our government acting in a way that is not only illegal but immoral becomes less a question of “if” and more a question of “when.”

With technology, the courts, the corporations and Congress conspiring to invade our privacy on a cellular level, suddenly the landscape becomes that much more dystopian.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is the slippery slope toward a dystopian world in which there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.


Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

A New Strain Of ‘Swine Flu’ Or A Change In Surveillance?

By Judy Wilyman | Principia Scientific | June 8, 2021

The Australian Government recently prioritized a vaccine for community use against a new strain of influenza. This preventative action is notable as there has been little evidence in the community that suggests this influenza strain is more virulent than other new strains which occur regularly.

In fact, the World Health Organization (2009) states the majority of people who contract this disease experience the milder form of influenza and recover without requiring treatment (1).

An examination of evidence provided by the Western Australian Health Department regarding deaths to swine influenza Type A H1N1 prompts us to ask if it is possible that a change in the surveillance of influenza in 2009 has resulted in the creation of hysteria over a new strain of influenza?

Influenza is a disease that is caused by many strains of virus. These viruses spread easily and new strains develop regularly (2). A vaccine against influenza will only protect against one to three strains depending on the type of vaccine used (3). For example, the current seasonal influenza vaccine protects against Type A (H1N1), Type A (H3N2) and Type B (3). Influenza Type A H1N1 is a strain that has been covered in influenza vaccines for many years.

The new strain of ‘swine’ flu is stated to be a recombination of genetic material from human Type A H1N1, a strain of bird flu and 2 strains of pig flu (1). The WHO states ‘there are no known instances of humans getting this strain of influenza from pigs and other animals’. It is also stated that this strain is not known to be endemic in pigs (1). Yet this flu has been promoted to the public as ‘swine flu’ even though it is a strain that has never been found in pigs.

The public has been misinformed about this strain of influenza. The term ‘swine flu’ creates anxiety and fear of a disease that has come from pigs when the official medical term for this new strain is ‘Influenza Type A, H1N1, human strain’ (1).

The World Health Organisation states that influenza A (H1N1) is a new virus and one to which most people have no or little immunity (1). In a study conducted by the CDC it was shown that individuals between the ages of 18-64 had antibodies present that reacted to the swine flu virus (4). Whilst this doesn’t indicate clinical protection it does suggest that some individuals may have immunity from previous exposure to H1N1 (4). There is no reason to assume that the population will have no immunity to this new strain as it may be immunologically similar to previous H1N1 viruses (5).

H1N1 is a strain of influenza that has been covered for many years in the seasonal influenza vaccine. Therefore you would expect that the Australian Health Department would have mortality data for seasonal H1N1 from previous years. This is not the case. The Health Department has stated ‘this data has not been collected in previous years or for this year’ – even though Type A H1N1 has been one of the most virulent and prevalent strains and regularly covered in the influenza vaccine(3).

In 2009 the Australian Health Department changed the surveillance of influenza in the community (6). The Department of Health suggests the reason there is good data on the mortality associated with influenza H1N1 2009 is because of enhanced surveillance systems that were put in place specifically to monitor the pandemic (6). Prior to 2009 influenza that was notified by GP’s and laboratories was not systematically followed up or linked to hospitalization/death data to determine outcomes (6) In addition, post-mortem victims were not routinely tested for sub-types of influenza (6).

In previous years deaths were listed as ‘influenza’ and were not routinely sub-typed for the strain (6). The Australian Health Department also states ‘hospitals were less likely to routinely test admitted patients with respiratory viruses, including pneumonia, for influenza, so (in previous years) many cases remained undiagnosed or were assumed to be primary bacterial infections (6).

This year most cases of influenza notified by labs or GP’s were followed up to see if the cases were hospitalized or resulted in death.

The Australian Health Department was also systematically testing hospitalizations /deaths for H1N1. As a result, the health department is claiming that 90-95% of laboratory proven influenza cases are due to ‘swine’ H1N1 (6).

It is known that incidence figures for a disease can be inflated by monitoring a disease in a more systematic manner. A more sensitive or systematic test will identify cases that would previously have gone unidentified. However, a greater incidence of a disease does not always indicate greater severity to the population (7). This is the case with a disease such as influenza which has a high incidence in the community but epidemics are known to be mild for the majority of people (8).

How can the public be sure that the number of deaths attributed to this new strain of ‘swine’ H1N1 is different to the number of deaths associated with seasonal H1N1 in previous years if this testing was not being done? These changes in surveillance mean that even though influenza Type A H1N1 has been prevalent in previous years there is no data on the number of deaths associated with this strain in previous years because it hasn’t been monitored.

The Health Department also admits that it is unclear to what extent ‘Swine’ H1N1 infection may have contributed to the deaths it is linked with this year because there are usually several infections present and in most cases underlying medical conditions (6). It is well known that disease diagnosis and cause of death is an inexact science and it is up to the medical practitioner to state the primary cause of death (9).

The Health Department has not produced statistics that show the overall death rate for influenza to be significantly worse this year than in previous years (3).

The Therapeutic Goods Association states “the experience in Australia of the disease is mild in most cases’ (10). The evidence presented above illustrates how different surveillance methods can enhance the incidence of disease in the community. This leaves the cause of the increase in incidence open to interpretation. For this reason the government should be required to publicize any changes to surveillance practices whenever there is an increase in incidence reporting of a disease.

This will ensure that the information the public receives can be interpreted in an open and transparent fashion that will lead to less fear and panic.

In addition, the government admits that the public has been misinformed by calling this strain ‘swine flu’ but they have stated “they are unable to control how the media reports on the Influenza A (H1N1) virus to the community” (10). Why did the government not correct this information in the media by stating it is not a swine flu and informing the public of its medical name?

This is of significant concern when it is observed that fear is used to encourage the public to accept a medical intervention (vaccination) in healthy individuals.

It is extremely important that we have an accurate knowledge of the harm being caused by the use of multiple vaccines in individuals and until this science is complete we need to assess carefully how many vaccines are necessary. A change in surveillance has a significant impact on the incidence of disease in the community and the Public, as the main stakeholder in the use of vaccines, cannot make a proper assessment of the need for a vaccine without this information.

References:

1) The World Health Organization (WHO) http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/about_disease/en/inde x.html (visited 17.9.09)

2) Jefferson T, Rivetti D, Di Pietrantonj C, Rivetti A, Demicheli V, 2008, Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 2. Art. No: CD001269

3) Government of Western Australia, Department of Health, Communicable Diseases Control Directorate, Influenza fact sheet, 2009

4) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 58, p. 521 – 524

5) Schuchat A, 2009, as cited in CDC, MMWR 58, p.521-524

6) Government of Western Australia, Department of Health, Communicable Diseases Control Directorate

7) Burnet, M., 1952, “The Pattern of Disease in Childhood”, Australasian Annals of Medicine , Vol.1, No. 2: p. 93.

8) Heikkinen T, Booy R, Campins M, Finn A, Olcen P, Peltola H, Rodrigo C, Schmitt H, Schumacher F, Teo S, Weil-Olivier C, 2006, Should healthy children be vaccinated against influenza?
European Journal of Pediatrics, 165: 223-228, DOI 10.1007/s00431-005-0040-9

9) McIntyre P, 2009, Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS).

10) Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing, 2009, Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) 5

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Covid vaccines: Concerns that make more research essential

By Neville Hodgkinson | The Conservative Woman | June 8, 2021

DOCTORS and scientists can behave at times like religious zealots, despite the noble aims of their professions. Heretics are not burned at the stake these days, but professionals marginalise and deride those who challenge their beliefs when these become a matter of faith (and self-interest) rather than science.

An apparent persistent attempt, at the highest level, to hide the Covid virus’s genetically engineered laboratory origins, and to persuade us that it simply jumped from an animal host into humans, is a case in point.

Vaccines are another. Taxpayers provide billions for products which in some cases have done wonders, such as eliminating smallpox, but whose value, in the opinion of some experts, became grossly over-estimated when their introduction coincided with social, political and economic advances in wellbeing.

Just as we tend to react strongly to criticism when living a lie as individuals, vaccines have become such a holy cow that critical studies have little chance of being accepted in the mainstream journals.

All this is by way of introducing the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice and Research, founded last year ‘to enable independent theoreticians, practitioners and researchers’ to publish ‘critical uncensored peer-reviewed theory and research about every aspect of vaccines’.

The latest issue of the journal contains a scholarly, highly referenced 42-page study called Worse Than the Disease? Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against Covid-19

As with findings described here at TCW yesterday, it makes worrying reading. Most of the long-term hazards described are speculative, but the paper argues that the evidence cited makes it vital for regulators to do much more to track adverse events in people who have received the experimental Covid vaccines.

The main author is Dr Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Dr Greg Nigh, a naturopath pioneering alternative approaches to cancer.

Seneff has spent much of her career developing human-computer communication through spoken language. She has a degree in biology as well as degrees in engineering and computer science, and since 2010 has shifted her research focus toward the effects of drugs, toxic chemicals, and diet on human health and disease.

The study claims that many aspects of the widespread use of RNA vaccines merit safety concerns, some of which ‘might not be evident for years or even transgenerationally’.

A toxin known as the spike protein makes the Covid virus uniquely dangerous compared with its predecessors in the coronavirus family. The vaccines, including those produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and Oxford AstraZeneca, deliver a genetic code into our body cells instructing them to manufacture this protein, to train the immune system to minimise the impact of exposure to the actual virus.

‘While the promises of this technology have been widely heralded, the objectively assessed risks and safety concerns have received far less detailed attention,’ the study authors say.

Reviewing the various components of the new vaccines, they conclude that there is potential for ‘a wide range of both acute and long-term induced pathologies, such as blood disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases’.

Lack of standard trials of the vaccines means many questions about safety and effectiveness can be answered only through data gathered from the mass public rollout, ‘and this is only possible if there is free access to unbiased reporting of outcomes – something that seems unlikely given the widespread censorship of vaccine-related information because of the perceived need to declare success at all cost’.

Regulators internationally continue to maintain that the vaccines bring more benefits than dangers, but there have been many claims of sudden clusters of deaths immediately in the wake of vaccination drives.

Seneff and Nigh argue that we may not be realising the complexity of the body’s potential for reactions to foreign mRNA, and to other ingredients in the vaccines ‘that go far beyond the simple goal of tricking the body into producing antibodies to the spike protein’. The ‘tricks’ include a modification in the RNA code aimed at synthesising abundant copies of the protein.

Yet the protein alone has been shown to be enough to cause damage to blood vessel linings and blood clotting processes. There is also a risk that antibodies to the protein arising either from vaccination, or previous exposure to the virus, may ‘prime’ the immune system in such a way as to provoke chronic autoimmune and inflammatory reactions on subsequent exposure, a particular concern with the booster shots of the vaccine.

Studies indicate that the protein is able to gain access to cells in the testicles, and may disrupt male reproduction.

Furthermore, the genetic code the virus carries contains inserts that make it ‘extremely plausible’ that the protein could misfold into a prion (such as held responsible for mad cow disease in the 1980s), causing widespread damage to brain cells and increasing the risk of conditions including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

The researchers even discuss the possibility of vaccinated people causing disease in the unvaccinated, through vaccine ‘shedding’. There is a plausible process, they say, by which exosomes (particles which transport DNA and RNA between cells) carrying the spike protein instructions could be released from the lungs and inhaled by someone nearby.

They express concern that continued infection of patients with poor immunity will generate resistant strains of the virus, leading to arguments for repeated rounds of vaccines every few months, ‘with increasing numbers of viral variants coded into the vaccines. This is an arms race that we will probably lose’.

The jabs have the potential to incorporate the genetic code for the Covid virus’s spike protein into our DNA, they say, where it ‘could instruct the synthesis of large numbers of copies of proteinaceous infectious particles, with potentially tragic and even catastrophic unforeseen consequences.’

To rule out or minimise these risks, the paper recommends a well-funded effort to collect detailed data on adverse events associated with the RNA vaccines, ‘tracked well beyond the first couple of weeks after vaccination’.

There should be repeated testing of vaccine recipients to check for signs of autoimmune disease; studies to understand better the toxicity of the spike protein to the brain, heart, testicles and other organs; and to determine whether vaccination just before conception can result in offspring carrying mechanisms for producing the spike protein, possibly integrated into their genome.

Finally, ‘as an obvious but tragically ignored suggestion’, governments should encourage people to take safe and affordable steps to boost their immune systems naturally, such as getting out in the sunlight to raise vitamin D levels, and eating mainly organic whole foods rather than chemical-laden processed foods.

‘We have rushed into vaccine experiments on a world-wide scale. At the very least, we should take advantage of the data that are available from these experiments to learn more about this new and untested technology,’ the paper concludes.

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

James Corbett Presents to the Corona Investigative Committee

 • 06/07/2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Reiner Fuellmich and the Corona Investigative Committee interview James Corbett about his investigation into the corona crisis and the future of humanity.

VIDEO COURTESY OF CORONA-AUSSCHUSS

SHOW NOTES:
Biodigital Convergence: Bombshell Document Reveals the True Agenda

How & Why Big Oil Conquered the World

BBC: Human species ‘may split in two’

Colin Powell: Beware the Terror Industrial Complex

Virus-Sized Transistors (Charles Lieber)

Charles Lieber charged

redditor reveals many medical workers in Japan don’t trust the Covid “vaccines”

The Weaponization of Social Media

China and the New World Order

“From a China Traveler” (Rockefeller obituary for Mao)

WHO Cares What Celebrities Think – #PropagandaWatch (WHO hires Hill & Knowlton)

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

“Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime”/ Nature

By Meryl Nass, MD | June 7, 2021

Looks like the Nature publishing company is trying to regain some respectability. They are publishing information that has been suppressed (mostly) since the start of the pandemic. It turns out that Covid immunity following infection appears to be life-long. Even for mild cases. (Of course, you heard it from me that immunity was going to be long-lasting many months ago.)

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT GET VACCINATED. Vaccination can sometimes interfere with developing long-lasting immunity. That is one of the things you need to test for when you develop a vaccine. But of course, that was not done in the case of the Covid vaccines.

And so the manufacturers and the governments have already signed contracts for many doses of Covid vaccines per person in the US and EU. This is something they never should have done without knowing the extent of populatin immunity and following the immune response over time post-vaccination. It makes absolutely no sense, unless you consider that they may have something they would like injected along with the Covid vaccines.

I still must return to the disaster of vaccinating people who have natural immunity. CDC and FDA do not want anyone to be able to prove they are immune naturally, so they have not approved or authorized even a single test for that purpose. Pretty clever, huh? The reason is to force everyone to be vaccinated, even though the side effects are more pronounced in those who have recovered, and you get no benefit in terms of added immunity. Those who claim you do are liars. You may get a brief boost in antibody levels but it declines quickly and you are back where you started:  95% are immune after the disease, which is better than after the vaccine. Better than after any vaccine, with the possible exceptions of the live vaccines smallpox and measles. (I know, I know, they claim 95% efficacy for the mRNA vaccines, but the study methods used to prove it were worthless. See Dr Sin Hang Lee’s Petition to the FDA last December, which I edited.) There wouldn’t be a coverup regarding breakthrough cases in the vaccinated population if the efficacy was truly 95%. (CDC does not want these cases reported unles they are in hospital or die, and then you also need to have a positive PCR test done with a cycle threashold no greater than 28 in order to report. That is how CDC is belatedly minimizing reports of breakthrough cases.

But here is the good news, and it is very very good.  From Nature :

Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-191.

The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect”, says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Antibodies — proteins that can recognize and help to inactivate viral particles — are a key immune defence. After a new infection, short-lived cells called plasmablasts are an early source of antibodies.

But these cells recede soon after a virus is cleared from the body, and other, longer-lasting cells make antibodies: memory B cells patrol the blood for reinfection, while bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) hide away in bones, trickling out antibodies for decades.

“A plasma cell is our life history, in terms of the pathogens we’ve been exposed to,” says Ali Ellebedy, a B-cell immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who led the study, published in Nature on 24 May.

Researchers presumed that SARS-CoV-2 infection would trigger the development of BMPCs — nearly all viral infections do — but there have been signs that severe COVID-19 might disrupt the cells’ formation2. Some early COVID-19 immunity studies also stoked worries, when they found that antibody levels plunged not long after recovery3.

Ellebedy’s team tracked antibody production in 77 people who had recovered from mostly mild cases of COVID-19. As expected, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies plummeted in the four months after infection. But this decline slowed, and up to 11 months after infection, the researchers could still detect antibodies that recognized the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

To identify the source of the antibodies, Ellebedy’s team collected memory B cells and bone marrow from a subset of participants. Seven months after developing symptoms, most of these participants still had memory B cells that recognized SARS-CoV-2. In 15 of the 18 bone-marrow samples, the scientists found ultra-low but detectable populations of BMPCs whose formation had been triggered by the individuals’ coronavirus infections 7–8 months before. Levels of these cells were stable in all five people who gave another bone-marrow sample several months later.

June 7, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Meryl Nass on anti-vaccine petition to FDA

Listen HERE

Kevin Barrett | May 31, 2021
Dr. Meryl Nass

Meryl Nass, MD discusses her and RFK Jr.’s new Children’s Health Defense petition to the FDA to withdraw COVID vaccines from the market. CHD reports:

“On May 16, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Meryl Nass, MD, on behalf of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), took a landmark step in the COVID crisis that has irrevocably changed billions of lives around the globe by filing a Citizen Petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to withdraw COVID-19 vaccines from the market…

“Specifically, the petition calls upon the FDA to:

  • Revoke the Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for COVID vaccines
  • Refrain from licensing COVID vaccines
  • Disallow the participation of minors in COVID vaccine trials
  • Immediately revoke all EUAs permitting vaccination of minors
  • Revoke its tacit approval of pregnant women receiving COVID vaccines
  • Immediately amend its existing guidance for the use of chloroquine drugs, ivermectin, and any other safe and effective drugs against COVID.”

Evidence for the effectiveness of COVID-19 treatments can be found at c19study.com .

At the end of the show, Meryl Nass expresses her concern that the suppression of COVID treatments, in conjunction with the mass vaccination program and draconian censorship, raises a disturbing question: Is there some ulterior and perhaps sinister motive driving this seemingly irrational policy?

June 7, 2021 Posted by | Audio program, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Vaccine scientist: ‘We’ve made a big mistake’

By Neville Hodgkinson | The Conservative Woman | June 7, 2021

I’LL LEAD you into this article gently, since I’m sure many readers will have had the Covid jab, persuaded by the unremitting propaganda from the NHS and most media sources that it is safe and effective.

The reality as the science of it unravels is that for some it is neither.

I had strongly hoped that it really would be an answer to Covid-19.  Despite high levels of immediate reactivity (four out of five in the Pfizer vaccine trial report had mild to moderate side-effects), the manufacturers’ argument that this was a sign of a healthy immune response seemed logical.

We now know differently.

The healthiest response to the virus is for the body to develop natural immunity, which fortunately is what most people do, either with only mild symptoms or no illness at all.

As thousands of doctors have argued, public health efforts should be directed towards strengthening immunity among the vulnerable.  Support should be focused on those with a poor diet or other factors putting their immune health at risk, including lack of sunshine and loneliness – the exact opposite of what we saw imposed on the elderly during lockdown.

The reason why this kind of support is so important is that once the virus takes hold, the unique ‘extras’ it carries as a result of its genetically engineered origins bring long-term risks as well as immediate harm, including effects ranging from blood clots and heart disease to brain damage and reproductive issues.

As many will know by now, the problem lies within a structure that enables the virus, originally from bats, not only to enter human cells but to deliver a toxin called the spike protein.

Most Covid vaccines instruct our body cells to produce the same protein.  This is in the hope that antibodies developed against it will prevent the most damaging effects of the actual virus.  There is evidence that this is the case for some.

But there’s also a problem, spelled out most recently by Canadian researcher Dr Byram Bridle, who was awarded a $230,000 Ontario government grant last year for research on Covid vaccine development.

This is that the spike protein produced by the vaccine does not just act locally, at the site of the jab (the shoulder muscle), but gets into the bloodstream and is carried through the circulation to many other sites in the body. Previously confidential animal studies using radioactive tracing show it to go just about everywhere, including the adrenal glands, heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, ovaries, pancreas, pituitary gland, prostate, salivary glands, intestines, spinal cord, spleen, stomach, testes, thymus, and uterus.

The quantities are small and usually disappear within days.

But the questions arise, is this mechanism involved in the thousands of deaths and injuries reported soon after Covid vaccination, and might it set some people up for the same long-term consequences as in severe cases of the disease itself?

Some researchers say the risk from the vaccine may be greater than that from the actual virus in healthy people. This would be especially true for the young, whose immune systems deal with the virus successfully. In contrast, the vaccine has a device that protects the spike protein mechanism against immediate destruction by the body, in order to promote the immune response.

Although millions have received the jab without ill-effects, there have been thousands of reports of deaths and disease associated with it. The symptoms are often indistinguishable to those induced by the virus, and so there is real concern that this damage is being missed by manufacturers and regulators as being related to the vaccine.

Dr Bridle, associate professor of viral immunology at the University of Guelph, Ontario, summarised his concerns in an interview with Toronto radio host Alex Pierson on May 28.

‘I’m very much pro-vaccine, but always making sure that the science is done properly and that we follow the science carefully before going into public rollout of vaccines,’ he said. ‘I’ll forewarn you and your listeners that the story I’m about to tell is a bit of a scary one.  This is cutting edge science. There’s a couple of key pieces of scientific information that we’ve been privy to, in the past few days, that has made the final link, so we understand now – myself and some key international collaborators – we understand exactly why these problems [with the vaccine] are happening.’

One of these ‘is that the spike protein, on its own, is almost entirely responsible for the damage to the cardiovascular system, if it gets into circulation. Indeed, if you inject the purified spike protein into the blood of research animals they get all kinds of damage to the cardiovascular system, and it can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause damage to the brain.

‘At first glance that doesn’t seem too concerning because we’re injecting these vaccines into the shoulder muscle. The assumption, up until now, has been that these vaccines behave like all of our traditional vaccines: they don’t go anywhere other than the injection site, so they stay in our shoulder. Some of the protein will go to the local draining lymph node in order to activate the immune system.

‘However – this is where the cutting edge science has come in, and this is where it gets scary – through a request for information from the Japanese regulatory agency, myself and several international collaborators have been able to get access to what’s called the biodistribution study. It’s the first time ever that scientists have been privy to seeing where the messenger RNA vaccines go after vaccination; in other words, is it a safe assumption that it stays in the shoulder muscle? The short answer is, absolutely not. It’s very disconcerting. The spike protein gets into the blood and circulates over several days post-vaccination.’

The study was conducted for Pfizer by Japanese researchers. Bridle said its results are backed up by a paper just accepted for publication reporting that 11 of 13 young health workers who received two doses of the Moderna RNA vaccine showed detectable levels of the virus protein in their blood within a day of their first injection.

‘We have known for a long time that the spike protein is pathogenic,’ Bridle said. ‘It is a toxin. It can cause damage in our body if it’s in circulation. Now, we have clear-cut evidence that . . . the vaccine itself, plus the protein, gets into blood circulation.’

Once that happens, the spike protein can combine with receptors on blood platelets and with cells that line our blood vessels. This is why, paradoxically, it can cause both blood clotting and bleeding. ‘And of course the heart is involved, as part of the cardiovascular system,’ Bridle said. ‘That’s why we’re seeing heart problems. The protein can also cross the blood-brain barrier and cause neurological damage.  That’s exactly why we’ve been seeing clotting disorders associated with these vaccines.’

In another study, not yet accepted for publication, researchers found ‘inadvertently’ that RNA vaccine particles are transferred to babies through breast milk (they had been trying to show that antibodies in vaccinated mothers were passed on to the babies).

Doctors are concerned that that once the spike protein gets into circulation, it will become concentrated in breast milk. It could also be a hazard for fragile patients receiving blood transfusions.

‘Looking into the adverse event database in the US, we have found evidence of suckling infants experiencing bleeding disorders in the gastro-intestinal tract,’ Bridle said.

‘In short, the conclusion is that we made a big mistake. We didn’t realise it until now. We didn’t realise that by vaccinating people we are inadvertently inoculating them with a toxin. In some people this gets into the circulation; and when that happens, in some people it can cause damage, especially to the cardiovascular system. I have many other legitimate questions about the long-term safety of the vaccine.’

Bridle is a member of the Canadian Covid Care Alliance, a group of independent doctors, scientists and health care practitioners ‘committed to providing top-quality and balanced evidence-based information to the Canadian public about Covid-19 so that hospitalizations can be reduced, lives saved, and our country safely restored as quickly as possible.’

The group has produced this guide as to ‘why parents, teens and children should question the Covid-19 vaccine’.

Last week, Britain’s regulators approved the Pfizer jab for 12-15-year-olds, concluding it is ‘safe and effective in this age group and that the benefits of this vaccine outweigh any risk’. As Sally Beck wrote in TCW here, several high-profile experts questioned the ethics of the decision, which came even as 93 doctors in Israel – a testing ground for the same vaccine – wrote to their government begging them not to use it on children.

June 6, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Believe Your Own Eyes About Fauci E-Mails, Not the Fact Checkers

By Jeffrey Tucker | Real Clear Markets | June 5, 2021

Reading through the 4,000-plus pages of Dr. Fauci’s emails – where’s the bottle of Visine? – has not been the most exciting of literary experiences, but it certainly has been revealing.

After all, Dr. Fauci was the US architect of the lockdowns that smashed all that we believed was true in the good ‘ol US of A; namely that we had rights and freedoms and a system of government that protected both. Suddenly we found ourselves housebound by law, prevented from going to concerts, movies, church, or even to the hospital if we didn’t have Covid-19 (health care spending fell 6% in 2020).

So, yes, these emails are remarkable. You want to know what this guy was thinking? How and why did he convince President Trump to shut down major parts of the economy? These emails provide hints and clues as to what he was thinking before and after. They are a major key to understanding, and investigators of all sorts will be scouring through them for years.

Whatever you do, however, don’t you dare call them a “leak” even though if Fauci had his druthers, they surely would not have been leaked; whoops, I mean released through multiple FOIA requests. The fact checkers are all over that misuse of terms, such that USA Today offers a marmish corrective to anyone who would use that term, while the Washington Post offers a mini-treatise assuring people that they do not say what you think they say.

Say it over and over until it becomes true: there are no smoking guns herein!

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who are you gonna believe, the fact checkers or your own eyes? Most of the attention so far concerns when Fauci was warned that the virus might have been a lab leak, in a lab that received indirect US funding. What did Fauci do about such warnings and to what extent did he take them seriously?

There is so much more here than just that, even though this one concern has overshadowed everything else. A short list of what stands out to me:

  • His remarkable shift from downplaying the virus and urging people not to panic, much less lock down (Feb 26, 2020, or thereabouts)
  • His extremely compelling case that layperson masks achieve nothing in terms of disease mitigation, only to flip later to say that are essential

  • His early lack of interest in vaccines that later turned into virtual vaccine mandates

  • His ridiculous obsession with friendly media: they get loving answers and agreement to appear whereas anyone vaguely incredulous was deleted

  • His later dismissive attitude toward anyone who questioned lockdowns

  • His nonstop reveling in his personal fame and power, basking in praise from anyone ready to offer it

  • The way the media sucked up and became his echo chamber, thanking him daily for his glorious leadership even though this consisted mostly of going on TV and pontificating ambiguities

  • His wink-wink relationship with reporters, treating them as on his team, and we all know what that meant (he was no fan of Trump)

  • His general stumbling around from one opinion to another while completely ignoring what was actually happening on the ground, here and abroad

I generally get the sense of a lifelong bureaucrat who implausibly found himself as the world’s most influential public-health official during the most dramatic upheaval in public policy in generations. He didn’t entirely know what to do with his new-found influence. It’s shocking to observe his complete lack of interest in the health and economic consequences of lockdown policies.

Maybe he believed they would work but it is hard to say because he was putting down the idea as late as February 25:

“You cannot avoid having infections since you cannot shut off the country from the rest of the world,” he wrote to CBS News. “Do not let the fear of the unknown…distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.”

A few days later, he was pushing virus suppression via closures, human separation, and travel restrictions, while finding a good friend in “unreasonable fear.” Medical professionals from around the world wrote to him and begged him to stop this, that people were being bullied by cops all over the world in the name of a virus control method that could not and would not work. He read these and did not answer them.

So, yes, these emails do provide tremendous insight, despite what you are reading today from the mainstream press, which continues to defend him no matter what. Even so, the great truth cannot be forever ignored. What is that? To my mind, it is the elephant in the room: there is zero evidence that lockdowns actually worked to mitigate severe outcomes from the disease.

Even Vox has started asking the real question: “After a year of debates over mask mandates, lockdowns, and school closures, that mixed evidence might suggest a certain fatalism: Did none of these state policies really matter? Or was the virus going to spread no matter what states did? Was it all for nothing?… If you look at a list of states by their number of Covid-19 deaths per capita, it’s hard to discern much of a pattern.”

You have to dig pretty deep to get the answer here, even though myriad studies have failed to demonstrate any empirically observable relationship between lockdowns and disease control. Vox finally argues that lockdowns do work provided they happen early and hard. Vox does cite one article that examined data from March and April 2020 and hesitatingly suggests that perhaps there was a 5.4% reduction in cases due to social distancing, but only reaches that conclusion using modelled counterfactuals and very limited testing data. This study stands against some 35 otherss from around the world, deploying far larger data sets, showing otherwise.

Right now, Covid infections and deaths are at the lowest point in the US since March 2020. While commentators credit the vaccines, it’s not entirely obvious since low-vaccine states have the same trends as high ones. Sorting out the contribution here of natural immunity vs. vaccines is a job for high-end virologists, not journalists.

Looking at the curves of this thing here and abroad – while adjusting for climate, geography, demographics, and population immunity profiles – they all look suspiciously the same, regardless of policy.

Vox at least asks the right question: “Was it all for nothing?”

Sadly, the answer is probably yes. Get a clue, Washington Post and all the rest: this is the reason why Fauci is being hounded now. He was lockdown’s unlikely champion. It’s on him. He owns them. Now he needs to answer questions, not merely rely on his media friends to continue to give him cover.

Jeffrey Tucker is author of Liberty or Lockdown (AIER, 2020).

June 6, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

VACCINES, LIES AND SMEARS

Dr. Sam Bailey | June 1, 2021

Dr Sam takes her gloves off in this video! Watch her rebuttal against a stuff.co.nz character assassination attempt on Dr Simon Thornley.

Please support her channel ▶ https://www.subscribestar.com/DrSamBailey

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Virus Mania E-book:

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Virus Mania Audiobook:

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Mary Hobbs Open Letter: https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/media-and-politics/open-letter-from-mary-hobbs-nz-author/

References:

1. INTERVIEW: David Crowe on the Problem with PCR Testing – May 17, 2020: https://21stcenturywire.com/2021/05/25/interview-david-crowe-on-the-problem-with-the-pcr-testing/
2. Charlie Mitchell: https://web.archive.org/web/20210306011406/https://www.stuff.co.nz/authors/charlie-mitchell
3. Stuff media sold for $1: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1924208/stuff-ceo-buys-media-firm-for-nz-1
4. Stuff promotes Covid shots: https://web.archive.org/web/20210317173856/https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/124508789/stuff-wins-funding-to-counter-covid19-vaccine-misinformation
5. NZ Government puts $50 million into the media: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018743793/government-moves-on-short-term-relief-for-media
6. NZ lockdown illegal: https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/05/crown_law_said_lockdown_was_illegal.html
7. Dr David Nabarro on lockdowns: https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/coronavirus-who-backflips-on-virus-stance-by-condemning-lockdowns/news-story/f2188f2aebff1b7b291b297731c3da74
8. Assessing mandatory stay- at- home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID- 19: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eci.13484
9. BioPharma: https://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Article/2021/03/03/Inside-the-Pfizer-BioNTech-COVID-19-vaccine-trial-Insights-on-speed-agility-and-digital-development
10. Pfizer/BioNTech SE trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04368728
11. COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and effectiveness—the elephant (not) in the room: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00069-0/fulltext
12. WHO Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data – Oct 2020: https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-265892/en/
13. High consequence infectious diseases – Gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19
14. Ivor Cummins – Short Video on India Situation: What does the Current Data Say?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg4aUqjH4N4&t=1s
15. Professor Rodney Jackson: https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/profile/r-jackson
16. Rod Jackson: Why Covid is at least 10 times more deadly than the flu: https://web.archive.org/web/20201101171729/https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rod-jackson-why-covid-is-at-least-10-times-more-deadly-than-the-flu/NA5AXLNGISTSPLGQHPKYFOL55Q/
17. Rod Jackson – ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rod-Jackson
18. Mary Hobbs – books: http://maryhobbswriter.co.nz/books/

June 6, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Thank You, North Face

Chris Wright | June 3, 2021

June 5, 2021 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

The Notorious London Spy School Churning Out Many of the World’s Top Journalists

The Maughan Library Gate at Kings College London, UK. David JC | Alamy
By Alan MacLeod | MintPress News | June 4, 2021

LONDON — In a previous investigationMintPress News explored how one university department, the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, functions as a school for spooks. Its teaching posts are filled with current or former NATO officials, army officers and intelligence operatives to churn out the next generation of spies and intelligence officers. However, we can now reveal an even more troubling product the department produces: journalists. An inordinate number of the world’s most influential reporters, producers and presenters, representing many of the most well-known and respected outlets — including The New York TimesCNN and the BBC — learned their craft in the classrooms of this London department, raising serious questions about the links between the fourth estate and the national security state.

National security school

Increasingly, it appears, intelligence agencies the world over are beginning to appreciate agents with a strong academic background. A 2009 study published by the CIA described how beneficial it is to “use universities as a means of intelligence training,” writing that, “exposure to an academic environment, such as the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, can add several elements that may be harder to provide within the government system.”

The paper, written by two King’s College staffers, boasted that the department’s faculty has “extensive and well-rounded intelligence experience.” This was no exaggeration. Current Department of War Studies educators include the former Secretary General of NATO, former U.K. Minister of Defense, and military officers from the U.K, U.S. and other NATO countries. “I deeply appreciate the work that you do to train and to educate our future national security leaders, many of whom are in this audience,” said then-U.S. Secretary of Defense (and former CIA Director) Leon Panetta in a speech at the department in 2013.

King’s College London also admits to having a number of ongoing contracts with the British state, including with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), but refuses to divulge the details of those agreements.

American connections

Although a British university, King’s College markets itself heavily to American students. There are currently 1,265 Americans enrolled, making up about 4% of the student body. Many graduates of the Department of War Studies go on to attain powerful positions in major American media outlets. Andrew Carey, CNN’s Bureau Chief in Jerusalem, for example, completed a master’s there in 2012. Carey’s coverage of the latest Israeli attack on Gaza has presented the apartheid state as “responding” to Hamas rocket attacks, rather than being the instigator of violence. A leaked internal memo Carey sent to his staff last month at the height of the bombardment instructed them to always include the fact that the Gazan Ministry of Health is overseen by Hamas, lest readers begin to believe the well-documented Palestinian casualty figures brought on by days of bombing. “We need to be transparent about the fact that the Ministry of Health in Gaza is run by Hamas. Consequently, when we cite latest casualty numbers and attribute to the health ministry in Gaza, we need to include the fact that it is Hamas run,” read his instructions.


Carey leaked memo

King’s College alumnus turned CNN Jerusalem bureau chief Andrew Carey instructed reporters on how to cover Israel’s latest assault on Gaza

Once publicized, his comments elicited considerable pushback. “This is a page straight out of Israel’s playbook. It serves to justify the attack on civilians and medical facilities,” commented Al-Jazeera Senior Presenter and Producer Dena Takruri.

The New York Times, the United States’ most influential newspaper, has also employed Department of War Studies alumni. Christiaan Triebert (M.A., 2016), for example, is a journalist on their visual investigations team. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for “Revelations about Russia and Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions in countries including Syria and Europe.” Hiring students from the school for spooks to bash Russia appears to be a common Times tactic, as it also employed Lincoln Pigman between 2016 and 2018 at its Moscow bureau.

Josh Smith, senior correspondent for influential news agency Reuters and formerly its correspondent in Afghanistan, also graduated from the department in question, as did The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Ford.

Arguably the most influential media figure from the university, however, is Ruaridh Arrow. Arrow was a producer at many of the U.K.’s largest news channels, including Channel 4Sky News and the BBC, where he was world duty editor and senior producer on Newsnight, the network’s flagship political show. In 2019, Arrow left the BBC to become an executive producer at NBC News.

The British invasion

Unsurprisingly for a university based in London, the primary journalistic destination for Department of War Studies graduates is the United Kingdom. Indeed, the BBC, the country’s powerful state broadcaster, is full of War Studies alumni. Arif Ansari, head of news at the BBC Asian Networkcompleted a masters analyzing the Syrian Civil War in 2017 and was soon selected for a leadership development scheme, placing him in charge of a team of 25 journalists who curate news primarily geared toward the substantial Middle Eastern and South Asian communities in Great Britain.

Many BBC employees begin studying at King’s years after their careers have already taken off, and balance their professional lives with pursuing new qualifications. Ahmed Zaki, Senior Broadcast Journalist at BBC Global News, began his master’s six years after he started at the BBC. Meanwhile, Ian MacWilliam — who spent ten years at BBC World Service, the country’s official news broadcast worldwide, specializing in sensitive regions like Russia, Afghanistan and Central Asia — decided to study at King’s more than 30 years after completing his first degree.

Another influential War Studies alumnus at the World Service is Aliaume Leroy, producer for its Africa Eye program. Well-known BBC News presenter Sophie Long also graduated from the department, working for Reuters and ITN before joining the state broadcaster.

“It’s an open secret that King’s College London Department of War Studies operates as the finishing school for Anglo-American securocrats. So it’s maybe not a surprise that graduates of its various military and intelligence courses also enter into a world of corporate journalism that exists to launder the messaging of these same ‘security’ agencies,” Matt Kennard — an investigative journalist for Declassified U.K. who has previously exposed the university’s connections to the British state — told MintPress. “It is, however, a real and present danger to democracy. The university imprimatur gives the department’s research the patina of independence while it works, in reality, as the unofficial research arm of the U.K. Ministry of Defence,” he added.


Neri Zilber

Israeli writer and King’s College alumnus Neri Zilber has bylines in many of the media’s most important outlets

The Department of War Studies also trains many international journalists and commentators, including Nicholas Stuart of the Canberra Times (Australia); Pakistani writer Ayesha Siddiqa, whose work can be found in The New York TimesAl-JazeeraThe Hindu and many other outlets; and Israeli writer Neri Zilber, a contributor to The Daily BeastThe GuardianForeign Policy and Politico.

What’s it all about?

Why are so many influential figures in our media being hothoused in a department well known for its connections to state power, for its faculty being active or former military or government officials, and for producing spies and operatives for various three-letter agencies? The point of this is not to allege that these journalists are all secretly card-carrying spooks: they are not. Rather, it is to highlight the alarmingly close links between the national security state and the fourth estate we rely on to be a check on their power and to hold them accountable.

Journalists trained in this sort of environment are far more likely to see the world in the same manner as their professors do. And perhaps they would be less likely to challenge state power when the officials they are scrutinizing were their classmates or teachers.

These sorts of questions abound when such a phenomenon exists: Why are so many journalists choosing to study at this particular department, and why do so many go on to be so influential? Are they being vetted by security agencies, with or without their knowledge? How independent are they? Will they just repeat British and American state talking points, as the Department of War Studies’ publications do?

On the question of vetting, the BBC admitted that, at least until the 1990s, it conspired with domestic spying agency MI5 to make sure that people with left-wing and/or anti-war leanings, or views critical of British foreign policy and empire were secretly blocked from being hired. When pressed on whether this policy is still ongoing, the broadcaster refused to comment, citing “security issues” — a response that is unlikely to reassure skeptics.

“While it strikes me as very interesting that a single academic institution could play such a major role in the recruitment of pro-establishment activist intellectuals and delivery of the same to the media, it is not so surprising,” Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State’s School of Media and Communication and an expert in collusion between government and media, told MintPress, adding:

Elite institutions in the past and doubtless still today have been major playgrounds for intelligence services. The history of the modern nation-state generally, not just the USA, seems to suggest that national unity — and therefore elite safety — is regarded by elites as achievable only through careful management and often suppression or diversion of dissent. Far more resources are typically committed to this than many citizens, drilled in the propaganda of democracy, realize or care to concede.

The Bellingcat Boys

While the journalists cataloged above are not spooks, some other Department of War Studies figures working in journalism could possibly be described as such, particularly those around the influential and increasingly notorious investigative website Bellingcat.

Cameron Colquhoun, for instance, spent almost a decade at GCHQ, Britain’s version of the NSA, where he was a senior analyst running cyber and counter-terrorism operations. He holds qualifications from both King’s College London and the State Department. This background is not disclosed in his Bellingcat profile, which merely describes him as the managing director of a private intelligence company that “conduct[s] ethical investigations” for clients around the world.

Bellingcat’s senior investigator Nick Waters spent four years as an officer in the British Army, including a tour in Afghanistan, where he furthered the British state’s objectives in the region. After that, he joined the Department of War Studies and Bellingcat.

For the longest time, Bellingcat’s founder Eliot Higgings dismissed charges that his organization was funded by the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) — a CIA cutout organization — as a ridiculous “conspiracy.” Yet by 2017, he was admitting that it was true. A year later, Higgins joined the Department of War Studies as a visiting research associate. Between 2016 and 2019 he was also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the brains behind the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/828554021405339648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E828554441485869056%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mintpressnews.com%2Fspy-school-kings-college-london-churning-out-journalists%2F277582%2F

Higgins appears to have used the university department as a recruiting ground, commissioning other War Studies graduates, such as Jacob Beeders and the aforementioned Christiaan Triebert and Aliaume Leroy, to write for his site.

Bellingcat is held in very high regard by the CIA. “I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love [Bellingcat],” said Marc Polymeropoulos, the agency’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia. Other officers explained that Bellingcat could be used to outsource and legitimize anti-Russia talking points. “The greatest value of Bellingcat is that we can then go to the Russians and say ‘there you go’ [when they ask for evidence],” added former CIA Chief of Station Daniel Hoffman.

Bellingcaught

A recent MintPress investigation explored how Bellingcat acts to launder national security state talking points into the mainstream under the guise of being neutral investigative journalists themselves.

Newly leaked documents show how BellingcatReuters and the BBC were covertly cooperating with the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to undermine the Kremlin and promote regime change in Moscow. This included training journalists and promoting explicitly anti-Russian media across Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the FCO notedBellingcat had been “somewhat discredited,” as it constantly spread disinformation and was willing to produce reports for anyone with money.

Nevertheless, a new European Parliament proposal published last month recommends hiring Bellingcat to assist in producing reports that would lay the groundwork for sanctioning Russia, for throwing it out of international bodies, and to “assist Russia’s transformation into a democracy.” In other words, to overthrow the government of Vladimir Putin.

An academic journalistic nexus

The Department of War Studies is also part of this pro-NATO, anti-Russia group. Quite apart from being staffed by soldiers, spooks and government officials, it puts out influential reports advising Western governments on foreign and defense policy. For instance, a study entitled “The future strategic direction of NATO” advises that member states must increase their military budgets and allow American nuclear weapons to be stored in their countries, thereby “shar[ing] the burden.” It also recommended that NATO must redouble its commitment to opposing Russia while warning that it needed urgently to form a “coherent policy” on the Chinese threat.

Other War Studies reports claim that Russia is carrying out “information-psychological warfare” through its state channels RT and Sputnik, and counsel that the West must use its technical means to prevent its citizens from consuming this foreign propaganda.

King’s College London academics have also proven crucial in keeping dissident publisher Julian Assange imprisoned. A psychiatrist who has worked with the War Studies department testified in court that the Australian was suffering only “moderate” depression and that his suicide risk was “manageable,” concluding that extraditing him to the United States “would not be unjust.” As Matt Kennard’s investigation found, the U.K. Ministry of Defence had provided £2.2 million ($3.1 million) in funding to the institute where he worked (although the psychiatrist in question claimed his work was not directly funded by the MoD).

King’s College London markets the War Studies department to both graduates and undergraduates as a stepping stone towards a career in journalism. In its “career prospects” section for its master’s course in war studies, it tells interested students that “graduates go on to work for NGOs, the FCO, the MoD, the Home Office, NATO, the UN or pursue careers in journalism, finance, academia, the diplomatic services, the armed forces and more.”

Likewise, undergraduates are told that:

You will gain an in-depth and sophisticated understanding of war and international relations, both as subjects worthy of study and as intellectual preparation for the widest possible range of career choices, including in government, journalism, research, and humanitarian and international organisations.

Courses such as “New Wars, New Media, New Journalism” fuse together journalism and intelligence and are overseen by War Studies academics.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the department has taught many influential politicians, including foreign heads of state and members of the British parliament. But at least there is considerable overlap between the fields of defense policy and politics. The fact that the very department that trains high state officials and agents of secretive three letter agencies is also the place that produces many of the journalists we rely on to stand up to those officials and keep them in check is seriously problematic.

An unhealthy respect for authority

Unfortunately, rather than challenging power, many modern media outlets amplify its message uncritically. State officials and intelligence officers are among the least trustworthy sources, journalistically speaking. Yet many of the biggest stories in recent years have been based on nothing except the hearsay of officials who would not even put their names to their claims.

The level of credulity modern journalists have for the powerful was summed up by former CNN White House Correspondent Michelle Kosinski, who last month stated that:

As an American journalist, you never expect:

  • Your own govt to lie to you, repeatedly
  • Your own govt to hide information the public has a right to know
  • Your own govt to spy on your communications

Unfortunately, credulity stretches into outright collaboration with intelligence in some cases. Leaked emails show that the Los Angeles Times’ national security reporter Ken Dilanian sent his articles directly to the CIA to be edited before they were published. Far from hurting his career, however, Dilanian is now a correspondent covering national security issues for NBC News.

Boyd-Barrett said that governments are dependent on “the assistance of a penetrated, colluding and docile mainstream media which of late — and in the context of massive confusion over Internet disinformation campaigns, real and alleged — appear ever more problematic guardians of the public right to know.”

In recent years, the national security state has increased its influence over social media giants as well. In 2018, Facebook and the Atlantic Council entered a partnership whereby the Silicon Valley giant partially outsourced curation of its 2.8 billion users’ news feeds to the Council’s Digital Forensics Lab, supposedly to help stop the spread of fake news online. The result, however, has been the promotion of “trustworthy” corporate media outlets like Fox News and CNN and the penalization of independent and alternative sources, which have seen their traffic decrease precipitously. Earlier this year, Facebook also hired former NATO press officer and current Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Ben Nimmo to be its chief of intelligence. Reddit’s Director of Policy is also a former Atlantic Council official.

Meanwhile, in 2019, a senior Twitter executive for the Middle East region was unmasked as an active duty officer in the British Army’s 77th Brigade, its unit dedicated to psychological operations and online warfare. The most notable thing about this event was the almost complete lack of attention it received from the mainstream press. Coming at a time when foreign interference online was perhaps the number one story dominating the news cycle, only one major outlet, Newsweek, even mentioned it. Furthermore, the reporter who covered the story left his job just weeks later, citing stifling top-down censorship and a culture of deference to national security interests.

The purpose of this article is not to accuse any of those mentioned of being intelligence agency plants (although at least one person did actually work as an intel officer). The point is rather to highlight that we now have a media landscape where many of the West’s most influential journalists are being trained by exactly the same people in the same department as the next generation of national security operatives.

It is hardly a good look for a healthy, open democracy that so many spies, government officials, and journalists trusted to hold them accountable on our behalf are all being shot out of the very same cannon. Learning side by side has helped to create a situation where the fourth estate has become overwhelmingly deferential to the so-called deep state, where anonymous official’s words are taken as gospel. The Department of War Studies is just one part of this wider phenomenon.T

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles

June 5, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment