Today, James begins inducting MSM liars, dodgy politicians and intelligence agency scoundrels into The Corbett Report Hall of Shame. Simultaneously, he begins inducting truth-telling whistleblowers and courageous journalists into The Corbett Report Hall of Fame. Who will make the cut? Who do you think should make the cut in the future? Join James for this week’s edition of The Corbett Report podcast and get your thinking cap on!
Young CBS journalist Dan Rather became one of the first people on the planet to see the Zapruder film of the JFK assassination in November 1963. He then immediately rushed to the TV studio to lie about what he saw! SHAAAAME!
Michael Ruppert- CIA involvement in Drug Trafficking
Time Reference:
11:24
Description:
Michael Ruppert throws a 1996 CIA PR event into disarray when he tells Director Deutsch to his face that the CIA has dealt drugs in the USA for a long time. FAAAME!
A Crack in the Story — NBC Dateline (13 June 1997)
Time Reference:
14:45
Description:
An extensive 1997 report on the CIA drug running story that features CIA officer Duane Clarridge denying that there has EVER been a conspiracy in the USA! SHAAAAME!
Frank Church on The Intelligence Gathering Debate (1975)
Time Reference:
17:59
Description:
Senator Frank Church warns about the electronic surveillance capabilities of the US intelligence agencies and the threat that they pose to “democracy” itself.
William Colby presents the “heart attack gun” to the Church Committee
Time Reference:
18:43
Description:
CIA Director William Colby interrogated by Senator Frank Church at a Senate committee hearing on intelligence operations. Colby exhibits and explains the use of a poison dart firing pistol that fires shellfish toxin and other poisonous ammunition. FAAAAME!
The issue of dual loyalty is an ancient one. As noted in a previous TOO article,
[Stephen] Walt points out that [Dennis] Ross has a long involvement with pro-Israel activist organizations, such as being director of WINEP [Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank headquartered in Washington, DC].
But Ross’s ties to Israel are even deeper than that. Until his appointment as Middle East envoy in the Obama Administration, from 2002–2009 Ross was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. This organization has assumed the role of long term planning for the Jewish people, not only in Israel but also the Diaspora. The JPPPI is an independent think tank that reports to the Israeli government and has close ties with other Jewish organizations. Its mission is “to promote the thriving of the Jewish people via professional strategic thinking and planning on issues of primary concern to world Jewry. JPPPI’s work is based on deep commitment to the future of the Jewish people with Israel as its core state.”
The JPPPI’s report Facing Tomorrow 2008 is interesting because it focuses on the threat of Iran and but also because it sees people like Stephen Walt as a threat to Israel:
The Jewish people must, as the highest priority, develop an appropriate response to the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and to global stability as a whole. While there is no ambiguity about the need to do so in Israel, it is necessary to mobilize Jewish opinion around the world as well. The American Jewish community cannot be intimidated either by a post Iraq syndrome in the United States, or by the false and pernicious allegations of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, or former President Carter.
In other words, Jews around the world are encouraged to mobilize to combat the threat to Israel represented by Iran. The assumption is that Jews have common interests as Jews no matter what country they happen to live in. Dennis Ross is doing his best to promote exactly this view within the Obama administration.
One might think that such a view would leave Jews in the Diaspora open to the charge of disloyalty, but the problem is easily finessed: Jews in the Diaspora are told to frame Israel’s concerns about Iran as a global threat, not simply as a threat to Israel.
Of course, that’s what we are seeing now. But we needn’t be naïve. Jews like Dennis Ross are clearly far more loyal to Israel than to the US. Speaking as a psychologist, they wouldn’t be able to see a conflict of interest between the US and Israel if it was staring them in the face. Indeed, as Gore Vidal said of Norman Podhoretz, they are unregistered agents of a foreign government.
In a sane society, there would be a huge groundswell of public opposition to Ross’s appointment–as there has been for a number of Obama’s appointments. But that won’t happen.
Since there has been no groundswell of media or public opposition to pro-Israel operatives like Ross at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it’s not surprising that the practice continues. Amos Hochstein is a good contemporary example. Israel and the powerful Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah militia are on the brink of open warfare, conflict that could trigger U.S. intervention and escalate to a regional or even a world war. To date these dangers have attracted little notice from the American mass media, ever eager to divert and dissemble from the direr consequences of the Washington regime’s one-sided support for Israel. Small wonder, then, that the media should evince the same reluctance in investigating the shadowy past and dubious allegiance of Hochstein, the emissary the U.S. recently dispatched to “mediate” between Hezbollah and Israel. The following is a brief foray into the workings of the Israel Lobby in the Biden Administration, as well as a primer on the perks of being Jewish in America.
Hochstein’s importance
To be sure, media reports have not slighted Hochstein’s great influence in the Biden White House or his meteoric career. He has been described as “one of President Biden’s closest confidantes [who] has worked with him for many years,” while another Washington insider calls Hochstein “the person who bridges State, Treasury, the White House and Energy”
Yet the media have underplayed, and often ignored, a key fact about Hochstein in his role as an impartial arbiter between Hezbollah and Israel: his birth, youth, and military service in Israel.
Beyond those bare facts about his origins, Hochstein has been remarkably unforthcoming about his life before he arrived in the United States in 1974. While nearly every successful denizen of the D.C. is eager to brandish Ivy League/Seven Sisters (or the equivalent) educational credentials, one may scour the internet (including his page on the usually resume-rich LinkedIn job-hunting site) without finding anything about Hochstein’s education, college or secondary.
Just as murky are the circumstances by which Adam Hochstein, a 21-year-old immigrant with unknown credentials, became a congressional staffer within a year of his arrival in this country, working for Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) who, like Hochstein, is a Jew.
Despite his youth and inexperience, Hochstein carried out important assignments for Gejdenson. Not yet 25, he traveled to North Korea in 1997 to report on its economic and military situation; still in his twenties, he undertook negotiations with the Iraqi government (against the advice of the U.S. State Department) aimed at “resettling” thousands of Palestinians there in exchange for loosening some of the crippling sanctions then in force there.
Well before 9/11, Hochstein advocated acting against Iraq for harboring “weapons of mass destruction” in a press release issued by Congressman Gejdenson, and soon afterward he was serving as senior advisor to a senator and a governor. Like many members of the permanent government, Hochstein has used hiatuses between his party’s dominance to work in lobbying and industries close to government, in his case capitalizing on energy policy expertise that he seems to have acquired with no expertise in the field. He’s evidently done well, at some point becoming a partner in two D.C. restaurants and a movie theater.
Under Obama, Hochstein (without known diplomatic training or experience) rapidly climbed the ladder at the State Department to become America’s chief energy negotiator, deeply involved in efforts to block Russian natural gas from Europe and to facilitate Israeli access to energy.
During the Trump presidency, Hochstein served on the board of Ukraine’s natural gas company, Naftogaz.
Hochstein’s knowledge of the ins and outs of Ukraine’s shady corrupt energy industry is evidently considerable. In his testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Hunter Biden stated that Hochstein had advised him merely to be “very careful” in serving on the board of the notoriously corrupt Burisma corporation.
Hochstein also seems to have had a role in the “whistle blowing” that led to Trump’s first impeachment resulting from a phone call interpreted by Democrats as pressuring Zelensky to investigate Biden family corruption in Ukraine, and to have been advising Zelensky before his election.
It’s also interesting that there is a lack of definitive information on Hochstein’s current citizenship:
According to one report, a State Department source has claimed that he is “not a dual national,” but refused to state if he has renounced his Israeli citizenship, and in fact gave no [details as to Hochstein’s American citizenship.] So the question raised, unanswered— Hochstein’s citizenship is evidently a “carefully guarded secret.” Not acknowledging Hochstein’s Israeli citizenship would be useful because, for example, in Lebanon, where Hochstein has been involved as an American negotiator on the Israeli conflict with Hezbollah, “it is normally illegal for an Israeli” to visit Lebanon.
Even Hezbollah at the time did not comment on the mediator’s nationality or military past, with leader Hassan Nasrallah saying they will “not express an opinion or position related to the demarcation of borders”.
Given all this, it’s hard to disagree with this quote originally from Ha’aretz:
… the American brokerage farce, whose players are almost all American Jews, some of them former or future Israelis. If the United States is a side in the conflict, then it should say so and conduct the negotiation as though Israel is its protégé. And if it really wants to be an honest broker, then come on – Amos Hochstein?…
A TLAV investigation has found that Erik Prince, the man behind the Blackwater mercenary group, recently teamed up with an Israeli spy, creating a front company with her to help Israeli defense technology providers exploit loopholes and sell their products to the American military.
For years, Erik Prince – the founder of mercenary firm Blackwater (now Academi) – has been a major source of controversy. Ever since he left Blackwater over a decade ago, Prince has appeared in the news for pushing to privatize several wars, his ties to former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns, his violation of international arms embargoes and his unusually close ties with Project Veritas, among other notable events and connections.
However, some of Prince’s antics in recent years have not yet made it into the news – namely his decision to team up with an Israeli spy to build a very secretive company that has – until now – evaded scrutiny. That company, Comframe Solutions, appears to operate as an intelligence front and explicitly targets parts of the American military involved in highly sensitive combat operations. As this investigation will show, Prince’s partner in Comframe – Lital Leshem – has been tied to a series of apparent, and admitted, Israeli intelligence front companies, several of which have a focus on technology. Yet Prince and his close associate Chris Burgess – Comframe’s supposed president – have done everything they can to hide their association with the incredibly secretive company. Why might that be and what exactly is Comframe up to?
From “Army Brat” to Cyber Spy
Lital Leshem was raised as an “army brat” in Reut, Israel and Pennsylvania, USA. She later enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as she was “truly devoted to safeguarding the State of Israel.” She quickly rose in the ranks, becoming Operations Officer in the IDF of the besieged Gaza Strip and later becoming a Major, a position she continues to hold to this date through her “reserve duty activities.” According to her LinkedIn, she served in Israeli military intelligence from 2005 to 2011 and, more specifically, served in its signals intelligence unit – Unit 8200. She later attended IDC Herzliya, an Israeli university deeply tied to its military and intelligence apparatus. There, she met Amir Elichai and the two would co-create the company Reporty, which later became Carbyne911 – today known only as Carbyne.
Carbyne was originally founded as Reporty in 2014 by Leshem, Elichai and Alex Dizengof. Leshem and Elichai are Unit 8200 veterans, while Dizengof previously worked for Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office. Before it was revealed that Jeffrey Epstein had poured at least 1 million dollars into the company at the behest of his close associate Ehud Barak, Cabryne’s board of directors – which Barak chaired – included the former commander of Unit 8200, Pinchas Buchris, as well as Epstein associate turned venture capitalist Nicole Junkermann. In the wake of the Epstein scandal, Buchris, Barak and Junkerman, among others, were removed from the board and were largely replaced with veterans and former heads of American intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Leshem had left the company in 2017, but has continued to own shares in the company.
Carbyne is a Next-Generation 9-11 (NG911) platform and the explicit goal of NG911 is for all 911 systems nationwide to become interconnected. It is currently active throughout the United States, its main target market. Its software has been criticized due to “serious privacy concerns” about the amount of information it harvests from smartphones that call a 911 call center running Carbyne’s software. For instance, Carbyne’s smartphone app extracts the following informationfrom the phones on which it is installed:
“Device location, video live-streamed from the smartphone to the call center, text messages in a two-way chat window, any data from a user’s phone if they have the Carbyne app and ESInet, and any information that comes over a data link, which Carbyne opens in case the caller’s voice link drops out.”
The potential for Carbyne as a tool for mass surveillance has been extensively reported by Narativ, MintPress Newsand other outlets. In addition, Carbyne stores all data on past calls and events in order to “enabl[e] decision makers to accurately analyze the past and present behavior of their callers, react accordingly, and in time predict future patterns.” As a result, Carbyne – along with other Israeli intelligence-connected companies seeking to dominate the American “public safety” market – has the potential to facilitate controversial “predictive policing”, i.e. pre-crime, policies.
In addition to Carbyne, Leshem also worked for Black Cube, which has since been removed from her LinkedIn. There, she had been the firms Director of Marketing. Black Cube was specifically outed as an Israeli intelligence front organization in a 2019 article published by Calcalist Tech. That same article also contains the stunning revelation that many Israeli companies, including Black Cube, have been founded as fronts for intelligence operations since 2012. It states that “since 2012, cyber-related and intelligence projects that were previously carried out in-house in the Israeli military and Israel’s main intelligence arms are transferred to companies that in some cases were built for this exact purpose.” The article also adds that:
“In some cases, managers of development projects in the Israeli military and intelligence arms were encouraged to form their own companies which then took over the [military and/or intelligence] project.”
With Leshem having worked for one company already known to be a product of this deliberate policy, it is worth scrutinizing Carbyne as being one such front, especially considering the common tie of Ehud Barak to both companies. In addition, Leshem has also worked for another company tied to Barak that has been described as worse than the NSO Group, which produced the notorious Pegasus software. Called Toka, its top executives – like Carbyne – are largely veterans of Israeli’s Unit 8200, where Leshem also served, or former commanders of Israeli military cyber operations.
Toka, which Ehud Barak founded in 2018, is very, very likely to be one of the front organizations produced as a result of the aforementioned 2012 Israeli intelligence policy. The company is directly partnered with Israel’s Ministry of Defense and other Israeli intelligence and security agencies since its founding and the company only sells its products to countries that are considered allies of Israel. It purports to be able to hack, not just smartphones, but any device with internet connectivity, such as doorbell cameras and other “smart” devices. As will be noted later in this article, Leshem herself has noted that Toka has a relationship with the CIA.
After being involved with a series of Israeli intelligence fronts and her enduring ties to Israeli military intelligence through her “reserve duty activities”, Leshem was courted by a surprising figure – Erik Prince, war profiteer and founder of the controversial mercenary outfit Blackwater.
Partnering with Prince
Leshem says that she met Prince after she “randomly stumbled across his path and joined his team.” There, per her website, she “managed his business portfolio and his global investments.” Her LinkedIn lists her as serving as the executive director of global business development of Frontier Resource Group (FRG) from 2018 to 2021. Frontier Resource Group was founded by Prince and is “an Africa-dedicated investment firm partnered with major Chinese enterprises, including at least one state-owned resource giant that is keen to pour money into the resource-rich continent,” according to the South China Post. It not only operates in Africa, but also other countries due to its contracts to support China’s One Belt One Road initiative, which were signed in 2019.
FRG is a subsidiary of Frontier Services Group (FSG), which Prince also founded. In 2013, he sold a majority share of FSG to the China International Trust Investment Corporation (CITIC), a state-owned Chinese investment company that is among the largest of the country’s state-run conglomerates. CITIC, during the mid-1990s, was chaired by Wang Jun, who doubled as China’s chief arms dealer and was a key figure in the “Chinagate” scandal of the Clinton White House. As detailed in One Nation Under Blackmail, that scandal involved the illicit transfer of American military technology to China and the illicit transfer of Chinese weapons, whose sale in the US was banned during this time, into the United States. Mark Middleton, a White House aide, and Jeffrey Epstein are some of the names apparently involved with those activities. “Chinagate” appears to have been a joint venture between factions of the CIA and Israeli intelligence and has never been properly investigated by federal authorities. It seems that Prince, who was (and may still be) a CIA asset, and Leshem have engaged in similar activities via FRG/FSG. For example, TRTWorld reported that Leshem is “speculated” to have transferred Carbyne’s technology to China via her role at FRG and her connection to Prince. China launched an app that was nearly analogous to Carbyne, but more explicitly focused on surveillance, at the same time that Carbyne launched its first 911 call system in the United States.
In addition, TRTWorld notes, the company DarkMatter, a UAE surveillance and intelligence group that employs former US intelligence operatives, attracted the attention of Chinese officials at a smart cities conference in 2015. DarkMatter, which was launched to modernize Emirati intelligence and military operations, signed a Global Strategic Memorandum of Understanding with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant. The middle man in this sale was none other than Erik Prince. Leshem and another Prince associate, Dorian Barak, also have business ties to the UAE via their prominent roles at the UAE-Israel Business Council.
“With similar technology being used, and the same mercenary middle-man between Carbyne and China who brought together UAE’s DarkMatter surveillance technology with China, indications point to a likely transfer of surveillance technology from Epstein’s Israeli company [Carbyne] to China.”
Comframe – Secretive Company or Intelligence Front?
Prince’s and Leshem’s joint activities after Leshem left FRG suggest that this pattern of behavior has not only continued, but deepened. According to Leshem’s website, a year and a half after she started working for Prince, she and Prince “joined forces to found Comframe, a company that takes the best of Israeli defense technology providers, and helps them penetrate the American market by bridging prevalent gaps.” Leshem also says Comframe was assisted by her “premier integrator and business development platform for deploying advanced military, special operations, public safety and HLS solutions in the United States, and a wide network of partnership, both government and civilian.”
In discussing Comframe elsewhere, Leshem writes that the company she co-founded with Prince “is led and staffed by Special Operations and defense procurement veterans with billions of dollars of successful sales to USG and foreign government to their names.” She says that Comframe has a “track-record of success implementing complex procurement and integrations programs from intelligence gathering & analysis, to contracting, program sales and personnel deployment, is exceptional.”
What Leshem says of the company clashes with Comframe’s threadbare public presence. For instance, its website, which is notably short on content, lists the following companies as partners – TomCar, BlueBird Aero Systems, General Robotics, SafeStrike, Ops-Core (now part of Gentex Corp) and Axon. On its partners page, Comframe says that this is “a small sampling of our current partners we have chosen to work with.” Most of these companies were created by Israeli military/military intelligence veterans.
Aside from the partners page, there is little other information available on the Comframe site. It describes its mission as “to source cutting-edge, innovative technologies that safely and securely solve articulated U.S. government problems” and touts its “get it done” commitment and how its employees “wake up every morning wanting to find solutions that keep the U.S. government safe and more lethal.” It lists the company’s president as Chris Burgess. Burgess, a former NAVY Seal who trained with Erik Prince, does not list Comframe on his LinkedIn or in any other site discussing his work history. He is currently the CEO of military contractorRegulus Global. Burgess previously ran a mercenary firm he founded, Greystone Ltd., that was previously affiliated with Prince’s Blackwater and was originally intended to be Blackwater’s “sister company.”
Both Blackwater (now Academi) and Greystone have been accused of sending mercenaries to fight in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Both companies deny this. The accusations came after Prince had planned to create a “private army” in Ukraine, something he has attempted to do (and sometimes succeeded) in various conflict zones, such as Afghanistan. Prince has also attempted to offer “lethal services” to Russia’s Wagner group.
Aside from Burgess’ apparent unwillingness to associate himself publicly with Comframe, there is also the fact that the only employee publicly associated with Comframe at all is Lital Leshem. Indeed, even Erik Prince has declined to publicly affiliate himself with the company. Another oddity is the fact that Comframe’s website has an “Industry News” page that contains several blog posts with titles discussing oil markets and geopolitics. However, the content of the posts themselves are all filler generated by WordPress. Was Comframe also intended to work in commodities markets? The odd and sparse nature of the website seems to clash with Leshem’s characterization of the company.
So, what is Comframe exactly and what is it intended to do? Why are the only people associated with the company two professional mercenaries, one of whom is a known CIA asset, and an Israeli spy? A 2020 article published in the Jerusalem Post seems to highlight Comframe’s mysterious inner workings and likely purpose.
That article notes that Comframe acted as a middleman in forging an agreement to create an assembly line in El Paso, TX in order for the Israeli company Tomcar to “offer its latest models to the US Armed Forces.” The agreement was made between Tomcar and Prince Manufacturing, a major contract manufacturing company that works with Ford, General Motors and Tesla, among others. Prince Manufacturing was notably founded and run for many years by Edgar Prince, Erik Prince’s father. Notably Tomcar, its founder – Yoram Zarchi – and his son (works for Tomcar) – Ram Zarchi – appear in the Panama Papers as does the former holding company that owned Tomcar from 2004 to 2011.
The article notes that Comframe “is focused on recognizing needs in the US defense industry and matching them to possible solutions, usually involving innovative Israeli companies.” However, the article notes, “to meet the demands of American security needs, one must have an American entity.” Leshem is then quoted as saying, “Ram [Zarchi of Tomcar] had been living in Phoenix for 15 years, but he can’t do that [sell to the American military because he is not a US citizen]. We can.”
In other words, per Leshem, Comframe utilizes Prince and presumably Burgess to sell Israeli defense technology and products to the American military that would otherwise not happen due to national security concerns around buying foreign-made products for sensitive defense and military operations. Leshem goes on to state Comframe sells “to the US Special Forces and other branches of the service [i.e. US military],” noting that Comframe is specifically targeting Special Ops. She also suggests that, aside from the US military, another intended market for the company is NATO – she told the Jerusalem Post that the US “controls 70% of NATO’s defense industry.”
The article ends by stating that, for Comframe, when sales are related to national security, one still has to have “boots on the ground,” suggesting why Comframe has such a minimal web and online presence. This is similar to another company Leshem has been working for while at Comframe, Ehud Barak’s Toka. Notably, at the end of this very article, Leshem uses Toka as an example regarding Comframe’s “boots on the ground” sales approach. She states:
“Hi-tech companies like Toka with clients like the CIA, can’t discuss what they do using Zoom.”
A New Pattern for Prince
Comframe is a very suspect company – it is highly, highly secretive, targets sensitive American military agencies with foreign technology, and its known employees are apparent spooks and intelligence-linked mercenaries. Not only that, but the history of Israeli espionage in the United States – from Jonathan Pollard and PROMIS to Comverse and beyond – shows a concerted effort to target the American military and security agencies, often with bugged or “backdoored” technology.
In addition to the above, Prince has also recently engaged in efforts to market a very suspect smartphone to MAGA Republicans as being “unhackable” and “unsurveillable.” That phone was “designed in Israel” and the company that produces it is called Unplugged. According to reports, Unplugged’s “day-to-day technology operations are run by Eran Karpen, a former employee of CommuniTake, the Israeli start-up that gave rise to the now infamous hacker-for-hire firm NSO Group.” Karpen, like Leshem, is also a veteran of Unit 8200.
Notably, DarkMatter, the UAE private intelligence company that was mentioned earlier due to its association with Prince, once marketed an “ultrasecure” phone called Katim, only to be later outed for hacking dissidents and journalists. In addition, Prince debuted Unplugged’s phone on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” program. Both Prince and Bannon have controversial relationships with exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Guo.
That Prince would help market this phone specifically to MAGA Republicans is disturbing given that his associate Leshem and other Israeli intelligence veterans and operatives have played a major role in developing the infrastructure for the US’ “War on Domestic Terror,” which is mainly targeted at the political right and has already utilized mass surveillance through smartphones and other technologies to justify arrests, including “pre-crime” arrests. Given the content of this investigation, Prince’s ties to foreign governments and intelligence agencies should be heavily scrutinized, especially Comframe – whose secretive activities may be drastically undermining American national security.
One is run by the University of Hull’s Environmental Department, the other is used by the Met Office for climatological purposes and typically runs two degrees hotter.
It does not take a genius to work out which is which!
The president insisted that his campaign would continue and that he was the best candidate for the job in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Friday.
Rejecting calls for him to step aside, Biden defended his determination to remain in the race by using one of his favorite foreign policy talking points, the conceit that America is the indispensable or essential nation. Building on the idea expressed by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a quarter century ago, the president said, “You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. Not — and that’s not hy — sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world. Madeleine Albright was right.”
Later in the interview, Biden also maintained that there was no one else who could lead as well as he could. He asked Stephanopoulos, “who’s gonna be able to hold NATO together like me? Who’s gonna be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we’re — we’re at least checkmating China now? Who’s gonna — who’s gonna do that? Who has that reach?”
The president would have everyone believe that he is an irreplaceable leader of the indispensable nation, but the idea that he has been “running the world” betrays a dangerous arrogance about both the president’s importance and America’s international role. The U.S. didn’t “run” the world even at the height of its power, and it is foolish to think that it could in an increasingly multipolar world.
Biden’s belief helps explain why the president refuses to end his campaign, but it also points to a key flaw in the current strategy of the United States. Washington is overstretched around the world and has more commitments than it can realistically honor. That overstretch is a result of the false belief that the world can’t do without American “leadership.” U.S. leaders refuse to shift burdens to anyone else in any part of the world because they wrongly assume that no other countries can bear them.
Just as Biden clings to his position when there are others able to take his place, the U.S. clings to its current strategy because it doesn’t want to accept a world where it isn’t “essential.”
It is beyond the competence of any state to be the “essential nation.” It is a self-important fantasy to believe that the world depends on any one country to such a great extent. When Washington has acted on this belief in its supposedly essential role, it has done considerable harm to its own interests and to other countries. There have been many crises and conflicts where American involvement was not needed and where that involvement made matters worse than they were before.
Everyone can see that in obvious cases like the Iraq war or the intervention in Libya, but it also applies to the frequent use of broad sanctions from Venezuela to Iran to North Korea. We can see it in the U.S. supporting role in the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and we see it again today in Biden’s support for the war in Gaza. In those instances when U.S. involvement has not been destructive, it is often not required.
Insisting that we are essential to the rest of the globe is how our leaders excuse constant meddling in things that have little or nothing to do with America’s interests. It is a handy way to shut down the policy debate by claiming that the U.S. really has no choice except to intervene and take sides in disputes and conflicts where we have nothing vital at stake. That is how the list of commitments keeps growing and never gets any smaller.
No matter what one thinks about Biden’s fitness, the limits of American power and the relative decline of that power in recent decades make the indispensable nation belief more absurd than ever. Albright’s original claim wasn’t true when she made it, and it certainly isn’t today. It is a measure of how dated Biden’s worldview is that he still cites a Clinton-era phrase as if it were relevant to current realities.
Our current foreign policy is unsustainable given America’s limitations, and we need to have a much less ambitious one in the years to come if we are to avoid the costs of more unnecessary conflicts.
No president, regardless of age or condition, should imagine that he “runs the world” and none should try. No one can possibly shoulder that much responsibility, and no one is up to the task. Biden isn’t up to “running the world,” but then neither is anyone else.
Nokia’s former Technology Chief, Matti Niemelä, was involved in the development the world’s first mobile phones, but fell seriously ill himself from mobile-phone microwave radiation.
In addition, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Some studies suggest that radiation may increase the risk of even MS.
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For Tampere-based Matti Niemelä, age 44, life was like in the movies when he as a young man was recruited to work for Nokia in 1997. The brilliant young man quickly advanced to become Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer for ten years, and was involved in developing the world’s first mobile phones, memory sticks and WLAN [Wi-Fi] connections.
In 2007, Niemelä’s career hit a brick wall as his health finally failed. Today, he is only able to move using a walker. Niemelä refuses to use a wheelchair.
– The irony of this is that I’m no longer able to use any of those devices that I had been developing, Niemelä says with a smile.
Niemelä is one of the unfortunate who have experienced severe symptoms of radiation.
– Traveling around the world with a communicator [early model smart-phone] in hand, exposure to radiation was very strong from morning to night, and even at night.
Few people have had such an overload of radiation than me, says Niemelä.
The first symptoms appeared already within a year of his employment at Nokia.
– I was playing badminton, and I could no longer hit the the ball during a serve, even though I’d played badminton for a while.
At first Niemelä didn’t dare go to the doctor, mainly because of the fear of brain cancer.
The symptoms got worse year by year.
– I couldn’t walk around while talking on the mobile-phone, because it caused coordination problems. The more intense the exposure, the more his speech slurred.
Also my ear felt hot when I talked on the phone for a longer times. I struggled on, using the phone until I could no longer feel my own skin. Then I had to go to the doctor, Niemelä explains.
In 2001, MRI images, and cerebrospinal fluid samples revealed the brutal truth: multiple sclerosis.
– I was kind of relieved, because one can cope with MS, but not so with brain cancer.
According to Niemelä, medical representatives aren’t willing to take a position on whether mobile phone radiation caused the MS. Preliminary results, however, show that radiation increases the risk of multiple sclerosis.
– I am a layman, not a doctor. MS is certainly caused by a number of factors, not just mobile-phone radiation. The radiation does, however, increase my MS symptoms.
Also, symptoms of the disease may easily be confused with the mobile-phone radiation symptoms, Niemelä explains. During the interview, Niemelä’s voice begins to slur, badly.
A sign in the hallway asks you to switch off the mobile phone. Even a small radiation exposure is too much.
– I can no longer go to the cinema or stay in public areas with lots of radiation for long. I have not been anywhere for a long time says Niemelä who in his forties, must accept that the four walls of his home are now a prison.
Although Niemelä has lost his health, career and more recently his marriage, he does not blame anyone.
– I’m not bitter, it was my own choice to work for Nokia.
He also doesn’t want to scare too many about cell phone dangers.
– A healthy person can use a mobile phone responsibly.
Niemelä, admits that going public with his story carries a big risk.
– I’m scared to talk about this in public, because I do not want to be labeled as crazy.
Niemelä explains that the subject of mobile phone radiation has always been kept silent at Nokia.
– You couldn’t talk about it within the company. Yet, among the staff, it was speculated whether the radiation could cause damage. However, no one dared to bring it up, because it could get them fired.
Niemelä says he brought up the matter with the doctor for the first time in 2006.
– The doctor told me about a number of patients who are suffering from the same symptoms as me, Niemelä reveals.
Niemelä is particularly concerned about the children and their mobile phone use, because the continuous exposure to the ear and head does not do any good.
– These things have been kept silent for too long. I hope it will become possible to discuss the symptoms openly, and without fear.
**************
Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia and Microsoft’s current Senior Vice President Tom Kuuppelomäki assures that all products meet the requirements set by international health bodies and standards.
– Product safety is of paramount importance both for Nokia and Microsoft.
With plenty of Nokia employees using mobile-phones during the past decades, wouldn’t it have been evident if the radiation was causing symptoms?
– The World Health Organization’s has looked at a number of studies, from the last two decades, with the aim to determine whether mobile-phones pose a potential health risk.
Kuuppelomäki insists that to date, studies have not demonstrated adverse health effects from mobile-phone use.
What kind of studies on radiation has Nokia done and commissioned since the late 1980s?
– Nokia and Microsoft are now participating in the MMF (Mobile Manufacturers Forum) research funding.
Mainly in conjunction with governmental organizations and other industry representatives of the funded research programs and projects can be found in the MMF‘s Web site.
– We believe that nonpartisan research will produce the best consumer information on equipment safety.
How will the health effects be studied in the future?
– WHO has made recommendations for further research on electromagnetic fields to enable a thorough risk assessment.
You may have heard about the new “animal-free dairy milk” called Bored Cow. It’s being billed as a more animal and environmentally friendly option to traditional milk that comes from a ruminant’s udders. It all sounds great until you dig a bit deeper to learn that it is produced using synthetic biology (synbio), using genetically engineered (GE) yeast that is then put into a so-called ‘precision fermentation’ system. While the whey protein in it is the same as that found in cow’s milk, that’s only a small part of the overall story. Emerging data from some scientists, like John Fagan from the Health Research Institute(HRI), says the fermentation isn’t as precise as claimed, and there’s a lot of other compounds in the milk, some of which have never been recorded by science before. That might mean that drinking Bored Cow ‘milk’ on a daily basis could have unknown and potentially dangerous human health implications. This might just be one product, but it matters because powerful special interests are working to make synbio the tech platform of our food system moving forward—where farms are replaced with fermentation tanks—in the name of protecting the environment.
What’s happening here is an effort to get consumers to believe they can enjoy all the flavor, mouth feel, and nutrition of real cow’s milk…without the involvement of any cows (hence the “Bored Cow” name). Bored Cow is made with whey protein produced through a process called “precision fermentation,” a form of synbio. This involves taking a gene for whey protein and inserting it into a GE yeast. The yeast is put into fermentation tanks with other nutrients to help it grow. At the end the GE yeast is supposed to be filtered out, leaving only the milk protein. Bored Cow takes this protein and adds vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients to mimic the taste, consistency, and nutritional content of real cow’s milk.
Far from ‘bioequivalent’
The marketing hype behind Bored Cow starts falling apart when you learn that it’s not even close to being equivalent to real milk from pasture. HRI’s independent testing found 92 unknown compounds in this synbio milk. Fagan, HRI’s chief scientist, said these compounds are “completely novel to our food…They are nutritional dark matter.”
The FDA must be on top of this, right? Wrong. Bored Cow has not undergone safety testing at the FDA. Perfect Day, the manufacturer of the synbio whey protein, determined it was “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) and voluntarily notified the FDA of this determination; in response the FDA said it had no questions. Given how rife the GRAS process is with conflicts of interest, this is akin to taking the company’s word for it that its novel synbio whey protein is safe.
Nor is it very likely that Bored Cow is nutritionally equivalent to real milk. Just as meat is more than just protein, milk is far more than a simple combination of whey and various vitamins and minerals. Milkfat contains 400 different fatty acids. Milk has two types of proteins, whey and casein—and there are several different types of these two proteins contained in milk, and a whole bundle of other compounds like lactoferrin and bioactive peptides that help prime the immune system.
Bored Cow is representative of a whole new generation of GE foods that are in development, some of which we’ve written about previously. Older genetically modified (GM) foods were created by modifying the genome of a living plant by inserting, for example, an herbicide-resistance trait. That was nothing compared to what’s going on now. GE yeast or fungi are being used as little factories to manufacture food components that regulators say are biologically equivalent to their natural counterparts, so, they say, no additional testing is required because the foods have been shown to be safe through their long history of consumption. But, as we’ve seen, getting a yeast to make one protein found in milk, fermenting it, then adding nutrients, and slapping “milk” on the label doesn’t make it milk. Nor, for that matter, is lab-grown meat biologically equivalent to pasture-raised meat.
And herein lies the problem. The entire framework for dealing with genetically engineered foods in the US is fundamentally broken. That’s because the federal government decided decades ago that the final product is all that matters, not the process used to create that product. This was codified in the 1986 Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology, which was updated in 1992 and again in 2017. Astoundingly, it wasn’t updated to install more robust safety measures to protect Americans from new and previously unthinkable forms of food. It was updated in large part to remove or mitigate “unnecessary costs and burdens” that “limit the ability of technology developers” to “navigate the regulatory process” which also “hamper economic growth, innovation, and competitiveness.” That is, the Framework was updated to make it easier for the biotech industry to ger their frankenfoods onto our dinner plates!
We’re worried that what’s coming are further “updates” to this framework that allow GE foods and those developed using synbio technologies to be considered “bioequivalent” to their natural counterparts—in essence, drinking the lab-grown food industry’s Kool-Aid. If regulators determine that synbio milk is equivalent to real milk, will consumers be allowed to make their own choices, or will we be sold out as we were with the sham GMO labeling law that allowed companies to hide the GM contents of their food in scannable codes?
Some countries are already moving in that direction: Costa Rica just adopted new regulations which treat a wide-range of gene edited products as equivalent to conventionally-bred products. This is something we have to keep a keen eye on.
The advent of lab-grown meat, plant-based meat, and products like Bored Cow show how inadequate our current laws are in dealing with these foods. Of course it matters how these foods are made! CRISPR, the gene-editing technology, is known to produce unintended outcomes. What evidence is there that eating food grown in laboratories from genetically modified yeast—food that is significantly different than the food we have evolved to eat over human history—is safe, much less healthy?
Put simply, the fake meat and milk synbio manufacturers are exploiting old rules never intended for synbio products so they can escape doing any safety testing before their products hit the market. They’re using all-too-familiar revolving doors with the FDA to get their way, and they want to deceive us into thinking they’re saving the planet from those nasty, carbon dioxide-producing animals while offering us foods that are as safe and healthy as those produced on real farms with the help of real animals—without any of it.
We’re watching these developments closely, and we’ll alert you as soon as we see an opportunity to take political action on this critical issue. In the meantime, please share this article widely, as we need a lot more awareness of how synbio makers are using the principle of ‘bioequivalence’ to get their questionable foods into our mouths.
Thanks to Dr. Clare Craig for highlighting this clip from Dr. David White on Twitter/X today. It’s important for people to understand how Pfizer manipulated the categorization of deaths in their original trial, which led to politicians using the “safe and effective” narrative. Everyone should carefully watch this, as it not only raises concerns about Pfizer or Moderna’s mRNA vaccines but also highlights the broader corruption of medical information that prioritizes profit over safety.
Dr. David White, a retired general practitioner from the UK, masterfully breaks down the concerning aspects of the Pfizer BNT162b2 trial. He walks us through the intricate details and demonstrates how Pfizer may have “adjusted” the categorization of participant deaths to make it appear as though there were fewer cardiovascular deaths in the vaccine group than there actually were.
To recap, a total of 29 deaths from all causes were reported in the trial within six months, as published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The original trial showed that deaths were about 7% higher in the vaccine group, with 15 deaths, compared to 14 deaths in the placebo group. However, many “fact-checkers” and pharma shills “scientists” claim that this difference is not statistically significant.
This is intriguing because, according to a Lancet paper, there were 44,000 more deaths in England in 2022, driven by a sharp increase in cardiovascular deaths among the middle-aged, which rose by 33%. He wonders if cardiovascular deaths in the trial’s vaccine group were also 33% higher. This question is important because it seeks to determine if the higher death rate in the vaccinated group is related to the rise in cardiovascular deaths seen in the general population.
He walks us through four mysterious “causes of deaths” categorized in the paper:
An “Unevaluable Event” on a vaccinated death, which was found to be a sudden cardiac death confirmed via autopsy.
A “Missing” entry categorized as a “placebo” death, which was later found to be a “vaccinated” death.
“Emphysematous Cholecystitis,” which is a cardiovascular death but Pfizer said let’s put something that sounds really complicated and hope nobody knows its a cardiovascular death.
“Death” for participant #10841470. First of all categorizing a “cause of death” as “Death”, are you kidding? Anyway this participant died after taking a Moderna mRNA vaccine, but was categorized as a placebo death. I wrote about this issue here.
In conclusion, after recategorizing the deaths, all-cause deaths were 15% higher in the vaccine group. There were 10 cardiovascular deaths in the vaccine group and six in the placebo group, indicating that cardiovascular deaths were 66% higher in the vaccine group.
Dr. White highlights that these figures, particularly the increased all-cause mortality in the vaccine group, clearly point to safety signals. He stresses that informed consent is a fundamental ethical principle in medicine, necessitating the open discussion of such safety concerns. It is crucial to ensure that participants are fully informed about the potential risks associated with the vaccine to maintain trust and transparency within the medical community.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in America, has voted to divest its funds from Israel bonds and begin a process to encourage companies contributing to human rights abuses against Palestinians to change their practices. Alongside the financial decision, the church also passed a resolution condemning Christian Zionism, and thus rejecting the messianic ideology that views the takeover of Palestine to be part of a Biblical promise.
Votes were cast during the church’s General Assembly in Salt Lake City, Utah. The assembly, comprising 422 delegate commissioners and 82 advisory delegates, passed the resolutions as part of a broader package of legislation governing church activities.
The resolution to divest from Israel calls on the Presbyterian Foundation and Board of Pensions to divest from governmental debt held by countries maintaining prolonged military occupations and subject to UN resolutions. While this includes Turkey and Morocco, the focus has primarily been on Israel. The church, which has approximately 8,800 churches and 1 million members, has been sharply critical of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians for decades.
In addition to divestment, the church voted to begin a dialogue with General Electric and Palantir Technologies, encouraging them to end practices that harm Palestinians. The church contends that General Electric sells fighter jet engines used by Israel’s air force, while Palantir Technologies provides Israel with artificial intelligence technology for surveillance of Palestinians.
Alongside these financial measures, the church also passed a resolution condemning Christian Zionism, a messianic ideology that views the takeover of Palestine as part of a Biblical promise and a precursor to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This resolution denounces the linking of the State of Israel with Biblical views of the “promised land”, which the church argues is used to justify taking land away from Palestinians.
“There is a growing consensus in the church that we shouldn’t be profiting from Israel’s human rights abuses and, frankly, genocide against Palestinians,” said Bob Ross, a member of the steering committee of Presbyterian advocacy group the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.
These decisions represent a significant development in the wider debate surrounding religious institutions’ involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict and their responsibility to align financial decisions with ethical and theological positions. It also follows the church’s 2022 decision to declare Israel to be apartheid state, a move that angered the Jewish American establishment.
Imagine if you will, an exceptionally ambitious city Fire Department, located in a city with very few naturally occurring fires.
These ambitious firemen don’t have nearly enough work, prestige, or pay for their liking. Uninterested in simply polishing their trucks, lifting weights, and cooking chili, these firemen want more. A lot more.
They construct a plan. They will start a research program, funded by taxpayers, whereby they will develop an arsenal of the biggest, scariest, most flammable products on earth. They will justify this program under the pretense that these destructive creations are absolutely necessary for the development of bigger and better fire extinguishers. Incidentally, they will also develop, market, and sell these fire extinguishers themselves.
These proprietary fire extinguishers will net the ambitious firemen an incredible fortune – if they can just get every man, woman, and child in the city to buy one.
The Fire Department, working with the corporations that would manufacture their miracle extinguishers, actively publicizes the supposedly tremendous, ever-increasing risk of fires that they claim threaten the population. According to the ambitious firemen, risk factors for worsened fires are everywhere and are ever-increasing – global warming, population growth, take your pick – and the next “big one” is just around the corner.
Credulous, fearful citizens and heavily lobbied politicians fall for their story, pumping ever more tax dollars into the Fire Department’s research and development program.
The Fire Department develops and grows its stockpile of manufactured fire super-hazards, until one day…
OOPS!
Somehow, one of the flammable products is released, and a raging conflagration ensues. No one knows exactly how it started – in fact, the chief firemen gather together and publicly deny that any of their products could be responsible.
But by terrifying the public and confusing the politicians, the firemen coerce the population to shelter in place and follow their strict instructions, lest they perish in the holocaust. After all, the firemen are the experts.
They heavily promote their special fire extinguishers as the only solution, even managing to get water outlawed for firefighting purposes! (Water wouldn’t work on this kind of fire, they insist. Only the Fire Department’s special extinguishers will suffice.)
Using a huge injection of taxpayer funds, the Fire Department gets their fire extinguishers built in record time, and they hard-sell them to everyone they possibly can. In the meantime, large swaths of the city burn to the ground. And due to the fire extinguishers’ poor design and hasty construction, these devices turn out to be every bit as deadly as the fire, if not worse, for their damaging effects linger long after the fire has burned itself out.
But the firemen and their corporate cronies have secured their fortunes.
The bewildered, traumatized population can’t figure out what happened, any more than the feckless politicians. The Fire Department emerges as the most powerful entity in the city. They resume their “research,” fortified by their growing wealth and power.
After all, the next big conflagration is just around the corner.
Sound implausible? Think again. Because in the realm of “pandemic preparedness,” the arsonists are running the Fire Department.
The Pandemic Preparedness Sweepstakes
Under the cover of vaccine development, there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of biolabs around the world performing gain-of-function research on countless viruses and other infectious agents. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the most infamous, but a great many of these labs are located in the United States, with at least 5 US labs manipulating H5N1 avian flu alone. This vast, shady industry of manufactured pathogenicity has infiltrated our government agencies, our military, and our universities, and of course, the pharmaceutical industry is thoroughly entwined in the whole enterprise.
Such “research” involves a multi-step process:
obtaining grant funding – which also provides legal, intellectual, and ethical cover – for gain-of-function research, by promoting it as essential for “pandemic preparedness” and vaccine development
obtaining pathogens (usually viruses) from nature that do not currently transmit to and among humans, but could be made to do so
altering those pathogens genetically in the lab by adding, manipulating, or removing genetic material, to make them more transmissible and/or more deadly in humans
speeding the evolution of these viruses by passaging them through mammals with immunological features similar to humans, as well as to human cell cultures
publishing one’s “achievements” of successfully enhancing the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens in the scientific literature, thereby securing continued grant support
securing patents on key elements of the manufactured viruses to ensure royalties when and if a vaccine for the pathogen is developed
waiting for (or perhaps causing) the escape of these pathogens into animal or human populations
setting into motion the entire pandemic response/vaccine development juggernaut
This work violates the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975. But these labs persist in their work, under the false premise that their “research” is designed to protect the world’s population from “rapidly emerging infectious diseases” by promoting vaccine development.
This is a lie.
The gain-of-function type research done in these labs genetically alters these animal viruses, empowering them to do easily and readily what they rarely do in nature: jump from species to species, spread readily among humans, and kill humans in significant numbers.
In essence, these researchers take viruses naturally found in animals, and which possess minimal-to-limited risk to humans, and alter them to make them highly transmissible and deadly to humans.
Why?
There is no legitimate rationale for this research. It’s really this simple: if one truly wishes to protect the world’s population from Godzilla, one does not deliberately and systematically create Godzilla in the lab.
Such research makes no sense when it comes to vaccine development, either. If one is concerned about existing pathogens, one should develop treatments that conquer those existing pathogens themselves.
Naturally occurring pathogens already have numerous targets for interventions – whether those interventions involve repurposing existing medications or developing new medications (including vaccines). We already have an armamentarium of existing medicines that are known to be effective against viruses. Sensible, ethical, indeed sane research would focus on strategies of targeting the existing chinks in the potential pathogens’ armor, rather than creating new, lethal superbugs in the lab.
Unfortunately, there is much less money to be made and little power to be grabbed using the sane approach. Contrary to the alarmist claims, there simply aren’t many naturally-occurring pandemics. And the enormous payoffs that Big Pharma and the investigators seek only come from patented, new, proprietary products – especially of the kind that can be put on a subscription model, like annual vaccines.
The Covid Pandemic as Dress Rehearsal
Of course, we have already seen the entire arsonists-running-the-fire-department scenario during Covid. A lab-developed, leaked pathogen prompted lockdowns. Patients who tested positive were told to stay home without treatment. Existing, established generic drug treatments with excellent safety profiles, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, were ruthlessly suppressed by the authorities – but only for use against the virus.
When patients became seriously ill, they were admitted to hospital and treated with proprietary medicines administered under directed protocols that later proved to be toxic to the patients, yet highly profitable to the drug manufacturers and patent holders. Meanwhile, the hospital systems were rewarded for their obedience with large bonuses for each Covid diagnosis made and each Covid death they presided over.
The proprietary “vaccines” were manufactured in record time (translation: far too quickly), and the most outrageous, coercive campaign to enforce medical treatment in history was unleashed, to compel the entire world to accept an experimental, rushed-to-market, misnamed “vaccine” based on the novel mRNA gene therapy platform. The results were devastating.
According to the CDC’s own Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), the Covid injections resulted in adverse events at a rate 117.6 times higher than the influenza vaccine.
As of May 30, 2024, more than 1.6 million adverse events have been reported to VAERS for the Covid-19 injections, as well as 38,559 deaths and 4,487 miscarriages. These numbers dwarf the VAERS reports for all other vaccines combined. By any measure, the Covid-19 mRNA injections were historically toxic and deadly interventions.
These data have accrued despite the fact that VAERS is a very laborious system in which to file a report and the fact that healthcare personnel who insisted on filing appropriate VAERS reports were harassed and sometimes even fired for doing so. Furthermore, the compilation and publication of these data has been suppressed by the authorities and has only been revealed to the public by independent investigators. Additionally, there is a well-established underreporting error related to VAERS of at least one and perhaps two orders of magnitude.
Today, multiple of the Covid injections that were repeatedly touted by the authorities as “safe and effective” have been pulled from the market, including the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca products. Ironically, the most dangerous ones remain.
Why? Because the survivors are mRNA products. The mRNA platform on which the “surviving” Covid injections are created presents a nearly unlimited potential for financial gain, as it provides an almost “plug and play” platform for gene therapies that can be marketed against future numerous infectious pathogens – as well as cancers and other diseases.
The Capture of Medicine and Academia
As mentioned above, hospital systems were drawn into this disreputable work by powerful financial incentives from both Big Pharma and captured government agencies. But hospitals are not the only formerly trusted institutions that have been drawn in.
Decades before Covid, many universities became implicated in bioweapons research, with highly profitable gain-of-function labs appearing at numerous of these prestigious institutions. These labs are funded by multiple problematic sources: government agencies such as Anthony Fauci’s disgraced NIAID branch of the National Institutes of Health, Big Pharma, and private vaccine proponents/investors such as the ubiquitous Bill Gates.
Seminal work on the creation of SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid – took place not in Wuhan but at the Ralph Baric Lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s no stretch to say that since Covid-19, the world’s most famous Tar Heel is no longer Michael Jordan – it’s SARS-CoV-2.
At this writing, the same scenario is undergoing a terrifying reprise with the H5N1 influenza virus, commonly referred to as “avian influenza” or “Bird flu.” As mentioned before, at least 5 labs in the United States alone are manipulating this virus, as well as multiple other labs abroad.
If the Bird flu does get out of the lab and become a pandemic, here are 2 key scientists (and their associated labs) to hold accountable:
Shockingly, the Kawaoka lab has been responsible for two known prior leaks of avian influenza. In the first, occurring in November 2013, a lab worker was stuck with a contaminated needle. While that fortunately did not lead to an outbreak, protocols were not followed both prior to and after this accident, leading to an NIH investigation that should have shut down the research entirely.
In the second accident, a lab worker in training lost a connection to his breathing tube and was exposed to air infected with respiratory droplets from ferrets infected with altered avian flu. Although this did not lead to infection, protocols were not properly followed yet again, and NIH was not appropriately notified of the accident.
As alarming as it is that such an accident-prone and protocol-breaking lab is allowed to continue in any capacity, it is scandalous that Kawaoka’s lab is now working with the same subclade (2.3.4.4b) of the H5N1 virus that has infected cattle in 12 states as well as three dairy workers.
One can only wonder what University of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents know (and do not know) about the Kawaoka lab’s activities, and how they can justify sponsoring such potentially catastrophic “research” at the University they oversee.
Prof. R.A.M. (Ron) Fouchier, PhD, the Deputy Head of the Department of Viroscience at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, came to the forefront of avian influenza research in late 2011 when he successfully created a strain of the virus that could transmit in ferrets via aerosol respiratory droplets. This was a major step towards developing a virus that could transmit in humans, as the immune systems of ferrets and humans share considerable similarities.
This shockingly dangerous research earned Fouchier considerable criticism from even some of the most prominent pro-vaccine figures in medical research. The Foundation for Vaccine Research wrote a letter to the Obama White House in March 2013 condemning Fouchier’s work, calling it “morally and ethically wrong,” and stating the need to
consider the ethical issues raised by H5N1 gain-of-function research, especially experiments to increase the transmissibility of H5N1 viruses so they can be transmitted between humans as easily as the seasonal flu… [which could] cause a global pandemic of epic proportions that would dwarf the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed over 50 million people.
Notably, this letter was signed by multiple preeminent vaccine proponents such as the “Godfather of Vaccines” Dr. Stanley Plotkin, and famous vaccine advocate Dr. Paul Offit. Fouchier’s gain-of-function work was so alarming that even the most zealous vaccine advocates took unusually strong action to halt it.
A temporary halt on gain-of-function research ensued in the United States but did not last. Fouchier has not heeded their warning, and no one at Erasmus University or elsewhere has stopped him. Fouchier has continued his gain-of-function work with different strains of avian influenza and has amassed 20 US patents, many of which are focused on his gain-of-function experiments.
The Current State of Bird Flu in the United States
H5N1 influenza, specifically subclade 2.3.4.4b, genome B3.13, is currently infecting over 90 herds of cattle in 12 different states. The first report of the virus in cattle was in March 2024. Reverse Transcriptase-PCR testing has returned positive for virus RNA in nasal secretions and the milk of cows. However, the cattle appear to recover from the virus with supportive treatment and the mortality rate is near zero. Active infection has not been reported in beef cattle.
There have been three cases of cow-to-human transmission of the virus, where infected humans were working with dairy equipment. The first two cases (Texas and Michigan) resulted in conjunctivitis (pink-eye) which cleared on its own in three days. In those cases, viral RNA was detected in eye secretions but not in nasal swabs. The third case (Michigan) resulted in a cough without fever, and eye discomfort with a watery discharge. Strangely, the complete genomic sequence of H5N1 for this case has yet to be released, despite the fact that the case was reported weeks ago. The other two cases appear to be consistent with the strain infecting cattle.
Several scientists have proposed that the current strain of H5N1 (subclade 2.3.4.4b, genome B3.13) circulating through cattle and to three humans in the US could have leaked from the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Athens, Georgia. Hulscher et al. 2024 point out that the virus emerged in South Carolina extremely soon after identification in Newfoundland and Labrador. The timing doesn’t make sense for natural spread because both identifications occurred in December 2021, meaning that the virus must have somehow transported nearly 1,700 miles in the same month – unless it was somehow leaked from the SEPRL facility. There is no publicly available sequence information for the Newfoundland identifications, which is most unfortunate.
However, gain-of-function research projects involving H5N1 commenced at SEPRL in April 2021 and continued through December 2021. No sequence information has been publicly released from these projects and USDA officials claim that such information does not exist. Very soon after the South Carolina identification, the virus spread to a bottlenose dolphin found off the coast of Florida and moved precipitously through wild birds and poultry in the Southeast and Midwest. The first identifications of genome B3.13 in poultry in the US were in chickens in Indiana (January 2022) and the first identification in dairy cattle was in March 2024, although the transfer to cattle may have been as early as December 2023.
Very recently, H5N1 virus isolated from cattle in the US was sent to the UK for further testing. A lab leak in this instance could lead to catastrophe given the rapid spread of the strain seen in the US.
The overriding concern is the accidental or deliberate release of a lab-developed H5N1 clade that is designed to transmit human to human. At this point, the accounts of individuals like Fouchier explaining the current Bird flu situation don’t add up.
They propose that the virus crossed over from Europe to Newfoundland and infected an exhibition farm in December 2021. Then this supposedly spread – almost magically – to South Carolina (with two separate Genbank entries) in a wigeon and a blue winged teal on Dec. 30, 2021. There were no reports made between Newfoundland and South Carolina during this time which is at a minimum very curious.
The spread from South Carolina makes some sense from that point forward (i.e., to a bottlenose dolphin in Florida and later to poultry, starting in Indiana). The Athens, Georgia USDA lab SEPRL was doing work on H5N1 subclade 2.3.4.4b, genome B3.13 from April to December 2021 and this could have very well spread, via mallards or other wild birds, to the surrounding population.
The Return of “Fear Porn”
On Tuesday, June 4, 2024, Dr. Deborah Birx (the “Scarf Lady” of Covid-19 fame) stated to CNN that every cow in the US should be tested every week for Bird flu and that every worker should also be pool-tested. Birx made this absurdly impractical recommendation despite the facts that a) there is little to no mortality in cattle infected with Bird flu, b) the FDA has yet to change guidelines regarding consumption of raw or pasteurized milk, and c) such irresponsible use of the diagnostic tests would generate huge numbers of false positive results.
Even considering her performance during Covid, Birx must know that such willy-nilly testing will destroy the reliability of the PCR tests, the specificity of which is highly questionable to begin with. Making such impractical and counterproductive recommendations is quintessential “fear porn,” and calling for such irresponsible testing appears to be a deliberate attempt at stoking panic, and perhaps even generating false-positive cases.
Another example of the “fear porn” approach to “pandemic preparedness” was recent claims by the World Health Organization (WHO) that a patient in Mexico died in April 2024 due to H5N2 influenza. Even setting aside the issue of relevance, as H5N2 is an entirely different strain of influenza than H5N1, the claim was false. The Mexican Health Secretary refuted the WHO’s claim outright. The WHO later admitted their claim had been incorrect.
The WHO’s initial, false claim was widely reported in the mainstream media. However, their retraction has been mostly buried, and the rare reports of the retraction that have been published have been deceptive. An ABC report by one Mary Kekatos acknowledging the retraction misleadingly claimed the WHO had stated the patient “died with the H5N2 strain of bird flu.” Just one week earlier, Kekatos herself had written an article about the WHO’s description of the case titled “1st fatal human case of bird flu subtype confirmed in Mexico: WHO.” Of note, the WHO’s initial report explicitly described “a confirmed fatal case of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N2) virus.”
Even on the rare occasion when the mainstream media reports data refuting pandemic “fear porn,” they appear unable or unwilling to do so with transparent honesty, and even such disingenuous admissions are buried in internet search results.
On a more rational note, Robert Redfield, MD, former director of the CDC during the first year of Covid-19, predicted in an interview with NewsNation that the next pandemic would be avian influenza. Redfield believes that this will be a lab-leaked version of Bird flu, stating that “the ‘recipe’ for making bird flu highly infectious to humans is already well established,” recalling that gain-of-function research on the avian influenza virus was carried out in 2012, against his recommendations. In other words, he believes the arsonists are at it again.
Conclusion and Recommendations
If, in fact, any labs were to release weaponized H5N1 into the population, this would be the outright act of biological arson at least the equivalent of SARS-CoV-2’s initial escape from the Wuhan lab, and given the precedent set by the Covid-19 disaster, even an accidental release would constitute an inexcusable act of mass murder.
The risk of this research is so great, the likelihood of leaks – be they accidental or deliberate – is so well-established and so high, and the stakes regarding human life are so potentially catastrophic, that gain-of-function research must be stopped altogether.
Dr. Jane Orient, MD, Executive Director of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, made the following common-sense recommendations in response to the continued H5N1 “fear porn” promoted by persons such as Deborah “Scarf Lady” Birx and the WHO, and the warnings of former CDC Director Robert Redfield:
We need to cancel the panic, monitor for, and isolate, sick animals. Same for humans. Research and use repurposed drugs for treatment. Disqualify the people responsible for the Covid debacle. Allow free discussion of opinions. Destroy the dangerous viral stocks and secure the labs, and be aware of who’s paying for the research.
Along those lines, here are our recommendations:
Citing the 1975 International Bioweapons Convention, immediately shut down ALL gain-of-function research in the US. As Dr. Orient states, this action must include securing the labs and destroying the viral stocks. Any resistance or interference with this should be subject to criminal punishment for Nuremberg Code violations.
Immediately call for the same to be done at all international labs (especially, but not limited to, Fouchier’s lab in the Netherlands and the Wuhan Institute of Virology). Again, announce that any resistance at any level will be regarded as Nuremberg Code violations.
Pass prompt legislation that any and all intellectual property associated with completed gain-of-function research resides entirely in the Public Domain. Any vaccines or therapeutics developed from such research will be generic and non-proprietary.
Cease all present funding and outlaw any future funding for genetic manipulation of pathogens.
Common-sense approaches to respiratory viruses must be re-established, focusing on good hygiene, isolation of the sick (not the healthy), intelligent and free use of existing therapies, a local-to-regional (not global) approach to public health, and the complete removal of those with a record of failure and/or dishonesty during the Covid-19 period from the entire process, including the WHO.
Now is the time for citizens to loudly voice their concerns on this issue to elected officials and to other persons of authority who are responsible. For example, residents of Wisconsin should let Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin, and their State Legislators know how they feel about the Kawaoka lab. Additionally, University of Wisconsin President Rothman and the Board of Regents should hear from any and all Badger alumni who do not want their alma mater to be the source of the next pandemic.
The State of Florida has outlawed gain-of-function research within its borders. Of course, the Federal Government should be pressured to act definitively to end such research at home and abroad, but other states should still follow Florida’s lead on this issue. Every political entity, large and small, that prohibits gain-of-function research makes an important step in the right direction.
The arsonists must be fired from the Fire Department. The whole fear-driven and deception-based operation that is “pandemic preparedness” must be stopped. If it isn’t, the Covid-19 experience will be converted from a once-in-a-lifetime trauma to a regularly recurring man-made disaster.
C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.
Will lowering LDL “bad” cholesterol or total cholesterol levels improve your health? Or is the evidence in fact more unclear than that? Buy The Concise Nutrition and Lifestyle Guide: https://www.bosanquethealth.com/book-… (available worldwide via Amazon).
References / Further Reading: Minnesota Coronary Experiment on saturated fat vs polyunsaturated fat (from seed oils), cholesterol levels and health outcomes (involving Ancel Keys). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
Total cholesterol correlation with all cause mortality (graphics used from this paper under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Total cholesterol and all-cause mortality by sex and age: a prospective cohort study among 12.8 million adults, by Sang-Wook Yi, Jee-Jeon and Heechoul Ohrr4: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
LDL “bad” cholesterol correlation with all cause mortality and cardiovascular disease risk without influence of statins (graphics used from this paper under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
In yet another demonstration of US double standards, a viral video of Israeli soldiers using a wounded Palestinian as a human shield in Jenin forced the US State Department to issue a condemnation.
But unlike the condemnation that they issued for the Palestinian group Hamas when they were accused of this very crime, the United States urged Israel to investigate itself, which, logic implies, it won’t.
One of the most prominent allegations against armed groups in Gaza, which has been used to justify Israel’s murder of Palestinian civilians, is that they use human shields.
Despite the fact that these claims, which are routinely repeated during every war on Gaza, investigations by human rights groups have never found a single case in which Hamas has used a human shield.
On the contrary, Israel has been repeatedly found to have used Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Journalist Tucker Carlson interviewed Republican Congressman from Kentucky Thomas Massie on June 7, 2024. During the interview Massie went into detail about how the Israel lobby bullies US politicians and co-opts evangelicals into getting billions of US tax dollars for Israel.
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
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