INTERVIEW: John Mearsheimer — On US Power & the Darkness Ahead for Ukraine
SYSTEM UPDATE #109 | June 30, 2023
Nigel Farage Announces He’s a Victim of Financial Deplatforming
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 29, 2023
Former leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage, alleges that he is facing what he describes as “serious political persecution” by the banking sector in the UK, claiming that the pro-Remain establishment is making a concerted effort to exclude him from the banking system. Farage asserts that this has made him contemplate whether he will be able to continue residing in the UK.
In a video released on Twitter, Farage shared that seven banks had turned down his applications for both personal and business accounts, making him feel like a “non-person.”
He stated that his bank accounts at an undisclosed financial institution, where he has been a customer for over four decades, were on the verge of being terminated without any explanation provided.
Farage posited three theories to explain why he believes the banking establishment is distancing itself from him. Firstly, he asserts that his role in championing Brexit has made him a persona non grata in the banking circles. “The banks did not want Brexit to happen,” Farage said in the video. “The corporate world will never forgive me.”
Additionally, Farage speculates that his political standing might be a factor. The “politically exposed person” protocol requires banks to conduct additional scrutiny on accounts held by politicians and their families to guard against the possibility of foreign bribery. Farage acknowledged the rationale behind such precautions but emphasized that the additional compliance burden for the banks should be commensurate.
Thirdly, Farage raised concerns about allegations that were made by Labour lawmaker Sir Chris Bryant in the previous year.
Bryant claimed that Farage had received a substantial sum of money, specifically £548,573, from Russia Today television station in 2018, an assertion that Farage vehemently denies. Farage stated, “The truth is I’ve never received any money from any sources with any link to Russia.”
RFK Jr. Dismantles Doctor’s Pro-Vaccine Stance in Town Hall Meeting
By Madhava Setty, M.D. | The Defender | June 29, 2023
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. Epistemologists ask the foundational question, “How do we know what we know?”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday appeared in a town hall meeting hosted by NewsNation and moderated by journalist Elizabeth Vargas.
The exchanges between Kennedy — chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense — Vargas and Dr. Tariq Butt, a family medicine doctor in the audience, demonstrated the real quagmire the scientific community finds itself in.
Doctors and journalists cannot see the difference between believing and knowing. If we were in a rational world, there wouldn’t be the need for censorship and shadowbanning.
Nor would many of the vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule, as presently formulated and tested, have found their way into the arms of young human beings.
In 13 short minutes, Kennedy deftly demonstrated to the audience that our problem isn’t just a failure of epidemiology — it’s one of epistemology:
Vargas first framed the topic this way:
“The biggest controversy surrounding your candidacy is your stance on childhood vaccines. Nearly every scientific and medical organization including the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration], the AMA [American Medical Association], the American Academy of Pediatrics, all say you’re wrong on this issue.”
Vargas opened the door for Kennedy to not only clarify his position — which he said has been distorted and misrepresented no matter how many times he has tried to set the record straight — but she also revealed how little thought and research she has done into the controversy.
Kennedy pointed out the reality of the situation. These are not organizations that have independently arrived at their conclusions. The AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics and “nearly all scientific and medical organizations” take information coming from the CDC and FDA as gospel.
In other words, if the CDC and the FDA are wrong, the entire medical establishment is wrong.
There’s a difference between consensus and herd mentality — a fact that never seemed to register with Vargas.
Kennedy is immensely knowledgeable about vaccine science and the regulatory process, as well as its corruption by Pharma interests. Moreover, he is a seasoned litigator and is not careless in his delivery. He correctly asks Vargas for clarification: “On what issue?”
Vargas first alludes to the possibility that vaccines could be the cause of autism and harm.
Kennedy immediately asks the obvious, “So you are saying that these organizations claim that vaccines NEVER damage kids?”
Vargas is forced to backpedal:
“I don’t think anyone is saying they never have. There may be a child here [or there], but overall vaccines have saved millions and millions of lives.”
Vargas is demonstrating the lack of understanding the public has about the issue. How can anyone claim that vaccines have saved millions and millions of lives if proper prospective studies with matched unvaccinated controls have never been conducted?
Kennedy makes this abundantly clear in his response to Dr. Butt, who asks Kennedy this question:
“Eradication of chicken pox and polio in the U.S. and in many parts of the world is a result of regular vaccination. MMR [measles, mumps, rubella] and many diseases are preventable. There is little evidence of these diseases in the vaccinated population. Your vaccine stance is dangerous to the health and well-being of millions. Medical experts are deeply concerned about your message. How can we help you come to the side of science?”
Kennedy admits there is evidence that vaccines have reduced the risk of mortality and morbidity from the diseases they target. However, he argued, without long-term prospective studies around all-cause mortality/morbidity in vaccinated populations nobody — no matter how educated or how big an organization you represent, he said — can claim there is an overall benefit.
Kennedy’s answer to the question dismantles the issue to the very core, catching Dr. Butt off guard. His methodical response should have proven to the audience that the family medicine doctor has very little grasp of all the available evidence.
Dr. Butt clearly wasn’t aware of analyses like this one that concluded that a “Mass varicella vaccination is expected to cause a major epidemic of herpes zoster, affecting more than 50% of those aged 10-44 years at the introduction of vaccination.”
Should studies like this guide public policy in the U.S.? They certainly do in the U.K., where health officials do not recommend universal vaccinations against chickenpox for precisely the reason Kennedy states.
Of all the preventable diseases out there, why would Dr. Butt use chickenpox as an example of how Kennedy’s vaccine stance is dangerous to the health and well-being of millions? Could it be that a doctor with a microphone was unaware of the science?
Was Dr. Butt aware of the enormous tragedy caused by the DTP (diptheria, tetanus, pertussis) vaccine in Africa? After 30 years of observation, it was shown that children vaccinated with the DTP shot were dying of other causes at 10 times the rate of the unvaccinated. We would have never known about this if no one actually looked.
The devastation caused by the DTP vaccine is not limited to the continent of Africa. Kennedy informed the audience that the flurry of lawsuits against manufacturers of this vaccine led to the passing of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which has protected vaccine manufacturers from any liability.
As a concession to the public, this law also created the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, to “protect” and warn the public of potential vaccine danger; a system that has been shown to underreport injuries as commonly as it gets ignored.
Though Kennedy did not discuss the MMR and polio vaccines, his point was clear: Unless proper, long-term, prelicensure placebo-controlled safety studies are done we cannot determine if more harm than good is being done.
Dr. Butt’s response to the likely damage caused by the varicella and DTP vaccines was all too predictable: “A person can take a medicine and then get involved in a motor vehicle accident.” In other words, correlation does not prove causation!
Dr. Butt has good intentions. He is also particularly skilled at picking the weakest examples to prove his point.
The issue with the varicella vaccine was the resulting increased risk of herpes zoster infection (shingles). The issue with the DTP vaccine was the increased risk of death from other prevalent diseases that proved to be more deadly for the kids who received the vaccine.
We are not talking about random traumatic injuries that have nothing to do with immune modulation.
Furthermore, was Dr. Butt aware that the “correlation does not equal causation” argument can be used to dismiss vaccine benefits as well?
This double standard is mindlessly applied by vaccine proponents. Trials don’t prove causation, only correlation. That goes for efficacy too. On what grounds can one say that a vaccine caused a decrease in the disease it targets while assuring us that it was only correlated with an increase in side effects?
Trials just measure the incidence of things in two (or more) groups of participants. It’s a mathematical comparison. No causation is ever proven.
Vargas took issue with Kennedy’s claim that not one vaccine on the childhood immunization schedule has been subjected to a prelicensured placebo-controlled trial.
Vargas: “Yes they have.”
Kennedy: “No.”
Vargas: “Yeah, they have!”
And later …
Vargas: “The FDA says, and in fact, on its website, you can clearly see vaccines go through three stages of testing against double-blind placebo. They already DO that testing.”
Kennedy: “Elizabeth, you can say that.”
Vargas: “I’m not saying that. The FDA is saying that.”
Kennedy: “The FDA is not saying that.”
Vargas: “Yes they do! They say that on their website!”
Kennedy: “They will not tell you that there’s a vaccine that has ever undergone a long-term placebo-controlled trial prior to licensing because it’s not true.”
The reason why this embarrassing (and mildly entertaining) spectacle is important to dissect is because of what it reveals about the stubbornness we have about being right. Did Vargas actually scour the FDA website prior to this public exchange?
She couldn’t have for the obvious reason that no such statement from them exists on their website as she maintained.
Why is she so sure that she is right? I would venture to say it is because someone whom she trusts more than Kennedy told her that.
But was she really listening to what Kennedy was saying? Kennedy demanded a citation from Dr. Anthony Fauci in a face-to-face meeting with him in 2016. Fauci couldn’t produce one but promised he would.
He never did — so Kennedy (and attorney Aaron Siri) sued him and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). After a year of litigation, they finally obtained a written statement from the HHS which still does not cite a single study but assures us that inert placebos are not required to demonstrate safety in childhood vaccines.
Of course, there is no reason Vargas should trust Kennedy if she has not visited the Children’s Health Defense website where the letter from the HHS is made available.
But at what point should she have paused and honestly asked herself about what she really knew and not just what she thought she did?
In this case, the spectacle arose not because Vargas was wrong, but because she was so sure she was right.
It’s also worthwhile to consider what was on the line for her, personally. Was she able to face the possibility that the vaccines we have been injecting into our own bodies and our children have never been tested against a placebo?
Her argumentative responses to Kennedy’s views, which he defended with several key citations off the top of his head, reflected the real impediments the public has toward seeing reality for what it is. What would it mean if Kennedy has been right all along?
As a veteran journalist for NewsNation and previously for Fox and A&E Networks, Vargas should have come prepared. Kennedy has previously made himself very clear that he is willing to change his mind. “Show me where I got it wrong.”
Kennedy asks Vargas to cite a single prelicensure, placebo-controlled vaccine study. She couldn’t because no one can. There aren’t any.
Kennedy pointed out the real issue: “We have a corrupt federal agency [FDA] that is lying to the AMA and all those agencies and all those doctors. But those agencies are controlled by Pharma. That is the problem.”
Without any studies to cite or any way to refute Kennedy’s damning allegations, Vargas chose to confront Kennedy with the fact that some of his family members disagree with his stance on vaccines.
Kennedy: “Does your family agree with everything that you say?”
Vargas: “Definitely not. You got me on that one.”
Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Why More US Bradley Armored Vehicles Won’t Boost Ukraine’s Counteroffensive
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 28.06.2023
What Washington has delivered to Ukraine is a non-upgraded version of the Bradly armed vehicles with restricted combat capabilities, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik.
The Biden administration has announced another $500 million military package to Kiev, which includes, among other weaponry, 30 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
At least 17 such vehicles were earlier damaged or destroyed by Russian troops amid the Ukrainian army’s unsuccessful counteroffensive attempt. Will an additional batch of the Bradley vehicles be of use to the Ukrainian military? Former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski has her doubts.
“Well, if you have ever watched the 1998 movie “The Pentagon Wars” you might wonder how we ever developed them in the first place! And of course, they are from 1980s technology and design, because of the lag time in the US military acquisition system of that era, and today as well,” she told Sputnik.
THE PENTAGON WARS – 1998 HBO MILITARY COMEDY FILM BASED ON A TRUE STORY OF THE BRADLEY TANK
The ex-Pentagon analyst said that with the mothballed Bradleys delivered to Ukraine, the US is now in the process of upgrading these infantry fighting vehicles.
“Its replacement program was actually initiated in 2010, and the production by the winning company (or a combination) won’t begin until 2027. In a comprehensive land-sea-air battlespace, the Bradley adds mobility and protection to other parts of the combined arms array, but without the ‘rest of the system’ its capabilities are limited, as we see in Ukraine today,” Kwiatkowski noted.
She made it clear that the Bradley supplies to Ukraine are something that American Rheinmetall and General Dynamics will benefit from, as “they refine and propose their best design” of the Bradleys.
When asked whether the development of a new vehicle could entail a US military budget increase, Kwiatkowski said that “part of the strategy of NATO expansion and relevance, that has been the story of Ukraine for over a decade, is how to upgrade older weapons systems with European support and cash along with maintaining the massive US military industrial complex into the foreseeable future.”
“The US defense budget has grown every year in my lifetime, and not a single war has been ‘won’. The upcoming Pentagon budget is $842 billion, and this does not count the entire intelligence budget, so we are well over a trillion dollars annually in 2024. Because of the influence and pervasiveness of the defense industry in every state, this budget will continue to grow until the United States is bankrupted,” she concluded.
Both Kiev and Washington have acknowledged that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is progressing slower than expected, with one Pentagon official citing an American military representative who conceded that the counteroffensive is “not meeting expectations on any front.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, stressed that Kiev had failed to reach any strategic objectives at the beginning of its counteroffensive, losing more than 180 tanks and over 400 armored vehicles.
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From the Archives
The US-Iran Scenario That Most Scares Israel
By Ali Haydar | Al-Akhbar | October 9, 2013
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a series of threats toward Iran and its interlocutors in the West, including the US, as serious negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program seem more plausible.
As a possible rapprochement looms between the US and Iran, Netanyahu has attempted to impose impossible Israeli conditions on the negotiators, such as the full dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, not to mention threatening military force.
Whatever the deal that could materialize between Iran and the West, Israel is going to find itself before an open-ended path. One can foresee three possible scenarios… continue
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