Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Israel attacks al-Mayadeen’s office in Beirut

Press TV – October 23, 2024

The Israeli regime has carried out an airstrike against the office of Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network in the country’s capital Beirut.

The attack struck the building in the city’s Jnah neighborhood on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding five others, including a child, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The network said it had fortunately evacuated the building last October after the regime notably escalated its deadly attacks against Lebanon.

Reacting to the attack, al-Mayadeen denounced the regime for targeting a well-known media outlet, but stressed that it would continue to report the truth amid the escalation.

Mahmoud al-Mardawi, a senior official with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, also condemned the atrocity, hailing the network’s “pioneering work in revealing the truth.”

“Al-Mayadeen, which dismantles the narrative of Zionist sympathizers, is a fighter channel in confronting the enemy, which seeks to cover up the truth and present misleading narratives,” he added.

The Palestinian resistance Mujahideen Movement also condemend the attack, considering it to be “part of the systematic Zionist campaign targeting honorable free media outlets.”

The attack “is clear evidence that the channel is on the right path, and it stands as a badge of honor and pride for this resistance channel,” it noed.

“Despite the unlimited support the Zionist narrative receives from Western media machinery, the enemy has failed to suppress or obscure the voice and image of truth.”

As part of its campaign against the outspoken network, the regime ordered suspension of its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories last November, identifying it as a “threat to Israel’s security.”

In August, the regime renewed the ban and ordered confiscation of the network’s equipment and blocking of its websites.

Since October 7 last year, when it launched a genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and intensified its deadly aggression on Lebanon, the regime has been pursuing a policy of blocking media coverage that could expose its atrocities.

Ever since, it has killed more than 170 journalists in the coastal sliver and Lebanon, including al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Me’mari.

The duo were killed in an Israeli bombing moments after completing a live broadcast in southern Lebanon.

Last month, the network also announced the death of its journalist Hadi al-Sayyed in an Israeli airstrike that had targeted his home in southern Lebanon.

In January, the Committee to Protect Journalists, a human rights and press freedom group, said the war on Gaza “is more deadly to journalists than any previous war.”

It said the brutal military onslaught had, until that month, “damaged or destroyed an estimated 48 media facilities” in the coastal sliver.

Reporters Without Borders has also denounced the regime for intentionally targeting Palestinian and Lebanese journalists.

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The impact of vaccine mandates to healthcare workers in Canada

By Eleftherios Gkioulekas | October 20, 2024

A recent paper by Professor Claudia Chaufan and colleagues reported the results of a cross-sectional survey of 468 Canadian healthcare workers examining the impact of COVID-19 vaccination decisions and the impacts of vaccine mandates. The sample used in the study is interesting because it consists predominantly of nurses and other supporting disciplines but very few medical doctors. The study provides only descriptive statistics; however, the reported results are astounding.

Here are some highlights: 75% of respondents that received the COVID-19 vaccine reported that the reason for taking the injectable product was employer vaccine mandates. Only 22% of vaccinated respondents reported no adverse events. Moderate adverse events were reported by 35.6% of respondents and severe adverse reactions were reported by 29.8% of respondents. Out of the 87 respondents that received the COVID-19 vaccine, 1 reported a life-threatening adverse reaction. Interestingly, only 4.3% of respondents were trained on how to report post-vaccination adverse events and only 4.5% of respondents reported that they were encouraged to report adverse events after vaccination.

From the entire sample of both vaccinated and unvaccinated healthcare workers, 74.6% reported anxiety and/or depression and 18.3% reported experiencing suicidal thoughts due to employer vaccination requirements (agree and strongly agree responses). Although 40% reported willingness to return to their previous role if vaccine mandates were dropped, another 42.5% reported an intention to leave their occupation or the healthcare industry as a result of their experience with vaccine mandates (agree and strongly agree responses). 85% reported that employers did not offer alternatives to vaccination to satisfy their vaccine mandate, with only 1 out of 468 respondents reporting that their employer was willing to accept proof of natural immunity, even though 75% of respondents reported that they worked with COVID-19 patients prior to the availability of the COVID-19 vaccines. Only 9.5% reported being offered regular testing as an alternative to vaccination.

59% of respondents reported that they were not provided with any written information about the vaccines, necessary for informed consent, and only 2.4% of respondents were provided with the package insert from the vaccine manufacturer.

Finally, only 16.1% of vaccinated respondents reported being happy with their choice to get vaccinated, whereas 92.6% of unvaccinated respondents reported being happy with their decision to not get vaccinated (agree and strongly agree). Furthermore, 70.3% observed differential treatment of patients based on their vaccine status and only 4.1% report that they are confident that the current healthcare system will provide adequate and quality care while respecting personal preferences and values (agree and strongly agree).

For more details, you will have to read the paper.

Here’s the paper’s conclusion:

In 2021 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced six evaluation criteria that jointly provide “a normative framework (…) to determine the merit or worth of an intervention”- a policy, a strategy, or an activity (42). The first criterion is “relevance”, i.e., to what extent a policy is responsive to beneficiaries, meaning those who “benefit directly or indirectly from the policy”. The second criterion is “coherence”, i.e., to what extent a policy is compatible with other policies in a given setting. The third is “effectiveness”, i.e., to what extent a policy has achieved or is expected to achieve its objectives. The fourth criterion is “efficiency”, to what extent a policy converts inputs into outputs in the “most cost-effective way possible, as compared to feasible alternatives in the context” and within a reasonable timeframe. The fifth criterion is “impact”, i.e., to what extent a policy “has generated or is expected to generate significant positive or negative, intended or unintended”, effects. The sixth and last criterion is “sustainability”, i.e., whether benefits are likely to last (42).

If our findings indicate a trend in the health care sector in Ontario, Canada, they suggest that by these criteria the policy of mandated vaccination for HCWs in the province has failed in its purported goal of promoting safer healthcare environments and achieving better care. Concerning “relevance”, the intended beneficiaries, whether HCWs, patients, or communities at large, have been harmed by exacerbated staff shortages, intimidating work environments, and health professionals coerced into acting against their best clinical judgment. Concerning “coherence”, the policy has proven to be at odds with other policies within health settings, such as the imperative to maintain adequate staffing levels or to respect informed consent and bodily autonomy, not only for HCWs but for those patients who, for whatever reason, decline vaccination. As to “effectiveness”, there is no evidence that the policy has improved patient care-as suggested by our findings, it has likely worsened it.

Concerning “efficiency”, there is no evidence that the policy has been more cost-effective than comparable alternatives, such as relying on the superiority of naturally acquired immunity over artificial immunity (23,43-45), acquired by most HCWs during 2020 as they treated patients in critical need, and for this reason were celebrated as heroes by the media and the authorities (46,47). Notably, naturally acquired immunity, achieved through recovery from a prior infection, was not recognized by healthcare employers in Canada. In fact, there is no evidence that such (then unvaccinated) workers were deemed a threat to patient safety and disciplined for that reason. Concerning “impact”, our findings also suggest that the overall impact of the policy on the well-being of HCWs and the sustainability of health systems has also been negative. Finally, concerning “sustainability”, with close to half of our sample of highly trained and experienced HCWs intending to leave the health professions, we see no evidence for any net benefits, either current or future. We conclude that if, by the OECD criteria, the policy of mandated vaccination for HCWs has failed, this failure, along with the contested efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines, their negative impact on HCWs’ wellbeing, staffing levels, and patient care, and the threat that mandates represent to longstanding bioethical principles such as informed consent and bodily autonomy (48,49), negates any basis-policy, scientific, or ethical-to continue with the practice.

References

C. Chaufan and N. Hemsing and R. Moncrieffe, “COVID-19 vaccination decisions and impacts of vaccine mandates: a cross sectional survey of healthcare workers in Ontario, Canada”, Journal of Public Health and Emergency (2024), Online First, https://jphe.amegroups.org/article/view/10313

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

5-Year-Old Develops Autism After Being Forced to Get 18 Vaccines in 1 Day

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 18, 2024

In 2016, David Ihben moved his wife and three children from Chicago to Jamestown, in rural Tennessee, with high hopes for a new and calmer life.

But the dream turned into a nightmare for David and his children in December 2019, when divorce proceedings and a subsequent custody battle resulted in the forced vaccination of the children — and changed the family’s fortunes forever.

Ihben said his ex-wife decided “this wasn’t the life she wanted.” So they were attempting to develop a parenting plan in family court — when Tennessee judge Todd Burnett “pulled up the vaccine issue” after discovering the couple’s children were unvaccinated — and forced the parents to vaccinate their children.

Ihben’s two oldest children — daughter Hannah and son Joseph — were spared significant adverse events following their vaccination.

But his youngest son, Isaac, wasn’t so fortunate. After receiving 18 vaccines in one day, Isaac developed severe regressive autism. Today, he requires around-the-clock care.

The children’s mother soon abandoned the children, leaving Ihben to raise them as a single parent — even though he is still obliged to pay child support.

Ihben shared his story with Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Vax-Unvax bus. In a subsequent interview with The Defender, he detailed the challenges he faces in caring for Isaac and the harassment he endured from officials in his community. Ihben shared documentation with The Defender verifying his story.

‘How can a judge force medical care without a doctor’s input?’

Ihben told The Defender his entire family was unvaccinated. “I’ve never had any. My dad was drafted by the Army in 1961, and he didn’t get any either. We’ve never vaccinated,” he said. “Our children had to sign religious exemptions for school.”

During divorce proceedings though, his wife’s attorney used the vaccination issue to drive a wedge between the parents.

“When we went to court, I guess her attorney knew that [Burnett] was a pro-vaccine judge and that’s something that they could get me on,” Ihben said.

According to Ihben, Burnett told the couple that it was his “personal opinion that not vaccinating your children is child abuse.” He then told the couple that whichever parent would be willing to vaccinate the children that same day would leave the courthouse with custody.

“I said, ‘Your Honor, we have rights. It’s between the mom and their father,’” Ihben recalled. “Her attorney whispered to her, and she goes, ‘I’ll take them down and vaccinate them today.’”

“I was so surprised, because me and my ex-wife didn’t agree on much, but we did agree on that,” Ihben said, referring to their views on vaccination.

After the hearing, Ihben and his wife were granted joint custody of the children, with their mother as their primary guardian. Later that day, the children received their childhood vaccines — and Isaac immediately became sick.

“My daughter had previous allergies … so the doctor refused to give her all in one day. They split those … She didn’t have any side effects from what I can see,” Ihben said. “[Joseph] was in the ICU for a couple of days but seems to be okay. But [Isaac] spent 12 days in the ICU, eight days with a 106-degree fever.”

Isaac, who was 5 years old at the time, was “just a normal happy kid,” Ihben said.

Today, Isaac has severe regressive autism. Ihben told The Defender :

“He doesn’t talk. He wears a diaper. He eats out of a baby bottle 20-30 times a day, he has speech therapy and will require 24-hour care and supervision for the rest of his life.

“I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in four years. He has to be changed every two hours, or he will have an accident. If you have a child with regressive autism or know someone, you will understand what our days are like.”

Ihben didn’t learn about Isaac’s injuries right away, because the court initially slapped him with a six-month restraining order. When the six months were up, he finally made plans to pick up his children for “two-hour supervised visitation” at a local McDonald’s.

“My youngest comes walking out and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” He said his oldest children then told him about what happened to Isaac. “My children told me everything that’s going on. Basically, nobody’s given me information. I had to go off what 10- and 11-year-olds were telling me,” Ihben said.

Ihben tried to find out what happened to Isaac — but encountered more obstacles at Cookeville Regional Medical Center, his local hospital. “The judge had sealed the hospital records. I still cannot get them,” he said.

It wasn’t until he enrolled his daughter in high school that, while obtaining her records from the local health department, he had a chance to view Isaac’s records. That’s when he saw that Isaac had received 18 vaccines in one day.

“How can a judge force medical care without a doctor’s input?” Ihben asked. “I don’t think judges should be dictating medical treatment from the bench.”

According to Ihben, doctors at Vanderbilt University in Nashville said Isaac’s injuries “are a direct result from forced vaccination,” with one doctor telling Ihben that “she’s seen only one other kid that acts like Isaac does.”

Required to continue paying child support, despite mother’s disappearance

Soon after seeing his children for the first time after the custody battle, another surprise was in store for Ihben and his family: Ihben’s ex-wife called to say she and the children had been evicted.

After he kept the children for a week, their mother “got a free house, everything furnished and paid,” and the children were returned to her.

“Then she got evicted from there” in May 2020, Ihben said. He again picked up the children — but that was the last they saw of their mother. According to Ihben, after her second eviction, she left town without a trace.

“We haven’t heard from her or seen her,” Ihben said. “It’ll be five years in May.”

Ihben still pays child support to the state, even though he alone takes care of the children. He said the child support money, which remains uncollected, goes to a state fund — and, if it remains unclaimed, will be confiscated by the state when the children reach adulthood.

Ihben said that though he has gone to court to request full custody of his children or a reduction of his child support payments, he has faced a catch-22 situation.

“The judge said, I can’t do anything unless you get her here in front of me,” Ihben said. “I was like, ‘I’ve served her. Nobody knows where she is.’”

Ihben said he believes the children’s mother didn’t realize Isaac was going to be hurt so badly, and “she just can’t face it.” He added, “I just don’t understand, if she’s been gone almost five years, why she still has full custody, why I still have to pay child support.”

Tennessee laws, local officials pose challenges for raising Isaac

Ihben described the day-to-day realities of caring for Isaac, who will turn 11 next month and just started the fifth grade in a special education program. He said:

“Our lives have changed forever. I can’t have a regular job. I pick up stuff here and there … I have an alarm that goes off every two hours to change Isaac. He eats in the middle of the night … We live out in the country. There’s no bus, so I take him to school back and forth.

“He doesn’t talk, so you don’t know if he’s sick, if he’s upset, if he’s hungry, if he’s cold, if he has a stomach ache … I’ve got a mental list, and I just check it off and hopefully I hit the one that calms him and provides what he needs.”

State rules also pose obstacles. “You’re not allowed to have home healthcare for a disabled child unless you have no other children in the home under 18,” Ihben said.

Ihben noted that Tennessee ranks among the states with the lowest level of funding for autistic children, adding that autistic children are frequently mistreated.

“Our local school district has restraint chairs for autistic children. They are allowed to put Isaac in a chair, to pepper spray him, to tase him. Police departments have no training for dealing with autistic children,” Ihben said.

Ihben said state, county and town officials have attempted to intimidate him and his family.

According to Ihben, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) showed up at his home on Dec. 5, 2023. “Somebody starts beating on the door … there’s a truck at the end of the road, a truck at the end of the other road and two trucks in the driveway. They had assault weapons.”

Ihben said the officers claimed that a social worker wanted to speak with him, but that he refused to open his door for them. He submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the state to find out why his home was raided, but was told there are “no records of anything.”

The TBI raid took a toll on him. “I had a heart attack that night,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe.” He said the incident still affects him today. “I’m sure I have PTSD from it. I’m still under treatment,” Ihben said.

In June 2023, Ihben said he went to his county commission meeting to tell them about what happened to his family. The county commissioner, Jimmy Johnson, left him a voicemail warning him not to hold any rally or protest.

“The commissioner called the sheriff,” Ihben said, but ultimately “they backed off.”

In another incident, Ihben said he was banned from his local Walmart store after a store manager called the police because Isaac “was causing a disturbance.” This obliged Ihben to shop at another Walmart, an hour away from his home.

Ihben said it’s also difficult to find a lawyer to represent him and his family. “No attorney is willing to take on the judge.”

Local officials ‘tried to scare us’ into not doing Vax-Unvax bus interview

Ihben credited CHD and its Tennessee Chapter for helping him and his family. “We wouldn’t be here without CHD helping us out,” Ihben said. “The Tennessee Chapter has helped us out a lot.”

Ihben said he recently saw “Vaxxed 3” with members of the state’s CHD chapter. “What we have to live through every day is horrible, but it could be worse,” Ihben said, citing stories in the film of children who died post-vaccination.

According to Ihben, his efforts to promote CHD initiatives in his community, such as the visit of the Vax-Unvax bus earlier this year, have also been met with intimidation.

“We put a little flyer together [for the Vax-Unvax bus] and we started passing it out,” Ihben said. But on Feb. 1, the day of his bus interview, Ihben said his wife’s attorney, her husband — who is the attorney for the local school board — and Burnett, who mobilized the TBI, “tried to scare us into not doing the bus interview.”

Getting the word out, spreading the message is ‘the only weapon we have’

Isaac has recently shown some improvement, according to Ihben. “He’s doing better slowly … He’s in a lot of therapy. He’s starting to write some numbers and letters on his own. Teachers think he’s reading, but he’s still never said a word.”

Ihben said this has been a learning experience for his oldest children, who will “have to take care of Isaac every day” after his death. “That’s a lifetime commitment.”

Another silver lining, according to Ihben, is that Isaac’s story has become a learning experience for his family and many members of his local community.

“This hasn’t just got me learning. My kids are learning. Hannah and Joseph are learning about their government and their food and their environment. They’re teaching their friends about this.”

For Ihben, getting the word out and spreading the message is “the only weapon we have.” He said, “It’s powerful that my kids’ friends come up and say ‘we’re sorry for what happened to you, we’ve seen the [Vax-Unvax] interview.’”

Ihben said he hopes the message will help other children avoid Isaac’s fate. “I hope Isaac will be the last,” he said.

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.

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

‘Childish Temper Tantrums’ – Australian Councilor Fires Back at Pressure From Authorities

By Anatoly Donstov – Sputnik – 24.10.2024

Following his powerful interview with Sputnik, Adrian McRae, businessman and member of the Town of Port Hedland Council in Australia, has been urged to resign by Western Australia Premier Roger Cook in a desperate attempt to silence him.

“Earlier this week, before the Premier had heard I was in Russia, he suggested that the entire Town of Port Hedland Council should get back to “knitting” when we demanded him to show us evidence that the Covid-19 vaccines were safe… So, instead of acting like a true leader, … he attacks me personally and resorts to ad-hominem – the last refuge of a failed argument. I feel sorry for him actually. I don’t know what I’d do if I was in his shoes,” McRae told Sputnik, explaining Cook’s “contempt” towards him and “all West Australian Councilors.”

On Wednesday, the Premier called for the resignation of McRae, labeling him “an embarrassment” after his interview with Sputnik, ABC reported. In the interview, the businessman criticized Australian and Western media for biased coverage of Russia and challenged the narrative portraying Moscow as the enemy.

McRae warned that free speech is under threat in the West, while BRICS countries still offer hope for its protection. As an observer in the 2024 Russian presidential election, McRae praised the transparency of the process, drawing heavy criticism from Australian media.

“It’s simple. The Premier is using the boogeyman of Russia to attempt to ruin my character in hopes of people forgetting about the important questions my entire Council has asked him regarding the mRNA vaccine contamination. He is deflecting the subject to the best of his very limited ability and making an absolute fool of himself in the process,” McRae told Sputnik, explaining why Cook has gone to such lengths to smear him.

Despite the Premier’s desperate attempts to suppress the council member, McRae remains a strong voice against Western censorship and political corruption, with Sputnik delivering the uncensored truth that the West fears.

“Sadly for the Premier, I have truth and science on my side. He, on the other hand, has nothing but a dying prostitute media and a really poor scriptwriter. So no, I am not too concerned about the Premier and his childish temper tantrums,” McRae said confidently, undeterred by the threats from the Western Australia Premier.

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Brave IDF soldier explains he had no choice but to shoot terrifying toddler

What would you do in that sort of danger?

By Laura and Normal Island News | October 21, 2024

Alarming footage has emerged of an orphaned Palestinian girl, about seven years old, carrying her injured sister over her shoulder for two kilometres. The barefoot girl was trying to get her sister to one of the Hamas strongholds that are sometimes referred to as “hospitals”.

Worryingly, the girls were escorted to the nearest hospital, however, there is a reasonable chance Israel will bomb it again. It’s one of the great failures of this conflict that some hospitals in Gaza have not been fully destroyed. It leaves open the risk that injured toddlers could get their bullet wounds treated and grow up to throw stones at tanks.

An IDF spokesperson confirmed one of Israel’s brave soldiers shot the toddler in self-defence after fearing for his life. He kindly explained that none of this would be happening if the girls had simply released the hostages. If anyone kicks up a fuss online, simply type “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES” to show you have the moral high ground. If this doesn’t work, politely explain there are no innocents in Gaza.

Clearly, these children don’t have the resilience of the IDF soldiers who are taken off the battlefield by bee stings, or the US college students who feel unsafe whenever someone suggests genocide is wrong. If those girls spent a day in the shoes of a Zionist college student, they would know what fear is like.

Everyone knows Palestinians are cowardly by nature because they hide from Israel’s bombs and say things like “Please stop killing us”. Disturbingly, some genocide objectors get traction on social media, leaving Israel with no choice but to assassinate them. Thank god Musk and Zuckerberg always hand over that location data.

Israel has every right to target civilians, as Matthew Miller has made perfectly clear. However, Israel doesn’t kill every civilian and this proves this can’t be genocide.

In a generous act of mercy, Israel has decided to let some of the people in Jabalia refugee camp live because exterminating them was proving controversial.

After cutting off food and water for weeks, demolishing buildings with families inside, leading blindfolded men towards mass graves, and sniping children in the leg then blowing them up with their rescuers, Israel had attracted a baffling amount of criticism.

I’m told there were so many casualties that hospitals were running out of shrouds for the dead, therefore, Israel gave Palestinians the option of being ethnically cleansed instead of exterminated.

Israel sensibly decided that any civilian unwilling or unable to evacuate is fair game. It attacked those who followed evacuation orders too, but this is fine because it allowed them to evacuate. What Israel did when they evacuated is an entirely separate matter. I’m sure it will be fine when they explain this at the International Criminal Court.

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden Allowed His Friend Bibi to Destroy His Presidency and Legacy

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 22, 2024

In 2020, amid lockdowns, Joe Biden prevailed in the election, running his campaign from his home. Biden was clearly experiencing significant cognitive decline, so the American people were presented with a carefully choreographed message that a vote for Biden was a return to normalcy.

Since Donald Trump descended the golden escalator, Americans have been subject to a non-stop barrage from establishment media and politicians wailing that we are in an existential battle for our country’s soul. We were told Russia hacked the election, Trump was Hitler, Democracy was on the ballot, and the sitting president was bowing to dictators around the world.

But Biden would save us: no more inflammatory rhetoric, no more prosecutions of the political opposition, and a more stable world.

While Biden was never going to return the US to a normal country in a normal time, he had the potential to significantly de-escalate America’s foreign entanglements. However, during his time in the Oval Office, 46 has done the opposite, starting wars and undermining international norms.

Upon taking office, Biden had two easy foreign policy victories he could have secured. Firstly, the current White House could have followed Trump’s deal with the Taliban and exited Afghanistan in a coordinated manner during May 2021.

Rather, the White House mishandled the situation, first by pushing back the exit from Afghanistan until September, the height of the Afghan fighting season. By then, the US-built government in Kabul had collapsed. This chaos culminated in an ISIS-K bombing at the Kabul airport that killed hundreds of desperate Afghans and 13 US soldiers.

Botching Iran Talks

The other easy win for the new president was returning to the Iran Nuclear Deal. Negotiated during the Barack Obama administration, the deal implemented additional safeguards on Iran’s civilian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Tehran was entirely in compliance with the deal in May of 2018 when Trump unilaterally pulled out of the agreement at Tel Aviv’s behest. Washington then placed crippling sanctions on Iran aimed at cutting the Islamic Republic’s oil output to a minimum.

Upon taking office, Biden could have easily negotiated with the moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to return to the deal and lift the sanctions. But, the Biden team was determined to demand Tehran agree to a “longer and stronger” agreement, and at the same time, looked the other way as Israel began attacking Iranian shipping and nuclear facilities.

Over the following two years, US and Iranian officials would engage in several rounds of indirect talks while Israel continued to attack Iranian shipping and conducted assassinations and other sabotage inside Iran. Under those conditions, a deal was never reached, and talks were abandoned last year.

Pushing Tehran from the table and the crippling economic sanctions on Iran had an important impact on Biden’s Ukraine policy.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Washington and its NATO partners engaged in a two-front strategy to use Ukrainian soldiers to bleed and “weaken” Russian invaders. The first was providing billions in weapons, training, and intelligence. The second was launching an economic war to cripple and isolate the Russian economy and bring the Kremlin’s war machine to a halt.

However, as the Iran Nuclear Deal is what ostensibly tied Tehran to Western economies, once the war broke out, the Islamic Republic saw no downside in strengthening its ties with Moscow. Additionally, as is the case with Iran, Russia’s main export is energy. The law of supply and demand says it would have been easier to push the Russian supply off the market if the US was not attempting to simultaneously remove the Iranian oil supply.

Genocide, War, Annexation

After a few years out of power, Netanyahu returned to his post as Prime Minister of Israel, leading a far-right-wing government in late 2022. That government included two extremist settlers in key positions who made clear a top priority was the annexation of the West Bank.

That government ushered in a brutal regime for the Palestinians, with 2023 killings in the West Bank before October 7 reaching a multi-year high.

Still, when Hamas broke the Israeli siege of Gaza on October 7, the White House pretended that Israel had been a normal democracy, not a declared Jewish state with apartheid oppression directed at the native Arab population.

The White House was a key amplifier of the atrocity propaganda put out by Tel Aviv following the Hamas attack. This gave Israel an unlimited blank check for killing in Gaza.

Netanyahu has cashed in that check for $23 billion in military aid from the US, Washington’s protection from UN resolutions at the Security Council, and the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, thousands of Lebanese civilians, and hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank.

The killing has intentionally targeted civilians and civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, shelters, and aid convoys. After each Israeli war crime, the US State Department acts as an Israeli PR firm and insists the world must blame Hamas, not Israel.

What Happened to International Law?

So now President Biden has spent the final year of his presidency providing arms to Netanyahu so his government can commit war crimes every day. This is the same president who has insisted to every American that we must send nearly $200 billion to Ukraine to defend international law.

If Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, why can Israel invade Lebanon?

If Russia is violating international law to extend its border, why is Israel allowed to continue settlement expansion in the West Bank?

If Russia was wrong to detain American journalists in Russia, why has Israel been allowed to kill at least 170 Palestinian journalists, including Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen?

If Russia is wrong to attack civilian targets in Ukraine, why has Israel been allowed to destroy nearly every hospital, school, and shelter in Gaza?

One could go on at some length citing the myriad hypocrisies intrinsic to Biden’s murderous foreign policy. When it comes to starving the people of Gaza, assassinations in Iran, bombing diplomatic facilities in Syria, and attacking UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon, it’s clear that Netanyahu wipes his ass with the international “rules-based order” that Joe Biden claims to love so much on a daily basis.

Currently, Americans care more about domestic issues, but history will evaluate Biden by his elective and catastrophic wars. The x-rays of Israeli bullets lodged into the brains of Palestine’s pre-teen children will define the legacy of Biden and his good pal Bibi during the coming decades.

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU President Likens Free Speech to Infectious Disease

Ursula von der Leyen advocates “pre-bunking” in the public forum to “vaccinate” people against “disinformation”

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | October 23, 2024

EU President Ursula von der Leyen just joined the ranks of former Senator John Kerry and other globalist ghouls in declaring war on free speech by perversely proclaiming that the EU citizenry needs to be “vaccinated against disinformation.”

Like every censor in history, she characterizes her censorship program as a means of expunging erroneous information and ideas from public discourse. By using the word “disinformation,” she implies that she and her clique are already the sole possessors of the truth about everything, and that everyone who has and shares heterodox ideas is necessarily in error.

Her entire premise is FALSE for the following reasons:

1). Knowledge about the world is constantly evolving through constant inquiry, discussion, and dissemination. Knowledge is NOT a static thing. This is why countries with stifling censorship regimes have experienced intellectual, scientific, and artistic stagnation. Their rulers try to freeze the human mind in its state at their moment in history.

2). NO state, university, or ecclesiastical committee has ever been in possession of the full truth of any matter. Official orthodoxies have always been challenged by heterodox thinkers. Indeed, virtually every major advance in human insight has been performed by heterodox thinkers.

3). As John Milton observed in his 1644 pamphlet, Areopagitica, contending with error is an intrinsic part of learning and discovery. We literally learn by making mistakes and correcting them. If free speech is suppressed for the objective of preventing the propagation of erroneous thought—or “vaccinating against it”—it will become extremely difficult if not impossible for people to learn and discover.

4). Without a single exception in history, the people who hold power always advocate the orthodoxy that sustains and extends their power and that of their friends and supporters.

Ursula von der Leyen is the quintessence of this principle. As president of the EU, she conducted secret negotiations with Pfizer CEO to purchase a 20 billion Euros of Pfizer’s fraudulent and dangerous vaccine so that it could be inflicted on all the citizens of the European Union. She is currently under criminal investigation for her conduct in this affair that has come to be known as Pfizergate.

It takes a special kind of chutzpah for a powerful state official who is probably guilty of committing a major crime—a crime that has been systematically and ruthlessly concealed—to lecture the public about the need for censorship. The time has come for the citizens of Europe to rid themselves of Ursula von der Leyen and her clique of corrupt tyrants.

To be sure, there is increasing evidence that the Biden Administration has been exerting pressure on Germany—which remains an American vassal state—and the EU to step up its censorship regime. I will cover this strange development in a subsequent post.

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Who Is GOP Mega-Donor Miriam Adelson & What Does She Want?

Glenn Greenwald | October 17, 2024

This is a clip from our show SYSTEM UPDATE, now airing every weeknight at 7pm ET on Rumble.

You can watch the full episode for FREE here: https://rumble.com/v5ixvbh-system-upd…

Now available as a podcast! Find full episodes here: https://linktr.ee/systemupdate_

Join us LIVE on Rumble, weeknights at 7pm ET: https://rumble.com/c/GGreenwald

Become part of our Locals community: https://greenwald.locals.com/

Follow Glenn:

Twitter:   / ggreenwald  

Instagram:   / glenn.11.greenwald  

Follow System Update:

Twitter:   / systemupdate_  

Instagram:   / systemupdate__  

TikTok:   / systemupdate__  

Facebook:   / systemupdate.tv  

LinkedIn:   / systemupdate  

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Germany Is the EU’s Censorship Champion

By Robert Kogon | Brownstone Institute | October 22, 2024

Note that X, rebranded as a “free speech platform,” provides information on platform users to the governments of EU member states in connection with not just illegal speech — and, yes, national legislation in EU countries includes many “speech crimes” — but also legal speech that is deemed “harmful.”

This is the real innovation involved in the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA): It creates an obligation for platforms to take action in the form of “content moderation” against not just illegal content, but also ostensibly harmful content such as “disinformation.” Note that in the period covered in X’s latest “Transparency Report” to the EU on its “content moderation” efforts, nearly 90% of such requests for information on the purveyors of ostensibly “illegal or harmful speech” came from just one country: Germany. See the below chart.

Note that X also takes action against posts or accounts for “illegal or harmful speech” that is reported to it by EU member states or the European Commission. Such action may involve deletion or geo-blocking (“withholding”) of content. But, as the “enforcement options” linked in the report make clear, it can also involve various forms of “visibility filtering” or restricting engagement — “in accordance with our Freedom of Speech, Not Reach enforcement philosophy,” as the report puts it.

Here again, Germany is top of the table, having submitted 42% of all the reports to X on “illegal or harmful speech” and nearly 50% of the reports from member states. See the chart below. Germany submitted nearly twice as many reports as any other member state — France finished a distant second — and over ten times more reports than comparably-sized Italy. The European Commission submitted around 15% of the reports.

It is also notable that Germany submitted by far the most reports on content entailing “negative effects on civic discourse or elections,” yet another category of speech that is clearly not illegal per se but that is deemed “harmful” enough under the DSA regime to require suppression. (Hence, while the content is not per se illegal, it would be illegal for platforms under the DSA not to suppress it. This ambiguity is at the very heart of the DSA censorship regime.) Germany submitted well over half of all such reports and over 60% of the reports from member states.

Finally, it is worth noting that the overwhelming majority of these reports and the related “enforcement actions” undoubtedly involve English-language content. This can be gleaned from the fact that nearly 90% of X’s “content moderation team” consists of English speakers. The “primary language” of 1,535 of the team’s 1,726 members is English, as can be seen in the below chart.

But why should Germany or the EU be accorded any jurisdiction over English-language discourse? Needless to say, Germans are not as a rule native English speakers and only 1.5% of the total EU population has English as their mother tongue.

In any case, two things are very clear from X’s “Transparency Report.” One is that Elon Musk’s “free speech platform” is not that and is in fact devoting enormous resources, both in terms of “trained” human censors and programming, to complying with the EU’s censorship regime. And the other is that Germany is the EU’s — and hence undoubtedly the world’s — undisputed, online censorship champion.

There were 226,350 “enforcement actions” taken by X in response to reports from EU member states or the EU Commission in the reporting period covering barely more than three months. This is to say nothing of the “enforcement actions” taken proactively by X in accordance with its own DSA-compatible terms of service and rules.

Lest readers have trouble reconciling the foregoing with the viral kerfuffle between Elon Musk and Thierry Breton and the famous “proceedings” against X that were initiated under Breton’s leadership, please see Jordi Calvet-Bademunt’s helpful account of the “preliminary findings” of the EU Commission’s investigation here.

According to a new Bloomberg report, EU officials are even contemplating taking into account the revenues of some of Musk’s other companies in calculating a potential fine against him. Needless to say, despite the fact that the sources are unnamed, this has been widely construed as a further escalation in a mammoth free speech struggle between Musk and the EU.

But as Calvet-Bademunt’s analysis shows, the EU’s case against X, as it now stands, has nothing to do with insufficient “content moderation” — or, in other words, censorship — but merely concerns other, more arcane, aspects of the DSA.

Interestingly, the original proceedings opened against X did indeed involve “content moderation” and — believe it or not – could even have had a positive impact on freedom of speech, since X was ostensibly being investigated not for failing to remove or suppress user content, but rather for failing to inform users about such “content moderation decisions” or, in other words, shadowbanning. But, as Calvet-Bademunt shows, this aspect has been dropped from the investigation.

The fact of the matter, in any case, is that no online platform of any size can remain on the EU market and be a “free speech platform.” The DSA makes this impossible.

Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs.

October 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Pro-censorship NGO working with White House to ‘kill Musk’s Twitter’ – report

RT | October 22, 2024

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a UK-based nonprofit tied to the Labour Party, aims to “kill” Elon Musk’s X platform with help from top Democrats in Washington, according to internal documents leaked by a whistleblower. Musk has declared “war” on the organization in response.

In several monthly planners distributed to staffers this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) lists “Kill Musk’s Twitter” as its top annual priority, according to files leaked to journalists Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker and published on Tuesday. In furtherance of this goal, CCDH staffers are told that they will “focus” on advertising, “trigger EU and UK regulatory action,” and “progress towards change in USA and support for STAR.”

An acronym for ‘Safety, Transparency, Accountability and Responsibility’, STAR is a proposed censorship bill that would create an “independent digital regulator” in the US who could “impose consequences for harmful content.”

In its efforts to build support for these goals, the CCDH contacted Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) in May, and organized an invitation-only conference in Washington the following month, which whistleblowers claimed was attended by a senior adviser at the White House, a Democratic Party staffer in the office of Representative Adam Schiff (D-California), US State Department officials, and the vice president of Media Matters for America, a Democrat-aligned ‘watchdog’ group.

Musk sued Media Matters earlier this year after the organization released a report claiming that advertisements could be seen alongside pro-Nazi posts on X. Musk called the report “manufactured,” and his lawsuit alleges that its sole purpose was to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”

Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, rebranding the platform as X and rolling back most of its censorship policies. Within days of Musk’s purchase, the White House announced the creation of the now-defunct ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’ ridiculed by conservatives and free speech advocates as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” A week later, the CCDH joined two dozen other liberal NGOs in calling for an advertiser boycott of X.

The CCDH was founded by Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and former director of Labour Together, a think tank closely associated with Starmer’s Labour Party. Labour Together has been advising US Vice President Kamala Harris’ election campaign, and more than 100 Labour Party activists are currently campaigning for Harris in the US.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed, who worked with McSweeney at Labour Together, aided Starmer’s rise to power by leading advertiser boycotts against his left-wing opponents. Among these opponents was ‘The Canary’, a leftist news site driven out of business over accusations of anti-Semitism from the CCDH and its subsidiary, ‘Stop Funding Fake News’.

In the US, the CCDH has lobbied the White House to censor Covid-19-related “disinformation,” unsuccessfully tried to get similar content banned from Substack, and led multiple campaigns against Musk.

According to internal documents, Ahmed is aware that the CCDH’s activities risk crossing a line between advocacy and lobbying, which is illegal for nonprofits. Before scheduling meetings with lawmakers earlier this year, someone in the organization advised staff to “understand our limitations” as a nonprofit organization, but still to “inch towards our goal of regulatory action.”

In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Musk pronounced the CCDH “a criminal organization,” and declared that “this is war.”

October 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Mercenary firm to force Palestinians into biometric screenings in Gaza control zones, in potential US, Israel plan

MEMO | October 22, 2024

Israel and the United States are reportedly considering a joint plan to deploy a private American-Israeli security firm to administer Gaza by subjecting Palestinians to biometric screenings with the threat of withholding humanitarian aid.

According to media reports, based on an initial report by Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, on Monday this week, the US and Israel are planning to run a pilot programme – starting with the Al-Atatra village in north-western Gaza – involving 1,000 private mercenaries who would create “gated communities” within the Strip where they will control the inhabitants and their movements through the use of biometrics.

The plan would reportedly see Israeli Occupation Forces clear Palestinian Resistance fighters and Hamas operatives out of areas, with the mercenaries then erecting separation walls around the neighbourhood 48 hours later, forcing only its residents to enter and exit through the use of biometric identification.

Compliance with the forced system would also entirely determine the provision of humanitarian aid, with any who refuse to accept the biometric methods reportedly being cut off from receiving the vital aid.

The plan will reportedly allocate $90 million for the areas’ residents to rebuild their homes, with a “local sheikh” appointed to the position of “head of the council” in the particular zone.

The private security firm at the forefront of the reported plan is Global Development Company (GDC), which brands itself as an “Uber for war zones”. Owned by Israeli-American businessman, Mordechai Kahana, the firm’s operatives include former high-ranking Israeli military officers and former American military and intelligence operatives.

In a press release on Monday, GDC stated that it has “developed a strategy to securely deliver humanitarian relief to civilians in Gaza. Security for the humanitarian convoys will be provided by a US security company acting as a subcontractor”, which GDC claimed has “extensive experience in operating overseas with the highest standards of integrity, respect for human rights, and cultural sensitivities.”

Revealing that the firm and its subcontractor “have had extensive discussions with the Israeli government including the Ministry of Defence, the Israeli Defence Forces, and the Prime Minister’s Office on the modalities for this initiative”, it stated that the goal of the proposal “is to enable humanitarian organisations to deliver large amounts of humanitarian assistance to needy Gazans without the threat of having Hamas, or others divert or steal the assistance and sell it for profit on the black market”.

Although it has reportedly been approved by the Biden administration and White House National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, the plan requires official authorisation by the US and Israeli governments in order for its implementation. As a US private security firm, GDC would also apparently need approval from the US Senate to offer armed services to the Israeli government.

Israel looks set to also approve the plan, however, with its war cabinet having discussed the proposals on Sunday, resulting in its reported readiness to authorise such a pilot programme within the next two months.

October 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

To the West, Israel plays the victim, but to its citizens, Israel’s true face is revealed.

If Americans Knew | October 21, 2024

Segment from @ArabCenterWashingtonDC live-streamed panel on October 10, 2024: “One year after Al-Aqsa Flood: How U.S. and Israeli foreign policy evolved.”

Speakers include former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman, former Palestinian Ambassador Leila Shahid, lawyer Diana Buttu, and professor of international relations Karim Bitar.

“Who runs U.S. policy? It’s Zionists.” – Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman

Source video: IAKN.org/US-IsraelPolicy

“Israel is the main enemy of free speech,” – Former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman

October 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »