Who’s afraid of US troops in Ukraine?
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 2, 2022
Very innocuously, the Biden Administration has ‘sensitised’ the world opinion that American troops are indeed present on Ukrainian soil in Russia’s immediate neighbourhood. Washington made a “soft landing” with an unnamed senior Pentagon official making the disclosure to the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
The official gave an ingenious explanation that the US troops “have recently begun doing onsite inspections to ensure” that Ukraine is “properly accounting” for the Western weapons it received. He claimed that this was part of a broader US campaign, announced last week by the State Department, “meant to make sure that weapons provided to Ukraine don’t end up in the hands of Russian troops, their proxies or other extremist groups.”
In effect, though, President Biden is eating his own word not to have ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine under any circumstances. There is always the real danger that the clutch of Americans on tour in Ukraine may come under fire from the Russian forces. In fact, the US deployment comes against the backdrop of intense Russian missile and drone attacks currently on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.
Plainly put, wittingly or unwittingly, the US is going up the escalation ladder. So far, the US intervention involved deployment of military advisors to the Ukrainian military command, supply of intelligence in real time, planning and execution of operations against Russian forces and allowing American mercenaries to do the fighting, apart from steady supply of tens of billions of dollars worth weaponry.
The qualitative difference now is that the proxy war may turn into a hot war between the NATO and Russia. The Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated today at a joint board meeting of the Russian and Belarusian defence ministries that the number of NATO forces in Eastern and Central Europe had risen by two and a half times since February and might increase further in the near future.
Shoigu underscored that Moscow understands fully well that the West is pursuing a concerted strategy to destroy Russia’s economy and military potential, making it impossible for the country to pursue an independent foreign policy.
He flagged that NATO’s new strategic concept suggested moving from containing Russia “through forward presence” to creating “a full-scale system of collective defence on the eastern flank,” with the bloc’s non-regional members deploying troops to the Baltic countries, Eastern and Central Europe, and new multinational battalion tactical groups being formed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
It may not be a coincidence that Washington acknowledged the presence of its military personnel in Ukraine at a point when the Russians have alleged the participation of British intelligence in the recent sabotage act on the Nord Stream pipelines and the drone strikes on Saturday at the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol. There are grey areas in the so-called special relationship between the US and the UK.
The US-UK calculus has been to get the Russians bogged down in a quagmire in Ukraine and to incite an insurrection within Russia opposing ‘Putin’s war.’ But it has miserably failed. The US sees that over 300,000 trained ex-military personnel from Russia are being deployed to Ukraine for launching a major offensive to end the war in the coming 3-4 months.
That is to say, the roof is coming down on the entire edifice of lies and deceptive propaganda that formed the western narrative on Ukraine. The defeat in Ukraine could have disastrous consequences for the US’ image and credibility as a superpower not only in Europe but on the global stage, undermine its leadership of the transatlantic alliance and even disable NATO.
The Biden Administration made a terrible mistake in assuming that the war would lead to a regime change in Russia ensuing from the collapse of the Russian economy under the weight of western sanctions. On the contrary, even the IMF admits that the Russian economy has stabilised.
The indicators show that the Russian economy will be registering growth by next year. The comparison with the western economies that are sinking into high inflation and recession is far too glaring to be missed by the world audience.
Suffice to say, the US and its allies have run out of sanctions to hit Russia. The Russian leadership, on the other hand, is consolidating by pushing ahead with the shift to a multipolar world order and a de-dollarised international financial system. If these processes proceed further, it will dent the status of the American dollar as “world currency.”
Fundamentally, it is the capitalist system itself which is responsible for this crisis. We are currently suffering under the effect of the longest and deepest crisis the system has known since the redivision of the world that took place in World War II. The imperialist western powers are once again preparing for war to redivide the world in the hopes of getting out of their crisis, much as they prepared prior to World War II.
The big question is what Russia’s response is going to be. It is all but certain that Moscow hasn’t been caught by surprise at the revelation in Washington regarding the presence of US troops in Ukraine. It is highly unlikely that Russia will resort to knee-jerk reaction.
The so-called ‘counter-offensive’ by Ukraine has fizzled out. It made no significant territorial gains or gained any breakthrough. But it suffered heavy casualties in the thousands and huge losses in military equipment. Russia has gained the upper hand and it is conscious of that. All along the frontline, that is becoming evident.
On the other hand, the fact remains that neither the US and Britain nor their NATO allies are in a position to fight a continental war. Therefore, it will be entirely up to the American troops moving around in the steppes of Ukraine to stay out of trouble and keep their body and soul together in such harsh winter conditions without electricity, heating or a decent body wash. Who knows, the Pentagon may even work out a ‘deconfliction’ mechanism with Moscow!
That said, seriously, the auditing of US weaponry on Ukrainian soil per se is not a bad thing at all. Ukraine is a notoriously corrupt country, after all. There is real danger that the weapons supplied by the US may reach Europe and turn that beautiful manicured garden into a jungle (like Ukraine or America) — to borrow the colourful metaphor used recently by Josep Borrell, EU’s foreign policy chief.
Moscow Wants Answers Over Truss’ Alleged ‘It’s Done’ SMS to Blinken Moments After Nord Stream Blasts
Samizdat – 01.11.2022
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wants answers regarding the mysterious “It’s done” iPhone message allegedly sent by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss to the US secretary of state moments after the sabotage attacks against the Nord Stream network in late September.
“To be honest, I don’t care who got this information and how. I’m interested in London’s answer to the following question: Did Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain send a message to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately after the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up with the words ‘It’s done’?” Zakharova asked in a Telegram post Tuesday.
The spokeswoman suggested that “millions of people around the world” were waiting for answers to the question of how the planet’s energy security was undermined, “and what role the Anglo-Saxons played in this terrorist attack.”
On Monday, a US defense and national security news outlet reported that among the information suspected to have been leaked from Truss’s “hacked cell phone” was the aforementioned text message between the now former UK leader and the US top diplomat.
Internet entrepreneur and free speech activist Kim Dotcom mentioned the “It’s Done” message in a Twitter thread Sunday, shortly after British media ran a piece on Truss’s hacked phone.
“iCloud admin access rocks,” sarcastically Dotcom wrote, referring to the Apple service allowing for iPhone text messages, files, photos and other information to be saved ‘to the cloud’ and accessed by authorized computers (thus making user files vulnerable to hacking). “It’s not just the Five Eyes that have backdoor admin access to all Big Tech databases,” Dotcom added, referencing the intelligence alliance of Anglosphere nations including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. “Russia and China have sophisticated cyber units too.”
“The funny thing is Govt officials with top security clearance still prefer using iPhones over their NSA & GCHQ issued encrypted shit-phones,” Dotcom wrote.
A series of explosions knocked out three of the four strings of the Nord Stream network on September 26. Western officials and media immediately began singing in unison that Russia blew up its own $20 billion pipeline infrastructure for reasons unknown. The Kremlin accused the West of an “unprecedented act of state terrorism” involving Nord Stream, but did not name any specific states, with President Vladimir Putin only hinting involvement by the “Anglo-Saxons” (typically a reference to Brits and Americans in Russian usage).
After a month-long investigation, the Russian Ministry of Defense revealed Saturday that Britain’s Royal Navy took part in the planning, organization and carrying out of the Nord Stream attack.
The damage to the Nord Stream network has robbed Central and Western Europe of a major traditional source of natural gas ahead of the winter heating season. Yamal-Europe and Soyuz, two major Russian overland pipelines delivering natural gas to Europe, have also been halted, or experienced a major drop in usage, sparking questions about the region’s energy security. Late last month, French President Emmanuel Macron complained that Paris’s American allies had jacked up the price on natural gas deliveries to Europe, and that Europeans were being made to pay “3-4 times” more than Americans for the same gas. “That is unfair. These are double standards,” Macron complained.
The PayPal Amendment
BY TOBY YOUNG | The Daily Sceptic | OCTOBER 30, 2022
As regular readers will know, I recently had a run-in with PayPal after the payment processor cancelled the account of the Daily Sceptic, along with the Free Speech Union and my personal account. After I kicked up an almighty fuss, all three accounts were restored.
However, that’s not the end of the story. PayPal has deplatformed hundreds of individuals and organisations who still haven’t had their accounts restored, including the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance, a group that campaigns against vaccine mandates which is run by Elizabeth Evans, a contributor to this site. Why? Because PayPal routinely closes the accounts of anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy, whether about the mRNA vaccines or the war in Ukraine. We need to rein in these global financial services companies and stop them from engaging in this sinister new form of censorship.
Here’s how you can help to do that. Sally-Ann Hart, the Member of Parliament for Hastings and Rye, has tabled an amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is currently at the Committee Stage in the House of Commons, to make it illegal for a financial services provider to withhold or withdraw service from a customer on purely political grounds. We hope the Government will accept that amendment, but to encourage it to do so I’m urging everyone who values free speech to email their MP using the Free Speech Union’s campaigning tool, asking them to tell their whip that they support New Clause 15 of the Financial Services and Markets Bill. (You can see the amendment here. It’s on p.20 and labelled NC15.)
This is a critically important battle. If this amendment isn’t passed, we will soon see the emergence of a Chinese-style social credit system in the U.K., except instead of ideological dogma being enforced by the Communist authorities it will be enforced by woke capitalist corporations.
Russia suspends participation in grain deal after Ukrainian attacks on ships
Samizdat | October 29, 2022
Moscow has halted its compliance with a grain deal with Kiev, brokered by the UN and Türkiye, after Ukraine launched a major drone attack on ships involved in securing safe passage for agricultural cargo, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday.
In a post on its Telegram channel, the ministry said Russia “is suspending its participation in the implementation of agreements on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports”.
It explained that the move was prompted by “a terror attack” against the ships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels involved in ensuring the security of the grain corridor. The ministry also alleged that the bombing was organized with the involvement of British military.
The UK Defence Ministry has denied any involvement in the Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, claiming that Moscow “is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale” in an effort to distract the global community from “their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
“This invented story, says more about arguments going on inside the Russian Government than it does about the West,” it added.
Commenting on Russia’s decision to suspend the grain deal, Andrey Ermak, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, accused Moscow of “blackmail.”
“Russian blackmail is primitive across the board: blackmail in nuclear, energy and food field,” he stated, adding that all supposed Russian ploys are “too simple and predictable.”
Earlier on Saturday, Russia’s Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev signaled that Moscow is ready, with Türkiye’s help, to send the world’s poorest countries up to 500,000 tons of grain within the next four next months.
He noted that considering this year’s harvest, Russia “is fully ready to replace Ukrainian grain” and arrange deliveries to “all interested countries” at a reasonable price.
“The grain deal not only did not solve the problems of countries in need, but even aggravated them in a sense. We can see where the ships from Ukraine were heading – Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. For some cargoes, the share of EU countries ranges from 60 to 100%. These are not the states that are experiencing a real food problem,” the minister said.
Russia earlier warned that it could quit the grain deal if an agreement to ease restrictions on its food and fertilizer exports were not implemented. Moreover, following the blast on the strategic Crimean Bridge, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if turns out that Ukraine – the country that Moscow accused of carrying out the attack – used grain corridors to transport explosives, “it would put the very existence of these corridors in question”.
The breakthrough deal between Moscow and Kiev was reached in Istanbul in July with mediation by the UN and Türkiye. It aimed to unlock agricultural exports via the Black Sea from Russia and Ukraine – two of the world’s leading grain exporters – which had ground to halt due to the conflict between the two nations.
British experts helped Kiev’s forces to prepare “terrorist act” in Crimea: Russia
Samizdat | October 29, 2022
An unsuccessful Ukrainian attack on the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea early on Saturday involved nine aerial and seven naval drones, Russia’s defense ministry has said.
The “terrorist attack,” which targeted the vessels of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and civilian ships docked in the city began around 4.20am local time, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
It added that the Russian Navy ships had been involved in providing security for the “grain corridor,” which was set up to allow exports of Ukrainian food products from the Black Sea ports in line with a deal reached between Moscow and Kiev with UN and Turkish mediation in the summer.
All of the incoming drones were shot down by Russian warships and naval aviation in the bay of Sevastopol, the ministry said.
According to the statement, the attack resulted in minor damage to the trawler vessel ‘Ivan Golubets’ and to the net boom barrier in the bay.
“The preparation of this terrorist act and training of the military personnel of the Ukrainian 73rd Special Center for Maritime Operations had been carried out under the supervision of the British experts, based in the city of Ochakov in Ukraine’s Nikolaev Region,” the ministry said.
Information obtained by the Russian military suggests that the same unit of the Royal Navy took part in planning, supplying and carrying out the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea on September 26, the statement read.
Earlier on Saturday, Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev said it was the largest Ukrainian drone attack on the city since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in late February.
Located in Crimea, which became part of Russia after a referendum in 2014, Sevastopol has been designated as a federal city by Moscow due to its strategic importance and status as the base of Russia’s Black Fleet. The key port has frequently been the target of drone attacks by Ukraine during the conflict.
In July, six people were injured after a UAV crashed into the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in Sevastopol. The attack took place on Russia’s Navy Day and led to the cancellation of celebrations in the city. Another UAV hit the roof of the HQ in August, but failed to cause any significant damage.
Oxford, England proposes dystopian surveillance system that limits driving

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | October 27, 2022
If the city goes through with plans, motorists might need special permits and open themselves up to more surveillance to drive through Oxford, England. The Oxfordshire County Council is considering giving permits to households that only allow them to drive through the city for 100 days per year per vehicle.
To implement the plan, ANPR (automatic number plate readers) cameras will be installed at “traffic filter” locations across the city.
Private cars will not be allowed across the filters without a permit. All other vehicles, including coaches, buses, vans, taxis, mopeds, HGVs, and motorbikes will be allowed through traffic filters at all times.
Consultation for the plan ended October 13 and the council is expected to make a decision in November. If they approve the plan, it will cost £3 million ($3.48 million) to implement.
Oxfordshire County Council’s minister for highways management Andrew Grant said that the traffic filter scheme is part of a “vision for a vastly improved Oxford.”
“We want to improve lives, transport and health for the people that live and work here. We have done a lot of modeling to reach these locations and we want to encourage people to choose to use their cars less,” he added.
“This is not about being anti-car, it’s about managing the way we use our roads so that they are safe for everyone. It’s about designing Oxford for the next decades and we want to hear from everyone. I would encourage people to comment and take part in the consultation, especially people who would not normally think about going online and commenting on it.”
Some that are against the plan have voiced their opinion.
Over 3,400 people have signed a petition opposing the installation of traffic filters on Hollow Way and Marston Ferry Road.
England: Social worker fired over social media posts wins case
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 25, 2022
Social Work England dropped the case against Rachel Meade, a social worker and member of the Free Speech Union (FSU), who was suspended over posts on her personal Facebook page.
A complaint about the posts was filed by Sport England’s Diversity Champion Aedan Wolton. That single complaint resulted in the suspension of Meade from her social worker position at the Westminster City Council.
Meade’s ‘crime’ was sharing links to articles covering transgender issues and petitions and blog posts on the national debate about if it is right for people to self-identify their gender. The case lasted for almost two years.
Meade told the Daily Mail that the “last two years have been nothing short of an Orwellian nightmare for me and my family.”
“My apparent crime was to share some news articles and petitions about the self-ID gender debate to fewer than 50 friends on Facebook. I found myself wrongly accused of holding abhorrent transphobic views,” she added.
Her lawyer, Shazia Khan, said Social Work England violated Meade’s freedom of speech and asked for an apology to Meade. The organization refused to apologize.
COVID19 vaccination
DR. MALCOLM KENDRICK | OCTOBER 25, 2022
I have been somewhat quiet recently. I have started about ten blogs, then got bogged down …. possibly blogged down? Then stopped, and started again, then tore it all up – metaphorically.
The problem is that I have been looking at COVID19 vaccination.
There is much to say, maybe too much. However, one treads a very fine line here. I liken it to walking along a cliffside, in the dark. At any point you can make a small mis-step and plummet to your doom. Or, perhaps it is more like being in the trenches in World War I, knowing that at any point, a sniper could pick you off.
Yes, it is true that WordPress doesn’t seem to care much what anyone writes. Good for them, I say. So, I can write pretty much whatever I want. But the rest of the world watches, waiting for the slightest mistake. At which point you shall be denounced, then silenced, in all other outlets. If this happens, the vast majority of people stop listening to you. ‘Oh him, he’s one of those anti-vaxx nutters. Don’t listen to a word he says.’
Yes, I know there is a large community out there who do not follow the mainstream narrative. Those who know there are – or certainly may be – some significant issues with the COVID19 vaccines. In particular the mRNA vaccines. Speaking to them is easy, gaining their support is easy. They cheer you on.
However, there is no real point in reaching out to them, enjoyable though it may be. It is preaching to the converted. The people that I would really like to get at are those who firmly and absolutely believe that mRNA vaccines are highly effective, absolutely safe, and that everyone should be happy to be vaccinated. Along with their children.
The people who are also very critical of those who do not get vaccinated [I have had three doses, but I shall not be having a fourth, unless things change dramatically].
How do you reach these people? How can you even begin to get them listening to anything you have to say?
To give one example of the problem of starting a discussion. I posted a link in a discussion forum on the Doctors.net website (a website that can only be accessed by UK registered doctors). This link discussed some issues with vaccines. It didn’t seem, to me, to be hyper-critical.
However, I got a message from the moderators informing me that if I attached links to any information critical of vaccines, again, they would remove me from the site. This was my final warning. No discussion.
More recently, the post below was published on the same site. It was in response to a twitter comment which followed an interview with Dr Aseem Malhotra:
‘This is a disgraceful interview with this self-publicising charlatan and hypocrite. He says that “until proven otherwise, it is likely that Covid mRNA vaccines played a significant or primary role in all unexplained heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, & heart failure since 2021”.
That is so grossly irresponsible and untrue It staggers me to think he can be allowed to say this and remain a registered medical practitioner.’
The post I have duplicated here was published by a doctor who works, full-time, for a pharmaceutical company. Something he, surprisingly, failed to mention as a potential conflict of interest. Others piled on in support of him. Many of them agreeing that Aseem Malhotra should be flung off the GMC register forthwith – which would render him unable to work as a doctor.
I suggested that, perhaps it would be better to engage Dr Malhotra in debate, rather than attacking him as a charlatan. At which point I was attacked. In my opinion, if you find yourself being attacked for suggesting that it would be a good idea to have a debate, it is not difficult to work out which way the wind is blowing.
I have discussed vaccination at my local sports club. At which point, almost everyone takes on that silent, arms crossed look, if you mention you have some concerns about vaccines.
They don’t debate the issue, because they can’t, because they don’t know anything other than what they have been told by mainstream media. But it is clear that some of them now see me as a bloody anti-vaxxer. Even if I say nothing more than, ‘I have some concerns.’
Yes, to ask for debate, or to dare express some concerns, is to be labelled an anti-vaxxer.
This is a very high barrier to overcome. I have tried irony. ‘Oh yes, I am absolutely one hundred per cent in favour of COVID19 vaccines. I think everyone should have them four times a year. Pregnant women, children from the moment they are born. No exceptions at all. Yes, these mRNA vaccines have been fully tested. It is clear that they are one hundred per cent safe and one hundred per cent effective. Yup, I cannot see any problems with them at all.’
Response. You are taking the mickey and you are an anti-vaxxer. I claim my prize.
I have also tried saying absolutely nothing at all. I still got accused of being an anti-vaxxer because I did not enthusiasticly agree with criticising someone who was believed to be an anti-vaxxer.
Maybe I should just attend this meeting ‘The New Frontier of RNA Nanotherapeutic. Monday, October 24, 2022 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Hybrid Conference’:
‘The RNA vaccines against COVID-19 mark the beginning of a technological revolution that will transform the way we treat disease and restore health. “The New Frontier of RNA Nanotherapeutics” presented by the George and Angelina Kostas Research Center for Cardiovascular Nanomedicine, will feature a discussion on the events that led to the RNA vaccine breakthrough and preview emerging RNA Nanotherapeutics. Advances in the design of RNA constructs to improve stability and translational efficiency will be presented along with the leading-edge developments in nanomedicine to improve delivery and tissue specificity. The potential of nanotechnology-enabled RNA therapeutics to enhance health is virtually limitless.’
Any doubts I have will evaporate …. maybe.
Anyway. The answer as to … how can I even start a discussion on mRNA vaccines without being shot, falling of the edge of cliff, or being silenced, continues to elude me. Farewell enlightenment. Hello dark ages.
Science, to me, is debate. Science is attacking ideas from all directions. No exceptions. Those ideas which cannot be destroyed may turn out to be correct. But, if an idea is considered sacrosanct, with anyone questioning it condemned as an unbeliever, then we do not have science. We have religion. So yes, in my opinion, vaccines, and vaccination, have become a religious belief. No evidence needed.
Scary. Anyway. If anyone has any good ideas about how a debate can even get started, without descending into anger and accusation … please let me know. It seems beyond me. The end.
U.K. Regulator Mulls Covid Vaccination for Babies Despite High Injury Rate – as Moderna Trial Finds Vaccine Can Cause Diabetes in Infants
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 21, 2022
The U.K. regulator may decide on whether Covid vaccines should be approved for British babies before Christmas. The Mail has the story.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which polices the safety of drugs used in the U.K., told MailOnline it is currently reviewing data on Moderna’s vaccine.
The pharmaceutical firm has submitted evidence in the hope of getting its jab approved for children aged six months and older, as it is in the EU and U.S. Only over-fives can currently get Covid vaccines in the U.K.
Any approval of jabs for babies would cause huge controversy. British authorities have so far held out on approving jabs for infants despite massive pressure, due to concerns that the benefits do not outweigh any potential risks. Children rarely get seriously ill with Covid and the majority are thought to have already been infected.
Experts said today that, even if approved, the jab must not be rolled out “en masse” to healthy infants.
Dr. Laura Squire, the MHRA’s Chief Healthcare Quality and Access Officer, revealed the regulator was processing an application from Moderna. But she added the mRNA jab, which works in a similar way to Pfizer’s, would only be approved if it met strict safety and efficacy standards.
She said: “We have received an application from the company to extend the approval of Moderna to those aged six months to five years. No extension to the vaccine will be approved unless it meets our stringent standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.”
Moderna’s jab application was submitted in mid-September, meaning it has already gone through weeks of analysis. The MHRA declined to detail the timeframe for its expected decision. But it took health chiefs two months to consider the evidence before approving the first Covid jab in December 2020. Moderna’s application is for its existing jab to be rolled out to other groups, rather than for a new drug. Dr. Squire also confirmed rival vaccine maker Pfizer has not yet applied to have its jab approved for use in the youngest children.
Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at East Anglia University, said giving the jab to the very limited numbers of children with specific conditions might be wise.
He said: “The tiny minorities of children with severe underlying health problems may benefit from vaccination against Covid.”
But he added that a large-scale jab campaign for children should be off the cards. “There should be absolutely no question of mass vaccination of healthy children, for whom the benefits don’t outweigh the risks,” the professor said. “Over 80% of children have now had Covid and have developed natural immunity. This lasts longer than vaccine-induced immunity and is broader in respect of covering variants. Vaccines offer nothing useful to this very large majority.”
Professor Livermore said the risks of vaccine-related harm, while tiny, do not clearly outweigh the very minor benefits for the vast majority of children.
“This is acceptable for elderly vulnerable populations at risk from severe Covid,’ he said. “It’s not acceptable for healthy children, who are at minuscule risk of developing severe Covid.”
He added that he would like Britain to follow Denmark’s lead and stop vaccinating children against Covid unless recommended by a specialist paediatrician.
Worth reading in full.
Moderna has now published the results of its trial in the under-fives. The study population was very small – too small to get meaningful efficacy results and efficacy was “inferred” from “neutralising antibody concentrations”:
The efficacy of mRNA-1273 was inferred on the basis of having met prespecified criteria for immunobridging, the approach used for authorisation and approval in COVID-19 vaccine studies involving adolescents and older children.
In the supplementary appendix (Table S28 and S29) vaccine effectiveness estimates are given which, while the confidence intervals are wide, are all below 51% and one is even negative.
Among children 6-23 months of age, eight serious adverse events occurred in the vaccine group and none in the placebo group. The data in the supplementary appendix consistently show the vaccinated with adverse events of grade 3 (prevents carrying out daily tasks) and grade 4 (hospitalisation) many times higher than either a placebo or lower dose cohort.
Medically attended unsolicited adverse events (Table S26) were two to three times higher in the vaccine cohort than the placebo:
- 1% vaccinated vs 0.3% placebo in 2-5 years
- 1.5% vaccinated vs 0.8% placebo in 6-23 months
- 1.2% vaccinated vs 0.5% placebo in 6 months-5 years
This indicates that 0.7% of the vaccinated or 1 in 143 had an unsolicited side-effect of the vaccine that required medical attention.
Alex Berenson spotted that in the appendix Moderna disclosed a case of new-onset Type 1 diabetes in a one-year-old girl that its investigators found was vaccine-related. This is Moderna admitting that its vaccine can give children diabetes. El Gato Malo points out that this does not appear to have been disclosed ahead of the approval of the vaccine in the U.S.
A German retrospective study found a hospitalisation rate from the (lower dose) Pfizer vaccine in under-fives of around one in 500.
Why are regulators even considering approving these vaccines for small children?
The crushing of dissent throughout the covid era
Orwellian parallels worsen by the week
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | October 8, 2022
The recent actions of the financial technology company, PayPal, to close the accounts of subscribers expressing political opinions of which they disapprove, represents the latest example of censorship within so-called liberal democracies. Their strategic decisions to block the online monetary activities of the Free Speech Union, the Daily Sceptic website and the Us For Them campaign group – although later reversed – signal the willingness of powerful global big-tech companies to collude with governments in the crushing of activities that challenge the dominant narratives. But no one should be surprised; we have all been manipulated by top-down censorship and state propaganda for many years, a dystopian process that accelerated during the covid era.
Since the emergence of the novel coronavirus in early 2020, there has been widespread censorship of views that do not support the two mantras of covid-19 orthodoxy: namely that, ‘Lockdowns and other restrictions were appropriate responses’ and ‘The mRNA vaccines are safe and effective’. Indeed, the unprecedented and non-evidenced covid restrictions could not have been so successfully imposed without propaganda in all its forms. Contrary to popular opinion, techniques of manipulation do not only characterise recognised totalitarian regimes, but are now endemic within contemporary liberal democracies. And three, overlapping, forms of non-consensual persuasion have been widely deployed throughout the covid era to control the narrative and subsequent behaviour of citizens:
1. Control through emotional manipulation
The covert influencing of people’s emotions via use of behavioural-science ‘nudges’ has been well documented. Based on the advice of state-employed psychological experts, the covid-19 communication strategy has relied heavily on evoking uncomfortable feelings in the populace as a way of inducing them to ‘do the right thing’, where what is ‘right’ is solely determined by government-appointed officials. In particular, the manipulation of fear, shame and scapegoating – or ‘affect’, ‘ego’ and ‘norms’, to use the euphemisms of behavioural science – has been conducted for this purpose via the broadcasting of selective statistics, alarming images and emotional messaging. Furthermore, the decision to impose mask mandates was most likely informed by the knowledge that face coverings enhance the power of each of these three nudges, thereby increasing people’s compliance with government diktats.
Despite escalating concerns about the ethical basis of the state’s deployment of behavioural science, there has been a stark reluctance of anyone in authority to accept responsibility for this form of manipulation. The British Psychological Society (the formal guardians of ethical application of psychological interventions) is of the view that covertly inflicting emotional distress on people so as to promote compliance with covid restrictions and the vaccine rollout is acceptable as it is encouraging ‘social responsibility’, thereby colluding – along with other professional bodies – with the state’s mission to silence dissent and eliminate contrary behaviour. Meanwhile the Government show a reluctance to explore the ethics underpinning their deployment of nudges as evidenced by their ‘Public Administration and Public Affairs Committee’ ignoring a request for an independent inquiry and the omission of any mention of behavioural science in the draft terms of reference for the Inquiry into the covid-19 pandemic.
2. Control through modulating the flow of information
A second way of controlling dissent – used at unprecedentedly high levels throughout the covid event – has been via the regulation of information flow within our TV, radio, newspaper and social media outlets. Ease of access to facts, data and opinion (including that of scientific experts) has been mainly determined by the degree to which the information corresponds with the dominant narratives: write or speak words supportive of lockdowns, masking and vaccination and they will typically receive preferential treatment within the media’s editorial processes, gaining prominence and ease of access; in contrast, say or print something contrarian and it will most likely be submerged in the quagmire of daily media output.
The seeds of this system of selective information flow had been sown prior to 2020 with the formation of the ‘Trusted News Initiative’ (a coalition of mainstream media, publishers and big-tech companies) aspiring to ‘create a global alliance of integrity in news’ by countering ‘misinformation’ and ‘bias’. Furthermore, at the start of the pandemic, Ofcom – the UK’s communications regulator – instructed broadcasters not to cover anything that went against the Government’s narrative. This censorial alliance ensured that voices expressing dissent about covid restrictions and the vaccine rollout were disadvantaged, displaced to the inaccessible fringes of media output.
In the UK, there has even been military involvement in the form of the 77th Brigade with their explicit mission to create and spread material ‘in support of designated tasks’ while also ‘supporting counter-adversarial information activity’. Internationally, the WHO has effectively modulated the flow of information via the use of fact-checking organisations and collaborations with Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube, so as to guarantee that ‘science-based health messages from official sources’ (aka the dominant narrative) appear first when one searches for covid information.
Specific examples of the impact of this – seemingly global – operation to control information flow are numerous. They include: Professor Gupta (an epidemiological expert) being instructed not to mention the Great Barrington Declaration prior to appearing on a BBC discussion programme about lockdowns; academic journals blocking the peer-reviewed covid research of Dr Peter McCullough and the suppression of trial findings that had concluded that Ivermectin was an effective treatment; the removal of Dr Robert Malone (the inventor of mRNA technology) from Twitter; and the removal of MPs Sir Christopher Chope and David Davies from YouTube for, respectively, raising concerns about vaccine damage and vaccine effectiveness.
One fundamental consequence of this selective regulation of information was that our Western media – a supposed pillar of democracy – failed us all in their refusal to scrutinise and evaluate the actions of public officials.
3. Control through erasing dissenting voices
Presumably based on the assumption that eliminating people before dissent is expressed is a more effective censorial method than controlling their information output, throughout the covid era there appears to have been a systematic state-driven attempt to discredit or cancel those brave individuals expressing views that are inconsistent with the dominant restrict-and-jab narrative.
Since March 2020, anyone who has expressed a contrarian covid opinion in a public space will likely have attracted criticism involving accusations of being ‘right wing’, fascist or a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Efforts by powerful players to destroy reputations and livelihoods through smearing and character assassination have been commonplace. Arguably the most high-profile example of this egregious practice is in regards to the targeting of the main authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a multi-signatory document arguing for an alternative to the blanket lockdowns. In leaked emails between Anthony Fauci (Chief Medical Advisor to the US president) and Francis Collins (the Director of the US National Institute of Health), these powerful state officials refer to the illustrious authors of the document as ‘fringe epidemiologists’ while describing the need for a ‘quick and devastating public takedown’ of their arguments. Furthermore, the extremely popular US podcaster, Joe Rogan, was smeared as a transphobe and racist in the aftermath of him giving a platform to experts expressing views at odds with the dominant covid narrative.
A threat of imminent loss of earnings – actual or implied – is another tactic that has been commonly deployed to cancel those criticising the approach of Western governments to pandemic management. Many academics have suffered in this way, including Canadian professor Julie Ponesse who lost her job after she challenged the vaccine mandates. Of course, such a draconian sanction serves as a warning to many other university scholars who might also be considering expressing dissent.
The recent actions of PayPal suggest that our medico-technocratic powerhouses are not satisfied with inflicting emotional distress, censorship and character assassination on the Western population, but now seek to control how we spend our money. Manipulation by means of regulating access to our finances may be the new front in the war on freedom of verbal and behavioural expression. It raises the spectre of the imposition of a totalitarian social credit system, mediated via a Central Bank Digital Currency, a world where unelected global bureaucrats determine our monthly spend based on the degree to which our behaviour conforms to their version of what constitutes the ‘greater good’.
In the words of Piers Robinson (an expert on global propaganda), ‘That the censorship, smearing and coercion … has come to be tolerated is a clear indicator of how far our democracies have slipped into an authoritarian abyss’. And the imminent Online Harms Bill, with its ‘legal but harmful’ category, may further restrict our basic human right to freedom of expression. But there is still hope. As more and more people become aware of the associated collateral damage, the dominant narratives on the benefits of lockdowns, school closures, masks and ‘safe-and-effective’ covid vaccines are beginning to crumble. As awareness of ubiquitous state-funded manipulation and censorship grows, increasing numbers of citizens are turning to independent sources of expert information – such as HART and PANDA – for reliable covid updates. The basic human right of freedom of expression within Western democracies must be protected; once lost, it is unlikely to be restored within our lifetimes.
