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Risk of Escalation with Russia ‘Going Way Up’ Due to Ukrainian Attacks

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 4, 2025

President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Ukraine conflict said that recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian air bases have created a significant risk of escalation in the war.

“I’m telling you, the risk levels are going way up – I mean, what happened this weekend,” Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News. “People have to understand in the national security space: when you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their triad, the nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side is going to do. You’re not sure.”

On Sunday, the Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, launched a major attack on Russian airbases thousands of miles from the front lines. Kiev claims to have disabled one third of Moscow’s fleet of strategic bombers.

Washington and Moscow each possess the ability to conduct nuclear attacks via bombers, submarines, and land-based ballistic missiles, known as the nuclear triad. The White House claims that it was not informed of the attack by Kiev. However, the CIA is deeply tied to the SBU.

The SBU has conducted other provocative attacks in recent days, hitting Russian railways and bridges and reportedly killing seven civilians.

Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the attacks on Wednesday. “I just finished speaking, by telephone, with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia. The call lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.”

June 5, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Is the FDA a mutinous ship?

By Dr Clare Craig | Health Advisory & Recovery Team | June 3, 2025

They promised change. They promised transparency. They promised reform. But with the FDA’s latest approval of Moderna’s mNEXSPIKE® covid jab, it is clear the only thing that has changed is the branding.

This so-called “reformed” FDA has just authorised a new mRNA vaccine — without testing it against a placebo. Instead, the comparator was Moderna’s previous product, already associated with a range of known adverse effects.

And yet, somehow, we’re meant to believe this is progress.

Meanwhile, the leaders heading up MAHA, elected on a promise to end the regulatory theatre and restore public trust, appear to be captaining a vessel still drifting in the same dangerous waters. They are on a mutinous ship and are wrestling for the wheel.

While the FDA continues to greenlight successive iterations of mRNA vaccines, other major Western nations long since reduced their ambitions:

  • In the United Kingdom, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) now recommends boosters only for individuals aged 75 and over, residents of care homes, and those with specific clinical vulnerabilities.
  • France and Germany have similarly curtailed their booster programmes, focusing on high-risk populations and refraining from broad recommendations for younger, healthier demographics.

This more cautious approach is not justifiable either given the failure of these product and their safety profile. The “benefit” only ever was – and continues to be – a statistical illusion. No one should be being exposed to this unnecessary risk.

This divergence raises a critical question: How can the same body of evidence lead to such different public health policies?

Latest Inadequate Trials

The Phase 3 trial underpinning mNEXSPIKE’s approval enrolled approximately 11,400 participants aged 12 and older. While this number might seem substantial, it’s important to note that only about half received the mNEXSPIKE vaccine, while the remainder received an earlier Moderna product as a comparator. There was no placebo comparison.

This sample size is insufficient to detect rare but serious adverse events – even with a placebo. Without one you can only see differences between two sets of harm.

For context, previous studies have indicated that mRNA vaccines may be associated with an excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest, estimated at approximately 15.1 per 10,000 vaccinated individuals. This is totally unacceptable for general use even in a product that has significant benefits.

Despite approval, critical safety studies are still pending. One study, assessing safety in pregnant women, is not due until 2032. Another, evaluating vaccine effectiveness for adults aged 50–64, is still in the planning stages.

Are the FDA still pretending there is an emergency to justify these rushed decisions?

A Hollow Reformation

The USA public deserves better from their officials. They are paying for this reckless approach. The question is, can those with a more precautionary, less ideological approach, wrestle the wheel of the ship and steer her to safety?

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Covid-19 vaccine reform is moving slower than many had hoped

Moderna’s latest mRNA vaccine approval stuns reform advocates—but real change demands persistence when science runs up against powerful interests

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | June 1, 2025

Just three weeks after Dr Vinay Prasad assumed oversight of vaccines at the FDA, Moderna’s latest Covid-19 vaccine, mNEXSPIKE®, received full approval.

For those who had hoped the mRNA platform would be shelved, the decision landed like a gut punch.

Approved on 31 May 2025, the next-generation shot is intended for adults over 65, as well as individuals aged 12 to 64 with at least one risk factor for severe illness.

And it came under the watch of a man who had spent years demanding greater scientific rigour from the agency.

Prasad had been among the FDA’s most outspoken critics during the pandemic, repeatedly condemning its reliance on surrogate endpoints—such as antibody levels—rather than hard clinical outcomes like reduced hospitalisation or death.

And he didn’t just say it once. He drove the point home, over and over.

“Showing boosters improve neutralizing antibodies or other laboratory measures is not what we need,” he posted on X in July 2022. “We need randomized control trials powered for clinical endpoints showing boosters improve outcomes that people care about.”

In January 2023, he co-signed a formal Citizen Petition to the FDA stating, “This immunobridging surrogate endpoint has not been validated to predict clinical efficacy.”

Then in March 2023, he made his position even clearer on Substack. “I don’t care about transient antibody titer levels,” he wrote.

But mNEXSPIKE® appears to have been approved primarily using exactly those kinds of data—measures of immune response, not measures of meaningful outcomes.

So how do we square that?

Technically, the approval aligns with the policy Prasad outlined in a recent New England Journal of Medicine article.

There, he proposed a two-track system — no further vaccine approvals for healthy adults without RCTs showing clinical benefit—but for older adults and at-risk individuals, immunobridging data could still be acceptable.

So yes, by that standard, mNEXSPIKE® fits the rules.

But it doesn’t erase the discomfort. Because for years, Prasad insisted those very shortcuts—approving Covid vaccines based on antibody levels instead of clinical outcomes—were scientifically flimsy.

Now, under his watch, those same shortcuts are back in play.

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed HHS Secretary, reform didn’t just seem likely—it felt imminent.

Many expected the mRNA shots would be pulled from the market, or at the very least, that new approvals would be frozen until stronger evidence emerged.

Instead, we’ve seen a flood of high-production videos and polished slogans about “restoring public trust.”

To many observers, it looks like transparency on the surface—but business as usual underneath.

Of course, no one said this would be easy.

Having worked in government as a political adviser, I know how hard it is to shift systems that are not only slow and bureaucratic, but deeply enmeshed with commercial interests. And no sector is more heavily invested in mRNA than biotech.

This isn’t just about Covid anymore. The pharmaceutical industry has poured billions into mRNA vaccines for RSV, flu, HIV, cancer, and more. Entire product pipelines are now staked on the assumption that the technology is here to stay.

Pulling the plug wouldn’t just alter public health policy—it would tank portfolios, gut R&D budgets, and unleash a political and financial firestorm from some of the most powerful corporate interests on earth.

That’s the kind of pressure Prasad is under now. That’s the reality Kennedy’s team has stepped into.

This is no longer science versus ideology. It’s science versus entrenched industry power.

And many are beginning to worry we’re watching the same playbook unfold—just with better branding.

That’s not what MAHA supporters or vaccine-injured families were hoping for. They’re not asking for tweaks. They want the shots gone. Not revised. Not updated—just gone.

But political reality rarely keeps pace with public demand. Even the most determined reformers can’t move faster than the machinery they’re trying to dismantle.

So where does that leave us?

Facing the hardest task of all—staying in the fight.

Progress may feel glacial, but it is underway.

The CDC has removed routine Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women. Prasad’s new framework has halted low-risk approvals unless backed by RCTs.

Yes, the mRNA platform is still alive—and still fiercely protected—but reform was never going to be easy. And it was never going to come all at once.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

The United States and Greenland, Part I: Episodes in Nuclear History 1947-1968

Greenland “Green Light”: Danish PM’s Secret Acquiescence Encouraged U.S. Nuclear Deployments

Pentagon Approved Nuclear-Armed B-52 Flights Over Greenland

 National Security Archive | June 3, 2025 

The Trump administration’s intention to acquire Greenland, including possibly by force, has put a focus on the history of its strategic interest to U.S. policymakers. Today, the National Security Archive publishes the first of a two-part declassified document collection on the U.S. role in Greenland during the middle years of the Cold War, covering the decisions that led to the secret deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in the Danish territory in 1958 to the 1968 crash of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber near Thule Air Base that left plutonium-laced debris scattered across miles of Arctic sea ice.[1]

The radioactive mess caused by the accident required a major clean-up and caused a serious controversy in U.S.-Denmark relations. The U.S. had never officially told Denmark that it was flying nuclear weapons over Greenland, although Danish officials suspected it; nor had the U.S. informed the Danes that it had once stored nuclear weapons in Greenland, although in 1957 they had received a tacit “green light” to do so from the Danish prime minister, according to documents included in today’s posting. But both the nuclear-armed overflights of Greenland and the storage of nuclear weapons there were in strong contradiction to Denmark’s declared non-nuclear policy. When the bomber crash exposed the overflights, Denmark tried to resolve the conflict by seeking a U.S. pledge that Greenland would be nuclear free.

This new publication revisits the nuclear and strategic history of the United States and Greenland as it emerged during the late 1940s through the crash in 1968, highlighting key declassified documents from the archival record, FOIA releases, the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), and other sources. The analysis draws on the work of U.S. and Danish scholars who have written about the B-52 crash and the history of the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland during the Cold War, including revelations in the 1990s that prompted Danish experts to revisit the historical record.[2]

Part I, below, looks at U.S. strategic interests in Greenland in the early Cold War period, including Danish government acquiescence to the storage of nuclear weapons there, U.S. nuclear-armed airborne alert flights over Greenland, and the 1968 B-52 crash. Part II will document the aftermath of the accident, including the clean-up of contaminated ice, the U.S.-Denmark government nuclear policy settlement, and the failed search for lost nuclear weapons parts deep in the waters of North Star Bay.

Background

Greenland has been seen as an important strategic interest to United States defense officials and policymakers since World War II. After the fall of France in June 1940, the Nazis seized Denmark, and the Roosevelt administration feared that Germany would occupy Greenland, threatening Canada and the United States. In response, the U.S. insisted that Greenland was part of the Western Hemisphere and thus a territory that had to be “assimilated to the general hemispheric system of continental defense.” The U.S. began talks with Danish Ambassador Henrik Kauffmann, who was acting on his own authority as “leader of the Free Danes” and in defiance of the German occupiers. On 9 April 1941, Kauffmann signed an extraordinary agreement with Washington giving the United States almost unlimited access to build military facilities in Greenland and would remain valid as long as there were “dangers to the American continent,” after which the two parties could modify or terminate it. By the end of World War II, the U.S. had 17 military facilities in Greenland. After the liberation of Denmark from German rule, the Danish Parliament ratified the Kauffmann-U.S. agreement on 23 May 1945, but it assumed its early termination, with Denmark taking over Greenland’s defense.[3]

In 1946, the Truman administration gave brief consideration to buying Greenland because it continued to see it as important for U.S. security.[4] During 1947, with the U.S. beginning to define the Soviet Union as an adversary, defense officials saw Greenland as an important “primary base,” especially because they were unsure about long-term access to Iceland and the Azores.[5] Thus, maintaining U.S. access was an important concern, as exemplified in an early National Security Council report that U.S. bases in Greenland, along with Iceland and the Azores, were of “extreme importance” for any war “in the next 15 or 20 years.” For their part, Danish authorities had no interest in selling Greenland but sought to restore their nation’s sovereignty there; having joined NATO, they dropped their traditional neutrality approach and were more willing to accept a limited U.S. presence. In late 1949, the U.S. and Denmark opened what became drawn out negotiations over Greenland; during 1950, the U.S. even returned some facilities to Denmark, including Sandrestrom air base. But in late 1950, with Cold War tensions deepening, the Pentagon gave the negotiations greater priority, seeking an agreement that would let the U.S. develop a base at Thule as part of an air strategy designed to reach Soviet targets across the Arctic.[6]

In April 1951, the two countries reached an agreement on the “defense of Greenland” that superseded the 1941 treaty, confirmed Danish sovereignty, and delineated three “defense areas” for use by the United States, with additional areas subject to future negotiations. Under the agreement, each signatory would “take such measures as are necessary or appropriate to carry out expeditiously their respective and joint responsibilities in Greenland, in accordance with NATO plans.” Consistent with that broad guidance, the U.S. would be free to operate its bases as it saw fit, including the movement of “supplies,” and with no restrictions on its access to airspace over Greenland. With this agreement, Washington had achieved its overriding security goals in Greenland. To move the agreement through Parliament, the Danish government emphasized its defensive character, although the negotiators and top officials understood that U.S. objectives went beyond that.[7]

In 1955, a few years after the 1951 agreement, the Joint Chiefs of Staff tried to revive interest in purchasing Greenland to ensure U.S. control over the strategically important territory and without having to rely on an agreement with another government. But the JCS proposal never found traction in high levels of the Eisenhower administration. The State Department saw no point to it, since the United States was already “permitted to do almost anything, literally, that we want to in Greenland.” The 1951 agreement stayed in place for decades. Denmark and the United States finally modified it in 2004, limiting the “defense area” to Thule Air Base and taking “Greenland Home Rule” more fully into account.

Nuclear Issues

When the U.S. negotiated the 1951 agreement, nuclear deployments were not an active consideration in official thinking about a role for U.S. bases for Greenland. Yet by 1957, when U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, became interested in deploying nuclear bombs at Thule, they used the agreement’s open-ended language to justify such actions. According to an August 1957 letter signed by Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy, the Agreement was “sufficiently broad to permit the use of facilities in Greenland for the introduction and storage of [nuclear] weapons.” The problem was to determine whether Danish leaders would see it that way.

While Defense Department officials were willing to go ahead on the deployments without consulting the Danish Government, Murphy thought it best to seek the advice of the U.S. ambassador, former Nebraska Governor Val Peterson. Peterson recommended bringing the question to Danish authorities and, having received the Department’s approval, in mid-November 1957 he asked Prime Minister Hans Christian Hansen if he wished to be informed about nuclear deployments. By way of reply, Hansen handed Peterson a “vague and indefinite” paper that U.S. and Danish officials interpreted as a virtual “green light” for the deployments. Hansen raised no objections, asked for no information, and tacitly accepted the U.S. government’s loose interpretation of the 1951 agreement. He insisted, however, that the U.S. treat his response as secret because he recognized how dangerous it was for domestic politics, where anti-nuclear sentiment was strong, and for Denmark’s relations with the Soviet Union, which would have strongly objected.[8]

When Prime Minister Hansen tacitly approved the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Greenland, he was initiating what Danish scholar Thorsten Borring Olesen has characterized as a “double standard” nuclear policy. On the one hand, in a May 1957 address, Hansen had stated that the government would not receive nuclear weapons “under the present conditions.” Thus, Denmark abstained from NATO nuclear storage and sharing plans as they developed in the following years. On the other hand, the Danish leadership treated Greenland differently with respect to nuclear weapons even though, as of 1953, it was no longer a colony but a county represented in Parliament. This double standard was not necessarily a preference for Denmark’s leaders but they felt constrained by the need to accommodate U.S. policy goals in Greenland. Thus, by keeping their Greenland policy secret, Hansen and his successors kept relations with Washington on an even keel while avoiding domestic political crises and pressure from the Soviet Union.[9]

In 1958, the Strategic Air Command deployed nuclear weapons in Greenland, the details of which were disclosed in a declassified SAC history requested by Hans Kristensen, then with the Nautilus Institute. According to Kristensen’s research and the Danish study of “Greenland During the Cold War,” during 1958 the U.S. deployed four nuclear weapons in Greenland—two Mark 6 atomic bombs and two MK 36 thermonuclear bombs as well as 15 non-nuclear components. That SAC kept bombs there for less than a year suggests that it did not have a clear reason to continue storing them in Greenland. Nevertheless, the U.S. kept nuclear air defense weapons at Thule: 48 nuclear weapons were available for Nike-Hercules air missiles through mid-1965. There may also have been a deployment of nuclear weapons for Falcon air-to-air missiles through 1965, but their numbers are unknown.[10]

Airborne Alert and the January 1968 Crash

If it had only been an issue of the U.S. storing nuclear weapons on the ground in Greenland for a few years, the matter might have been kept under wraps for years. But the crash of a U.S. Air Force B-52 on 21 January 1968 near Thule Air Base exposed another nuclear secret and caused serious difficulties in U.S.-Denmark relations. While the bomber crash was quickly overshadowed by North Korea’s seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo the next day and the Tet offensive that began on 30 January, the coincidence of the three events was a major crisis for the overextended U.S.[11]

Beginning in 1961, accident-prone B-52s were routinely flying over Thule because Greenland had become even more salient to U.S. national security policy. To warn the U.S. of incoming bombers, the Air Force had deployed Distant Early Warning Line radar stations across Alaska and northern Canada during the 1950s and extended them to Greenland in 1960-1961. The Air Force also deployed the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), with a site located near Thule Air Base in 1960. With BMEWS, the U.S. would receive 15 minutes of warning of a ballistic missile launch.

The warning time was important for U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) because it provided the opportunity to launch ground alert bomber forces in the event of an attack. But the possibility of an ICBM strike on U.S. airbases also helped inspire the emergence of airborne alert, whereby SAC kept nuclear-armed B-52s in the air 24 hours a day, ready to move on Soviet targets in the event of war. SAC began to test airborne alert in the late 1950s, and the flights soon became routine. By 1961, SAC had initiated “Chrome Dome,” with 12 B-52s flying two major routes, a Northern Route over North America and a Southern Route across the Atlantic. While SAC leaders used strategic arguments to justify airborne alert, they also had a parochial interest because it kept bombers in the air, giving pilots even more training.[12]

Airborne alert converged with Greenland in August 1961, when SAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a plan for two B-52 sorties a day to fly over the BMEWS site at Thule. Given the major importance of the BMEWS site, if the Soviets knocked it out in a surprise attack, they could disrupt U.S. early warning capabilities. Thus, SAC insisted on visual observation so that the B-52 crew could check whether the site was intact in the event there were failures in the communications links between Thule and the North American Air Defense Command in Colorado. SAC’s BMEWS Monitor was a routine operation for years, even after the B-52 crash in Palomares, Spain, led to decisions to scale back on airborne alert. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wanted to end the program altogether but accepted a JCS compromise proposal for fewer sorties.

Danish military personnel and others nearby were aware of the daily B-52 flights. Moreover, every year there were emergency landings by U.S. bombers, with three in 1967 alone. After a nuclear-loaded B-52 crashed in western Maryland in January 1964, Eske Brun, Denmark’s Under Secretary for Greenland, wondered whether the B-52s flying over Thule carried nuclear weapons and asked U.S. Ambassador William McCormick Blair about the possibility of an accident. Blair suggested that such an “unfortunate” occurrence would be the price of defending the “free world” and that the flights were consistent with the 1951 agreement. The Danes held internal discussions about whether there were any restrictions on U.S. flights over Greenland and decided not to pursue the matter.

According to Scott Sagan, the January 1968 crash was a “normal accident waiting to happen.” The heating system failed on a bomber carrying four nuclear weapons over Thule, causing foam rubber cushions placed under the seats to catch fire. The crew could not extinguish the flames and bailed out after determining that an emergency landing was impossible, with all but one of the seven crew members surviving. While the nuclear weapons carried on the plane did not detonate when the B-52 crashed on Wolstenholme Fjord, near North Star Bay, conventional high explosives carried in the bombs did, causing plutonium contaminated aircraft parts and bomb debris to scatter about the ice for miles.[13]

To recover what they could of the bombs and assess the contamination, SAC sent an emergency team to Thule, including officials from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). All of this occurred under incredibly difficult conditions, sub-zero temperatures, and winter arctic darkness. Danish officials joined in the effort, although they would not take part in the bomb-salvaging activity. While SAC’s disaster team discovered most of the bomb parts after the accident, it could not find some of the important pieces, which eventually necessitated an underwater search. An equally significant problem was the possible risk to the local ecology from plutonium contamination, including its impact on Inuit hunters. U.S. officials had to find a way to clean up the icy mess quickly and in a way that was satisfactory to Danish authorities.

Immediately after the accident, JCS Chair Earle Wheeler and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered nuclear-armed airborne alert flights to end. SAC would continue the BMEWS Monitor using KC-135 tanker aircraft, but that ended that April 1968 when the flights were switched to the BMEWS site in Clear, Alaska. BMEWS, including the site at Thule, remained a U.S. strategic asset until 2001, when the Air Force replaced it with the Solid State Phase Array Radar System.

Soon after the accident, the Danish Foreign Ministry issued a statement that included this language: “Danish policy regarding nuclear weapons also applies to Greenland and also to air space over Greenland. There are no nuclear weapons in Greenland.” With this statement, the Government of Denmark was beginning to abandon the “double standard” by moving toward a consistent no nuclear policy. How Danish authorities worked with Washington to confirm this policy goal will be the subject of Part II.

The crash of the B-52 was no secret in Denmark, but the fact that airborne alert flights over Greenland were routine during the 1960s did not reach public attention until the early 1990s. Prompted by the revelations, the Danish Government asked the U.S. government for more information, which led the State Department to disclose to the Danish government in July 1995 that the U.S. had deployed nuclear bombs and air defense weapons in Greenland during 1958-1965. The State Department letter was secret, but its contents began to leak. The preceding month, the Danish government had released information on the Hansen paper, creating a political scandal and prompting calls for an investigation of the historical record.

The Danish Institute of International Affairs sponsored the research and published its report in 1996, Grønland under den kolde krig: Dansk og amerikansk sikkerhedspolitik 1945–1968 [Greenland During the Cold War: Danish and American Security Policy 1945-1968 ]. The report, which included a full reproduction of the Hansen paper, among other revelations, disclosed much of this once-hidden history.[14] Nevertheless, significant State Department and U.S. Embassy records remain classified and have been the subject of declassification requests by National Security Archive to the U.S. National Archives.

The Documents

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Senators Push Trump to Endorse Major Sanctions Bill

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 3, 2025

A bipartisan coalition of Senators is lobbying President Donald Trump to endorse legislation that will add new sanctions on Russia. The bill has sweeping bipartisan support in the Upper Chamber with over 80 co-sponsors.

According to The Hill, Senators are prepared to pass the legislation that would place a 500% tariff on countries that import Russian energy. Republicans in the Upper Chamber are waiting for Trump’s endorsement before moving forward with the bill.

Trump has used the bill as a threat to ramp up the economic war on Russia if the Kremlin does not reach an agreement with Ukraine to end the war. However, Trump has not explicitly given his support for the legislation.

The Guardian reports that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has played a key role in prodding Trump to take a more aggressive stance towards Russia in private meetings. “Senator Graham deserves a lot of credit for making the case for tougher pressure on the Kremlin,” said John Hardie, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank. “Carrots clearly haven’t worked, so it’s time to start using some sticks, including by going after Russia’s oil revenue. This economic pressure should be paired with sustained military assistance for Ukraine.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the bill could receive a vote this month. “[The White House is] still hopeful they’ll be able to strike some sort of a deal, but … there’s a high level of interest here in the Senate on both sides of the aisle in moving on it,” he said. “I think a genuine interest in doing something to make clear to Russia that they need to come to the table … I think that would have a big impact.”

The White House is considering instructing Republican Senators to vote according to their conscience on the legislation. Such a move would give the GOP lawmakers the ability to vote for the bill without Trump giving an explicit endorsement.

On the other side of the aisle, Democratic leadership is demanding immediate action on the bill. “The single best thing President Trump can do to strengthen Ukraine’s hand right now is to show that the U.S. stands firmly behind them and squarely against Russia. But so far, Trump has not done that,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said.

The legislation also has support in the House. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday, “There’s many members of Congress that want us to sanction Russia as strongly as we can. And I’m an advocate of that.”

If passed into law, the legislation would represent a significant escalation in the US economic war with Russia, and a break from Trump’s campaign pledge to end the war in Ukraine and improve ties with Moscow.

Graham has described it as “the most draconian bill I’ve ever seen in my life in the Senate.”

The bill would also spike tensions with China and India, as the two Asian giants would be slapped with 500% tariffs for importing Russian oil. The Senators hope that the threat of tariffs would lead Delhi and Beijing to end imports from Moscow and bankrupt the Russian war machine.

“I have coordinated with the White House on the Russia sanctions bill since its inception. The bill would put Russia on a trade island, slapping 500% tariffs on any country that buys Moscow’s energy products. The consequences of its barbaric invasion must be made real to those that prop it up.” Graham wrote last week, “If China or India stopped buying cheap oil, Mr Putin’s war machine would grind to a halt.”

The European Union believes its members will avoid the tariffs even as some of its members still import Russian gas and nuclear fuel. The bill has the endorsement of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, President Joe Biden claimed a western economic war would cripple the Russian economy and prevent Moscow from waging war. However, the Kremlin has weathered a number of Western economic measures, including having its assets frozen, sanctions, and price caps, while increasing the size of its military.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

George Beebe: Negotiations & Attack on Russia’s Nuclear Forces (fmr CIA Director of Russia Analysis)

George Beebe and Glenn Diesen
Glenn Diesen | June 3, 2025

George Beebe is director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute. Beebe was the former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and a staff advisor on Russia matters to Vice President Cheney. Beebe outlines why Trump should not walk away from negotiations, and why the attack on Russia’s nuclear forces (possibly with NATO support) was extremely dangerous.

June 4, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘America Must Avoid Following Europe into the CO2 Storage Rabbit Hole’

Texas Public Policy Foundation

Brussels Forces Energy Companies Into Expensive Climate Theater

The European Commission just delivered a wake-up call that Americans ignore at their own peril. In a sweeping new mandate, Brussels is forcing 44 oil and gas companies across Europe to build massive underground CO2 storage facilities by 2030.

Under the newly adopted Net-Zero Industry Act, European energy producers must collectively provide 50 million tons of annual CO2 injection capacity by 2030. The requirements, and costs, for individual companies are massive. Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij, the Dutch energy giant, now faces a mandate to store 6.35 million tons of CO2 annually. OMV PETROM must handle 5.88 million tons, while Romania’s SNGN ROMGAZ is on the hook for 4.12 million tons.

These companies have until June 30, 2025, to submit detailed plans showing exactly how they’ll meet these arbitrary government targets. European officials frame this as making oil and gas companies “part of the solution,” but the reality tells a different story. This massive regulatory burden will force energy companies to redirect billions of dollars from their core mission—producing reliable, affordable energy—into speculative technology with a deeply troubled track record.

The Inconvenient Truth About Carbon Capture

Here’s what Brussels bureaucrats don’t want to admit: carbon capture and storage simply doesn’t work as advertised. Despite decades of development and billions in investment worldwide, not one single CCS project has ever reached its target CO2 capture rate. The industry loves to talk about achieving 95% capture rates, but no existing project has consistently captured more than 80% of carbon emissions.

Projects from Algeria to Texas tell the same story: cost overruns, delays, and performance failures. For the hundreds of CO2 disposal projects currently being proposed around the world, there’s remarkably little solid information about whether their underground storage sites will actually work long-term.

Even if these technologies worked perfectly, the numbers are sobering. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that carbon capture will account for only 2.4% of global carbon mitigation by 2030. Capturing and storing CO2 from power plants still costs more than $100 per ton of CO2, higher than even the Biden administration’s estimate for the social cost of carbon. Needless to say, cost-benefit analysis must be thrown out when there is a “climate crisis” to solve.

The Real Cost: Your Energy Bill

What does this mean for ordinary Europeans? Higher energy costs, plain and simple. When governments force energy companies to spend billions on unproven technology instead of investing in reliable energy production, consumers pay the price. Every euro diverted to these mandated CO2 storage projects is a euro not spent on maintaining and expanding the energy infrastructure that keeps the lights on and homes warm.

This isn’t theoretical. European families are already struggling with some of the world’s highest energy costs, and these new mandates will only make things worse. Energy companies will have no choice but to pass these massive compliance costs on to their customers. The result is less money in family budgets that are already paying the world’s highest energy prices, and higher costs for European businesses trying to compete in global markets.

America’s Dangerous Drift Toward European-Style Energy Policy

Unfortunately, the United States is already following Europe down this costly path. The Inflation Reduction Act expanded and extended the 45Q tax credits that subsidize carbon capture projects. These credits offer $85 per ton for capturing CO2 from power plants and industrial facilities and an eye-watering $180 per ton for direct air capture technology. The Treasury Department estimates that the credits will cost taxpayers $25 billion over the next 10 years.

Taxpayer money flows to unproven technology while reliable energy sources face increasing regulatory pressure. And while Congress looks set to heavily scale back tax credits for wind and solar, it is not touching these 45Q credits.

Thankfully, the Trump administration is set to overturn the newest iteration of the Clean Power Plan, which was set to mandate CO2 capture for all gas and coal power plants. We hope that in due time the Supreme Court will put an end to the insanity of the federal government’s attempts to regulate CO2 emissions and that Congress will bury the 45Q program. Until then, Life:Powered will be fighting to save your electric bill and your tax bill from the cost of fruitless carbon capture mandates and subsidies.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Was the U.S. Government Involved in Ukraine’s Drone Attack on Russia?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | June 3, 2025

As the media is reporting, Ukraine just launched a massive drone attack that wreaked major destruction deep inside Russia. Ukrainian officials smuggled the drones in trucks into Russia and launched them from inside the country. U.S. officials and the U.S. mainstream press are praising the attack as a brilliant maneuver. They are hoping that the attack will force Russia to the negotiating table with the aim of bringing an end to the war.

One thing is clear: the attack now escalates the conflict in a major way. Ukraine has now shown that it can attack military installations, towns, and cities deep inside Russia,

An important question that is not being asked is: Did Pentagon or CIA officials serve as secret advisors or directors in the drone operation? Since Congress is effectively owned by the U.S. national-security establishment, it’s a question that unfortunately is not going to be asked by any congressional committee. Given the longtime deference to the national-security establishment by the mainstream media, the question is unlikely to come from them either and even if it did, there is no doubt that the Pentagon and CIA would deny it even if they were involved.

Why is the question important? Well, think about it: The U.S. government furnishes weaponry to the Ukrainian government to use against Russian forces. But let’s assume that it goes one step further than that. Let’s assume that it also assists, advises, and directs Ukrainian officials in the use of such weaponry.

That would mean, as a practical matter, that it was the U.S. government that launched that drone attack and was simply using Ukraine as its agent — in order to preserve “plausible deniability.” It would mean, as a practical matter, that it is the U.S. government that is using its weaponry to kill and injure Russian soldiers and destroy Russian armaments, not only in Ukraine but also deep inside Russia.

Ukraine and U.S. officials are hoping that Ukraine’s drone attack will force Russia to end the war. But what they are ignoring in this calculus is the big elephant in the room — NATO. It was because of NATO’s expansion eastward and its threat to absorb Ukraine that caused Russia to invade Ukraine in the first place.

After considerable sacrifice of men, money, and armaments, how likely is it that Russia would agree to a peace treaty that leaves NATO on Ukraine’s border and ready to absorb Ukraine on a moment’s notice? I say: Not likely at all. Even if a peace treaty promised that NATO would not absorb Ukraine, everyone knows that the U.S. government cannot be trusted to keep its word. After all, let’s not forget that U.S. officials promised that NATO would not move eastward, and it broke that promise.

Thus, with NATO still in existence and still on Ukraine’s border, why would Russia be interested in settling the war, given that that’s what motivated Russia to invade Ukraine in the first place? And yet we all know that U.S. officials would not think of dismantling NATO or even just moving it back to Western Europe as part of a peace treaty.

Given these intractable positions, the war will inevitably continue, notwithstanding the fondest hopes of U.S. and Ukrainian officials. But the problem is that the longer it goes on, the more dangerous it is becoming. What if U.S. officials actually are secretly assisting, advising, and directing Ukrainian attacks on Russia? Wouldn’t this be sufficient importantly that Congress, not the Pentagon and the CIA, should decide it? Isn’t that why the Constitution places the decision to go to war against another nation-state in the hands of Congress rather than the Pentagon and the CIA?

One of the big problems with war is its unpredictable nature. How long will Russia put up with U.S. armaments being used to kill and maim Russian soldiers and destroy Russian armaments and property without attacking the armaments before they reach Ukraine, especially if Russia concludes that it is actually the Pentagon and the CIA who are waging the war using Ukraine as their agent? If Russia were to attack such armaments before they arrived in Ukraine, say in staging grounds in NATO member Poland, we all know what that would mean — all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Even if the U.S were to “win” such a war, the United States would cease to exist as a viable nation.

All this is simply to show that the U.S. national-security establishment, operating through its Cold War dinosaur NATO, is getting the United States ever close to the possibility of the nuclear destruction of our nation. Would “winning” a nuclear war with Russia be worth it? Is NATO worth it? I say no. I say it’s time to throw not only NATO into the dustbin of history but also the U.S. national-security state form of governmental structure that was foisted upon our land in the 1940s to protect us from the supposed international communist conspiracy that, U.S. officials claimed, was based in Moscow.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel goes to great lengths to recruit foreign IOF volunteers

Press TV – June 3, 2025

As those that have supported the Zionist enterprise in Palestine for so long scramble to abandon the sinking ship, it’s important to examine the organizations based in the West which will be legally culpable.

There are several key groups that work on mobilizing people from outside Palestine to take part in the genocide, thereby joining the Israeli occupation forces.

The four most prominent such organizations are Mahal, Marva, Tzofim Garin Tzabar and Sar-El.

Mahal: the name is an acronym in Hebrew for volunteers from outside. Foreign national volunteers who have fought in the occupation forces for 15 to 18 months are currently hosted by the organization. The Israeli military refers to the program as an administrative gate through which non-Israelis enlist in the military, and it’s designed specifically for non-Israelis between the ages of 18 and 23.

Marva: Marva offers an eight-week program that costs roughly $2,000 and teaches pupils about life in the occupation forces. Students must be prepared for the mentally demanding program and be between the ages of 18 and 28. Target practice, using M16s with live ammo and spending time on army bases and going on trips where students sleep in tents and learn the fundamentals of field tactics, like camouflage, are all part of the training. Political talks and hikes are also part of it. The Southern Negev’s Sde Boker Gadna base serves as the primary training location. Marva pupils are included in the Gadna program, which aims to militarize school children.

Tzofim Garin Tzabar: according to the Israeli military, this program has helped 1,000s of teens from all over the world enlist in the military, and it’s estimated that around 70% of the immigrants have stayed in Israel after their service. It involves a set of five Seminars held throughout the year in the United States in preparation for a move to a kibbutz where they’ll be greeted by a strong network helping them settle in. And over the course of the five seminars, newcomers are imbued with a sense of their military duties and psychologically prepared for the process ahead. The seminars are carried out in Hebrew to help them adjust to regular use of the language.

SAR-EL: this well-known organization boasts branches across the world and runs programs, each lasting a minimum of two weeks, working at Israeli military bases. It’s believed to bring in around 4,000 volunteers annually. Between 1983 and 2011, it claimed that the programs recruited more than 100,000 volunteers into the occupation forces. SAR-EL offers the chance for volunteers to work in IOF warehouses, cleaning military hardware and also in hospitals. The volunteers stay in army barracks and work eight hour days, five days a week, all dressed in IOF uniform. The organization explicitly targets Christians in its recruitment advertising. All of these organizations are legally culpable for this genocide in Gaza.

War tourism in Israel 

To sustain Israel’s long-term genocide of the Palestinian people, it is necessary to constantly recruit people into the occupation forces.

Tel Aviv does so in a myriad of ways, including targeting tourists and children for militarization.

We shall examine four of the main organizations specializing in this.

Caliber 3: Caliber 3 operates from a military base in an al-Quds settlement. It is estimated that up to 25,000 tourists train with the organization every year. The Caliber 3 website offers a two-hour training session to tourists of any age, this includes shooting assault rifles and sniper rifles and competing in a sniper tournament. US comedian Jerry Seinfeld and rock group Aerosmith even visited but, according to a Caliber 3 employee, did not want their visit publicized. Caliber 3 employees are recorded showing children and the elderly how to shoot with live ammunition at targets depicting elderly Palestinians in red Keffiyehs.

Funtom: Another similar organization is Funtom, based in Ness Ziona and founded in October 2014 by Ben Carmel. Funtom is estimated to attract between 5,000 to 8,000 tourists a year. The boot camp option on their website displays footage of expeditions to the occupied Golan Heights, where terrorist kidnappings are staged with a man dressed in a Keffiyeh. The group then take part in a make believe enlisting in the military, during which they put on uniforms. The Funtom YouTube channel features children being led around, carrying weapons and shooting at targets.

A third organization targeting children in this way is Zikit extreme.

This organization is led by CEO Elchai Finn, who took part in Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 campaign in Gaza that left around 2,300 Palestinians dead.

Zikit extreme claims to offer the IOF experience, again, featuring people who are supposed to be Palestinian kidnappers.

A fourth company recruiting into the Israeli occupation forces is Cherev Gidon. This organization offers programs in the US. Its website boasts of being an Israeli tactical training academy. Its founder, Yonatan Stern claims he wanted to launch it in Israel, but was not able to, because this would not have been legal.

He claims to have trained hundreds of students. His students have the option of different courses in the use of rifles, pistols, shotguns and Uzis. At the start of every session, students are dressed in IOF uniforms.

This is how genocide is made.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US reshuffle of pro-‘Israel’ officials alarms occupation

Al Mayadeen | June 3, 2025

Israeli officials are expressing growing concern over a series of unexpected personnel changes within the US administration, which have targeted figures long regarded as staunch supporters of “Israel”, Israeli news outlet Ynet reported.

The shake-up comes amid escalating tensions between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over both the war on Gaza and a possible strike on Iran.

Among the most notable dismissals are Merav Ceren, a dual US-Israeli citizen who oversaw the Iran and “Israel” portfolio at the National Security Council, and Eric Trager, who led Middle East and North Africa policy. Both were appointed by former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, a strong supporter of “Israel”, who was removed by Trump.

Their removal was reportedly executed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Waltz’s successor.

Another high-profile figure expected to be removed is Morgan Ortagus, deputy to special envoy Steve Witkoff and in charge of the Lebanon file.

Ortagus’s leaving her post, although unfavorable for “Israel” due to her critical role in efforts to disarm Hezbollah, marks the departure of a controversial figure in Lebanon, with her statements, such as thanking “Israel” for what she claimed was defeating Hezbollah in the Presidential Palace in Baabda, inflaming tensions in the country, flouting proper protocol, and meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs.

Her dismissal, which sources say was not voluntary, has shocked officials in “Israel”, where she was seen as a key ally. Ortagus is reportedly being reassigned to internal duties within the State Department and will have no further role in Middle East diplomacy.

According to Lebanese outlet al-Akhbar, Ortagus had sought a more senior regional role, aiming to take over the Syria portfolio. However, her responsibilities are now expected to be reassigned, possibly to Joel Rayburn or Thomas Barrack. The Lebanese file, sources noted, has been downgraded in US priorities, with attention shifting to Syria.

American sources confirmed to Lebanon’s MTV network that Ortagus had been dismissed due to internal professional issues unrelated to Lebanon. Her upcoming trip to Beirut has been canceled, and Rayburn is expected to assume oversight of the Lebanon file as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China accuses US of violating trade truce

RT | June 2, 2025

The US has “seriously” violated the latest trade deal between Washington and Beijing, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on Monday, vowing to take measures to defend China’s interests. The accusation followed similar claims made by US President Donald Trump against Beijing.

Under the deal announced on May 12 following breakthrough negotiations in Geneva, the world’s two largest economies agreed to suspend most new tariffs imposed since early April, pending further talks.

“If the US insists on its own way and continues to damage China’s interests, China will continue to take resolute and forceful measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry said in a statement. It went on to claim that the White House violated the consensus reached between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their most recent conversation earlier this year.

Among the US actions listed by the ministry were global warnings against the use of Huawei chips, the suspension of chip design software sales to Chinese companies, and the cancelation of visas for Chinese students.

On Friday, Trump lashed out at the Chinese government, claiming that the agreement had been “totally violated” by Beijing, without providing details. He added that China had been in “grave economic danger” as a result of the tariffs before Washington stepped in with the “fast” deal.

Under the terms of the deal reached in Switzerland, the 34% tariff hikes introduced on April 2 were paused for 90 days, with Beijing taking reciprocal measures. Both sides also committed to rolling back tariff increases introduced since April 8, while maintaining a baseline of 10% on mutual imports. China additionally agreed to ease certain non-tariff measures, such as export controls on US goods.

Last week, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer claimed that China had not removed specific non-tariff barriers as agreed under the deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed this sentiment, stating that the talks were “a bit stalled” and might require direct involvement from Trump and Xi.

Beijing responded by calling on Washington to immediately correct “its erroneous actions,” cease discriminatory restrictions against China, and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva.

Tensions between the two economic powers escalated on April 2, when Trump introduced broad new tariffs targeting over 90 countries, including China, citing concerns over the trade deficit. China retaliated, launching a tit-for-tat trade standoff in which tariffs increased to 145% and 125%, respectively, on mutual imports by Washington and Beijing.

June 3, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

White House covered up chemical spill cancer risk – report

RT | June 2, 2025

The administration of former US President Joe Biden tried to cover up serious public health risks related to a 2023 toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, a whistleblower protection and advocacy group has claimed.

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) has published a set of documents obtained through a lawsuit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which allegedly prove that the White House deliberately chose to withhold the true scale of the catastrophe while intentionally avoiding contact with affected residents.

On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, derailed near the village of East Palestine, spilling its hazardous contents into a nearby waterway. Five tankers were later also deliberately ignited in a controlled burn. The incident forced evacuations, was linked to animal deaths, and led to reports of unexplained illnesses in the weeks that followed.

Several months later, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publicly declared that East Palestine residents were “not in danger,” citing air and water monitoring results. Biden had also praised what he called his administration’s “herculean efforts” to resolve the crisis.

The government’s response was heavily criticized at the time, with many calling out Biden for not visiting East Palestine sooner, downplaying the severity of the disaster, and prioritizing public relations over the health and safety concerns raised by residents and experts.

According to GAP investigator Lesley Pacey, the public’s fears have turned out to be justified, with internal documents showing that the White House, the EPA, and FEMA had privately discussed the serious dangers associated with the chemical spill, described internally as “really toxic,” and “deliberately kept this information from the community.”

In an interview with NewsNation published on Saturday, Pacey explained that FEMA knew that the controlled chemical burn resulted in a “really toxic plume” and that it could cause cancer clusters in the region and other health risks that would require 20 years of medical monitoring.

The information was never publicly disclosed or acknowledged by FEMA or the White House as the Biden administration chose to focus on “public reassurances” rather than “worrying about public health,” Pacey told the New York Post.

The emails obtained by GAP have also shown that FEMA’s coordinator – sent to East Palestine to oversee recovery efforts, communicate with residents and assess their needs – was actually directly instructed to avoid engaging with the locals.

“They completely botched this event from the very beginning,” Pacey surmised.

June 2, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

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