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The silencing of scientific curiosity

Medical journals have became enforcers of orthodoxy—retracting genuine hypotheses while protecting proven fraud

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | April 14, 2025

As a scientific writer and researcher, I’ve witnessed the decline of medical journals firsthand. Once forums for open debate and intellectual rigour, they’ve morphed into gatekeepers, more concerned with preserving a narrow orthodoxy than pursuing truth.

My previous work has exposed how journals suppress uncomfortable questions, avoid studies that challenge dominant narratives, and operate under a peer-review system distorted by bias and external influence.

But never have I seen a more absurd example of this decay than the retraction of a hypothesis paper—yes, a hypothesis—authored by Dr. Sabine Hazan in Frontiers in Microbiology.

Her 2022 article hypothesised that ivermectin might mitigate Covid-19 severity by promoting the growth of Bifidobacterium, reducing inflammation via the gut-lung axis.

She cited preliminary observations in 24 hypoxic patients who recovered without hospitalisation after combination therapy including ivermectin.

Dr Sabine Hazan, ProgenaBiome, Ventura, CA

She made no claims of definitive proof. Instead, she proposed a mechanism worth investigating. That’s the point of a scientific hypothesis.

But in May 2023—more than a year after the article was peer-reviewed and published—the journal retracted the paper following a series of complaints on PubPeer, offering only a vague explanation about “scientific soundness.”

Seeking clarity, I contacted both the journal’s editorial office and the editor who handled the paper, Professor Mohammad Alikhani at Hamadan University.

Prof Mohammad Alikhani, Department of Microbiology, Hamadan University

Specifically, I sought an explanation for retracting a ‘hypothesis’, but I did not receive a response.

This silence is damning.

Retraction is a serious step, historically reserved for cases of fraud or clear ethical misconduct. But here, no such claim was made—nor could one be substantiated.

The journal simply erased the paper, offering no transparent justification, no engagement with the scientific process, and no accountability.

In fact, it violated the very guidelines that journals are supposed to follow.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) advises that publications should only be retracted if they contain seriously flawed or fabricated data, or plagiarism that cannot be addressed through a correction.

Hazan’s paper was transparent about its speculative nature. In a January 2023 tweet, Hazan challenged her critics.

“It’s a hypothesis. PROVE ME WRONG,” she wrote.

After all, that’s the essence of science. But the journal’s decision to retract sends a message that even theoretical propositions are now intolerable.

Having tasted blood, Hazan’s critics kept digging. In January 2025, Future Microbiology retracted another of her studies—this one examining ivermectin-based multidrug therapy.

Hazan, her co-author Australian immunologist Dr. Robert L. Clancy, and others strongly disputed the decision after the journal failed to conduct a meaningful investigation into the alleged data integrity issues.

The irony is palpable.

While pundits argued over ivermectin’s efficacy during the pandemic, Hazan was one of the few actually doing the hard work to test its effects—collecting data, proposing mechanisms, engaging with the science. And yet she’s the one being silenced!

Which begs the question – why?

Is there professional jealousy in the microbiome space? Are pharmaceutical companies, threatened by low-cost alternatives like ivermectin, pressuring journals to kill competing narratives?

If so, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should investigate. Suppressing research that could affect investor decisions—by inflating the perceived value of antivirals or vaccines—could amount to securities fraud.

While there’s no definitive evidence, the pattern is hard to ignore: two retractions, no clear misconduct, and a growing campaign to discredit a scientist whose work challenges a profitable status quo.

Whether coordinated or not, the outcome is the same – the erasure of inconvenient data.

The spinelessness of journals in these episodes is unmistakable. Why do they capitulate so readily?

Just follow the money.

Many journals are financially entangled with the pharmaceutical industry—relying on drug ads, sponsorships, and profitable reprint sales. That financial tether distorts editorial independence.

Editors, often underpaid and overstretched, are understandably risk-averse. They fear litigation. They fear social media outrage. They fear becoming the next target.

Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, don’t hesitate to use legal threats to silence dissent because their pockets are deep—as in the case of Covaxin.

In July 2024, Bharat Biotech International Limited sued 11 authors—six of them students—and the editor of Drug Safety, Nitin Joshi, over a peer-reviewed article questioning the safety of their Covaxin vaccine.

The journal, under legal duress, retracted the paper. The authors were left to fend for themselves.

Journals are supposed to stand on principle. But, increasingly, they serve as enforcers of orthodoxy—vulnerable to financial pressure and online activists.

Let’s be honest, the trolls are part of the strategy. Anonymous complaints, often from individuals with no expertise, are weaponised to trigger retractions and smear reputations.

That’s not peer review. That’s mob rule.

The SEC must take a closer look at this ecosystem. If research is being suppressed to protect corporate revenue or manipulate investor confidence, that’s not just unethical—it’s illegal.

During his presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed this very issue, declaring that journals colluding with pharmaceutical companies might be subject to charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

“We’re gonna… file some racketeering lawsuits if you don’t start telling the truth in your journals,” he warned in 2023. It was provocative, yes—but it struck a chord with those of us watching the machinery of science betray its mission.

Retractions have become so casually executed, they’ve lost all meaning. What was once a mark of serious fraud is now a tool of reputational management.

Today, many papers are retracted not because they’re wrong, but because they’re inconvenient.

How else can one explain the demonstrably fraudulent studies funded by industry that remain published?

Whistleblower Dr. Peter Wilmshurst has spent years trying to get the MIST trial retracted—published in Circulation. It’s riddled with false claims, undeclared conflicts, and unreported adverse events, yet the journal continues to protect it.

This exposes the rot. These decisions have nothing to do with science.

They are political, financial, and reputational tools—used selectively to punish dissent.

There’s a growing list of researchers penalised—not for bad science, but for exploring uncomfortable truths.

Journals must reclaim their role as platforms for robust scientific debate. COPE must enforce its standards, not just cite them. Editors must be held accountable for vague or retaliatory retractions. And if corporate suppression of research is distorting public markets, then the SEC must act.

Because what I’m witnessing isn’t scientific curiosity—it’s narrative control. And the death of curiosity is the death of science itself.

April 14, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Standing at the Edge of the Iran War Cliff

By Ron Paul | April 14, 2025

Millions of people around the world were at the edge of their seats over the weekend, waiting to hear whether Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff’s indirect talks with the Iranian foreign minister would ratchet down tensions or would break down and bring on a major Middle East war.

If it seems bizarre that the outcome of a meeting between a US president’s designated negotiator and a foreign government minister could determine whether we plunge into possibly our biggest war since World War II, that’s because it is bizarre. In fact, this is an excellent example of why our Founders were so determined to keep warmaking authority out of the Executive Branch of government. No one person – much less his aide – should have the power to take this country to war.

That is why the Constitution places the authority to go to war firmly and exclusively in the hands of the representatives of the people: the US Congress. After all, it is the US people who will be expected to fight the wars and to pay for the wars and to bear the burden of the outcome of the wars. When that incredible power is placed in the hands of one individual – even if that individual is elected – the temptation to use it is far too great. Our Founders recognized this weakness in the system they were rebelling against – the British monarchy – so they wisely corrected it when they drafted our Constitution.

Unless the US is under direct attack or is facing imminent direct attack, the Constitution requires Congress to deliberate, discuss, and decide whether a conflict or potential conflict is worth bringing the weight of the US military to bear. They wanted it harder, not easier, to take us to war.

When wars can be started by presidents with no authority granted by Congress, the results can be the kinds of endless military engagements with ever-shifting, unachievable objectives such as we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We are currently seeing another such endless conflict brewing with President Trump’s decision to start bombing Yemen last month. The stated objectives– to end Houthi interference with Israeli Red Sea shipping – are not being achieved so, as usually happens, the bombing expands and creates more death and destruction for the civilian population. In the last week or so, US bombs have struck the water supply facilities for 50,000 civilians and have apparently blown up a civilian tribal gathering.

Starting a war with Iran was the furthest thing from the minds of American voters last November, and certainly those who voted for Donald Trump were at least partly motivated by his promise to end current wars and start no new wars. However, there is a strange logic that to fulfill the promise of no new wars, the US must saber rattle around the world to intimidate others from crossing the White House. This is what the recycled phrase “peace through strength” seems to have come to mean. But the real strength that it takes to make and keep peace is the strength to just walk away. It is the strength to stop meddling in conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States.

That is where Congress comes in. Except they are not coming in. They are nowhere to be found. And that is not a good thing.

April 14, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US strikes on Yemeni ceramics factory leave dozens of casualties

The Cradle | April 14, 2025

A US attack on a ceramics factory near Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, late on 13 April has killed and injured dozens of civilians, with the toll expected to rise in the coming hours.

“Six citizens were martyred and 20 others were injured, including critical injuries. Civil defense and ambulance teams are working hard to search for victims and extinguish the fires,” a spokesman for the Yemeni Health Ministry, Dr Anis al-Asbahi, told SABA news agency.

Video footage showed heavy destruction and teams attempting to extinguish large fires at the Al-Sawari factory in the Sanaa governorate’s Bani Matar district.

US warplanes also “launched two raids on the Al-Yatmah area in the Khabb wal Shaaf district, northeast of Al-Jawf governorate,” according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent.

Washington’s latest deadly attack comes as the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) and Ansarallah movement continue their operations despite a US campaign of daily airstrikes which aim to stifle Sanaa’s military capabilities – but have instead only taken a heavy toll on civilians.

The YAF announced on Sunday evening that it downed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone – worth tens of millions of US dollars – in the airspace of Yemen’s Hajjah governorate. This was the fourth MQ-9 shot down within two weeks and the 19th since the start of the war in Gaza.

“The Armed Forces reiterate that their military capabilities have not been affected and that the ongoing US aggression against our country will only bring more disappointment and failure,” the YAF said in a statement.

The US has been bombing Yemen every day since 15 March, when US President Donald Trump renewed – with severe intensity – the campaign which was started by the former administration of US president Joe Biden.

Dozens of people have been killed in the attacks, including women and children.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed last week that the campaign against Yemen is “about to get worse.”

The violent attacks come in response to Yemen’s reimposition of a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and elsewhere, as well as its renewal of drone and missile attacks on Israel after Tel Aviv restarted the war on Gaza last month.

The YAF has been responding to Washington’s attacks with operations targeting US warships in the Red Sea – including the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier.

According to sources cited in US media recently, Washington has burned through massive amounts of munitions and has spent close to $1 billion, but has failed to significantly impact the YAF and Ansarallah – which are merged.

April 14, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pregnant women deserve better than “trust us” science

A major study has been used to reassure pregnant women that Covid-19 vaccines are safe. But the data behind the claim are fatally flawed.

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | April 12, 2025

In medicine, few assurances carry more emotional weight—or greater responsibility—than the claim that something is “safe during pregnancy.”

Pregnant women are justifiably cautious about what they expose themselves to during this vulnerable time, and history has given them every reason to be.

The thalidomide disaster, diethylstilboestrol (DES), and other cautionary tales have shown what can happen when scientific rigour is sidelined in favour of commercial interests.

So, when a new study published in Pediatrics – the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics – claimed that Covid-19 vaccination in early pregnancy was safe, it came with an air of authority and reassurance.

News headlines followed suit, and public health recommendations continued to promote the vaccine’s safety in pregnancy.

But scratch the surface of this study, and something starts to unravel.

Not only are the data unverifiable and privately sourced, but the study contains a fatal flaw that renders its conclusions virtually meaningless.

The fatal flaw

The study analyzed 78,052 pregnancies that ended in a live birth—but left out 20,341 pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or other non-live outcomes.

That’s not a minor oversight.

The very purpose of studying vaccine safety in pregnancy is to assess whether exposure in utero leads to adverse outcomes—like miscarriage, birth defects, or foetal death. Yet one-fifth of the pregnancies were excluded from the analysis, removing exactly the kind of outcomes the study was supposed to detect.

This introduces what’s known as live-birth bias—a selection bias that arises when research includes only live births, disregarding the possibility that harmful effects may have caused some pregnancies to end prematurely.

Put plainly, if you only study babies who made it to birth, you’re ignoring the ones who didn’t—and any harm that may have played a role.

Even the study’s authors acknowledge this limitation, conceding that the exclusion “could lead to an underestimation of identified outcomes.” Still, they move forward to conclude there’s no association between the vaccine and birth defects.

Omitting over 20,000 pregnancies isn’t just a technicality – it’s a fatal flaw.

If even a small fraction of those pregnancies ended in miscarriage or birth defects linked to vaccination, the entire outcome could tip the other way.

Commercial data with no accountability

Then there’s the source of the data itself—a point entirely overlooked.

Rather than using clinical records from hospitals or national birth registries, the study relied entirely on a commercial database from Merative® MarketScan® Research Databases.

These databases are vast, aggregating de-identified insurance claims, prescriptions, lab results, and hospital records from more than 263 million Americans. But they are also privately owned, and their inner workings are entirely opaque.

Researchers using MarketScan data cannot verify whether the patients are real or theoretical, whether records have been altered, or how the data has been cleaned or processed before delivery.

In essence, they are working with a black box, one that comes with no guarantee of integrity.

Experts have already noted that the data from this unverified source shows signs of being unreliable.

The authors ran 93 separate statistical tests to look for differences in outcomes like birth defects. By chance alone, you’d expect a handful to be statistically significant. But none were.

The probability of that happening randomly is just 0.8%—a sign that the dataset may have been fabricated, or that its integrity is in question.

When two of the study authors – Dr Stacey Rowe and Dr Annette Regan – were asked if they had verified the authenticity of the MarketScan database—that is, if they could confirm these were ‘real’ patient data—they did not respond.

L: Dr Stacey Rowe, R: Dr Annette Regan

This isn’t a hypothetical problem.

The medical literature has already been rocked by the Surgisphere scandal, where fraudulent hospital datasets were used to produce papers in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine.

Those papers were eventually retracted, but only after independent researchers demanded to see the raw data and were denied – the data were likely fabricated.

Reassurance without evidence

Despite these glaring problems, the study’s conclusions are being used to reassure pregnant women.

In Australia, for example, the government’s official guidance recommends Covid-19 vaccination in pregnancy, stating that the “recommendations for pregnant women are the same as the general population.”

This, despite the fact that pregnant women were excluded from the pivotal clinical trials and no randomised studies have ever been completed to assess the vaccine’s safety in early-pregnancy.

The result is a landscape where pregnant women are asked to make a “shared decision” with their doctors—based on scientific literature that’s increasingly built on unverifiable data, flawed assumptions, and little to no independent scrutiny.

We are drifting into a new era where conclusions are based on data that sit behind corporate firewalls. An era where trust is expected, but no longer earned.

The Pediatrics study is a case in point.

It carries the imprimatur of authority, published in the flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But, in reality, the analysis was based on commercial datasets that cannot be independently verified, and a methodology that systematically excludes the very outcomes it was supposed to assess.

This isn’t just bad science—it’s misleading by design.

And when it comes to pregnancy, where the stakes are literally life and death, that kind of scientific chicanery is a betrayal.

Pregnant women deserve better than a “trust us” approach to medicine.

They need full access to the data, honest communication about uncertainties, and above all, respect for their right to make informed decisions based on real evidence, not selective reporting.

Until that happens, we should remain sceptical of any study that asks us to believe in the evidence without seeing it.

April 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Did Head of CDC Vaccine Safety Office Delete COVID Vaccine Injury Records?

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 11, 2025

A key official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) responsible for monitoring vaccine safety and reports of vaccine injuries may have mishandled or deleted official records subpoenaed by Congress, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) alleged earlier this week. The New York Post first reported the story on Thursday.

Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the CDC Immunization Safety Office, maintained the records in question. Shimabukuro previously authored a key paper and participated in public messaging claiming the COVID-19 vaccines were safe and effective for pregnant women.

Johnson, chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, requested the records in a subpoena sent in January to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The subpoena pertained to an investigation into internal COVID-19 vaccine safety communications.

According to the New York Post, the subpoena led HHS to discover “potential discrepancies” in the emails maintained by Shimabukuro.

“HHS officials recently informed me that Dr. Shimabukuro’s records remain lost and, potentially, removed from HHS’s email system altogether,” Johnson wrote in a letter he sent earlier this week to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and HHS Principal Deputy Inspector General Juliet Hodgkins.

Johnson called Shimabukuro’s possible mishandling of his official records “highly concerning.”

Journalist Paul D. Thacker, a former U.S. Senate investigator, said, “Every American should be concerned about government scientists deleting or hiding federal information to shape a political agenda. That information belongs to the taxpayers.”

Nebraska chiropractor Ben Tapper, whose questioning of the COVID-19 vaccines led the Center for Countering Digital Hate to add him in 2021 to its “Disinformation Dozen” list of the “leading online anti-vaxxers,” said he was “not surprised” by Johnson’s allegations.

“For years, I’ve seen patterns like this before regarding vaccine safety data. The public health establishment often prioritizes profits over people and continuously seems to protect the lies over the truth. The idea that critical records might vanish — whether through negligence or intent — fits a familiar playbook,” Tapper said.

California attorney Rick Jaffe said Johnson’s allegations are “troubling, but not surprising, given longstanding concerns about transparency at the CDC.”

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last year, the CDC told Children’s Health Defense the agency has no records of certain internal email communications relating to the agency’s follow-up investigation of safety signals associated with COVID-19 vaccines.

HHS, CDC and Johnson’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Missing records ‘could contain unfiltered insights’ into vaccine adverse events

Citing an unnamed aide from Johnson’s office, the New York Post said it is unclear which specific records are missing. But according to Johnson’s letter, Shimabukuro’s role included “monitoring adverse events relating to the COVID-19 vaccines.”

Tapper said Shimabukuro may have been “handling sensitive data on adverse events linked to the COVID-19 vaccines,” including data from the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the V-safe database, as well as studies, raw data and internal communications on vaccine-related safety signals.

Tapper said:

“These records could contain unfiltered insights into side effects that were downplayed or unresolved during the pandemic. For example, I’ve seen cases in my practice where patients developed symptoms like persistent fatigue or heart palpitations post-vaccination, yet struggled to get clear answers from authorities.

“Missing records could hide similar signals, undermining efforts to validate patient experiences or refine vaccine protocols.”

Internal medicine physician Dr. Clayton J. Baker said, “Such records would likely be very damning to all CDC officials who perpetuated the false ‘safe and effective’ narrative about the COVID-19 vaccines from 2021 until the present.”

“Given how damning any evidence of ignored or falsified safety signals would be, I think it is highly likely that Biden-era officials might try to destroy such records if they could. Better to be accused of destruction of federal records than to be charged as an accessory to mass negligent homicide,” Baker said.

In an April 2023 presentation to the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Shimabukuro claimed that surveillance conducted by international regulatory and public health partners “has not detected a safety concern for ischemic stroke following bivalent COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccination.”

Yet, a peer-reviewed study published in November 2024 found that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines pose a 112,000% greater risk of brain clots and strokes than flu vaccines, and a 20,700% greater risk of those symptoms than all other vaccines combined. The study called for a global moratorium on mRNA vaccines.

In 2021, Shimabukuro was the lead author of a study in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women. The study concluded that “preliminary findings did not show obvious safety signals among pregnant persons who received mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.”

However, a peer-reviewed study published in 2022 showed that the authors of the NEJM study performed a “statistical sleight-of-hand” that substantially lowered the miscarriage rate in pregnant women, presenting it as 12.6% instead of 82%.

In a Substack post, epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher said Shimabukuro’s “potential involvement in the deliberate manipulation of critical safety data on COVID-19 mRNA injections during pregnancy carries grave implications — resulting in immeasurable harm to mothers and their unborn children worldwide.”

Shimabukuro ‘may have violated multiple federal laws’

According to a press release from Johnson’s office, Shimabukuro’s actions, if proven to have occurred, “may have violated multiple federal laws.”

Those laws include the Federal Records Act, which requires federal employees to preserve materials “made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business,” the New York Post reported.

Johnson wrote that the destruction of records subpoenaed by Congress may also be “grounds for contempt of Congress,” which, according to the New York Post, is punishable by up to a six-figure fine and 12 months in prison.

Jaffe said Shimabukuro may also face other penalties. He said:

“Under federal law, he could be charged with obstruction of justice or destruction of official records — risking fines, restitution and up to 20 years in prison. His federal pension could also be garnished to satisfy any judgment against him.

“Beyond criminal penalties, he faces permanent disqualification from federal service and career-ending reputational harm.”

In addition, if records relating to vaccine-injured people are missing or destroyed, impairing their legal cases, “courts could impose evidentiary sanctions or presume the destroyed records were unfavorable to the government,” Jaffe said.

Johnson’s letter also referred to Dr. David Morens, an employee of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was a close aide of the agency’s former director, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Morens allegedly deleted emails and instructed colleagues to contact him at a personal email account to sidestep FOIA rules.

In his letter, Johnson accused HHS of a “lack of transparency” and failure to investigate the allegations against Morens.

“I had always suspected that Dr. Morens was not the sole evader of federal record-keeping requirements at HHS,” Johnson wrote. “The extent to which HHS officials systemically mishandled, deleted, or destroyed their communications, data, and other information relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines must be thoroughly investigated.”

Johnson’s letter asks the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice and the HHS Inspector General’s Office to investigate the matter, including whether records were intentionally destroyed to “avoid or subvert Congressional oversight or the Freedom of Information Act.”

The letter builds on Johnson’s efforts to investigate COVID-19 vaccine safety.

Earlier this week, Johnson sent letters to the heads of four COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, requesting they turn over records related to the development and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines and their communications with Big Tech platforms about vaccine-related adverse events.

In November 2024, Johnson wrote a letter to HHS, CDC and FDA, asking the agencies to “preserve all records referring or relating to the development, safety, and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.”

In an October 2023 letter to the then-heads of CDC and FDA, Johnson accused the agencies of an “appalling” lack of transparency regarding COVID-19 vaccine safety signals, depriving Americans of “the benefit of informed consent.”

During the Biden administration, Johnson wrote over 70 letters to HHS officials and its health agencies requesting information on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events and related communications, according to a Jan. 29 press release.

Last year, Johnson hosted a congressional roundtable to discuss the risks of COVID-19 vaccines. Medical experts, political figures, journalists and whistleblowers were among the participants.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

April 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Leaked files reveal the Steele Dossier was discredited in 2017 — but sold to the public anyway

By Kit KLARENBERG | MintPress News | April 8, 2025 

On March 25, Donald Trump signed an executive order declassifying all documentation related to Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s 2016 investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. The order has unexpectedly resurrected buried documents that cast new light on the Steele dossier — and when it was known to be false.

It is unclear what new information will be revealed, given substantial previous declassifications, two special counsel investigations, multiple congressional inquiries, several civil lawsuits, and a scathing Justice Department internal review. It has long been confirmed the FBI relied heavily on Steele’s discredited dossier to secure warrants against Trump aide Carter Page, despite grave internal concerns about its origins and reliability, and Steele’s sole “subsource” for all its lurid allegations openly admitted in interviews with the Bureau he could offer no corroboration for any of the dossier’s claims.

Such inconvenient facts and damning disclosures were nonetheless concealed from the public for several years following the dossier’s January 2017 publication by BuzzFeed News, now defunct. In the intervening time, it became the central component of the Russiagate narrative, a conspiracy theory that was a major rallying point for countless mainstream journalists, pundits, public figures, Western intelligence officials, and elected lawmakers. In the process, Steele attained mythological status. For example, NBC News dubbed the former MI6 operative “a real-life James Bond.”

Primetime news networks dedicated countless hours to the topic, while leading media outlets invested enormous time, energy and money into verifying the dossier’s claims without success. Undeterred, legacy reporters relied on a roster of mainstream “Russia experts,” including prominent British and U.S. military and intelligence veterans, and briefings from anonymous officials to reinforce Steele’s credibility and the likely veracity of his dossier. As award-winning investigative journalist Aaron Maté told MintPress News :

Media outlets served as unquestioning stenographers for Steele. If his dossier’s claims themselves weren’t sufficient to dismiss it with ridicule, another obvious marker should have set off alarms. Reading the dossier chronologically, a clear pattern emerges – many of its most explosive claims are influenced by contemporary media reporting. For instance, it was only after Wikileaks published the DNC emails in July 2016 that the dossier mentioned them. This is just one example demonstrating the dossier’s true sources were overactive imaginations and mainstream news outlets.”

Even more damningly, leaked documents reviewed by MintPress News reveal that while Western journalists were hard at work attempting to validate Steele’s dossier and elevating the MI6 spy to wholly undeserved pillars of probity, the now-defunct private investigations firm GPW Group was, in early 2017, secretly unearthing vast amounts of damaging material that fatally undermined the dossier’s content, and comprehensively dismantling Steele’s previously unimpeachable public persona. It remains speculative what impact the firm’s findings might have had if they had been released publicly at the time.

‘Financial Incentives’

GPW’s probe of Steele and his dossier was commissioned by Carter Ledyard & Milburn, a law firm representing Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and German Khan — owners of Alfa Bank. The dossier leveled several serious allegations against them. The trio purportedly possessed a “kompromat” on Vladimir Putin, delivered “illicit cash” to him throughout the 1990s, and routinely provided the Kremlin with “informal advice” on foreign policy — “especially about the U.S.” Meanwhile, Alfa Bank supposedly served as a clandestine back channel between Trump and Moscow.

“In order to build a profile of Christopher Steele… as well as the broader operations of both Orbis Business Intelligence and Fusion GPS,” which commissioned the dossier on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, GPW consulted “a variety of sources.” This included “U.S. intelligence figures,” various journalists, “private intelligence subcontractors” who had previously worked with Steele and Orbis, and “contacts who knew the man from his time with [MI6]…and, in one instance, directly oversaw his work.”

The picture that emerged of Steele sharply contrasted with his mainstream portrayal as a “superstar.” One operative who “acted as Steele’s manager when he began working with [MI6] and later supervised him at two further points” described him as “average, middle of the road,” stating he had never “shined” in any of his postings. Another suggested Steele’s founding of Orbis “was the source of some incredulity” within MI6 due to his underwhelming professional history and perceived lack of “commercial nous.”

Yet another suggested Steele’s production of the dossier reflected his lack of “big picture judgment.” Sources consulted by GPW were even more critical of Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson. One journalist described him as a “hack” without “a license or the contacts to do… actual investigations,” instead outsourcing “all” work ostensibly conducted by his firm to others while skimming commissions. They also “openly admitted” to disliking Simpson, described by GPW as “not an uncommon attitude amongst those to whom we spoke.”

GPW also scrutinized “credibility and perceptions of the dossier in Russia,” specifically whether Steele‘s claims that high-ranking Kremlin-linked sources in Moscow provided him with information had any merit. The firm consulted “Western and Russian journalists, former officials from the FSB and the Russian security services more broadly, a former high-ranking official at the CIA who oversaw the agency’s Russian operations, and several private-sector intelligence practitioners operating in Moscow” for this purpose:

The prevailing sentiment from our contacts was one of extreme skepticism as to the accuracy of… the [dossier]. Most found it unimaginable… senior Russian officials would risk life imprisonment (or worse) by speaking to a former foreign intelligence official about such sensitive issues. At the very least… it would have cost Steele a great deal more… than he could afford… Former intelligence operatives (from both the U.S. and Russian services) seriously doubted Steele would have been able to retain Russian sources from his time in MI6.”

GPW also examined “possible sources for the dossier” that had been hypothesized in the media to date. Among them was former FSB General Oleg Erovinkin, who was found dead in his car in Moscow in December 2016. After the dossier’s release, the Daily Telegraph suggested his death was “mysterious” and could have resulted from providing information to Steele. A former high-ranking official in U.S. intelligence mockingly dismissed the proposition, noting that career security and intelligence officer Erovinkin was “unlikely to have needed the money.”

While conceding that financial incentives could encourage such a breach… [if] Steele had offered Erovinkin £100,000, the mooted budget for the entire project, ‘Erovinkin would have said he needed to see three more zeros before opening his mouth. It’s just a ridiculous proposition to think he would speak to a former intelligence officer from the UK, or anyone else for that matter, for such a paltry sum of money.’”

Overall, GPW concluded: “The quality and level of the sourcing was greatly exaggerated in order to give the dossier and its allegations more credibility.” This impression was reinforced by “informed sources from both government and the private sector” in Russia who were “very dismissive” of the dossier’s content. Many pointed to “woeful inaccuracies” contained therein “and its author’s general lack of understanding around Russian politics and business.” This “deficiency was particularly acute with respect to the dossier’s coverage of Alfa Bank.”

‘Reputational Damage’

GPW’s investigation also proved prescient in other areas. For example, several knowledgeable sources the company consulted — including former senior Russian and U.S. intelligence officials — suggested the dossier’s “most likely sources” were Russian émigrés, “providing… their own views.” They also noted the Steele dossier’s “hyperbole and inaccuracies” were “typical of the hyperactive imaginations of the subcontractors widely used in the business intelligence sector.” This was not confirmed until July 2020.

That month, the Senate Judiciary Committee released notes taken by FBI agents during February 2017 interviews with Igor Danchenko, Steele’s “subsource” and the dossier’s effective author. A Washington think tank journeyman jailed years earlier on multiple public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges and investigated by the FBI for potentially serving as a Kremlin agent, Danchenko admitted he had been fed much of the dossier’s salacious content by his Russian drinking buddies, who lacked any high-level access. Steele then embroidered their dud information further.

Other striking passages in the leaks refer to a conversation between GPW and “a source from within the business intelligence sector in London [who] knows Christopher Steele well, both socially and professionally, and is familiar with his company.” They relayed various details and “commentary” gleaned “directly from speaking to Steele.” For example, they noted that contrary to its self-description as a “leading corporate intelligence consultancy,” Orbis was “not a major operation” and seemed to employ just two junior analysts “who looked like recent graduates.”

The source revealed that “other, larger firms in the sector were approached before Steele and turned the work down before he took it on,” and the dossier was his solo project. “The rest of the company wasn’t involved at all, either to help on the research side of things or to look through the product before it went out,” and “Steele basically collated the information himself.” They further suggested the dossier’s sources let their imaginations run wild, believing their claims would never see the light of day:

I think they got carried away — they didn’t think the material would ever be made public because at that point it was very unlikely that Trump was going to get into power…Steele was rather naive about the whole thing. He didn’t think that it would get exposed in the way it did.”

In other investigative briefs, GPW noted it was unusual that “Steele would have permitted (or indeed facilitated) the distribution of such questionable material under his name,” given the dossier’s apparent falsity. The firm postulated that “in sharing the material with U.S. government figures,” the former MI6 operative “may have thought he was currying favor with them by doing so,” but ultimately, “he never intended for the dossier to be made public in the manner it was.”

One possible answer to this question is found in a defamation case brought against Orbis by Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan in Britain in May 2018. In July 2020, a British court ruled that the dossier’s allegations against them and Alfa Bank were “inaccurate and misleading,” awarding damages “for the loss of autonomy, distress and reputational damage.” During the trial, Steele made a notable disclosure:

Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie… it engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and [“Hillary for America”] could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.”

In essence, the dossier was commissioned by Clinton’s campaign as a contingency in the event she lost the election. However, as GPW’s source close to Steele noted, when the MI6 operative took on the work, the prevailing perception was that “it was very unlikely” Trump would win. As a result, Steele may have had the motivation to fill the dossier with unverified material, believing it would never be used for its intended purpose. He also had a commercial incentive to exaggerate his high-level access. A serving CIA official told GPW:

Steele was known to have been ‘up and down the alley’ pitching for business – a reference to the major defense firms, such as Lockheed Martin, which are located close to one another in Arlington, Virginia. She did not know which firms Steele had worked for in particular, if any, but he has visited several of them in person at their headquarters.”

‘Supposedly Unaware’

A core mystery at the heart of the Steele dossier saga has never been satisfactorily resolved — one that Trump’s latest declassification order could help illuminate. In his December 2019 report on Crossfire Hurricane, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz criticized the FBI’s use of the dossier to obtain warrants against Carter Page but insisted Steele’s assorted claims “played no role” in the bureau opening its investigation of Trump’s campaign, reportedly on July 31, 2016.

As extensively documented by Aaron Maté, this claim is difficult to reconcile with the numerous contacts and meetings between Steele and senior FBI and Justice Department officials in the weeks leading up to that date. The former MI6 officer provided material that would later comprise the dossier to senior U.S. government officials, including Victoria Nuland, prior to the official opening of Crossfire Hurricane. Nuland reportedly encouraged the bureau to investigate the contents.

According to the FBI’s electronic communications that initiated Crossfire Hurricane, the probe’s founding predicate was a vague tip provided to the bureau by Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. He claimed that low-level Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos had “suggested” to him over drinks in London that “the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion [emphasis added] from Russia that it could assist… with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging” to Clinton. The EC further acknowledged that “It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly or through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer.”

As Maté told MintPress News, this was an “extraordinarily thin basis upon which to investigate an entire presidential campaign.” He added that “upon officially opening Crossfire Hurricane, FBI officials immediately took investigative steps that mirrored the claims in the Steele dossier, even though they were supposedly unaware of it.” The FBI’s first probes into individual Trump campaign figures — Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort — began in August 2016. All are mentioned in the dossier. Maté concludes:

To accept the official timeline, one has to stipulate that the FBI investigated a Presidential campaign, and then a President, based on a low-level volunteer having ‘suggested’ Trump’s campaign had received ‘some kind of suggestion’ of assistance from Russia. One would also have to accept that the Bureau was not influenced by the far more detailed claims of direct Trump-Russia connections – an alleged conspiracy that would form the heart of the investigation – advanced in the widely-circulating Steele dossier.”

April 13, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Somaliland Offers Trump Red Sea Base in Exchange for Recognition

Sputnik – 13.04.2025

Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland wants to be recognized as an independent state by US President Donald Trump in exchange for leasing its Berbera port and airstrip to the US, media reported on Saturday.

In March, the Semafor daily newspaper reported that Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had offered the US control over ports and airbases located in Somaliland and another breakaway region, Puntland, in an attempt to prevent Washington from recognizing them.

Somaliland, however, plans to strike a deal with Trump, offering the US to lease its airstrip and port, which will ensure smooth military and logistical access to the Gulf of Aden, in exchange for Washington’s recognition of its statehood, The New York Times reported.

The airstrip at the Berbera International Airport was built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Stretching for over 2.5 miles, it is the longest airstrip in Africa.

The Associated Press reported in mid-March, citing a US official, that the US was in talks with Somaliland to determine what it could offer in exchange for its recognition. The US is reportedly exploring options for resettling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

Somalia ceased to exist as a unified state in 1991 following the fall of dictator Siad Barre. The international community recognizes the federal government of Somalia, which controls Mogadishu and parts of the country.

April 13, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US, Iran take a leap forward in trust building

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | April 13, 2025 

With the foreplay over and US-Iranian talks commencing in Muscat on Saturday, a constructive engagement has begun in right earnestness. The sure sign of it is that Iran’s currency rose nearly 6 percent on Sunday. The Tehran bazaar, the weathervane of Shia politics, has spoken. 

Most important, the two key negotiators in Muscat Steve Witkoff and Abbas Araqchi have decided to return to the talks on April 19 in exactly a week’s time after reporting back to their principals in Washington and Tehran respectively and seeking fresh guidelines going forward. 

The White House said the talks were positive and constructive and appreciated that “direct communication was a step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.” Witkoff described the talks as “very positive and constructive.” 

Iran’s foreign ministry said the talks were held in “a constructive atmosphere based on mutual respect. Araqchi also described the negotiations as “promising and constructive.” Significantly, Araqchi told the Iranian national television that the talks brought the two sides closer to establishing “the basis of negotiations” for future discussions.

He added cryptically that while Oman will continue to act as mediator in the upcoming round on April 19, the venue for the next session may change.

Signalling to Witkoff and addressing the domestic audience, Araqchi gave an insightful perspective. He said the discussions aimed to create a structured agenda for the negotiations based on a timeline. The following remarks by Araqchi must be noted carefully: 

  • “We agreed to hold a second round next Saturday, and in the next session, we will delve into the overall framework that a deal can take to see how far this process can advance.”
  • It is important to set a basis for the talks; “If we can finalise the basis in the next meeting… we can begin real discussions based on that basis.”
  • The talks were conducted in a “calm and very respectful atmosphere. No inappropriate language was used. Both sides demonstrated their determination to advance the talks until an agreement is reached that is desirable for both parties and is based on an equal footing.”  
  • Neither Iran nor the US wants to “negotiate for the sake of negotiating” and does not favour protracted “attritional talks.” Both sides voiced their keenness to achieve an agreement “at the shortest time. This, however, will not be easy and requires full determination of the two sides.”
  • “When leaving, the two delegations encountered each other, and we talked for a few minutes. This is a completely accepted issue. We have always observed diplomatic courtesy when dealing with American diplomats, and this time, too, an initial greeting was exchanged, and then we left the place. It was nothing extraordinary.”

Dr Mohammad Jafar Qaempanah, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s trusted chief of staff who holds the position of vice-president for executive affairs — and, incidentally, a medical doctor by profession with research papers and foreign citations to his credit — that the negotiations “were conducted well with dignity, prudence, expediency, and in line with the interests of the Iranian people.” 

President Donald Trump reined himself in his early comments to the media from Air Force One, “Nothing matters until you get it done, so I don’t like talking about it, but it’s going OK. The Iran situation is going pretty good, I think.”

Elsewhere, Trump added, “I want Iran to be a wonderful, great, happy country, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.” But that is Iran’s strategic choice, too. 

That said, both in the US and in Iran, the hardliners are straining at the leash to throw stones. Then there are also the third parties with their own agenda. If the Iranians spurned the initial US attempt to have the UAE mediate, and instead also bypassed Qatar and opted for Oman as their preferred mediator for the talks, it tells a tale by itself of the complex regional alignments in the Gulf as well as Tehran’s need to keep Israelis miles away from messing around. 

The crux of the matter is that the initial round of talks in Muscat represents a turning point in the challenging dynamics between Tehran and Washington. According to the Tehran grapevine, the talks focussed on two intertwined contentious issues — sanctions relief and the nuclear issue — as in the past negotiations.

Reaching a mutually agreeable framework for dialogue could pave the way for reducing tensions and returning to a diplomatic path. It is doable today from all indications. The game changer is that both sides have shown willingness to reduce tensions and seek a middle ground. Araqchi’s positive spin on the atmospherics at the Muscat talks signalled that the enduring mutual distrust notwithstanding, both sides acknowledge the necessity of continuing discussions, and are determined to avoid deadlock and explore new opportunities. 

This is not to overlook that the path ahead remains challenging and fraught with obstacles. Sensitive issues need to be sorted out such as the the timing of sanctions relief, the scope of nuclear commitments, and verification mechanisms. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that the return to diplomacy after such high spiralling of tensions in recent months provides an opportunity to rebuild relative trust and recalibrate US-Iran relations—at least on technical and substantive levels.

Indeed, Witkoff and Araqchi are just the negotiators with the temperament not to succumb to the temptations of oneupmanship and grandstanding and instead proceed with precision, patience, and creativity in an all-out attempt to capitalise on the good start.

Witkoff already signalled an openness to compromise when he told Wall Street Journal that “our position today” starts with demanding that Iran completely dismantle its nuclear program. “That doesn’t mean, by the way, that at the margin we’re not going to find other ways to find compromise between the two countries.

“Where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponisation of your [Iran’s] nuclear capability,” Witkoff added underscoring that any deal must include extensive oversight measures to guarantee Iran is not developing an atomic weapon. Nuclear experts from the US state department are assisting Witkoff. 

Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. On Friday, foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in Tehran that Iran is “giving diplomacy a genuine chance in good faith and full vigilance. America should appreciate this decision, which was made despite their hostile rhetoric.”

READ MORE: Steve Witkoff’s Iran mission holds seamless possibilities, Indian Punchline, April 11, 2025 

April 13, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

The Media Playbook for Measles Looks a Lot Like Its COVID Playbook — This Time, Kids Are the Pawns

By Mary Holland, J.D. | The Defender | April 8, 2025

There are moments in the history of a movement that test its resolve. For the medical freedom movement, this is one of those moments.

We are in the midst of another full-on attack by the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, aided and abetted by a beholden mainstream media united around its allegiance to a $69 billion vaccine industry.

Five years ago, we fought back as our government, Big Media and Big Pharma orchestrated and executed a COVID-19 fear campaign — a campaign built on lies, deception and censorship — and then parlayed the public’s fear into dangerous and deadly medical mandates and hospital protocols that continue to cause profound harm.

The upside to COVID-19 global disaster?

It opened the eyes of millions more people to the dangers of shoddily tested vaccines, regulatory agency hubris and one-size-fits-all “medicine.”

As our movement has grown exponentially, so has our threat to Big Pharma.

In response, we’re seeing the same tactics rolled out again. This time, it’s measles. This time, children are the pawns in pharma’s playbook.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) stood strong and stayed true to our mission during COVID. We’re standing just as strong now. We remain just as committed now to the truth, informed consent and medical freedom as we were during the pandemic.

As pharma ramps up its measles playbook, our No. 1 job is to dismantle the vaccine industry’s lies — broadcast far and wide through the industry’s most reliable and faithful megaphone: mainstream media.

The media would have you believe that measles is a “deadly” disease. But any suggestion that MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines are safer than measles infection isn’t supported by facts.

In fact, between 2000 and 2024, nine measles-related deaths were reported to the CDC. During the same period, 141 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccination were reported in the U.S. to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — suggesting the MMR vaccine can be deadlier than measles.

The media echo the same familiar refrain: The MMR vaccine is “overwhelmingly safe.”

In fact, the MMR vaccine is associated with serious health risks. The package insert for Merck’s MMRII says, “M-M-R II vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential or impairment of fertility.”

Research also shows the MMR vaccine causes febrile seizures, anaphylaxis, meningitis, encephalitis, thrombocytopenia, arthralgia and vasculitis. In 2004, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that boys vaccinated with their first MMR vaccine on time were 67% more likely to be diagnosed with autism compared to boys who got their first vaccine after their 3rd birthday.

The media insist there’s no viable treatment for measles — hence prevention, with the MMR vaccine, is the sole solution.

In fact, as CHD reported, doctors in West Texas are successfully treating measles with budesonide and vitamin A. Even the World Health Organization recommends vitamin A.

Yet some hospitals and doctors are refusing to treat measles patients with budesonide. Texas health officials rejected pleas by a treating physician to endorse the treatment and get the word out to hospitals about its effectiveness.

Sound familiar?

We saw this identical playbook with COVID. Media parroted public health officials’ claim that the vaccine alone would save us — while discouraging, ridiculing and even outright sanctioning the use of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, budesonide and other treatments known to reduce COVID severity and death.

Last month, a 6-year-old child in West Texas died after developing pneumonia while recovering from measles. Media seized the opportunity to disparage the parents, members of a Mennonite community, for not vaccinating their child.

As our science and CHD.TV teams uncovered — after enlisting experts to review the child’s medical records — the little girl died not “from” measles, as media claimed, but from a tragic medical error.

In fact, the hospital properly diagnosed the little girl’s pneumonia — a community-acquired pneumonia that, when treated properly is not life-threatening. Unfortunately, the doctors failed to use the standard antibiotic indicated for treating her pneumonia until it was too late.

Even after CHD exposed the accurate cause of death, The New York Times reported the 6-year-old died from measles — and accused us of making “unfounded claims” about the death.

Last week, a second child in West Texas died. The media and Texas health officials reported the death as “measles pulmonary failure.” CHD is working with the child’s parents to analyze her medical records. We will report, accurately, on what we find.

The media have accused CHD and the health freedom movement — or “anti-vaxxers” as reporters love to call us — of “weaponizing” the tragic death of the 6-year-old who died because of a medical error. (We should point out that death by medical error is not uncommon in the U.S. It’s estimated that at least 250,000 people die every year as a result of the wrong diagnosis or treatment, making it the third-leading cause of death).

The death of any child, for any reason, is heartbreaking. But in this case, who are the real “weaponizers?”

If media are genuinely concerned about children’s lives, where are the reports on children’s injuries and deaths from COVID-19 vaccines? From MMR vaccines? From the other 14 shots on the CDC-recommended schedule?

Last month, CHD reported on the senseless death of a 1-year-old roughly 12 hours after the child’s pediatrician insisted on administering six shots of 12 vaccines at once.

Where were the headlines deploring this child’s death, denouncing the child’s pediatrician? Where were the reports on the known dangers of “catching up” babies and children on vaccines?

As the media remain radio silent on the carnage inflicted on innocent children by a powerful, greedy industry and its minions in Congress, CHD is honoring the legacy of these children by reporting the facts, telling the truth and insisting on the rights of parents to make independent, informed medical decisions.

This latest round of attacks on the health freedom movement is a measure of pharma’s fear. We are winning. Pharma knows it.

We have no intention of backing down from the facts: Vaccines cause serious injuries, including death. As Big Pharma and Big Media wage a renewed battle for the hearts and minds of parents, we must strengthen our resolve, we must stay true to our mission.

Our children deserve nothing less.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

April 12, 2025 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

AfD leader slams latest German military aid to Kiev as ‘catastrophic’

Al Mayadeen | April 11, 2025

Germany’s plan to ramp up military support for Ukraine has drawn sharp criticism from Alice Weidel, co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Speaking on Friday, Weidel condemned Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ announcement of further arms deliveries, warning that the move fuels conflict rather than advancing peace.

According to a report by RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), Pistorius revealed that Berlin will allocate an additional 8 billion euros ($9 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine by 2029. This comes on top of roughly 7 billion euros worth of equipment pledged for delivery in 2025. Germany has already committed nearly €44 billion in aid to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, including military, financial, and humanitarian support, making it one of Kiev’s largest backers in Europe.

Responding to the announcement on social media platform X, Weidel said: “Pistorius announces new arms deliveries to Ukraine. This makes it clear: the small coalition continues the catastrophic course of escalation carried out by the ‘traffic light’ coalition. This is explosive. We must support the US efforts to achieve a ceasefire.”

Weidel and the AfD have long opposed German military aid to Ukraine, arguing that continued arms shipments escalate tensions and jeopardize German national interests. She has also criticized sanctions on Russia, warning they disproportionately harm Germany’s economy. In her public statements, Weidel has urged Berlin to adopt a neutral foreign policy stance and support diplomatic initiatives, particularly those backed by US President Donald Trump.

Russian officials have frequently argued that Western weapon supplies prolong the war and position NATO countries as active participants in the conflict. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that any shipment containing arms intended for Ukraine is considered a valid military target under Russian policy.

April 12, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Why Does Trump Want to Own Major Ukrainian Gas Pipeline?

Sputnik – 12.04.2025

Trump now wants to claim the pipeline used to transport Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine, according to a Reuters report on the April 11 US-Ukraine talks.

How could the US profit from owning the pipeline?

It’s all about the fact that the Ukrainian pipeline can be used to ship gas in reverse, says Dr. George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at The Global Policy Institute.

  • Rather than being used to pump Russian gas to European consumers, the pipe can serve to deliver American LNG to Ukrainian consumers.
  • By controlling the pipeline, the US can monopolize the Ukrainian gas market, further solidifying Washington’s hold on the country, which would become dependent on American LNG.
  • The pipeline could also be used by the US to deliver American LNG to EU countries, making them dependent on US energy resources as well.

Europe and Ukraine “brought this on themselves” by cutting off cheap Russian energy and relying on more expensive American imports, Dr. Szamuely says.

April 12, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Here we go again – $1 trillion for US ‘defense’

By Drago Bosnic | April 12, 2025

Remember when President Donald Trump promised to make the US military “far more powerful, but for much less money”? Remember when he pledged to end the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours? Well, me neither. In all seriousness, we can always say that Trump is a politician and that truth or consistency are not exactly the defining qualities of any politician.

On the other hand, the Messianic Complex among many Trumpists is certainly concerning, as there’s little questioning of Trump’s policies. He’s most definitely a very polarizing figure. The vast majority of people are either his staunch supporters or have TDS (Trump derangement syndrome). This prevents a more objective view of his performance, both at home and abroad.

Namely, Trump is exposed to numerous interest groups, many of which have very diverging views on how America should be. The old Deep State sees him as the greatest threat to “Pax Americana” and wants him out at all costs (including through physical removal), while other interest groups think extreme measures are unnecessary and that simply influencing Trump’s decision-making is more than enough.

The latter seem to be leading the charge, while the remnants of the previous administration are engaged in largely pointless protests. However, despite superficial enmity between them, there’s a quite solid continuity in many policies of the two administrations. This is particularly true when it comes to foreign policy and financing the US military.

In the case of the former, the Biden administration’s crawling economic warfare against the European Union (primarily through the destruction of its trade with Russia while the US continued to buy critical commodities from Moscow and even resell them to Europe) has been augmented by Trump’s trade wars.

In the case of the latter, there’s a robust continuity with virtually every US administration in the last 35 years (at the very least). Namely, the consistent increase in American military spending is a clear indicator that the same people are making the final decision on this issue, regardless of who’s in power. The Trump administration’s latest announcement regarding the US “defense” budget effectively proves this is precisely the case.

Namely, on April 7, President Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon will get its first $1 trillion. Interestingly, what should’ve been breaking news was sidelined by global panic regarding the impact of new tariffs. In his usual manner of using superlatives, Trump said that “nobody’s seen anything like it”, adding that “we have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something we have to build, and we have to be strong”. It’s certainly commendable to see a government exercise “cost-consciousness”, with Trump employing Musk’s DOGE to be “the ultimate auditing organization”. However, giving a trillion dollars to the unaudited US military sounds like anything but frugality.

On paper, the administration has been adamant about cutting excess government spending, so this move doesn’t make much sense (unless all the auditing was designed to help find the money for the Pentagon). The logical conclusion is that Trump is exposed to the influence of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) just as much as any other president.

Hegseth was certainly happy with the arrangement, as evidenced by his announcement on Twitter/X where he thanked Trump and presented the development as something “fantastic for everyone”. It would be interesting to see what American taxpayers think about the fact that their money will be invested in more death and destruction instead of restoring America’s crumbling infrastructure.

As previously mentioned, the first official $1 trillion for the US military was only a matter of time, as the troubled Biden administration announced it two years ago, when it pledged to double the Pentagon’s budget. The latest increase is in line with this plan, as the actual US DoD spending has been well over $1 trillion for years (many of its expenses are distributed to other departments). In addition, the Biden administration’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was officially $895 billion, so the latest increase is nothing out of the ordinary and is in line with regular spikes in military spending with every US government in recent history. This certainly breaks the Trump administration’s attempts to present itself as “anti-establishment”.

In addition, the move can only exacerbate America’s debt crisis, particularly after it reached $35 trillion last year and is expected to go over $40 trillion next year. Experts are warning that the latest increase in military spending will likely add at least another trillion to the already rapidly growing debt and that budget cuts are yet to affect the Pentagon, adding that the US military “does precisely nothing to defend the USA” and that it “exclusively interferes in other countries”.

And indeed, Trump’s reshuffling at the Pentagon was largely political and never affected its financing. Worse yet, he also supports continued US aggression in the Middle East, where a war with Iran is looming. In addition, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants to expand the US nuclear sharing policy.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

April 12, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | | Leave a comment

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