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State Department Threatens Georgia With ‘Consequences,’ Amid Rigged Election Claims

By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | October 29, 2024

The State Department and the European Union are demanding Tbilisi repeal “anti-democratic” legislation and investigate election “irregularities” respectively after the Georgian Dream Party won this weekend’s parliamentary elections. Georgian leaders including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and President Salome Zourabichvili are at odds, with Zourabichvili accusing Kobakhidze’s party of winning a “total fraud” election.

Per the official tally, Georgian Dream won 54% of the vote, with multiple opposition parties earning between 3-11%. Georgian Dream will form the country’s next government as they now hold a minimum of 90 out of the national parliament’s 150 seats. However, four opposition parties which favor integration with the EU are refusing to participate in the new legislature, deeming the election stolen, and accusing the ruling party of pushing Georgia towards a pro-Russia direction. President Zourabichvili called for protests and vowed she will not recognize the plebiscite’s results.

Tens of thousands of Georgians protested for hours outside parliament on Monday night, the demonstrations reportedly ended with no plans for further action but dispersed peacefully. The Georgian government and electoral commission have dubbed the election free and fair.

State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller threatened Georgia with “consequences” before adding his demands. Miller characterized the election as having taken place within an “environment shaped by the ruling party’s policies including misuse of public resources, vote buying and voter intimidation.”

He made clear the path Georgia is taking does not bode well for its future in America’s orbit, “We encourage Georgia’s governing officials to consider the relationship they want with the Euro-Atlantic community rather than strengthening policies that are praised by authoritarians.”

Finally Miller, speaking for a government which has extensively meddled in Georgian elections including staging a coup in the 2003 Rose Revolution, warned “We do not rule out further consequences if the Georgian government’s direction does not change.” He then insisted that Tbilisi begin “withdrawing and repealing anti-democratic legislation.”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe praised Georgia’s voter participation, substantial presence of citizen and party observers, as well as the diversity of ballot choices during the election. OSCE observers “found the legal framework to be adequate for holding democratic elections.” Although they also accused the ruling party of exploiting an “already uneven playing field,” and claimed there were instances of intimidation, coercion, and pressure being put on voters including public sector employees.

EU Council chief Charles Michel is calling on the relevant authorities in Georgia to “swiftly, transparently, and independently investigate and adjudicate electoral irregularities and allegations thereof.” He added, “These alleged irregularities must be seriously clarified and addressed.”

Western governments are condemning Georgia’s ‘law on transparency of foreign influence,’ which requires agencies to register as “agents of foreign influence” if they are operating within Georgia and foreign sources account for over 20% of their funding. Georgia’s parliamentary speaker signed the bill into law after it was vetoed by President Zourabichvili earlier this year. The law operates similarly to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The West is also in an uproar against Georgian laws banning gender reassignment surgery, gay marriage, and so called LGBTQ “propaganda” including PRIDE-style events along with certain books and films. Although, polling shows significant public disapproval in Georgia of same-sex marriages.

Last month, a senior US official told Voice of America, the American state-funded media outlet, that Washington is preparing sanctions on former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s influential founder, over his opposition to Tbilisi joining NATO and the EU.

An analysis by Ian Proud published by Responsible Statecraft makes the case that the ruling party’s victory can be explained not by election rigging but as a popular response to various economic and immigration crises.

Proud notes the uneven trade relationship the Caucasian country maintains with the EU since signing the EU Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement ten years ago. EU states benefit from robust exports in Georgia while purchasing four times less Georgian imports. The trade balance is more even with the Eurasian States, although they too export 1.8 times more than they import.

At the same time, the Washington-led proxy war with Moscow in Ukraine is both funded and championed by the EU. The war has caused an immigration crisis in Georgia with nearly 90,000 people emigrating from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine between 2022 and 2023. This has led to a surging unemployment rate of over 26%, while housing prices are up 35% and rent prices have risen as much as 50%.

In 2008, at NATO’s Bucharest Summit, Brussels announced both Tbilisi and Kiev would one day join the Washington-led military bloc which has been mired in disastrous wars in the Balkans, North Africa, and Central Asia. The admission of both states to the alliance is viewed in the Kremlin as a major national security threat and provoked Russia’s invasions of both Georgia sixteen years ago and now Ukraine.

As Scott Horton, the Libertarian Institute’s director, has detailed, the now jailed former president Mikheil Saakashvili, the victor of the US-backed Rose Revolution, “was incentivized to take bigger risks due to the Bucharest Declaration of America’s intent to bring them into the NATO alliance just four months before, U.S. military support and vague security assurances the Bush government had given his government that spring. Saakashvili launched an attack on the breakaway province of South Ossetia in the southern Caucuses Mountains, then enjoying full autonomy and protection by Russian peacekeepers under a deal that had been brokered by [the] European Union… The Russians, suffering casualties in the initial assault, quickly struck back, destroying Georgia’s invading force and securing South Ossetia’s independence from Georgian rule.”

Barack Obama’s administration orchestrated a coup and overthrew the government in Kiev during the 2014 Maidan Revolution. Subsequently during the Donald Trump years, the White House armed Ukraine’s military, including Neo Nazi militias integrated in the National Guard. Concurrently, Kiev entrenched ties with US special operations forces and the CIA as it waged a war against ethnic Russian separatists in the Donbas region.

Under the current White House, as tensions mounted over the Donbas, the erstwhile USSR state became a de facto NATO member as Washington eschewed diplomacy with the Kremlin, refusing to discuss rescinding Ukraine’s invitation for membership with the alliance, culminating in Russia’s 2022 invasion.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. mercenaries killed in Russia, West goes hysterical on dubious North Korea claim

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 29, 2024

“It’s a grave escalation in this war and a threat to global peace,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week.

It certainly is an alarming development that American, Canadian and Polish mercenaries were killed in action on Russian soil this week. The members of a recon and sabotage unit were eliminated by Russian forces as they crossed into Russia’s Bryansk region from Ukraine.

But von der Leyen and other Western leaders said nothing about that. They were hyperventilating instead over ropey claims about North Korean troops sent to Russia.

Credible Russian security footage showed the dead men lying beside supplies of heavy weapons, including Semtex explosives and anti-tank grenade launchers, “enough to blow up a small city,” it was reported. One of the casualties bore the tattoo of the U.S. 75th Ranger Regiment, an elite airborne special forces unit. It is unclear if the American soldier was a former member of the U.S. Army who had joined a private mercenary contractor or if he was redeployed from army ranks to fight in Ukraine against Russia.

Either way, the presence of military combatants from the United States and other NATO states on Russian territory is stark evidence that the NATO powers are directly involved in the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia.

Washington and Brussels have maintained the tenuous fiction that they “only” supply weapons to Ukraine but that NATO is not a participant in a conflict with nuclear-powered Russia.

That fiction has always been an insult to common sense. NATO countries have been actively involved in recruiting foreign mercenaries to go fight in Ukraine. Russia estimates that 15,000-18,000 militants have traveled to deploy with the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the conflict erupted in February 2022. Large numbers have been killed or taken prisoner.

Mercenaries have been identified from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Poland, the Baltics, and Georgia, as well as jihadists from Syria trained by American occupation forces at bases such as Al Tanf. It is estimated that foreign fighters from over 100 countries have ended up in Ukraine, aiding the NATO-sponsored Kiev regime.

Some of them are no doubt “soldiers of fortune” making a payday. Others would have to be NATO servicemen because the operation of technical weapons such as HIMARS artillery and so on must involve NATO handling expertise.

The desperate incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that began on August 6 was thought to have included many foreign mercenaries. One American private military contractor identified was the Forward Observation Group.

The Western media have largely ignored or obscured the reports of NATO connections to the ground fighting. Not surprising given the propaganda function of Western “news” media in what is information warfare.

Meanwhile, this week, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced concern that North Korean troops were fighting in the Kursk region. This was the first time that NATO had officially made the claim. For weeks there have been speculation and rumours about North Korean troops joining Russian forces.

The U.S. and European media ran headlines implying that the NATO claims were fact.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated: “North Korean soldiers are deployed to support Russia’s war of aggression. It’s a grave escalation in this war and a threat to global peace.”

Healthy skepticism is warranted. NATO’s Rutte did not provide any evidence to support his claim. He simply referred to his discussions with South Korean military intelligence officials.

The Ukrainian de facto dictator Vladimir Zelensky (he canceled elections months ago) has for months been pushing claims that thousands of North Korean troops are joining Russia’s ranks in Ukraine.

It seems significant that Zelensky met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol last year at the G7 summit in Hiroshima. It was their first meeting. Immediately after that encounter, South Korea pledged more military and financial aid to Ukraine. Zelensky’s wife also made suspicious trips to South Korea to attend “media events”.

President Yoon’s approval rating among the South Korean public has hit rock bottom over a range of grievances, including soaring cost of living. Yoon is a hawk on relations with North Korea. Pyongyang has slammed Seoul for deliberately antagonizing tensions.

Under President Yoon, South Korea has become a major weapons exporter, having sold an estimated $20 billion worth of arms over the last two years. South Korea is warning that it will increase military supplies to Ukraine on the back of claims that North Korean troops are being deployed in Russia.

There seems to be a lot of dramatizing about the purported North Korean contingency. The Kiev regime is amplifying claims as a way to get the United States and NATO more involved in the proxy war. The White House has expressed concerns about the claims of Pyongyang’s alleged participation. For President Yoon, Ukraine represents opportunities to boost his flagging poll numbers and economic gains from increased weapons exports.

The Western media are wishfully claiming that the deployment of North Korean troops is a sign of desperation by Russian President Vladimir Putin over supposed military losses in Ukraine.

That contention does not make sense. Russian forces are rapidly advancing to fully take control of the Donbass region in Ukraine. The NATO-backed side is losing territory at the fastest rate in more than two years of conflict. The idea that Russia needs North Korean military help is implausible, if not absurd.

Moscow signed a mutual defense pact with Pyongyang earlier this year. If North Korean soldiers are deployed to Russia, perhaps for training, that is entirely a legal and sovereign matter between consenting parties.

It is not Russia that is being “desperate”. The deployment of American and other NATO mercenaries to Ukraine is a real sign of desperation that the Kiev regime has run out of cannon fodder and is engaging in cross-border provocations.

Of course, NATO and Western leaders would prefer to fantasize about North Korea than to admit the truth of their “grave escalation” on Russia’s borders and reckless threat to world peace.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Idaho Health Board First in U.S. to Defy CDC and FDA by Removing COVID Vaccines From Clinics

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 29, 2024

Idaho’s Southwest District Health will no longer offer COVID-19 vaccines after its board voted 4-3 last week to pull the shots from the 30 locations where it provides healthcare services.

“It’s the first health agency in America to do that,” Laura Demaray, a Southwest Idaho resident and nurse who attended the Oct. 22 vote, told The Defender.

Miste Karlfeldt, executive director of Health Freedom Idaho, agreed that the board’s vote is historic. “It’s thrilling,” she told The Defender.

The board’s vote came after it received about 300 public comments urging the district, which encompasses six counties, to stop promoting the shots.

Just before the board voted, members heard presentations from cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, pediatrician Dr. Renata Moon and obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. James Thorp on safety concerns related to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr. John Tribble, the board’s only physician, invited them to speak.

“Dr. Tribble was a very brave board member who is very aware of the harms of the COVID injection,” said Demaray. “He asked me to help gather the presenters.”

Demaray, who said she knows many people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, and others reached out to experts who could present data related to COVID-19 vaccine harms to the board. “It was total teamwork.”

Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense CEO, applauded the board’s action:

“After hearing from 300 constituents, listening to well-informed physicians and assessing the public record, the Southwest Idaho Health District Board made an informed decision not to stock its own clinics with COVID shots.”

Demaray and Holland pointed out that the board didn’t take away anyone’s freedom to get a COVID-19 vaccine. “If residents want, they can obtain the shots from other pharmacies and doctors’ offices,” Holland said.

Demaray said the board’s decision showed “there’s some distrust in this shot.” She added:

“If a health district is giving a shot in their own clinics, then it means they believe in the shot and they don’t think somebody will get hurt. It means they support it tacitly.”

Holland said, “The Health District Board was conveying its values to the public — ‘these products are unsafe and we do not promote them’ — and the board was within its authority to do this.”

A precedent for other health agencies?

Tribble told The Defender some of the backstory leading up to the historic vote. “The people of this district were demanding answers,” he said. “Many came forward with heartbreaking stories of vaccine injury.”

After listening to its residents, the board members felt it was important to allow “the free and open discussion and evaluation of the evidence for and against the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

In addition to hearing presentations from McCullough, Moon, Cole and Thorp, the board also heard from district staff physician Dr. Perry Jansen who recommended keeping the vaccine on the district’s clinic shelves.

“In the end,” Tribble said, “the evidence clearly showed a lack of safety and efficacy as it compares to the risk from COVID-19 and their [the board members’] decision reflected that.”

The board members who voted to remove the shot “exhibited courage” because they did so “based on the evidence, in direct opposition to the federal health agencies’ recommendations.” Tribble said:

“I believe our actions here stand as an example and precedent for other health agencies to take back control of their health and freedoms from a corrupted federal system. I hope this will inspire other health agencies to openly discuss this issue and evaluate the evidence for themselves.”

‘That is how you open up a can of truth’

Karlfeldt said she’s confident the board’s landmark decision will embolden other health administrators across Idaho and the rest of the U.S. to make similar moves.

Demaray agreed. She said she already heard from two other Idaho health districts that are now considering pulling the COVID-19 shots from their clinics after learning of the Southwest District’s vote.

Demaray encouraged other U.S. citizens to reach out to their local health board members, asking them to review the safety information on the COVID-19 vaccines.

Many federal health agency leaders are captured by industry, but that’s not the case with most local-level health officials, Demaray said. “They aren’t all bought out yet.”

“If you bring your local doctors like Dr. Tribble — or Dr. Cole, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Moon and Dr. Thorp — if you bring them and they make presentations, it is public record and your community gets to see that,” she said.

“That is how you open up a can of truth,” Demaray added.

There’s a lot of power at the local level because while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends COVID-19 vaccines and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves them, it’s typically the local agencies that adopt policies to promote them.

Holland said, “Sadly, people need to accept that they cannot trust the federal government anymore when it comes to their health.”

VAERS: 1.6 million reports of injury or death after COVID vaccination

Nicolas Hulscher, an epidemiologist at the McCullough Foundation, commended the board for its action.

“Southwest Idaho Health District has made the correct and brave choice to remove COVID-19 injections from their clinics,” Hulscher said. “The updated boosters were never tested in humans, while previous iterations have demonstrated that they’re not safe for human use.”

Hulscher noted that Boise State Public Radio’s coverage of the vote labeled the presentations by McCullough and others as “anti-vaccine.”

The Boise State Public Radio article — which referred to McCullough and the other presenters as “doctors widely accused of spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation” — appeared to “blindly favor COVID-19 vaccines,” he said, “while ignoring deeply worrisome safety data.”

For instance, the number of injuries and deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID-19 vaccination continues to climb.

VAERS is the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before confirming the reported adverse event was caused by the vaccine. VAERS has historically been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

As of Sept. 27, there were 1,604,710 VAERS reports of injury or death following a COVID-19 vaccination.

The board’s vote has helped create greater public awareness that the COVID-19 shots “are massively injurious gene therapy products,” Holland said.

Tribble agreed:

“People need to understand that these shots are not vaccines by the traditional definition. That is to say, they do not impart immunity or prevent transmission.

“They were rushed to market, given legal immunity and coercively pushed upon the world’s population backed by unfounded fears spread by governments and media.”

Moreover, the safety and efficacy data we have is limited and primarily released by the same vaccine companies that stood to make hundreds of billions of dollars off of these injections, Tribble added.

“This experiment with mRNA gene therapy during COVID-19 will be shown to be one of the most egregious examples of democide in world history,” he said.

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

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

NIH Spending $2.2 Million to ‘Nudge’ Elderly to Get More Vaccines

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 29, 2024

Using U.S. taxpayer dollars, researchers at two universities are identifying older people behind on their recommended vaccines and testing personalized “nudges” to coax them into getting more shots. nih-nudge-more-vaccines-feature.jpg

According to grant documents obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding the $2.2 million “BE IMMUNE” clinical trial, which began in 2020 and will run through 2025.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington are using Electronic Health Records (EHR) data — the electronic records from doctors’ offices containing patients’ detailed health and demographic data — to target African American, Hispanic and Asian people with lower flu, pneumococcal and herpes zoster vaccination rates.

The ongoing study blames the “poor vaccination rates” on patients’ and clinicians’ “widespread decision-making biases.” The trial is testing strategies drawn from behavioral economics, which uses insights from psychology to understand — and in this case to “nudge” or direct — people’s decision-making behavior.

The randomized controlled study is headed up by Dr. Shivan Mehta and a team of healthcare management experts who combine medical and business-based strategies to run studies like these.

The trials often are based in Penn Medicine’s in-house “Nudge Unit,” where behavioral design teams are dedicated to figuring out how to influence patient choices.

The grant is part of a massive initiative by the NIH to increase vaccine uptake by changing how people make decisions. The initiative has included hundreds of millions of dollars in grants since 2020 to create “culturally tailored” pro-vaccine materials to promote COVID-19 and flu vaccines.

It also included more than 50 grants worth $40 million designed to increase HPV vaccine uptake.

Testing the ‘ladder’ of behavioral interventions

The study is testing different “nudges” at more than 100 primary care practices at Penn Medicine, University of Washington Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Health System, one of the world’s largest EHR vendors in the world.

Over 1,000 primary care physicians and thousands of eligible patients at those practices are involved in the trial.

The range of tested interventions is scaled on a ladder.

Nudges lower on the ladder try presenting people with information so they can make their own decisions about vaccines —- methods that typically are not very effective for increasing vaccine uptake, the researchers said.

Nudges higher on the ladder either prompt people to make decisions, or simply plan their decisions for them.

For example, one nudge automatically sets up vaccination appointments for people, compelling them to go to their appointment and get vaccinated unless they intentionally opt out.

The “opt-out” framework has been effective in other areas of healthcare, such as colorectal cancer screening or persuading more people to take their flu shots, the researchers reported.

Netflix uses prompts to encourage binge-watching — healthcare should prompt people to get more shots

Penn’s “Nudge Unit,” which bills itself as the “world’s first behavioral design team embedded within a health system,” houses the study, which is also being conducted in a similar unit at the University of Washington.

Economist Richard H. Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein popularized nudging in their 2008 book, “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” as a method to create a “choice architecture” designed to influence people’s behavior in a predictable way “but without restricting choice” — particularly for policies or measures that might otherwise be unpopular.

Penn launched its Nudge Unit in 2016, inspired by British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Nudge Unit, established in 2010 to shape citizen behavior in the United Kingdom — a strategy the Penn researchers thought should also be applied to healthcare.

Penn’s Nudge Unit founders argued in a 2018 New England Journal of Medicine article that healthcare should use the same strategies businesses use to influence consumer behavior.

For example, they said, airlines require consumers to actively choose whether to purchase trip insurance before they can buy a plane ticket. Netflix changed its default settings to automatically play the next episode in a TV series to encourage binge watching.

“Similar opportunities exist to direct clinicians and patients toward better health care in situations where there’s consensus about desired behaviors,” they wrote, citing effective drugs, vaccines and targeted therapies as examples.

The strategy is being implemented globally — management consulting firm McKinsey reported that about 400 “nudge units” had been established globally by 2021.

However, even the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed Gavi concedes, “the theory has its critics — detractors argue that nudges can be paternalistic, invasive, ideological, and coercive in ways that erode public trust.”

The researchers behind this study also found that often the nudge approach doesn’t work.

In those cases, they argue “a stronger intervention—a ‘shove’—may be needed.”

EHR — an opportunity to scale up the nudge

The researchers celebrated EHR for offering a unique opportunity to develop and rapidly scale up personalized nudges.

The records increasingly are used for research and clinical trial recruitment because they contain a wealth of data. And new technological tools now allow researchers to “mine, assimilate, analyze, link, reproduce and transmit information” gleaned from that data.

Twila Brase, a registered nurse and author of “Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth about Electronic Health Records,” told The Defender most people think the privacy of their EHR is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPPA — but that’s not the case.

HIPPA only guarantees your data will be secure as it is passed among the various entities that have access to it, including researchers, Brase said. And that access can be provided without your consent.

“Nowhere in the law does HIPPA give you control over your medical records,” she said.

Because the records contain massive amounts of personal information that can be used and linked in many different ways, researchers studying EHR-based research argue that the use of EHR also raises “pressing questions concerning privacy, confidentiality, and patient awareness.”

They say that the use of one’s EHR data for research reasons can be confusing or even impossible to opt out of because often the provision of healthcare is linked to accepting a policy allowing researchers to use EHRs.

And EHR research often operates on the same logic as the nudge — an “opt-out” approach where permission is assumed unless a patient explicitly indicates they want to revoke it.

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

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Deadly Miscalculation: Consequences of Attacking Iran & Hezbollah

Dialogue Works | October 29, 2024

Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran and advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiations team: (https://x.com/s_m_marandi​)

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The US Is Funding 70% of Israel’s Wars

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 29, 2024

A new report by the Israeli outlet Calcalist reviewed Israeli military spending on wars since October 7, finding that Washington is funding 70% of Tel Aviv’s military costs. In a little over a year, the US has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in military aid.

“The scope of American aid since the beginning of the war is about 85 billion shekels… According to official estimates by the Bank of Israel, the total cost of the war is…approximately NIS 118 billion.” It continues, “Therefore, according to a simple calculation, The Americans financed about 70% of the war effort.”

According to the Cost of War Project, the US has given Israel $22.57 billion in military aid since the Hamas attack. Calcalist concludes without US support, Tel Aviv’s war would simply be unaffordable.

“There is no doubt that without the American aid the government deficit for the years 2024-2025 (which is one of the highest in the country’s history), would have increased by about 4.3 % GDP, which would have made it unfinanceable,” it says. “Therefore, it is doubtful whether this war would have been conducted as it is – neither in intensity nor in scope – without the American assistance.”

The US has sent Israel tens of thousands of bombs, artillery rounds, and tank shells. Those weapons have been used to commit countless war crimes against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

The official death toll in the besieged enclave now exceeds 43,000. However, a group of American healthcare workers who have spent time volunteering in Gaza estimate the actual death count to be over 118,000.

Dr Tammy Abughanim, a pediatric intensive-care surgeon, said, “We cannot do our jobs, because Israel has made our jobs impossible, and Israel has made our jobs impossible with the direct support of the United States.” She added, “We all know the obvious step is to stop supplying Israel with the arms that it is using, the weaponry that it is using to target and kill civilians.”

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US ambassador to Lebanon promotes ‘internal uprising’ to assist Israel: Report

The Cradle | October 29, 2024

A high-ranking Lebanese security source revealed to Al-Akhbar newspaper that the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, is continuing her agenda to prepare Lebanon for a “post-Hezbollah era” by mobilizing “internal” forces against the Islamic resistance movement while it fights the Israeli Army.

In discussions with Lebanese politicians, Johnson reportedly said, “Israel cannot achieve everything through war; it’s time for you to do your part and launch an internal uprising under the banner of ‘Enough.'”

The ambassador added, “The Lebanese people must show their desire to rise up and get rid of Hezbollah and return to the context that emerged after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, especially since the regional, international, and field circumstances are in your favor.”

According to the source, the ambassador asked the politicians, “Why do you seem afraid? Hezbollah has been defeated, its leadership is destroyed, and we are with you, and the entire free world stands by your side.”

Johnson encouraged her Lebanese allies to advocate for the election of Lebanese Armed Forces Commander General Joseph Aoun as President of Lebanon, saying, “He (Aoun) will appoint a strong commander for the Lebanese Army, and we will support the Army in restraining all Hezbollah supporters. You will have backing from Arab states and the West. But the time to act is now.”

According to the high-level Lebanese security source, Ambassador Johnson’s allies are conducting incitement operations to stoke internal sectarian tensions in areas where displaced persons, mostly Shia from Beirut’s southern suburbs and the south of Lebanon, are now staying after fleeing their homes due to Israeli bombing.

Lebanon’s society is multi-confessional and multi-national, making the country susceptible to division by outside forces. Lebanon is comprised of Christians (Catholic and Orthodox), Muslims (Sunni and Shia), Druze, and Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

Civil war engulfed Lebanon’s multifaceted society between 1975 to 1990. An estimated 150,000 people were killed.

The source speaking with Al-Akhbar added that “mobilization operations” are being carried out in some neighborhoods and areas controlled by the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Christian political party, under the pretext of “protecting our areas from the chaos of the displaced and so that they do not turn into occupiers.”

In an effort to weaken Hezbollah, Johnson has also begun calling on politicians, civil organizations, and media professionals with whom she has influence to drive a wedge between Lebanon’s Shia community and Hezbollah.

The source said that Johnson has clearly stated her wish to take advantage of the current Israeli war to completely eliminate Hezbollah, not only militarily but politically as well.

“We do not only want to limit Hezbollah’s influence, but we will strike its support lines, and we are working non-stop to bring down the regime in Iran as well,” Johnson reportedly said.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

White House Security Adviser’s “Information Czar” Idea Triggers Free Speech Concerns

By Dan Frieth – Reclaim The Net – October 29, 2024

Amid escalating assertions over foreign influence in US elections, the White House is exploring a controversial proposal that some warn could threaten free speech and open debate. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently confirmed that the administration has been “grappling with and thinking about” the potential creation of an “information czar,” sparking concern over the government’s expanding role in controlling narratives under the guise of national security.

Speaking at the National War College, Sullivan responded to a question about the potential for a centralized figure to oversee and counter foreign disinformation efforts by suggesting that while the idea has been under consideration, it could raise issues in a free society. “Questions around information operations, around public diplomacy, around the voice that America uses to speak to the world, bleed over into questions of propaganda or politics,” he said, implicitly acknowledging that such a role could have far-reaching consequences on public discourse.

The proposal for an “information czar” raises immediate concerns over whether any centralized control over information could be used to restrict speech and stifle dissenting opinions. Sullivan recognized this risk, questioning whether such a role should be linked to the White House itself or to a more removed agency in order to “insulate this from the twos and fros of politics.” Still, the idea of government officials controlling “information resiliency” remains contentious, especially when directed at speech in the US rather than strictly addressing threats abroad.

In defending the proposal, Sullivan argued that foreign election interference, particularly by Russia and other state actors, poses a national security issue and “an attack on our country” that needs a robust response. However, critics argue that efforts to counter disinformation could easily expand into broader content censorship efforts, a slippery slope that could ultimately see the government interfering with free speech in the name of “resilience.”

We’ve Been Down This Road Before

The White House’s recent consideration of an “information czar” to counter foreign election disinformation brings to mind the Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) in 2022, which aimed to address misinformation but was quickly dismantled after facing public backlash and First Amendment violation concerns. The DGB’s stated mission was similar: to safeguard national security by countering foreign misinformation.

However, it was met with immediate and intense criticism, as many feared the board would become a vehicle for government overreach, potentially chilling free speech under the guise of “information resilience.” The public pushback against the DGB showed the deeply rooted skepticism toward government involvement in controlling or moderating information, especially when it intersects with free speech concerns.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

US money flows to anti-Orbán, left-liberal Hungarian news outlets

Remix News | October 29, 2024

The American Embassy in Hungary has once again invested heavily in the Hungarian – left-liberal – media. The 3rd Free Media tender was announced, with the aim once again to “protect and strengthen our freedom of the press.”

Last year, most of the national left-wing media received support from the first two tenders, but Magyar Hang, which calls itself “bourgeois,” also received money from U.S. taxpayers. David Pressman will [not] say where this year’s 160 million forints (€395,000) will go, but notably, a new outlet, Kontroll, which is close to Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar, debuted just a few days ago.

In the 2024 tender, 160 million forints will be distributed courtesy of American taxpayers. Media companies can apply for two purposes. The first can be the development and maintenance of the already existing medium, including technical development, enabling new subscriptions, professional training for journalists, or even the implementation of financing for new content and larger investigations.

The second category is specifically the development of internship programs to support the supply of journalists, as well as media literacy programs for vulnerable social groups, such as the elderly, children and Roma.

In category A, the amount that can be awarded for one project is at least 1.775 million forints and at most 10.5 million forints. In category AB, the amount that can be awarded for one project is at least 1.775 million forints and at most 7.1 million forints.

The Mérték Media Analysis Center and the Ökotárs Movement help in the selection of news outlets for funding. Mérték Media Analyst was previously supported with €15,000 by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and €33,000 by the National Endowment for Democracy, which is believed to be an arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The other organization responsible for the selection is the Ökotárs Foundation, which is also supported by Soros foundations, but according to the European Union’s records, the Austrian environmental protection Ministry and the United States Agency for International Development are also generously funded.

Of course, it is already clear from the announcement that the final decision will be made by U.S. Ambassador David Pressman:

“The senior staff of Mérték and Ökotárs will review the written evaluations during a joint meeting, and on the basis of these, if possible, the applications recommended for support will be selected by unanimous decision. The list of these will be sent to the Embassy of the United States of America in Budapest for final approval.”

It should be noted that Pressman has been so worried about the situation of the Hungarian media for years that last year he distributed 118 million forints and another 30 million forints to the left-liberal national and rural media in two rounds. The self-proclaimed independent-objective Telex and 444, as well as Átlátszó, also benefited from this support. However, Magyar Hang and the company publishing the YouTube channel called Jólvanezígy also received a few million forints.

The claims that Hungary has no free media expression is undeniably refuted by the wide range of opposition media outlets. There are plenty of left-liberal media outlets supported directly by American money.

Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet criticized the money flowing from international sources, writing: “The question is, of course, whether it is the duty of the ambassador of a foreign country to intervene at such a level in the internal political relations of another country instead of developing cultural cooperation between the countries. And let’s just play with the idea of ​​what would happen if a representative of the Hungarian government did this in the U.S.”

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky Requests Tomahawk Missiles as Part of Non-Nuclear Deterrence Package – Reports

Sputnik – 29.10.2024

The clause on a “non-nuclear deterrence package” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested as part of his “victory plan” included long-range Tamahawk missiles, US media reported on Tuesday, citing US officials.

The anonymous US officials have expressed what the newspaper described as exasperation with Zelensky’s new plan, which they consider unrealistic and dependent almost entirely on Western aid.

One senior official addressed, in particular, the plan’s clause on a “non-nuclear deterrence package,” which has not been made public but reportedly includes a request for Tomahawk missiles. The official considers this request totally unfeasible, as cited in the report, as Tomahawk’s 1,500-mile range is more than seven times farther than that of the ATACMS missiles, which the US sent to Ukraine this year after long deliberations.

Moreover, the White House is hesitant to send Ukraine the missiles which it believes may serve a better purpose in the Middle East or Asia, as Kiev’s list of potential targets inside Russia requires far more missiles that Washington initially earmarked, the official was cited as saying.

Zelensky unveiled his “victory plan” in mid-October, insisting that it could help end the conflict in Ukraine no later than 2025. The document includes five clauses and three secret addendums. In particular, the Ukrainian leader proposes inviting Ukraine to NATO, lifting restrictions on strikes deep into Russian territory, and deploying a “comprehensive non-nuclear deterrence package” in Ukraine.

Zelensky’s plan drew criticism in the EU and NATO for outlining in detail the multiple obligations of Ukraine’s Western allies but not assigning any to Kiev itself. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed it as a set of incoherent slogans which pushed NATO into a direct conflict with Russia, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the real peace plan for Kiev would be to realize the futility of the Ukrainian policy. He said that Kiev should “wake up” and understand the reasons that led it to the conflict.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Orban blasts West’s ‘useless lecturing’ of Georgia

RT | October 29, 2024

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned against “lecturing” Georgia after the outcome of the parliamentary election in the former Soviet republic attracted sharp criticism from the EU and US.

Orban arrived in Tbilisi on an official visit on Monday. The trip comes after the ruling Georgian Dream party, which seeks to build pragmatic relations with Russia, secured 54% of the vote in Saturday’s election. The victory is expected to give Georgian Dream at least 90 seats in the 150-member national parliament, allowing it to form the country’s next government.

Various opposition forces garnered between 11% and 3% each, according to the Central Electoral Commission.

“One thing is clear about this weekend’s elections: the people of Georgia voted for peace and prosperity in free and democratic elections. We are here to support Georgia’s European integration efforts and to strengthen relations,” Orban wrote on X on Tuesday.

Pro-Western opposition parties have refused to recognize the results, branding the vote a “constitutional coup.” Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Tbilisi on Monday. Georgia’s president, the French-born Salome Zourabichvili, who has sided with the opposition, had earlier called for a rally outside parliament.

Moscow has accused the West of “completely unprecedented interference attempts” in the Georgian vote.

On Monday, the US claimed there was “vote buying and voter intimidation” during the election and threatened Georgia with “consequences.”

“We encourage Georgia’s governing officials to consider the relationship they want with the Euro-Atlantic community rather than strengthening policies that are praised by authoritarians,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

On Sunday, the EU Commission issued a statement voicing concerns of “a tense environment” and “irregularities” in the election. European Council President Charles Michel insisted that Georgia must “prove its commitment” to joining the bloc.

Georgia submitted its EU membership application in March 2022 after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, and was granted candidate status in December 2023.

Western governments have since accused Georgia of democratic backsliding over its recent policies such as labelling NGOs as ‘foreign agents’ and a ban on LGBTQ ‘propaganda’ to minors.

“Georgia is a conservative, Christian and pro-Europe state. Instead of useless lecturing, they need our support on their European path,” argued Orban.

The Hungarian prime minister has voiced views that oppose those of Brussels on issues such as the Ukraine conflict and relations with Russia. His government has refused to send weapons to Kiev and has called for a negotiated solution. Orban has been accused by the West of being pro-Russian, while he has repeatedly insisted that his policies aim to defend the interests of the Hungarian people.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Georgia Unrest Part of West’s Grand Strategy to Use Russia’s Neighbors as Pawns in Hybrid War

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 29.10.2024

Thousands gathered outside the parliament building in Tbilisi on Monday night amid opposition claims that Saturday’s parliamentary elections were “rigged”. The strategy is not new, and designed to pressure the ruling party into becoming more malleable to Western interests, says political analyst and Caucasus politics expert Stanislav Tarasov.

The United States and the European Union “want to create a whole package of conflict situations: Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, and to play these games like a grandmaster across multiple boards, yielding somewhere while hitting out somewhere else,” Tarasov told Sputnik, commenting on the shaky political situation in Georgia after the weekend’s parliamentary vote, which some observers fear may escalate into a new Euromaidan-style coup scenario.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller announced Monday that the US would “join calls for international and local observers for a full investigation of all reports of election-related violations.” The US has “consistently urged the Georgian government this year to walk back its anti-democratic actions and return to its Euro-Atlantic path. We do not rule out further consequences if the Georgian government’s direction does not change,” Miller warned.

Georgia can expect further pressure from the West, including sanctions, if the Georgian Dream Party government sticks to its independence on foreign and domestic policy, Tarasov says.

The former includes pragmatism in relations toward Russia to avoid being dragged into a Western-fueled conflict, while the latter features staunchly socially conservative policies decried by the EU and the US, plus a foreign agent law passed earlier this year to ensure transparency among NGOs, which forced would-be agents of foreign influence to register as such. That measure was also slammed by Washington and its allies.

“They’ll impose sanctions… They can’t very well send in the armed forces or some expeditionary corps. First they feed them some investments, then they impose sanctions; first they open a visa regime; then they impose bans, and so on and so forth… This is the primitive scheme in the American version of colonial rule being implemented in relation to Georgia,” the observer said.

Pointing to the unlikelihood of the West being able to oust the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which won nearly 54% of the vote and gathered enough seats to form a new government, Tarasov believes the opposition’s claims of fraud and manipulation may not be aimed at overthrowing the government, but forcing it to accept members of the opposition into a coalition to “erode” it from within.

“In this case, the plot is aimed not so much at destabilizing the domestic situation, but is a purely political technological approach designed to force Georgian Dream to accept the idea of a coalition,” Tarasov said. Once inside, the opposition can block certain policies, including regional economic and infrastructure projects like the North-South Transport Corridor that would allow Tbilisi to escape the West’s political and economic grip entirely, according to the analyst.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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