Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Trump alleges UK ‘interference’ in US election

RT | October 22, 2024

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a complaint over alleged election meddling in the upcoming US election by the ruling party in the UK.

Labour Party officials have reportedly advised US Democrats about strategies, while activists have worked in battleground states, but insist that this is all perfectly legal because they haven’t technically donated any money to the party.

In a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Trump campaign alleged “blatant foreign interference” by Labour in the US election, in the form of “apparent illegal foreign national contributions” accepted by the Democrats and their nominee, current Vice President Kamala Harris.

Foreign nationals are prohibited from making “a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation,” in support of an American candidate, “directly or indirectly,” the complaint said, citing US law.

Among the evidence cited by the campaign is a Washington Post report that “strategists linked to Britain’s Labour Party have been offering advice to Kamala Harris about how to earn back disaffected voters and run a winning campaign from the center-left.”

Likewise, the UK outlet Telegraph has reported that Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff to British PM Keir Starmer, as well as Starmer’s chief of communications Matthew Doyle, attended the Democrats’ convention in Chicago and met with Harris’s campaign team.

Last week, Labour’s head of operations, Sofia Patel, posted on LinkedIn that she had “nearly 100 Labour party staff, current and former, going to the US in the next few weeks, heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,” advertising ten openings in North Carolina. Patel told potential applicants that “we will sort your housing.”

Trump supporters, including Elon Musk, have pointed to Patel’s post as a clear violation of campaign laws. The post has since been deleted. Democrats, however, insist that none of this is illegal because it doesn’t involve financial contributions.

“This is a normal thing that happens in elections,” British Employment Minister Alison McGovern told Sky News last week, noting that Labour activists have campaigned for Democrats many times before.

Democrats have made unsubstantiated allegations that Russia somehow “meddled” in the US elections and that Trump was “colluding” with the Kremlin, after his surprise victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Claims of “Russian collusion” were used to oust and even imprison several Trump advisers and campaign aides, while hobbling his presidency and driving US-Russia relations to their worst point since the Cold War.

October 22, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

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

RT | October 22, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MEMO | October 22, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If Americans Knew | October 21, 2024

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

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

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

Source video: IAKN.org/US-IsraelPolicy

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

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

EU to tap frozen Russian assets

RT | October 22, 2024

The European Parliament has approved a €35 billion ($38 billion) loan to Ukraine to be repaid with revenues from frozen Russian assets, according to an official statement on Tuesday. The financing fulfils the EU’s share of a $50 billion aid package for Kiev agreed by G7 countries in June.

MEPs approved the move with 518 votes in favor, 56 against and 61 abstentions, the parliament announced. The funds will be transferred through the end of next year, it added.

Future revenues from frozen Russian Central Bank assets will be made available to Ukraine to service the EU loan and loans from other G7 partners. The statement added that Kiev may also allocate the funds “as it sees fit.”

The proposal was endorsed earlier this month by EU governments. The European Council now plans to adopt it as a regulation, and it will enter into force after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU, the statement notes.

The EU froze approximately €210 billion ($227 billion) in Russian Central Bank assets following the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Russia has denounced the move as “theft.” The immobilized assets had generated €3.4 billion ($3.7 billion) in interest as of mid-July, according to Brussels-based central securities depository Euroclear, which holds most of Russia’s funds. In July, a transfer of €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) of that money was approved by the European Commission to support Ukraine’s “military capabilities.”

The US is reportedly planning to contribute up to $20 billion to the G7 package, also on condition that the funds are repaid using proceeds generated by the immobilized Russian assets.

The US previously expressed concern that the EU policy of reviewing Russia sanctions every six months makes repayment of the loan uncertain as it could result in a lapse in restrictions. In response, Brussels proposed extending the renewal timeframe to three years. Hungary opposed the idea and said it would delay a decision until after the US presidential election on November 5.

Kiev’s Western backers have been trying to accelerate negotiations over the loan due to mounting concern that Washington’s aid to the country could be cut off if Donald Trump returns to the White House, Financial Times reported last week. The former US president has repeatedly threatened to scale back assistance if he is elected.

Moscow maintains that any seizure of its funds is illegal under international law and would further undermine global trust in the Western financial system.

October 22, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The Blob are losing control of the message

Record numbers are not buying the narrative: Nearly 70% of Americans don’t trust The Media

By Jo Nova | October 16, 2024

Even Gallup admits the US is suffering from a crisis in confidence in their institutions, and the least trusted of all is “the media”.

For some reason, telling readers that they are selfish, small minded people who are screwing up the world isn’t resonating with the Rednecks. In 2020 40% of US Citizens thought the media was trustworthy, but now only 31% do, an all time record low. This is the same media that told us elections were secure, vaccines were safe and effective and Joe Biden was sharp as a tack right up until the day everyone discovered he had dementia.

The Pullitzer-prize-guys fell for every bureaucratic lie they could —  Hunter Bidens laptop was Russian disinfo, ivermectin was horse-dewormer, and an unarmed mob with a horned hat and flags staged an insurrection against the  largest military power in the world.

There’s a price to pay for lying and the media have barely begun to pay it.

Obviously they need to censor blogs and social media

The big question is why do 31% still trust the media?

Media trust hits another historic low

Axios: Media trust hits another historic low

Possibly their paypacket depends on believing the program. And welfare is so much easier to take with a dose of Media entitlement-sauce.

It’s a long term decline

The full graph shows just how different things used to be. Once upon a time, 70% of the people believed the media.

Imagine a tool so effective, with such a brand, that 70% of voters believed it. Such a tool would be a magnet for the rich and powerful to control for other purposes, and so it has come to pass…

Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low

The media are impartial professionals, of course, but for some reason the audience are biased:

Over half of Democrats like what they hear, but only 1 in 8 Republicans do.

Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low

Trump’s Fake News meme in 2016 hit a nerve with Republicans and it stuck. The hate campaign against him only proves his point to Republican voters.

Since the media are supposed to be the watchdogs, the graph is almost a proxy for the decline of The West.

October 21, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

US pledges $5.2bln of taxpayer money to develop Israeli air defenses

Al Mayadeen | October 21, 2024

The United States will work on providing the Israeli regime with a special emergency aid package of $5.2 billion, aimed at augmenting Israeli air defense systems, Israeli media reported on Monday.

The Director General of the Israeli Security Ministry, Major General (Res.) Eyal Zamir, and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Williamn La Plante, engaged in an exchange of letters to implement the emergency aid package.

According to Israeli media, the funds will be allocated to developing, enhancing, and expanding the Iron Dome, David Sling, and Iron Beam systems.

The $5.2 billion will be part of the broader package approved by the US administration and Congress of $8.7 billion. The remaining $3.5 billion will be allocated to the Israeli Procurement Mission in the US, which will use the vast funds to make purchases on the behalf of Israeli occupation forces.

US rushes to patch up Israeli air defense systems

The Israeli regime has one of the world’s densest networks of air defense systems, a significant portion of which has been financed by the US.

Moreover, the US has recently deployed a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in Israeli-occupied territories, aimed at further bolstering Israeli air defense capabilities. This comes after the embarrassing performance of Israeli air defenses against Iran’s ballistic missile strike, which was conducted on October 1, 2024.

Moreover, Israeli air defenses have struggled against low-budget one-way attack drones launched by the Axis of Resistance. Most recently, a swarm of drones penetrated Israeli-occupied territories, traveling a 70 km distance from the Palestinian-Lebanese border.

One of the drones was seen flying right past an Israeli Apache attack helicopter, before impacting the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea.

October 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer Demands Tougher Sanctions on Yemen

Yemen Threatens US With Quagmire Worse Than ‘Hell of Vietnam’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.10.2024

The Yemeni militia began a stream of drone and missile attacks targeting merchant ships suspected of ties to Israel last November, and started attacking US and British warships in January amid a Pentagon-led effort to “degrade” its capabilities through airstrikes. Nearly one year and $5 billion later, the US operation has yet to achieve its goals.

Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer has called on colleagues from both parties in the Senate to ramp up the US sanctions regime against Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthi) militia, urging lawmakers to act amid the Biden administration’s inaction on proposed tougher restrictions.

“In recent months, the Houthis, as part of Iran’s Axis of Evil, have escalated their attacks, launching drones and ballistic missiles directly at Israel,” Gottheimer wrote in a letter to Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer and Minority leader Mitch McConnell on Monday, with the ‘Axis of Evil’ rhetoric an apparent throwback to the early 2000s Bush-era term which culminated in the invasion of Iraq.

“Despite this escalation, the State Department reaffirmed their decision not to reimpose the [Foreign Terrorist Organization] designation on the Houthis. This is deeply troubling, and underscores the need for Congressional action. Currently, a similar version of this bill exists in the Senate, with bipartisan support,” Gottheimer, a member of the House select committee on intelligence, and one of the Democratic Party’s most steadfastly pro-Israel House lawmakers, added.

“The Houthis have been targeting ships they believe are destined for Israel using ballistic missiles, drones, and even hijacking vessels by boarding them from a helicopter,” Gottheimer wrote, pointing out that “since March 14th, there have been more than 77 reported attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels. The Houthis’ indiscriminate targeting threatens the more than 117,000 ships that travel through the Bab el Mandeb Strait annually and has forced thousands of ships belonging to companies such as AP Moller-Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, and BP to reroute their vessels away from the Red Sea and delay the delivery of goods key to the international supply chain.”

“The Houthis have forged alliances with anti-democratic, authoritarian regimes that violate the values our two nations strive to promote and uphold,” the lawmaker added.

“Recently, the Houthis reached an agreement with [Russia and China] pledging not to target Russian or Chinese vessels. This new alignment potentially bolsters the Houthis militarily and grants significant economic advantages to Russia and China at the expense of our economies and national security,” the letter claimed.

The Biden administration partially reimposed Trump-era sanctions on the Houthis in January, re-adding the group to the Treasury’s ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’ listing, which allows for the blocking of any assets designated persons or entities may have in the United States by the Treasury. In the case of the Houthis, the restrictions appear to be largely symbolic, with most of the movement’s leadership believed to be entrenched in Yemen and never setting foot in the United States.

The White House has yet to re-list the Houthis under its ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization’ (FTO) sanctions, citing humanitarian concerns, including access to food and medicines, and fears of a repeat of the dramatic humanitarian crisis Yemen suffered in the wake of a US-backed Gulf coalition’s blockade of the country after the Houthi revolution. Those opposed to the designation fear that reinstating it would worsen Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, while doing little to impact the Houthis’ military capabilities.

Since the Houthis began their campaign of attacks on ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinian late last year, the US has spent nearly $5 billion on deployments in support of Israel in the Middle East, including billions on a flagging military campaign against the militia. According to a recent calculations by Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the US has spent $2.4 billion on costs associated with operating carrier strike groups and other missions against the Yemeni militia, plus $50-$70 million for additional combat pay to officers and troops.

US-UK attacks have done little to ease tensions, with the Houthis instead ramping up their shipping attacks, and missile and drone attacks on Israel directly – including a July drone strike in Tel Aviv which slammed into a building 100 meters from a US consulate, and a missile attack earlier this month which slipped past Israeli missile defenses and landed in central Israel.

On Monday, Jamal Ahmed Ali Amer, foreign minister of the Houthi-led National Salvation Government, commented on rumors of suspected US plans to launch a invasion of the strategic Yemeni port city of al-Hudaydah, warning that “if [the US] acts rashly” and proceeds with the operation, “the hell of Vietnam will be just a walk in the park.”

October 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Should We Fight Wars for Ukraine and Israel?

By Ron Paul | October 21, 2024

When you take on the role of the world’s policeman, don’t be surprised when countries who cannot fight their own wars call “911.” That is exactly what is happening to the United States on two fronts and it is bankrupting our country, depleting the military that should serve our own national interest, and threatening to drag the US into World War III.

Last week, Ukraine’s “president” Vladimir Zelensky publicly presented his “Victory Plan.” It was delusional: immediate NATO Membership for Ukraine, NATO strikes against incoming Russian missiles, and permission to use Western long-range missiles for strikes deep into Russia including Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The real intent was not hard to understand. Ukraine is on the verge of losing its war with Russia and is desperate to draw the United States military into the fight. There were numerous opportunities to avoid this bloody war but at every step the Ukrainian leadership listened to western neocons (like Boris Johnson) and decided to keep fighting Russia down to the last Ukrainian.

But now that they are nearly down to the last Ukrainian, they are calling on us to step in and fight the country with the most nuclear weapons on earth – Russia – in a battle that could not be more unrelated to our actual interests.

Washington’s answer should be simple but firm: “No more weapons, no more money. You’re on your own. Make peace.”

Would the US be mortally wounded if the people in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to secede from Kiev and join Russia? Would anyone except the Russia-obsessed neocons in DC think tanks even notice?

Likewise with Israel. Tel Aviv has, in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, launched a war to annihilate Palestinians from Gaza, invade and occupy southern Lebanon, degrade the military of Iraq and Syria, and take on Iran. But the Israeli military has nowhere near the capacity to fight so many wars on so many fronts, so it has increasingly demanded US involvement in the conflicts. Already the US has provided some $23 billion in additional military aid to Israel and has employed US military assets in the region to shoot down missiles and provide increased weapons and intelligence.

But it’s still not enough for Israel. To fight Iran, with its significant military capabilities, Israel appears desperate to drag the US military into the battle. The stationing of one or perhaps two THAAD air defense systems, each with 100 US troops to operate them, is part of that effort. These 100-200 US troops are illegally engaged in combat, but what’s worse is that they are being used as a tripwire. US and Israeli leaders understand that they will be considered legitimate targets for any additional Iranian missile attack, but as soon as American troops start getting killed in Israel there will be a massive push for further US involvement. Imagine the mainstream media war propaganda if such a terrible thing happens.

That is no way to use members of the US armed services. It is the opposite of supporting our troops.

Washington’s response to Israel trying to drag us into its war with Iran should be just like with Ukraine: “No more weapons, no more money. You’re on your own. Make peace.” That is what a pro-America foreign policy looks like. Our Founders understood it very well and wrote about it often. It’s called “non-intervention.”

October 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Prostate Cancer: Over-Testing and Over-Treatment

By Bruce W. Davidson | Brownstone Institute | October 17, 2024

The excessive medical response to the Covid pandemic made one thing abundantly clear: Medical consumers really ought to do their own research into the health issues that impact them. Furthermore, it is no longer enough simply to seek out a “second opinion” or even a “third opinion” from doctors. They may well all be misinformed or biased. Furthermore, this problem appears to predate the Covid phenomenon.

A striking example of that can be found in the recent history of prostate cancer testing and treatment, which, for personal reasons, has become a subject of interest to me. In many ways, it strongly resembles the Covid calamity, where misuse of the PCR test resulted in harming the supposedly Covid-infected with destructive treatments.

Two excellent books on the subject illuminate the issues involved in prostate cancer. One is Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers by Dr. Mark Scholz and Ralph Blum. Dr. Scholtz is executive director of the Prostate Cancer Research Institute in California. The other is The Great Prostate Hoax by Richard Ablin and Ronald Piana. Richard Ablin is a pathologist who invented the PSA test but has become a vociferous critic of its widespread use as a diagnostic tool for prostate cancer.

Mandatory yearly PSA testing at many institutions opened up a gold mine for urologists, who were able to perform lucrative biopsies and prostatectomies on patients who had PSA test numbers above a certain level. However, Ablin has insisted that “routine PSA screening does far more harm to men than good.” Moreover, he maintains that the medical people involved in prostate screening and treatment represent “a self-perpetuating industry that has maimed millions of American men.”

Even during approval hearings for the PSA test, the FDA was well aware of the problems and dangers. For one thing, the test has a 78% false positive rate. An elevated PSA level can be caused by various factors besides cancer, so it is not really a test for prostate cancer. Moreover, a PSA test score can spur frightened men into getting unnecessary biopsies and harmful surgical procedures.

One person who understood the potential dangers of the test well was the chairman of the FDA’s committee, Dr. Harold Markovitz, who decided whether to approve it. He declared, “I’m afraid of this test. If it is approved, it comes out with the imprimatur of the committee… as pointed out, you can’t wash your hands of guilt … all this does is threaten a whole lot of men with prostate biopsy… it’s dangerous.”

In the end, the committee did not give unqualified approval to the PSA test but only approved it “with conditions.” However, subsequently, the conditions were ignored.

Nevertheless, the PSA test became celebrated as the route to salvation from prostate cancer. The Postal Service even circulated a stamp promoting yearly PSA tests in 1999. Quite a few people became wealthy and well-known at the Hybritech company, thanks to the Tandem-R PSA test, their most lucrative product.

In those days, the corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the medical device and drug approval process was already apparent. In an editorial for the Journal of the American Medical Association (quoted in Albin and Piana’s book), Dr. Marcia Angell wrote, “The pharmaceutical industry has gained unprecedented control over the evaluation of its products… there’s mounting evidence that they skew the research they sponsor to make their drugs look better and safer.” She also authored the book The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.

A cancer diagnosis often causes great anxiety, but in actuality, prostate cancer develops very slowly compared to other cancers and does not often pose an imminent threat to life. A chart featured in Scholz and Blum’s book compares the average length of life of people whose cancer returns after surgery. In the case of colon cancer, they live on average two more years, but prostate cancer patients live another 18.5 years.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, prostate cancer patients do not die from it but rather from something else, whether they are treated for it or not. In a 2023 article about this issue titled “To Treat or Not to Treat,” the author reports the results of a 15-year study of prostate cancer patients in the New England Journal of Medicine. Only 3% of the men in the study died of prostate cancer, and getting radiation or surgery for it did not seem to offer much statistical benefit over “active surveillance.”

Dr. Scholz confirms this, writing that “studies indicate that these treatments [radiation and surgery] reduce mortality in men with Low and Intermediate-Risk disease by only 1% to 2% and by less than 10% in men with High-Risk disease.”

Nowadays prostate surgery is a dangerous treatment choice, but it is still widely recommended by doctors, especially in Japan. Sadly, it also seems to be unnecessary. One study cited in Ablin and Piana’s book concluded that “PSA mass screening resulted in a huge increase in the number of radical prostatectomies. There is little evidence for improved survival outcomes in the recent years…”

However, a number of urologists urge their patients not to wait to get prostate surgery, threatening them with imminent death if they do not. Ralph Blum, a prostate cancer patient, was told by one urologist, “Without surgery you’ll be dead in two years.” Many will recall that similar death threats were also a common feature of Covid mRNA-injection promotion.

Weighing against prostate surgery are various risks, including death and long-term impairment, since it is a very difficult procedure, even with newer robotic technology. According to Dr. Scholz, about 1 in 600 prostate surgeries result in the death of the patient. Much higher percentages suffer from incontinence (15% to 20%) and impotence after surgery. The psychological impact of these side effects is not a minor problem for many men.

In light of the significant risks and little proven benefit of treatment, Dr. Scholz censures “the urology world’s persistent overtreatment mindset.” Clearly, excessive PSA screening led to inflicting unnecessary suffering on many men. More recently, the Covid phenomenon has been an even more dramatic case of medical overkill.

Ablin and Piana’s book makes an observation that also sheds a harsh light on the Covid medical response: “Isn’t cutting edge innovation that brings new medical technology to the market a good thing for health-care consumers? The answer is yes, but only if new technologies entering the market have proven benefit over the ones they replace.”

That last point especially applies to Japan right now, where people are being urged to receive the next-generation mRNA innovation–the self-amplifying mRNA Covid vaccine. Thankfully, a number seem to be resisting this time.

Bruce Davidson is professor of humanities at Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan.

October 20, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Lights out for the city on the hill

By Stephen Karganovic | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 20, 2024

Throughout the decades of the Cold War, whilst the blocs were competing, two major attractions worked powerfully to the advantage of the West. Firstly, the comfort and prosperity that it was able to provide to its citizens, which its Eastern rivals could hardly match. The second feature that in the eyes of the world gave the West a huge competitive edge was the comparatively better performance of its institutions with regard to individual liberties.

The twin advantages of prosperity and the impression that the West valued freedom successfully neutralised much of the theoretical critique of the capitalist social and economic model. In particular, the West’s ostensible commitment to personal liberties acted as a powerful magnet. As a political weapon it served its purpose effectively. It is indisputable that so long as scrupulous adherence to the rule of law and respect for individual rights were seen as the distinguishing characteristic of Western societies they were widely perceived as a desirable alternative to the competing systems, which often disregarded strict legality and did little to diminish arbitrariness.

This is the state of affairs that prevailed until roughly the 1990s, when the Western bloc finally reached the pinnacle of its global might and was widely perceived as triumphant over its adversaries. But ever  since the social gains which had made the lives of common people relatively comfortable and safe, and society cohesive across class lines, are being dismantled throughout the Western world. The sense of legal security that for decades citizens of Western countries unquestionably enjoyed proved equally evanescent. The phenomena of lawless abuse and vulnerability to the powers that be, normal elsewhere but long extirpated from the practice of Western societies and largely faded from the memory of their citizens, have reappeared with a vengeance. On both the domestic and international levels, the “rule of law” rapidly morphed into its unrecognisable caricature. That metamorphosis ultimately became jokingly known as the “rules based order.”

With scant internal opposition or even much public awareness, the core countries of the collective West became infected with the contagion of arbitrariness in the interpretation of inherent human rights and application of legal principles erected to protect them. The transformation, which in historical terms took place with lightning speed, was spearheaded by a ruthless and duplicitous political cabal and was implemented with the connivance of a judiciary which was utterly corrupt and shamefully impotent.

The breakdown of legality is generally a precursor of worse things to come, which almost invariably takes the form of increasingly egregious abuse of power. The point can be illustrated with disturbing but by no means isolated examples of the emerging state of affairs in the countries of the collective West that used to be envied for their freedom. Readers will recall the famous line, “they hate us for our freedom.” The utterance in 2001 of that false assertion whilst doing nothing to advance the cause of freedom did introduce an orgy of destruction and mass slaughter.

The most striking representation of the breakdown of the legal order can be cited today is the illegal kidnapping and incarceration by the German judicial system of German-American lawyer Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, under fabricated embezzlement charges. There are many solid reasons for deep state cabal’s virulent hatred of Dr. Fuellmich. He was the spoiler who in 2020 had the temerity to found the Covid pandemic research committee, just as the social control experiment was gaining momentum. The committee’s outstanding work in uncovering the sordid motives and homicidal objectives of the orchestrators of the bogus medical emergency was a major blow to them, especially because it was delivered successfully under conditions of nearly total informational blockade. Dr. Fuellmich’s ultimate, and perhaps overambitious and naively conceived goal of a medical Nurenberg to bring the culprits to justice was never achieved but the very thought of it must have caused nightmares to those he intended to be prosecuted.

This agenda has been long planned,” Dr. Fuellmich summarised his Committee’s findings. “It’s ultimately unsuccessful precursor was the swine flu some 12 years ago, and it is cooked up by a group of super-rich psychopathic and sociopathic people who hate and fear people at the same time, have no empathy, and are driven by the desire to gain full control over all of us, the people of the world.”

The time came for the psychopaths to seek their sweet revenge, and the operation was not exceedingly difficult because they happen to control the mechanisms of power. Eleven months ago Dr. Fuellmich was imprisoned in Germany on the false allegation of a colleague who had been infiltrated into the Covid Committee that he misused the organisation’s assets for personal benefit. A charge that under German law is a misdemeanour and for which there is no precedent of lengthy pre-trial imprisonment resulted in incarceration that has now lasted for over 400 days under Abu Ghraib conditions, except that it is in Germany and not in Iraq. For a shocking portrayal of those detention conditions, see here. And see here for the disgraceful procedural deficiencies of the trial itself, which is currently in progress, stained by practices incompatible with the image of Rechtsstaat, that Germany along with the collective West regimes associated with it are misleadingly cultivating.

The lawless persecution of Dr. Fuellmich for the “offence” of performing a remarkable public service by uncovering and documenting the fraudulent nature and sinister background of the Covid “pandemic” is, however, but the tip of the iceberg in the collapse of the rule of law in the societies that portray themselves as its champions. Additional examples illustrate the breakdown and flesh out the picture of the legal disarray which undercuts the elementary freedoms of citizens and renders them defenceless before the demands of unaccountable Power.

In Ireland, the entire Burke family of Christian believers who refuse to bend their knee to the dictates of gender ideology is being targeted for vindictive persecution. One of the sons, Enoch, who is a school teacher, has so far spent over 400 days in solitary confinement, like Dr. Fuellmich in Germany. His “offence” is that in formerly Christian and Catholic Ireland he refuses to use the pronoun preferred by one of his students who claims other than his biological gender, because Burke holds that acquiescence to the gender identity charade would be a violation of his religious principles. Enoch Burke is being punished for refusing to debase himself as a professional educator and as a free human being by falsely confessing under the duress of his persecutors that 2 + 2 = 5. Nothing short of such a recantation of his conscientiously held beliefs would satisfy his country’s legal and educational overseers, who have gone berserk. He therefore remains in an Irish prison, despite being assured of instant release if only he manifested submission to their lunatic demand. For an insight into the broad official scope of that lunacy, see here.

Enoch’s brother Simeon, who has completed his law studies with honours, is being excluded from admission to the Irish Bar for reasons that have not yet been revealed with full clarity but which appear to also be related to his firmly held religious world-view, identical to his brother’s, which  in contemporary Ireland apparently disqualifies one from working in a professional setting. For good measure, Enoch and Simeon’s father, Enoch Burke Sr., has been punished for objecting to LGBT symbols on Irish postal vehicles. For his temerity, taxpayer Burke was informed that henceforth he may come to the local post office to pick up his mail, but that it will no longer be delivered to him.

As in the Fuellmich case, the collective and exemplary punishment meted out to the Burke family is being kept out of the public eye as much as possible. Political and even religious figures refuse to take a stand or comment on it, and the controlled media studiously avoid discussing the subject.

Not to round off this complex picture of civilizational decline but merely to supplement it with another unsettling detail, the institution of thought crime portrayed in George Orwell’s novel, once considered no more than literary fiction, appears now to be enshrined in British law. For the present it appears to be a pilot programme, perhaps a precursor of even more frightening things to come. It operates as a prohibition of prayer within a designated exclusion perimeter around abortion “clinics” in Great Britain. The incriminating prayer would presumably be for the souls of children that departed this world due to the medical attention that they received in those establishments. The private performance of such unauthorised religious offices is now prohibited as it may cause “harassment and distress” to the employees of the “clinics” and their clients. And ominously, according to the Home Office, “anyone found guilty of breaking the law will face an unlimited fine.” One wonders if the European Court of Human Rights would have anything to say about such open-ended punishment schemes. Was anything of the sort ever before recorded in the annals of civilised jurisprudence?

Interaction between the thought police, who of course are merely “following orders,” and citizens suspected of mentally violating the “law” may be watched here by all who cherish their liberty and human integrity.

Wretched British jurisprudence (sceptics should also see here) now boasts its first successful prosecution of a thought crime violator. British Army veteran Adam Smith-Connor was recently found guilty of silently praying for his aborted son inside an abortion “clinic” buffer zone, was sentenced conditionally to two years in prison, and fined £9000 in costs for His Majesty’s court’s expense and trouble in prosecuting him. The courts still are not imposing “unlimited fines,” as the Home Office recommends, but for a retired person who must support a family arguably even that is a considerable sum.

Smith-Connor, be it noted, is far from the only victim of abortion-related thought crime harassment in the United Kingdom.

And also for the record, the theme here is not one’s personal position on Covid, transgenderism, or abortion. The central issue in every one of the cited instances, and others of a similar nature too numerous to mention, is the evident crumbling in the collective West of the legal order. That now  makes it possible to impose on peaceful citizens draconian punishments wholly disproportionate to the alleged conduct they are being accused of. To what limits will the severity of punishment extend, or is it potentially as “unlimited” as the threat of monetary assessment the British Home Office is prepared to impose on those undertaking to silently pray in public for unborn babies?

The famed “City on the Hill” that many had been tricked into believing was illuminating mankind from on high is now forlorn and largely deserted. Its lights are getting progressively dimmer, life in it increasingly intolerable. Its deceived inhabitants and ardent admirers are dispersing in every direction. Word is out that a new City of great luminosity and magnetic attraction is being erected elsewhere, and that its architects will soon meet, in Kazan.

October 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pharma Paid $1.06 Billion to Reviewers at Top Medical Journals

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 16, 2024

The pharmaceutical industry paid $1.06 billion to reviewers at top medical journals between 2020 and 2022, according to a research letter published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Payments to peer reviewers for The BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine included $1 billion to individuals or their institutions for research and $64.18 million in general payments, including travel and meals. Consulting fees and speaking compensation accounted for $34.31 million and $11.80 million respectively.

Among the nearly 2,000 physician peer reviewers analyzed, more than half received at least one industry payment between 2020 and 2022.

Although conflicts of interest among journal editors and authors have been investigated, the study authors wrote, any conflicts of interest the peer reviewers may have have been harder to assess.

“The traditionally opaque nature” of peer review has hindered the evaluation of peer reviewers, “despite their crucial role in academic publishing,” the authors wrote.

The typical conflict-of-interest policies most journals have for authors — requiring only that they disclose their conflicts — do not usually apply to peer reviewers, according to the JAMA study.

Journal editors may inquire about those conflicts, but they rarely publicly disclose them — even though many reviewers for top journals may have industry ties “due to their academic expertise,” the authors wrote.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender the scientific news process is compromised when reviewers are beholden to Big Pharma, rather than to the scientific community.

“No conflicting or competing interests should be anywhere near the publication process,” he said, adding:

Science is a community. We need each other to modify and change ideas into better ideas, to critique, to better ourselves, otherwise we do not progress. A scientific publication is how scientists communicate with each other. It is the one thing that is sacrosanct, that is too valuable and too important to be meddled with.

“As scientists, our fundamental duty is to the community. That includes ensuring that our one time-honored method for communicating ideas with each other is free and clear of conflicting interests.”

Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, director of PharmedOut, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that educates medical professionals about industry marketing practices, told MedPage Today that pharmaceutical companies are the largest purchasers of preprint articles and that they advertise heavily in journals, which “affects what gets published.”

“Obviously, pharma-critical articles are going to be published less often in journals supported by pharmaceutical companies, whose medical editors are supported by pharmaceutical companies, and whose peer reviewers are supported by pharmaceutical companies,” she said.

The study authors identified reviewers based on 2022 reviewer lists for each journal. They searched the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Open Payments database for payments made to reviewers.

Drugmakers are required to report payments to physicians to the database, which was established by legislators in 2013 to address growing public concerns about Big Pharma’s influence over doctors.

The authors of the JAMA research letter limited their analysis to U.S.-based physicians, as those are the only ones listed on Open Payments. Of 7,021 reviewer names, 1,962 were practicing physicians and therefore searchable. Of those, 145 had performed peer reviews for more than one journal.

Overall, the authors found that 1,155 of the reviewers included in their study received industry payments between 2020 and 2022, with most payments made to physicians and their institutions to finance research.

More than half of the reviewers accepted payments for travel, speaking and consulting. Those direct, non-research-related payments had a median value of $7,614.

The authors said the study may have underestimated industry payments because it excluded non-U.S.-based physicians and reviewers who are not practicing physicians. It didn’t account for payments from other entities that may present conflicts of interest, including insurance and technology companies.

“Additional research and transparency regarding industry payments in the peer review process are needed,” the researchers concluded.

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 19, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment