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The Nord Stream Anniversary & Europe’s Stockholm Syndrome

Defending the narrative from reality

By Glenn Diesen | September 27, 2024

Two years ago, the Nord Stream gas pipelines were destroyed in an economic and environmental terrorist attack. The attack severed a key economic connection between Europe and Russia, contributing to the de-industrialisation of Europe and intensifying Russia’s economic reorientation towards China and India. The geopolitical ramifications are immense, yet we know very little about the attack. How is this possible?

The US and its NATO allies initially insisted that Russia was certainly the perpetrator, and their stenographers in the media reported confidently that “everything is pointing to Russia”.[1] No evidence was presented, yet NATO even suggested the attack on its critical infrastructure could trigger collective defence under Article 5. Besides indirectly threatening the world’s largest nuclear power with war, NATO also used the attack on Nord Stream to justify escalating the war in Ukraine and to further militarise the Baltic Sea and other seas. Strengthening NATO’s ability to protect undersea infrastructure was also an important argument for why Finland and Sweden should join NATO.

The story of Russia blowing up its own pipeline could rely on a strong consensus as all dissent to the narrative could be dismissed as repeating the Kremlin’s talking points. Similar stories such as Russia’s continued bombing of a nuclear power plant under its own control or Russia attacking the Kremlin with drones did not make any sense either, yet in the absence of common sense the political-media elites could explain that this was straight out of the “Russian playbook”.

However, reality eventually asserted itself around the time of Seymour Hersh’s article that blamed the US for the attack, and thereafter the US began to shift the blame to Ukraine. In one of the latest developments, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US knew about the Ukrainian attack in advance and “the CIA warned Zelensky’s office to stop the operation”.[2]

It seems highly unlikely that the US was not involved in the attack on Nord Stream, yet the new and updated narrative is nonetheless interesting as it is an admission that the US knew about the attack on Nord Stream before it happened. This is an admission that the US and NATO lied to their public and the entire world when they blamed Russia for the attack, and then used that lie to escalate the war in Ukraine, militarise the Baltic Sea, and push for further NATO expansionism.

Our lack of knowledge about what happened to the Nord Stream gas pipelines is the result of defending the narrative from reality. Blissful ignorance has become the foundation for NATO unity, and facts are thus treated as our great enemy. Yet, as the demand for unity also upholds what can only be described as the Stockholm Syndrome, let’s review how the Nord Stream narrative has been defended from reality:

The US announces its objective to destroy Nord Stream

Preventing the economic integration and cooperation between Russia and Germany as two key centres of power has been a centuries-old hegemonic objective of the US and Britain. The RAND Corporation, a think tank linked to the intelligence community, wrote a report in 2019 sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office about how to extend and weaken Russia. Besides destabilising Russian borders and bleeding Russia in Ukraine, the report outlined the objective of cutting Russia’s energy ties to Europe: “A first step would involve stopping Nord Stream 2”.[3]

The US opposition to Nord Stream 2 included political pressure and economic sanctions against the companies of European allies who participated in the project, a hegemonic ambition sold to the public as defending Europe. In July 2020, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed: “We will do everything we can to make sure that that pipeline doesn’t threaten Europe”.[4] US Senator Tom Cotton announced in May 2021 that ‘there is still time to stop it. … Kill Nord Stream 2 now, and let it rust beneath the waves of the Baltic’.[5] On 14 January 2022, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also threatened the pipeline: ‘We have made clear to the Russians that pipeline is at risk if they move further into Ukraine’.[6] Senator Ted Cruz similarly used very direct language calling for stopping Nord Stream: ‘This pipeline must be stopped and the only way to prevent its completion is to use all the tools available to do that’.[7]

On 7 February 2022, President Biden stood next to German Chancellor Scholz at a press briefing, warning that if Russia invades Ukraine, then “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it”. When asked by a journalist how he would end a project under German control, Biden responded: “I promise you, we will be able to do that”.[8] US spokesperson, Ned Price, was explicit: “I want to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”.[9] Undersecretary of State for Policy, Victoria Nuland, used the exact same words: “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”.[10]

The attack on Nord Stream and the subsequent victory lap

On 26 September 2022, the German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed. The former Foreign Minister of Poland, Radek Sikorski, tweeted “Thank you, USA” accompanied by a picture of the destroyed pipeline. The day after the attack, on 27 September 2022, leaders from Poland, Norway, and Denmark attended a ceremony in Poland to mark the opening of the new Norway-Poland Baltic Pipe that was constructed to reduce Europe’s dependence on Nord Stream.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken argued that the destruction of Nord Stream presented “a tremendous opportunity. It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy”. Blinken offered to “help” Europe to replace Russian gas with much more expensive American gas. Victoria Nuland joined in on celebrating the attack: “I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea”.[11]

Washington could take a brief pause in rejoicing over the destruction of Europe’s critical energy infrastructure to reassure the world that it must have been the Russians who attacked their own pipelines. Russia had first invested billions into its evil plan of making Europe dependent on Russian energy and then transitioned into its new evil plan of blowing up these pipelines to deny gas to Europe.  Russia could alternatively have turned off the valves and saved billion dollars worth of infrastructure, but the Russian playbook works in mysterious ways. European politicians entrusted with protecting their national interests and the media entrusted with reporting on reality, insisted that only Russia would have carried out such a horrendous attack. Anyone suggesting the US could have been the perpetrator was smeared by the political-media elites as spreading “Russian propaganda”.

 Blaming Ukraine

Seymour Hersh then reported that the US had coordinated the attacks with the use of a US Navy diving team. This report was largely ignored and ridiculed by the media, with many journalists instead undermining the credibility of Hersh. The legendary investigative journalist who exposed the cover up of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and detailed the US military’s torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, was suddenly sold to the public as an old senile discredited conspiracy theorist carrying water for Putin.

Yet, the US began to shift the blame to Ukraine. The Washington Post reported in June 2023 about leaked CIA documents revealing that US intelligence and the Biden administration knew at least three months before the attack on Nord Stream that the “Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces”.[12] How could the media report on the US lying about Russia being behind the attack, and what kind of narrative could be constructed when the only two suspects are the US and Ukraine? When the narrative-driven media did not have a narrative, the solution was simply a media blackout. The German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, committed to making excuses for his attackers and instead blaming Russia, suggested that it was too soon to blame Ukraine as the attack on Nord Stream could have been a “false flag” attack to blame Ukraine. Other European politicians simply concluded that it was best to stop digging as they would not like what they would find. The same EU officials who had for years spoken about the objective of “European sovereignty” now displayed complete subordination to Washington.

The US was nonetheless cautious not to delegitimise the Ukrainian government, by blaming some rogue Ukrainian elements who acquired a sailboat of diving equipment. This story was uncritically presented to the public after explaining for months that only a state actor could be behind such a complicated attack. Yet, the media was urged not to engage in speculations until European countries had completed their investigations and shared their findings with the world. Yet, Sweden announced in October 2022 that it would not establish a joint investigation team with allies such as Germany due to national security. By February 2024, Sweden announced it had closed the investigations into the attack on Nord Stream as the case did not fall under their jurisdiction.

As Russia was blocked from participating in the investigations, Russia put forward a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for establishing an international independent investigative commission into the attack on the Nord Steam pipelines. The Western countries rejected an independent international investigation and blocked the UN resolution. After all, an independent fact-finding mission could threaten the narrative that NATO unity rests upon.

By August 2024, the Nord Stream narrative evolved yet again as the Wall Street Journal reported that Zelensky had been involved in the attack which the CIA had allegedly attempted to stop.[13] The German government reassured its partners that the alleged Ukrainian attack on Nord Stream and Germany’s weapon supplies to Ukraine are two separate issues, and the Nord Stream investigation would not have any bearing on Germany’s support for Ukraine.

Reality threatens the unifying narrative

Without a Russian perpetrator as the foundation for solidarity, the Europeans have begun to turn on each other. Narrative control has subsequently become difficult. A German official claimed that Poland sabotaged investigations into the Nord Stream attack as they did not arrest a suspected Ukrainian diver named “Volodymyr Z”, and instead allowed him to escape back to Ukraine. August Hanning, the former head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, accused both Poland and Ukraine of being involved in the attack on Nord Stream. Hanning also questioned the sailboat narrative as: “Operations of such dimensions are inconceivable without the approval of the political leaders of the countries involved”.[14]

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to the Germans: “To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet”.[15] The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, argued that if Ukraine was behind the attack on Nord Stream, then it was a legitimate target. The narrative is thus shifting from denial to justification of the terrorist attack. Germany’s continues to be humiliated by its key partners and allies, some that were behind the attack and others that are justifying the attack on its critical infrastructure. This is all happening while Germany’s energy-intensive industries collapse and its economy subsequently falters.

However, the Stockholm Syndrome phenomenon should not be underestimated, as the Europeans will memory-hole these uncomfortable facts and continue to ignore national interests. There will soon be a new script to be followed diligently and a swift return to the simple and comfortable world view of good versus evil, in which liberal democracies stand united under the leadership of the benign leadership of the US against the evil Russians.

[1] Z. Colman and B Lefebvre, ‘Everything is pointing to Russia’: U.S., EU officials on edge over pipeline explosions, Politico, 28 September 2022.

[2] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Journal, 14 August 2024.

[3] RAND, ‘Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground’, RAND Corporation, 24 April 2019, p.62.

[4] RFE/RL, ‘Pompeo Says U.S. Will ‘Do Everything’ To Stop Nord Stream 2 Project’, RFE/RL, 30 July 2020.

[5] T. Cotton, ‘Kill Russia’s Nord Stream 2, Let it Ruse in the Baltic’, Tom Cotton official website, 19 May 2021.

[6] CNN, ‘At this hour with Kate Bolduan’, CNN, 14 January 2022.

[7] T. Cruz, ‘President Biden and the Democrats have Imperilled Ukraine and put Europe on the Brink of War’, Ted Cruz official website, 7 February 2022.

[8] S. Sarkar, ‘‘There Will No Longer Be a Nord Stream 2’: Fingers Pointed Towards Biden after Gas Pipeline Blasts’, News18, 30 September 2022.

[9] DW, ‘Nord Stream 2 won’t happen if Russia invades Ukraine: US’, Deutsche Welle, 27 January 2022.

[10] Wion, ‘If Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 pipeline will not move forward: US’, Wion, 28 January 2022.

[11] I. Van Brugen, ‘Sergei Lavrov Accuses U.S. of Nord Stream Pipeline Attack’, Newsweek, 2 February 2023.

[12] S. Harris and S Mekhennet, U.S. had intelligence of detailed Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream pipeline, The Washington Post, 6 June 2023.

[13] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Journal, 14 August 2024.

[14] Welt Report, German officials claim Poland sabotaged investigation into Nord Stream explosions, Politico, 7 September 2024.

[15] D. Bellamy, Polish PM Donald Tusk suggests Nord Stream patrons should ‘keep quiet’, Euronews, 18 August 2024.

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

More Truths about the War in Ukraine – Part Twenty of the Anglo-American War on Russia

Tales of the American Empire • September 26, 2024

Part Eighteen of this series explained that most Americans do not understand the current war in Ukraine because they’ve been misinformed. The great Glen Greenwald provides a summary of this propaganda effort. Retired US Army intelligence officer Tony Shaffer states that some 15,000 Americans are in Ukraine to support the war and many have been killed. There are comments by the prime ministers of Hungary and Slovakia who don’t support the Anglo-American war in Ukraine. Finally, the myth that Vladimir Putin is a dictator is addressed.

_________________________________

Here is an example of how the deaths of American servicemen in Ukraine and Israel can be hidden.: “Third airman dies at Air Force base in five weeks”; Nicholas Slayton; Task and Purpose; August 31, 2024; https://taskandpurpose.com/news/airma…

Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”;    • The Anglo-American War on Russia  

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

20 State AGs Put Top U.S. Pediatric Group On Notice for “Abusive” and “Experimental” Trans Therapy Guidance

By Jefferey Jaxen | September 26, 2024

“It is abusive to treat a child with biologically altering drugs that have an unknown physiological trajectory and end point. It is also inhumane to endorse such experimentation without a confident safety profile, especially if more times than not, it proves to be medically unnecessary.”

This statement unpins the tone of the legal notice signed by 20 state Attorneys General to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asking the group to answer to possible violations of state consumer protection statutes over its questionable standards on gender dysphoria care for minors.

“… the AAP continues to authoritatively declare that puberty blockers are ‘reversible,’” the letter continued. “That claim is scientifically unsupported and contradicts what is medically known. And because that claim raises questions under most state consumer protection laws, it has the undersigned alarmed,” the letter goes on to state.

Idaho AG and co-signer of the action letter Raúl Labrador stated, “It is shameful the most basic tenet of medicine – do no harm – has been abandoned by professional associations when politically pressured,” said Attorney General Labrador. “These organizations are sacrificing the health and well-being of children with medically unproven treatments that leave a wake of permanent damage.”

Why are these AGs acting now? The momentum has gained breakaway speed regarding the science of gender affirming care for minors.

Puberty blockers are not fully reversible and come with serious long-term consequences. According to the Cass Report commissioned by NHS England, using puberty blockers are used to suppress hormones during or before puberty can interfere with neurocognitive development, compromise bone density and may negatively affect metabolic health and weight.

And when puberty blocker use is followed directly by cross-sex hormone use, which is often the case, infertility and sterility is a known consequence.

The controversial world of gender care isn’t the only space that the AAP has dove into without an abundance of caution. The group made headlines in 2023 by radically altering their front line weight loss recommendations children ages 12 and up to include a new class of risky drugs and weight-loss surgery.

The AAP’s murky ‘science’ recommendations reached an early level of appalling shame in 2019 when, during a public hearing in 2019 to discuss an act before it was signed into law, pediatrician Dr. Helene Felman, representing Washington D.C.’s chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), stated:

“As a pediatrician, I like the legislation as it stands because it offers the opportunity to capture those young adults who can make informed decisions at technically any age.”

11 was ultimately decided upon until a federal court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction in a case funded by The Informed Consent Action Network.

The American Medical Association (AMA) had also thrown its full weight behind attempting to remove the parents from medical decisions involving their children.

Looking at where their energy has gone in key moments, one thing appears clear, the AAP wants children isolated from their parents and given over to the medical system for pharmaceutical interventions with known risk profiles. Why?

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Runaway Pesticide Toxicity of Food Supply Shows Generational EPA Failure

By Jefferey Jaxen | September 24, 2024

The decades-long push to clean up the American food supply has received supercharged momentum over the last month thanks, in part, to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His media messaging to reform regulatory agencies has gained critical mass through social media outlets along with breaking into the mainstream of political talking points.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently acted using a rare emergency order for the first time in 40 years to stop the use of a problematic pesticide, Dacthal, from the market.

Why? According to their press release, “EPA has taken this action because unborn babies whose pregnant mothers are exposed to DCPA, sometimes without even knowing the exposure has occurred, could experience changes to fetal thyroid hormone levels, and these changes are generally linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life, some of which may be irreversible.”

Does this prove the agency is listening to The People and responding to the current social momentum towards healthy food? Is the Biden–Harris administration (or whoever is truly running the country) making historic change?

Not really…

The issue of toxins, agrochemicals, and inferior ingredients harming American health through our food supply has long been a bipartisan operation – handed down from administration to administration without pause from what could only be deemed a food industrial complex… a corporate health deep state of sorts.

The EPA classified Dacthal as a “possible carcinogen” in 1995 after its studies done by the manufacturer found it could cause thyroid tumors in animals.

The entire European Union banned the pesticide in 2009 due to irrefutable health concerns. Not the EPA… it was big business as usual.

The Environmental Working Group reports:

“In 2013, the EPA required AMVAC, the sole DCPA manufacturer in the U.S., to submit an additional study showing the chemical’s effects on the fetal thyroid among other information.

AMVAC’s research, finally submitted to the EPA in 2022, showed even low doses of DCPA exposure can harm the developing fetus.

During the nearly 10 years before it finally complied with the EPA’s requirement, the company continued producing and selling Dacthal.”

In other words, the EPA dragged its feet, through multiple administrations, to slow roll the removal of this known, health-damaging pesticide.

Another point in play is the EPA’s regulatory hypocrisy claiming it removed Dacthal because it caused changes in fetal thyroid hormone levels, low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life.

Lowered IQ… Changes in thyroid function…

Meanwhile, the EPA is literally defending in court, for multiple years, the practice of widespread water fluoridation. Even though a new government report from the Department of Health and Human Services’s National Toxicology Program found it lowered IQ in children… which has been known for a long time.

Furthermore, a review of developmental fluoride neurotoxicity research shows fluoride is an endocrine disrupter causing toxicity to the thyroid gland that can affect thyroid function at intake levels as low as 0.01 to 0.03 mg/kg/day in individuals with iodine deficiency.

Yet fluoride can’t be touched. The EPA defends this practice considered one of the greatest public health achievements over the last 100 years.

How about glyphosate? The EPA acted fast on that one right?

The chemical was only removed from the U.S. market by its manufacturer due to overwhelming litigation costs of lost lawsuits threatening the corporate viability of Bayer. EPA… silent.

So here we are with an EPA that’s still broken. The results?

Continued tests of the American food supply reveals widespread pesticide contamination with a recent finding of a cocktail of 21 different pesticides in Target’s baby food. Twelve of the pesticides found are classified as highly hazardous to the environment and/or human health and eight are banned in the European Union.

A new systematic review looking at the impact of organic foods on chronic diseases found:

“A significant inverse relationship between organic food consumption and cardiometabolic risk factors, including obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia, was observed in the majority of prospective studies… Clinical trials consistently indicated lower pesticide exposure in participants on organic diets, suggesting potential health benefits.”

While its been clear to anyone paying attention that the U.S. regulatory agencies often act as barriers to optimal health rather than protectors. The parents, activists, non-profits and lawyers have stepped up, continuously, to fill the role of watchdog often battling the very agencies being funded to the tune of untold billions to oversee the regulation of environmental, medical, and health products and concerns of Americans.

As this narrative gets breathing room, the current messaging of clean, healthy food is also running head long into record low consumer confidence and higher food prices making basics challenging for most Americans. For it to continue the staying power it needs and desperately deserves, real change will be required from a combined political and grassroots union to overturn the very culture of regulatory agencies away from corporate capture and the conflicts of interest revolving door influence that has corrupted the core of American oversight for over half a century. No small task.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Fluoride in Water Poses ‘Unreasonable Risk’ to Children, Federal Judge Rules

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 25, 2024

In a decision that could end the practice of water fluoridation in the U.S., a federal judge late Tuesday ruled that water fluoridation at current U.S. levels poses an “unreasonable risk” of reduced IQ in children.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can no longer ignore that risk, and must take regulatory action, Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California wrote in the long-awaited landmark decision.

More than 200 million Americans drink water treated with fluoride at the “optimal” level of 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L). However, Chen ruled that a preponderance of scientific evidence shows this level of fluoride exposure may damage human health, particularly that of pregnant mothers and young children.

The verdict delivers a major blow to the EPA, public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and professional lobbying groups like the American Dental Association (ADA), which have staked their reputations on the claim that water fluoridation is one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century and an unqualified public good.

Fluoride proponents refused to reexamine that stance despite mounting scientific evidence from top researchers and government agencies of fluoride’s neurotoxic risks, particularly for infants’ developing brains.

Instead, they attempted to weaken and suppress the research and discredit the scientists carrying it out.

Rick North, board member of Fluoride Action Network, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told The Defender, “What’s false is the CDC claiming that fluoridation is one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 20th century. What’s true is that ending fluoridation will be one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 21st century.”

“The judge did what EPA has long refused to do, and that is to apply the EPA standard risk assessment framework to fluoride,” said Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs. “In so doing, the court has shown that the widespread exposure to fluoride that we now have in the United States is unreasonably and precariously close to the levels that we know cause harm.”

The EPA can appeal Tuesday’s decision. The agency told The Defender it is reviewing the decision and has no comment at this time. The U.S. Department of Justice, which represents the EPA in the lawsuit, also said it has no comment.

EPA’s argument ‘not persuasive’

The ruling concludes a historic lawsuit — one that has dragged on for seven years — brought against the EPA by environmental and consumer advocacy organizations like the Fluoride Action Network, Moms Against Fluoridation and Food & Water Watch, along with individual parents and children.

It is the first lawsuit to go to a federal trial under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended by Congress in 2016. The TSCA allows U.S. citizens to petition the EPA to evaluate whether a chemical presents an unreasonable risk to public health and should be regulated.

If the EPA denies a TSCA citizen petition — which the agency did when the plaintiffs asked it to reexamine water fluoridation in 2016 — the petitioners are entitled to a “de novo” judicial review of the science without the deference to the agency typically afforded it in legal cases.

Chen’s 80-page ruling, issued six months after closing arguments in February, offers a careful and detailed articulation of the EPA’s review process for chemicals that pose a hazard to human health and evaluates and summarizes the extensive scientific data presented at trial.

Chen wrote, “EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level.” He cited a key report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) National Toxicology Program (NTP), which undertook a systematic review of all available scientific research at the time of publication.

The report “concluded that fluoride is indeed associated with reduced IQ in children, at least at exposure levels at or above 1.5 mg/L,” Chen wrote.

The NTP also reported that although there are technical challenges to measuring fluoride’s toxic effects at low levels, “scientists have observed a statistically significant association between fluoride and adverse effects in children even at such ‘lower’ exposure levels,” Chen wrote.

He said that despite recognizing that fluoride is hazardous, the EPA’s defense rested largely on the fact that the exact level at which it is hazardous is too unclear for the agency to determine whether the chemical presents an unreasonable risk.

This argument is “not persuasive,” Chen wrote.

Pregnant women exposed to fluoride in water at levels exceeding the hazard level

The EPA requires a margin of error by a factor of at least 10 to exist between the hazard level for a toxin and the acceptable human exposure level. “Put differently, only an exposure that is below 1/10th of the hazard level would be deemed safe under Amended TSCA, given the margin of error required,” Chen wrote.

That means that even if the hazard level were 4 mg/L — well above the 1.5 mg/L identified by the NTP — the safe level of fluoride exposure would be 0.4 mg/L, well below the current “optimal” fluoride level in the U.S., Chen wrote.

The much lower probable hazard level established by high-quality studies indicates that many pregnant women in the U.S. are already exposed to fluoride in water at levels exceeding the hazard level.

“Under even the most conservative estimates of this level, there is not enough of a margin between the accepted hazard level and the actual human exposure levels to find that fluoride is safe,” Chen concluded.

“Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA under Amended TSCA.”

The law dictates that the EPA must take regulatory action, but it does not specify what that action has to be. EPA regulatory actions can range from notifying the public of risks to banning chemicals.

Philippe Grandjean, M.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor in environmental health at Harvard and chair of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, top researcher on fluoride’s neurotoxicity and expert witness for plaintiffs in the case told The Defender he thought the court’s decision was “well-justified.”

He said the ruling made it incumbent on the EPA to go beyond simply ending water fluoridation.

“EPA will have to consider what to do in the southwestern parts of the country where the fluoride content of groundwater is too high due to minerals in the soil containing fluoride,” he said. “And then there is the question about ingestion of toothpaste.”

The CDC and the ADA did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

More than 70 years of controversy

For more than seven decades, U.S. public health officials have steadfastly supported water fluoridation, claiming the practice is a key strategy for maintaining and improving dental health.

Proponents of water fluoridation, with help from the mainstream press, often attempted to cast those questioning fluoride’s benefits and raising concerns about its safety as conspiracy theorists.

The EPA in 1975 recommended adding fluoride to water at an optimal level of 1.2 mg/L for its dental benefits, but recommended a maximum level of 4 mg/L, the ruling said.

As more evidence has emerged about fluoride’s adverse health effects, including skeletal fluorosis, recommended levels were revised.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, officially lowered the recommended dosage for water fluoridation in 2015 from 0.7-1.2 mg/L to 0.7 mg/L after considering “adverse health effects” along with alleged benefits.

However, evidence that fluoride poses a neurotoxic risk has existed for decades.

In 2017, after the EPA rejected their citizen petition to end fluoridation of drinking water in the U.S. based on evidence of health risks, namely neurotoxicity, the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit.

A seven-day trial took place in federal court in San Francisco in June 2020, but Chen put the proceedings on hold pending the release of the NTP’s systematic review of research available on the neurotoxic effects of fluoride.

The NTP sought to publish its report — which consisted of a “state of the science” monograph and a meta-analysis — in May 2022, but dental officials at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research pressured HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine to prevent the review from being published.

The ADA also sought to suppress the report.

Levine told the NTP to not publish the report but to put it on hold and allow for further review.

Plaintiffs submitted documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act exposing this intervention to the court. The revelation prompted Chen to rule that the trial should go forward using the draft report from the NTP.

The trial resumed in January in San Francisco, with arguments presented over the course of two weeks.

The NTP’s monograph was finalized and published last month on its website. The meta-analysis is forthcoming in a peer-reviewed journal.

Connett said that Congress created the citizen petition provision in TSCA as a counterweight to bureaucratic lethargy and as a check on the EPA.

The statute, he said, is a powerful tool for overcoming politicized science.

“When science becomes fossilized in political inertia, the citizen petition provision of TSCA is a very powerful tool for citizens,” Connett said. “Through this case, we have been able to effectuate what Congress had envisioned with this part of the statute.”

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.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel secures $8.7bn military aid package from Washington

The Cradle | September 26, 2024

Israel said on 26 September it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the US government to support its ongoing military assaults on Lebanon and Gaza and to maintain a “qualitative military edge in the region,” Reuters reported on 26 September.

The package includes $3.5 billion for critical military purchases and $5.2 billion for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome anti-missile system, David’s Sling, and an advanced laser system.

US support for Israel’s missile defense systems is crucial to shield Israeli military installations and infrastructure from Hezbollah’s large missile and rocket stocks.

While Israeli warplanes have devastated south and east Lebanon with airstrikes since Monday, killing over 600 Lebanese and Syrians, Hezbollah has hit numerous targets in the vicinity of the city of the Israeli city of Haifa, as well as an Israeli intelligence base on the outskirts of Tel Avi in central Israel.

Israel also needs US munitions and financial support to continue its horrific bombing campaign of Gaza, which is nearing its twelfth month and has killed over 40,000 people and destroyed large swathes of the crowded strip.

The aid announcement came after a meeting at the Pentagon between Eyal Zamir, the director general of Israel’s defense ministry, and US defense officials, including acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Amanda Dory.

“This substantial investment will significantly strengthen critical systems such as Iron Dome and David’s Sling while supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defense system currently in its later stages of development,” Israel’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The deal illustrates the “strong and enduring strategic partnership between Israel and the United States and the ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” the statement added.

Reuters reported in late June that Tel Aviv’s allies in Washington had sent more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles since the start of the war in Gaza last October.

The news agency added that Washington had transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.

Since 7 October of last year, news channels and social media sites have shown a steady stream of videos and images of Palestinian men, women, and children who have been torn apart by US bombs.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran slams US ‘absurd scenarios’ to implicate it in alleged assassinations

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani
Press TV – September 26, 2024

Iran says US claims of Iranian threats to senior American officials are “ridiculous scenarios” fabricated by Washington.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the US was “intensely tracking an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials, including former government officials like president [Donald] Trump, and some people who are currently serving the administration.”

In a statement on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani dismissed Blinken’s “accusations as absurd and completely baseless.”

“It is clear that the formulation of such claims is merely part of the electoral atmosphere in the US and is driven by specific political goals, to the extent that they do not even warrant a response,” Kan’ani noted.

“The formulation of such false attributions and political accusations in the current tense conditions of the region cannot in any way diminish the international responsibility of the US government in aiding and participating in various international crimes against Palestine and Lebanon by the Zionist regime.”

Kan’ani said public opinion worldwide holds “the US regime” and its officials accountable for such humanitarian atrocities.

“The absurd and baseless stunts and scenarios created by the US government against the Islamic Republic of Iran will not hinder Iran’s determination to pursue legal and international accountability for the perpetrators and instigators of crimes committed against the Iranian people,” he said.

“The passage of time will not protect these criminals from trial and punishment.”

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

Biden issues $8bln military aid for Kiev, including 130km-range bombs

Vladimir Zelensky and Joe Biden at an event in New York on September 25, 2024. © Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
Al Mayadeen | September 26, 2024

US President Joe Biden unveiled over $8 billion in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday, emphasizing that the support is aimed at helping Kiev “win [the] war” with Russia.

The announcement coincided with a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the US. The Ukrainian president will meet with Democratic and Republican leaders at the Capitol prior to his meeting with Biden.

This assistance package includes the first delivery of a precision-guided glide bomb, known as the Joint Standoff Weapon, which has a range of up to 130 kilometers.

This would significantly boost Ukraine’s ability to carry out strikes further inside Russian territory, a move Moscow has warned could escalate the conflict and expand the war. It also suggests a shift in Washington’s policy, indicating unannounced approval for Kiev to utilize US-provided advanced weaponry to target areas deeper within Russia.

‘A global cryptocurrency network’

The bulk of the new aid, $5.5 billion, is to be allocated before Monday’s end of the US fiscal year, when the funding authority is set to expire. Another $2.4 billion is under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the administration to buy weapons for Ukraine from companies – primarily American ones – rather than pull them from US stocks.

“That is why, today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war,” said Biden.

As part of his proposal, the President stated that the Defense Department will restore and deliver an additional Patriot air defense battery, along with extra Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

Biden also instructed the Pentagon to increase the training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots, with plans to train an additional 18 pilots in the coming year.

The United States, in collaboration with international partners, will take action to disrupt what President Biden described as “a global cryptocurrency network” used for Russian sanctions evasion and alleged money laundering.

Additionally, Biden announced that he will organize a leader-level summit of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month, aiming to unify the efforts of over 50 nations supporting Ukraine.

Firing Ukraine’s ambassador to the US

However, it remains uncertain how many Republicans will agree to meet with Zelensky, as criticism of Kiev grows among party leaders, including Donald Trump.

Trump has been vocal in his criticism of the Ukrainian President and has so far declined Zelenskiy’s request for a meeting.

During a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump expressed strong disapproval of Zelensky, stating, “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky.”

Additionally, many Republicans in Congress were outraged by Zelensky’s recent visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden’s hometown. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has since launched an investigation into the Ukrainian President’s trip.

Trump also held President Biden and Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris accountable for allowing Russia’s war to take place.

Rep. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is not expected to meet with Zelensky on Thursday, called on the Ukrainian President to sack his ambassador to Washington over the planning of the Scranton visit.

However, he reassured the Ukrainians that this diplomatic issue is not linked to the provision of military aid to Ukraine.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Anglo-Americans attacked ally with Nord Stream sabotage – Russian intelligence

RT | September 26, 2024

The US and UK masterminded the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in an act of economic warfare against their EU allies, Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service has claimed.

The assessment released on Thursday, on the second anniversary of the undersea bombing, detailed an alleged effort by Washington and London to interfere in the investigation and blame another party.

The intelligence “definitively points to the pipeline attack being an act of international terrorism and an act of economic war [by the US and UK] against European allies, primarily the Federal Republic of Germany,” the statement said.

The SVR claimed that Washington and London have been conducting a sustained campaign to “remove the issue of the Nord Stream sabotage from international agenda,” ramping up their efforts in August.

“Media answering to Washington and London are promoting the narrative that the attack was conducted exclusively by Ukrainian extremists, who acted independently,” it said, adding that the scenario “does not hold water”. German investigators are being pressured to accept this version as the main one, and “wrap up the probe before the year ends,” the statement alleged.

Berlin has been issued with an ultimatum, demanding that it name “Russia-hating Ukrainian desperados” as the culprits and “deflect a blow to trans-Atlantic cooperation,” the SVR stated.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany. The attack in September 2022 was blamed by Western media on a privately funded group of Ukrainian divers, who supposedly acted on orders from General Valery Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed and became Kiev’s ambassador to the UK.

Prior to the attack, senior US officials, including President Joe Biden and veteran diplomat Victoria Nuland, had issued threats against Russian energy infrastructure, particularly the Nord Stream 2 project, which was completed in September 2021, a decade after Nord Stream 1 went on stream.

Nord Stream 2 significantly expanded the capacity of the network, but was never used due to Germany’s refusal to license it amid tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Economics, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden behind Nord Stream sabotage – Russia’s top MP

RT | September 26, 2024

US President Joe Biden “was behind” the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz helped him tank his country’s economy in the aftermath, Vyacheslav Volodin, the head of the Russian State Duma, has claimed.

The senior legislator commented on Thursday on the second anniversary of the explosions, which disabled the undersea connectors built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, noting the failure of European investigators to name the culprit. There have been accounts in the media suggesting possible scenarios, “which were occasionally laughable,” he said.

“Washington and Biden personally were behind the Nord Stream bombing. His interest was to cut Western Europe off from cheap Russian gas and force it to buy it from America at a price three times higher,” he said.

The German economy took a hit and is now in recession due to a loss of competitiveness, Volodin added, “which means that the people of Germany were punished instead of Washington, as Biden and Scholz took money out of their pockets.”

“You cannot pin this one on some ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ and civilian divers,” Volodin stressed.

On Tuesday, the German news outlet Der Spiegel published its latest retelling of the events of September 2022. It mostly repeats the story that a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer conducted the sabotage with the blessing of former General Valery Zaluzhny. The Western press has been repeating similar versions of this story for months.

Spiegel claimed to have identified the divers, saying that most were civilians, but the group was led by a commando. The operation was first contemplated years before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, it stated.

Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Biden had ordered the sabotage of Nord Stream in a February 2023 article. He said US military divers had secretly planted explosives to destroy the pipelines at a significant depth, using a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea as a cover. The White House has denied the accusations, but Russian officials have called the story plausible.

Prior to the destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2, senior US officials, including Biden, had issued threats to destroy the Russian-German pipelines.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

US house speaker demands Zelensky fire Ukrainian ambassador

RT | September 25, 2024

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has called for Vladimir Zelensky to fire Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador in Washington, accusing her of interference in American elections.

“I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelensky on Wednesday, noting that she organized the Pennsylvania event.

“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because — on purpose — no Republicans were invited,” Johnson wrote. “The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”

The Louisiana Republican said that his party has lost trust in Markarova’s ability to serve in the US and that she “should be removed from her post immediately.”

While both Republicans and Democrats support Ukraine against Russia, Johnson wrote, “our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished” when Zelensky and others in Kiev speak ill of Republican candidates in the media.

“These incidents cannot be repeated,” Johnson wrote, urging Zelensky to “take immediate action.”

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

USAID memo exposes Blinken’s involvement in starving Palestinians

Al Mayadeen | September 25, 2024

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration have said that “Israel” is blocking humanitarian aid heading to the Gaza Strip.

In a 17-page memo sent to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April, USAID told top US diplomats that US law requires the administration to cut off weapons shipments to governments that prevent the delivery of US-backed humanitarian aid. The refugees bureau also delivered a similar evaluation.

If acted upon, the assessment would cause tremulous changes to the Israeli regime’s supply of weapons, as the US delivers the majority of weapons through which the regime carries out its aggression.

According to ProPublica, both Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden refused to accept the conclusions reached by the two US agencies.

“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance,” Blinken said on May 10 to Congress, after receiving the reports.

Crimes, recommendations ignored 

USAID’s memo also highlighted a series of grave actions by the Israeli regime, including the killing of aid workers, the destruction of agricultural infrastructure, the bombing of ambulances and hospitals, the occupation of supply depots, and the frequent rejection of trucks carrying vital food and medical supplies.

Moreover, the head of the State Department’s refugees bureau determined that the Israeli regime was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to stop nearly $830 million in taxpayer dollars allocated for military aid to the Israeli occupation, according to ProPublica, which cited emails it had obtained.

Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the Refugees Bureau, resigned in protest over the wording of Blinken’s report to Congress, which she had been helping to draft. In a statement released shortly after her departure, and reported by The Washington Post and other outlets, she wrote, “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid. To deny this is absurd and shameful.”

Hamas: Blinken, Biden’s actions are shameful

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas released a statement, commenting on ProPublica‘s report on Wednesday.

Hamas condemned Bliken and Biden’s deliberate concealment of evidence of “Israel’s” non-compliance with US aid missions during his addresses to Congress.

The movement said that Blinken did so, in complicity with Biden, “Out of fear that it would impact weapons supplies to the occupation’s military.”

It said that the revelations serve as evidence of Washington’s involvement in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

“This criminal conduct by Blinken demands that honorable members of the US Congress and American judicial bodies investigate his actions, which have led to the deaths of thousands of our people,” Hamas underlined.

“We call on international judicial institutions, foremost among them the International Criminal Court, to take these reports seriously and take the necessary legal action against Blinken,” the movement urged.

Hamas stressed that Blinken had participated in the deliberate starvation and the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip through his actions.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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