‘Medical Warfare’: Doctors Who Questioned COVID Shots, Promoted Ivermectin Lose Certification
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 14, 2024
Two doctors who spoke out about vaccines and alternative treatments for COVID-19 received notice that their medical certifications were revoked, while another doctor said her certification was revoked without her knowledge.
The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) last week revoked the certifications of Drs. Pierre Kory and Paul Marik, following a two-year investigation into their promotion of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for COVID-19 and their statements questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to The Washington Post, the two physicians continued “to promote ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication, as a treatment for COVID long after the medical community found it to be ineffective.”
Kory and Marik are co-founders of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), which promotes alternative treatments for COVID-19.
Citing unnamed experts, the Post claimed the FLCCC “spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.”
MedPageToday quoted an ABIM spokesperson, who said the organization “does not comment publicly on the reasons for the revocation of certification.”
However, in a summary of the ABIM’s decision reviewed by The Defender, the organization stated that the doctors’ “conduct poses serious concerns for patient safety and undermines the trust that the public and the medical profession place in the meaning of ABIM board certification.”
In a press release, the FLCCC Alliance said it “categorically disagrees” with ABIM’s decision.
“We believe this decision represents a dangerous shift away from the foundational principles of medical discourse and scientific debate that have historically been the bedrock of medical education associations,” the press release states.
Marik told The Defender :
“The bottom line is we’re disappointed because we stand up for the truth. To censor science is to censor progress. Science is based on dialogue and people can have different points of view. That is the principle of science: it’s people having different points of view.
“We’ve never been in a situation before where physicians who have opposing points of view are silenced … It sets a really bad precedent that you can’t really challenge the status quo, and as we know, in medicine, there have been very dramatic changes based on changing understandings of science.”
In the FLCCC Alliance press release, Kory said, “This fight is about more than just our right to speak — it’s about protecting the future of healthcare. When doctors are silenced for questioning the prevailing narrative, we all lose.”
Kory and Marik participated in an ABIM hearing in May, but internist Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, told The Defender that ABIM revoked her certification without her knowledge.
Nass said she was blindsided by ABIM’s decision to revoke her license, which she said she found out about only when she searched for herself in the organization’s database of certified physicians.
Nass told The Defender :
“After the Maine Medical Board suspended my license illegally — even though none of my alleged transgressions met the statutory requirement for an immediate suspension — the board later found me guilty of things I had not done and continued the suspension … All of this with never a single patient complaint.
“Now I learn, by chance, that the ABIM has suspended me without ever informing me I was even under an investigation, which is illegal according to the ABIM’s process.”
Dr. Peter McCullough also faced similar difficulties with the ABIM over his positions on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. According to MedPageToday, ABIM revoked his certifications in 2022 — although, as of today, ABIM lists him as certified.
McCullough told The Defender, “The ABIM is violating principles of equal protection, due process, rules of evidence and has gone ex post facto to find reasons to attack qualified ABIM-certified doctors who innovated and saved lives early in the pandemic.”
Science based on ‘different points of view’
Kory and Marik held ABIM certifications in internal and critical care medicine, while Kory was also certified in pulmonary disease, according to MedPageToday.
They were initially notified about the risk of losing their certification in May 2022. Last year, ABIM’s Credentials and Certification Committee recommended the revocation of their certification for disseminating “false or inaccurate medical information.” A hearing followed in May.
According to the FLCCC Alliance’s press release, Kory and Marik “tirelessly defended their positions.” However, despite “presenting over 170 references in a detailed 60-page response submitted in January 2023, the ABIM has chosen to dismiss these robust scientific contributions in favor of a narrow, ‘consensus-driven’ narrative.”
According to the summary of ABIM’s decision, Kory and Marik’s “statements about the safety and efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine” as treatments for COVID-19 “are false and inaccurate because they are unsupported by factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven medical information.”
The ABIM also addressed the doctors’ positions on the COVID-19 vaccines:
“[The doctors’] statements about the purported ineffectiveness and dangers of COVID-19 vaccines are false and inaccurate because they are unsupported by factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven medical information. …
“There is extensive factual, scientifically grounded, and consensus-driven medical information demonstrating that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and lead to better health outcomes.”
Marik questioned the board’s assertions regarding ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and the vaccines.
“What they do is, they cherry-pick articles which support their point of view and then they go on to say the vaccine is safe and effective. We know that’s completely not true. There’s overwhelming data to question both the safety and efficacy of the vaccine,” Marik added.
McCullough said:
“ABIM never updated its members on important risks such as fatal vaccine adverse events, including myocarditis, nor failing theoretical efficacy necessitating boosters that skipped human testing altogether.
“Setting a new dark milestone, ABIM is decertifying highly qualified physicians for nonclinical reasons and ignoring the evidence for early therapeutics and COVID-19 vaccine safety.”
ABIM engaging in ‘medical lawfare’
According to the Post, Kory maintains a license to practice medicine in California, New York and Wisconsin, where “there are no disciplinary actions listed against him.” Marik has retired and his medical license expired in 2022.
Revocation of their ABIM certification “effectively prevents them from practicing at large hospitals and academic institutions,” the Post reported.
Marik and Nass outlined the difficulties of practicing medicine without certification.
“It doesn’t affect us directly, but it affects us indirectly because we’re being accused of committing offenses that are just not true,” Marik said. “The indirect impact to our reputation … it’s a slap in the face, basically, for all the hard work we’ve done.”
Accusing the ABIM of being part of the “medical-industrial complex,” Marik said, “They seem more interested in making money than in protecting physicians. There have been a number of lawsuits against ABIM, so they don’t have the best of reputations. But unfortunately, they are the main certifying organization in the U.S., so they have enormous power and leverage.”
“If I get my license back — a big if, without board certification, I would have great difficulty getting hospital privileges and collecting insurance reimbursements. In other words, I would be unemployable, though I could potentially work on my own if patients paid me directly,” Nass said.
In 2021, ABIM and the Federation of State Medical Boards collaborated to draft the statement used to discipline Nass.
Nass said organizations like ABIM are engaging in “medical lawfare.” She said they are:
“Creating crimes that do not exist, using procedures that do not exist, to try and silence people like me. What did I do wrong? I read the literature and told the truth about what it said, publicly. The COVID vaccines are very dangerous. They don’t prevent COVID. Drugs can effectively treat COVID. And I prescribed those drugs and helped hundreds of Maine citizens. That was my crime.”
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.
Whistleblower Will Appeal After Federal Court Dismisses Lawsuit Alleging Fraud in Pfizer COVID Vaccine Trials
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 13, 2024
For the second time, a federal court in Texas has dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging Pfizer and two of its contractors manipulated data and committed other acts of fraud during clinical trials for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in 2020.
In his Aug. 9 ruling, District Judge Michael J. Truncale sided with the U.S. government, ruling the government had demonstrated “good cause” to intervene and dismiss the case. He wrote:
“The Government’s desire to dismiss the case — because of its doubt as to the case’s merits, differing assessment of the Pfizer vaccine data, desire to avoid discovery and litigation obligations, and belief that it should not have to expend resources in a case that is contrary to its public health policy — constitutes good cause to intervene.”
Whistleblower Brook Jackson filed the lawsuit against Pfizer, Ventavia Research Group — which conducted some of the clinical trials for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine — and Pfizer contractor ICON PLC in January 2021. Jackson’s complaint was most recently amended in October 2023.
Jackson, a former Ventavia employee, alleged the companies committed numerous violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) during the clinical trials.
According to the lawsuit, the three companies “deliberately withheld crucial information from the United States that calls the safety and efficacy of their vaccine into question,” thus defrauding the federal government, which purchased the vaccines.
The FCA allows the government or a party suing on its behalf to attempt to recover money for false claims made by parties to secure payment from the government.
The FCA also allows whistleblowers to be rewarded for confidentially disclosing fraud that results in a financial loss to the government.
While whistleblowers have the right to sue under the FCA, the federal government can choose to intervene in the case at a later date. In Jackson’s lawsuit, the U.S. government initially declined to intervene in February 2022. However, in March, the government filed a motion to intervene and to dismiss the case.
Attorney Warner Mendenhall, one of the lawyers representing Jackson, questioned whether the U.S. government’s “public health policy” is tolerant toward allegations of fraud during clinical trials for vaccines.
In an interview Monday with Sasha Latypova, a former pharmaceutical industry executive with 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development, Mendenhall said:
“What’s the public health policy of the United States? To kill people and damage people and injure people and make them sick? If that’s the public health policy, well then yes, we’re inconsistent with that.”
Latypova told The Defender she was “not really surprised” by the ruling, noting that drugmakers enjoy legal immunity afforded by emergency use authorization granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Latypova described this immunity as a “legal cage.”
She said “The court took as evidence an unsubstantiated opinion of two government bureaucrats … published in an editorial article of a medical journal,” but did not consider the extensive evidence of wrongdoing Jackson provided.
The government’s motion to dismiss cited a Jan. 5 JAMA editorial authored by FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks, claiming that “data from various studies” show that “tens of millions of lives were saved by vaccination.”
During his interview with Latypova, Mendenhall argued the government failed to demonstrate good cause and that last week’s ruling did not name any specific examples of this. He said:
“If you read the actual document, there’s no cause listed at all. In fact, the judge has a footnote saying, ‘There is no cause here, but I’m going to look at this other motion I think I can find’ … that’s not how courts are supposed to proceed. You look at the motion first to intervene for good cause. If it’s not there, you’re done. You don’t get to go on and look at the motion to dismiss for hints that maybe there is good cause.”
The ruling also stated that Jackson “failed to allege that she complained to Ventavia or the FDA about fraud against the government.” Accordingly, her claims don’t “rise to the level of protected activity” as a whistleblower.
Mendenhall told Latypova this poses “constitutional concerns” and may have “a chilling effect on other whistleblowers.”
Jackson has 30 days to appeal the ruling, and plans to, Mendenhall said.
“I am very confident we’re going to win that case and get, at least, the retaliation [claim] vindicated, and vindicate what she did as a conscientious citizen of the United States,” Mendenhall said.
Jackson fired within six hours of submitting claims to the FDA
Ventavia, which operated several sites where it conducted clinical trials on behalf of Pfizer, hired Jackson in September 2020.
That same month, Jackson reported problems she observed with the Pfizer vaccine trial to the company’s management. When management didn’t respond, she took her claims to the FDA on Sept. 25, 2020. Ventavia fired her later that day.
Jackson, who had over 15 years of experience working with clinical trials, claimed she “repeatedly informed her superiors of poor laboratory management, patient safety concerns and data integrity issues.”
She also gave The BMJ a cache of internal company documents, photos and recordings highlighting alleged wrongdoing by Ventavia.
“Her job was to fix things. They wouldn’t fix them. She reported it to the FDA, and six hours later was fired from her job,” Mendenhall said.
He added:
“There was not informed consent. They were making up records. I mean, it was just endless. They were violating patient privacy, which is critical in a clinical trial because you have to not know who’s getting the shot in order to determine any effectiveness.
“Basically, the allegations that she brought forward show that the clinical trial that she saw, what she saw of it, was essentially worthless. It wasn’t valuable or useful data.”
Jackson filed her qui tam lawsuit under the FCA in January 2021. A qui tam action refers to any legal case where a private citizen initiates legal action on behalf of a state.
Documents released in November 2021 supported Jackson’s claims that she was directly involved in the Phase 3 trials for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
‘Level of ignorance’ of scientific facts by government officials ‘astounding’
In February 2022, the federal government declined to intervene in the lawsuit on Jackson’s behalf but reserved the right to intervene at a later date.
Later that month, Jackson filed her first amended complaint, while the court unsealed 400 pages of exhibits.
In July 2022, Pfizer asked the court to dismiss Jackson’s lawsuit on the basis that the U.S. government was aware of wrongdoings in the clinical trials but continued to do business with the vaccine maker. In March 2023, Truncale granted the motion to dismiss, ruling that Jackson had not proved the companies violated the FCA.
Jackson appealed the dismissal in April 2023, and in August 2023 submitted a motion to file a second amended complaint, which was granted in September. Jackson filed her second amended complaint in October 2023.
Pfizer and Ventavia filed motions to dismiss the second amended complaint later in October 2023, while the U.S. government filed its motion to intervene and dismiss in March 2024. Oral arguments discussing the motions to dismiss took place on May 1.
“What happened in the interim here while we’re fighting the case and moving forward, apparently the government itself decided that what we were doing in exposing Pfizer and Ventavia and ICON, the three companies involved here, was contrary to the public health policy in the United States,” Mendenhall said.
In ruling in favor of the government, the court cited a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave the government significant leeway concerning when it could intervene in an FCA case and on what basis.
According to Mendenhall, this occurred despite meetings Jackson and her legal team had last year with representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), during which he said they “were completely unaware” of evidence questioning the safety of the COVID shots, including SV40 DNA contamination and vaccine injuries.
Mendenhall said:
“The level of ignorance about the scientific facts that we have uncovered was astounding to me, for someone who is supposed to be in charge of a major decision on behalf of the United States’ people, whether these shots need to be pulled from the market, whether Pfizer needs to be prosecuted or at least held civilly liable along with the other companies.
“I think that, certainly for some in the government, they just don’t want to face what they’ve actually done … they have hurt, damaged the health of millions of Americans and tens of millions, at least, around the world.”
According to Mendenhall, government attorneys were “actually sitting on the side of the courtroom with Pfizer” attorneys during the May 1 hearing.
“How strange that was to have the defendants sitting with the government who’s supposed to be going after them,” Mendenhall said.
In April, Pfizer submitted a statement to the court in support of the U.S. government’s motion to intervene and dismiss.
Pfizer previously was fined in connection with the FCA. As part of a 2009 settlement, the company paid $2.3 billion in fines — the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the DOJ — stemming from allegations of illegal marketing of off-label products not approved by the FDA.
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.
CIA awards Qatari intel chief top medal for cooperation with US
The Cradle | August 16, 2024
In a ceremony earlier this week, CIA Director William Burns awarded the head of the Qatari State Security Agency the George Tenet medal for his work on strengthening intelligence cooperation between the US and Qatar, Axios reported on 16 August.
Both Burns and Al-Khulaifi have played important roles in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a potential ceasefire in Gaza and prisoner exchange.
One reason for the award is Qatari efforts to release the remaining 111 Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza, one source with knowledge of the issue told Axios.
Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons and detention camps, where torture and rape is common.
Another source said Burns gave the award to his Qatari counterpart in “appreciation of his role in maintaining national and regional security, and the exceptional support he provided to the CIA in preserving the interests and security of the US and Qatar.”
Another important reason for the award was the cooperation between the CIA and Qatari intelligence in counterterrorism and the ability of the Qatari State Security Agency to prevent and foil threats and attacks in West Asia, the source told Axios.
Both the US and Qatar have long been known for their support of terrorist groups in the region.
Starting in 2011, the US and Qatar worked closely with other regional states to support Al-Qaeda in Syria.
The Syrian branch of the terror group, the Nusra Front, led a jihadist insurgency against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad under the cover of US-sponsored anti-government protests.
Scott Ritter: Biden Administration Declaring War on Journalism
Sputnik – August 16, 2024
Recent FBI raids on properties belonging to Russian-American political scientist Dimitri K. Simes and Scott Ritter, who both challenge the mainstream US political propaganda, are meant to squash dissent on Ukraine, former UN weapons inspector Ritter told Sputnik.
The conflict in Ukraine – in which the US has become deeply involved by providing the Kiev regime with billions of dollars – reportedly has people questioning Washington’s hawkish policy that the government seeks to suppress.
“What is our crime? Our crime is to have an opinion that is opposite of that of the United States government when it comes to Ukraine,” Ritter emphasized.
It is not just about the government deceiving the American people, it is about the mainstream media working in close coordination with the US government to deceive the American people about a war, Ritter noted.
“That’s where independent journalists come in. That’s where a genuinely free press [comes in], a press that isn’t subordinated to the US government, that doesn’t serve as a stenographer of US government policy, a free press that questions the official narrative,” he pointed out.
Ritter concluded that the US government does not trust common people, irrespective of their political leanings, and is actively trying to deceive and manipulate the public.
Earlier, Simes, a Channel One presenter in Russia and the founder and ex-president of the Center for the National Interest (USA), told Sputnik that he had not been to the United States since 2022, and had not been notified ahead of time that FBI agents would be conducting a search of his property in Rappahannock County, Virginia, this week.
Is Ukraine’s ‘Suicidal’ Kursk Attack Part of US Establishment’s Desperate Effort to Win in 2024?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 15.08.2024
Ukraine’s ill-fated Kursk terror attack could be part of the US Democratic establishment’s effort to prop up their candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election, according to Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.
Despite the US State Department and Pentagon denying any involvement in the Kiev regime’s Kursk aggression, it has all the earmarks of US-NATO management and planning, according to Major General Apti Alaudinov, deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military-Political Directorate and Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
“At this stage, nothing likely happens in Ukraine and vis-a-vis Russia unless approved in advance by someone in the US,” Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik. “Relevant questions include: exactly who approved these offensive operations and what debate, if any, occurred in Congress before these raids happened?”
Ortel called the Kursk attack a “wag the dog 2.0” operation, saying that it “seems a reprise” of then-US President Bill Clinton’s assault on one of Sudan’s biggest pharmaceutical factories in Khartoum in 1998. The US attack based on faulty intelligence was presented as retaliation to Al-Qaeda bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
However, some analysts noted at the time that the US bombing came as investigations into Clinton’s lies about his affair with Monica Lewinsky intensified. Dubbing the case a “wag the dog” situation, they suggested that Clinton urgently authorized the strike as a distraction, with the backing of many Democratic lawmakers including then-Senator Joe Biden.
The Kursk aggression appears to be as dubious in terms of military planning and strategic value as the senseless bombing of the Al Shifa factory. US Congressman Paul Gosar called Ukraine’s border incursion “suicidal” in an interview with Sputnik, while retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski wondered whether Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had a hand in the Kursk aggression planning.
Earlier, on August 8, CNN quoted Ukrainian officials as saying that the Kursk attack was aimed at demoralizing Russian forces and diverting them away from other parts of the front. However, as of August 12, the Ukrainian military told the New York Times and Financial Times (FT) that the Russian Armed Forces’ advance in Donbass, including near strategically important Chasov Yar and Torestk, is continuing unabated.
To complicate matters further for Kiev, at least six Ukrainian brigades that previously fought near Kharkov, Sumy, Chasov Yar and Toretsk were redirected to participate in the Kursk aggression, according to FT. The newspaper cited Ukrainian soldiers’ worries about leaving positions in Donbass to take part in the Kursk gamble.
On August 15, Russia’s Tsentr Battlegroup destroyed a Ukrainian military stronghold in the Avdeyyevka direction in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). On August 12, the Russian military liberated the settlement of Lisichnoye; earlier, Timofeyevka and Veseloye were retaken from the enemy. Russia liberated a total of 19 settlements of the DPR in July, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Harris and Walz’s ‘Illusionary’ Campaign Doomed to be Busted
One might ask why the US Democratic establishment would need any “prop-up” of their presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, given that the two are currently enjoying a surge in the polls.
According to Ortel, the surge appears to be short-lived and most likely artificial and made-up by the US corporate press, especially given that Harris’ poll numbers as Biden’s veep had been disastrous. For instance, the Wall Street analyst referred to a recent survey published by the Hill that claimed that more voters trust Harris than Donald Trump on the economy as completely detached from reality.
“The corporate-owned press, including Fox, has lost all credibility which explains their financial losses and the rise of Twitter spaces, Tucker Carlson and alternative truth-tellers that thrive,” Ortel said. “Traditional actors are resolved to sell fiction as fact to promote a singularly unaccomplished airhead to lead America out of the messes she helped create.”
Indeed, US conservative commentators and pundits have recently thrown Harris’ poll numbers, campaign performance and unwillingness to make one-on-one interviews into question.
“[The media] are so in the tank for Harris that they are defending her decision not to talk to them,” remarked US investigative journalist and author Michael Shellenberg on X on August 14. Earlier, the journalist drew attention to the fact that, for some strange reason, Harris has not put a policy agenda on her website.
Former White House Political Director Matt Schlapp tweeted that there is nothing short of a “push by the national media and Democratic National Committee (DNC) to legitimize Kamala Harris,” adding that she is not giving interviews to evade criticism over her vice presidency.
Similarly, Fox News host Sean Hannity recently called Harris “an illusion, built on a mountain of lies” on X.
Rogan O’Handley, a former entertainment lawyer, claimed on X on August 7 that the Harris campaign was caught offering Instagram influencers money to post personal stories about how the Biden-Harris administration helped them.
Axios reported on August 13 that it found that Harris’ campaign was editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads to “make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side.” The news outlet noted that while such activity is in line with the Google rules, the tech giant admitted there was a “glitch” that removed a disclaimer “sponsored” near the news headlines touting Harris.
US conservative journalist Kyle Becker also alleged on X that pollsters are “oversampling” Democrats for no reason “except deceiving the voters.” Becker believes that the reports that Harris is leading her Republican competitor in key battleground states are made up to justify her future win. “It is all designed to try to keep Harris within the margin of cheating,” tweeted Becker. In 2020, Biden won the presidential election after outperforming Trump by a razor-thin margin in crucial swing states. Many Republicans believe voting procedures were rigged there.
According to Ortel, the Harris-Walz campaign “honeymoon” may end as abruptly as it started.
“The true mud-slinging will start after Labor Day [September 2] and continue thereafter. No one yet has vetted Harris or Walz and I suspect their reputations will be gutted, fairly, well before November 5, 2024. Moreover, neither are effective, battle-hardened debaters, campaigners or leaders,” Ortel said.
Looming Crises Won’t Allow Harris-Walz to Fool Voters
While the Harris-Walz campaign needs good news, be it record-high poll numbers, Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, or their proxy Zelensky claiming victories, the problem is that the “looming crises and worsening economic prospects” won’t let “conflicted grifters” in the US establishment fool American voters again, according to Ortel.
As Ukrainian forces continue to lose ground on the battlefield, the Biden administration is still struggling to reach a ceasefire agreement amid Israel’s war in Gaza, fuelling discontent with the Democratic Party among Palestine supporters. According to the New York Post, an August 14 rally supporting Vice President Harris in the New York City descended into chaos after pro-Palestinian protesters infiltrated the gathering and later started to clash with the police.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg experts warn the US economy is expected to slow down under the Biden-Harris administration, casting an additional shadow on the Harris-Walz campaign.
Commenting on the Democratic administration’s chaotic domestic and foreign policies, Ortel noted:
“The period 1991 to present stands already as a rare epoch during which too many leaders combined arrogance and ignorance into a toxic cocktail, gulling voters with effective lies into bullied serfs, grateful for gruel as the donor class and their paid stooges seemingly prospered,” the pundit said. “‘What could have been’ from 1991 forward unburdened by Harris, Walz and other incompetent, conflicted has-beens is truly a marvel to contemplate! Let’s see whether the American election is free and fair and let’s see who actually wins.”
Why Western Media Suddenly Found Ukrainian Connection in Nord Stream Bombing
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 15.08.2024
Media outlets such as the WSJ recently started to peddle a narrative that the Nord Stream pipeline destruction in 2022 was allegedly orchestrated by a group of high-ranking Ukrainian officers led by Gen. Valery Zaluzhny.
Despite Western media efforts to implicate Ukraine, the United States still looks like the “main beneficiary and customer of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline,” says German political analyst and independent journalist Dr. Gregor Spitzen.
“This has been clear from the very beginning, both in terms of the basic Roman law principle of ‘Cui bono?’ [who benefits?] and the statements by President Joe Biden and Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland that the US would not allow the pipeline to go into operation,” he tells Sputnik.
Efforts by German politicians and media to draw the attention away from the US by “throwing new and implausible versions into the information field,” while understandable – “if the US is found guilty of an act of state terrorism on the object of German property, the whole architecture of European security will collapse” – are still no less outrageous, Dr. Spitzen remarks.
“Germany’s attempts to pin the blame on Ukrainian saboteurs who acted without a clear mandate from their government, while at the same time taking President Zelensky out of harm’s way, looks legally flawless, but completely implausible,” Dr. Spitzen elaborates. “It can be predicted that the specific Ukrainians accused of sabotage will never be found. Either they will be found to have died of natural causes under suspicious circumstances, or they will have committed suicide.”
“This would be the best solution to the Nord Stream sabotage case. The pipeline is destroyed, US guilt is not proven, German politicians’ reputations are saved, Ukrainian political leaders are exonerated, and the specific perpetrators, who acted on their own initiative, are dead or missing,” he adds.
Former CIA operations officer Philip Giraldi also branded media efforts to pin the blame on Ukraine as a “cover story,” arguing that Kiev simply lacked the resources to carry out the Nord Stream bombing.
“The US did and had even stated its intention in advance to destroy the pipeline if Russia were to invade Ukraine. And there is also the involvement of Norway which is not plausible if it were a Ukrainian operation,” he said.
Both Spitzen and Giraldi suggested that the fact that the story about Ukraine’s alleged role in the Nord Stream bombing surfaced simultaneously in the US and German media hints at the likelihood of a coordinated effort to craft “an acceptable narrative regarding what took place,” as Giraldi put it.
“It suggests to me that they are coordinating some new approach in dealing with Ukraine and Zelensky though I am not sure what that might be,” Giraldi added.
Zelensky aide denies Kiev’s involvement in Nord Stream attack
RT | August 15, 2024
Kiev had nothing to do with the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, Mikhail Podoliak, a top adviser to Ukrainian leader, Vladimir Zelensky, has said.
Podoliak made the statement to Reuters on Thursday in response to a report by the Wall Street Journal, claiming that Zelensky authorized the September 2022 attack which ruptured the key energy infrastructure built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe.
According to the US outlet’s sources, which included officers allegedly involved in the operation, Zelensky initially approved the attack on Nord Stream. He later tried to call it off under pressure from the CIA, but then Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny told him it could not be done as the sabotage group had already been dispatched and there was no way to contact it.
“Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources… and who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia,” Podoliak told the agency.
Russia has ridiculed claims that it would destroy its own pipelines, which provided it with steady revenue. Top officials in Moscow, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, have previously pointed the finger at Washington, arguing that it stood to gain the most from the disruption of Russian gas supplies to the EU.
“Ukraine has nothing to do with the Nord Stream explosions,” Podolyak insisted, adding that Kiev did not gain any strategic or tactical advantage from the sabotage.
The report by the WSJ claimed that “a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen” came up with the idea of blowing up the pipelines during a drinking party in May 2022, a few months after the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The plotters believed that it would reduce Russia’s energy profits and make the EU less dependent on Moscow, it said.
Zaluzhny, who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, told the outlet that claims of his – or Kiev’s – involvement in the destruction of Nord Stream were a “mere provocation.” A senior official in the Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU, also denied the report, insisting that Zelensky in particular “did not approve the implementation of any such actions on the territory of third countries and did not issue relevant orders.”
The WSJ said its reporting is partially corroborated by the findings of the German police investigation into the Nord Stream explosions. The German Federal Public Prosecutor issued a first arrest warrant in connection with the sabotage this week, according to local reports. The suspect is believed to be a Ukrainian citizen identified as ‘Vladimir Z’.
The newspaper suggested that the police investigation could “upend” relations between Kiev and Berlin, which has been Ukraine’s biggest backer in the EU amid the conflict with Russia.
The FBI ‘Visits’ Scott Ritter

By Andrew P. Napolitano | Ron Paul Institute | August 15, 2024
Among the lesser-known holes in the Constitution cut by the Patriot Act of 2001 was the destruction of the “wall” between federal law enforcement and federal spies. The wall was erected in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which statutorily limited all federal domestic spying to that which was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The wall was intended to prevent law enforcement from accessing and using data gathered by America’s domestic spying agencies.
Government spying is rampant in the US, and the feds regularly engage in it as part of law enforcement’s well-known antipathy to the Fourth Amendment. Last week, the FBI admitted as much when it raided the home of former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. Scott is a courageous and gifted former Marine. He is also a fierce and articulate antiwar warrior.
Here is the backstory.
After President Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Congress investigated his use of the FBI and CIA as domestic spying agencies. Some of the spying was on political dissenters and some on political opponents. None of it was lawful.
What is lawful spying? The modern Supreme Court has made it clear that domestic spying is a “search” and the acquisition of data from a search is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. That amendment requires a warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime presented under oath to the judge for a search or seizure to be lawful. The amendment also requires that all search warrants specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized.
The language in the Fourth Amendment is the most precise in the Constitution because of the colonial disgust with British general warrants. A general warrant was issued to British agents by a secret court in London. General warrants did not require probable cause, only “governmental needs.” That, of course, was no standard whatsoever, as whatever the government wants it will claim that it needs.
General warrants authorized government agents to search wherever they wished and to seize whatever they found — stated differently, to engage in fishing expeditions.
FISA required that all domestic spying be authorized by the new and secret FISA Court. Congress then unconstitutionally lowered the probable cause of crime standard for the FISA Court to probable cause of speaking to a foreign agent, and it permitted the FISA Court to issue general warrants.
Yet, the FISA compromise that was engineered in order to attract congressional votes was the wall. The wall prohibited whatever data was acquired from surveillance conducted pursuant to a FISA warrant to be shared with law enforcement.
So, if a janitor in the Russian embassy was really an intelligence agent who was distributing illegal drugs as lures to get Americans to spy for him, any telephonic evidence of his drug dealing could not be given to the FBI.
The purpose of the wall was not to protect foreign agents from domestic criminal prosecutions; it was to prevent American law enforcement from violating personal privacy by spying on Americans without search warrants.
Fast forward to the weeks after 9/11 when, with no serious debate, Congress enacted the Patriot Act. It removed the wall between law enforcement and spying. And by 2001, the FISA Court had on its own lowered the standard for issuing a search warrant from probable cause of speaking to a foreign agent to probable cause of speaking to a foreign person. This, too, was unlawful and unconstitutional.
The language removing the wall sounds benign, as it requires that the purpose of the spying must be national security and the discovered criminal evidence — if any — must be accidental or inadvertent. In January 2023, the FBI admitted that it intentionally uses the CIA and the NSA to spy on Americans as to whom it has neither probable cause of crime nor even articulable suspicion of criminal behavior.
Articulable suspicion is the linchpin of commencing all criminal investigations. Without requiring suspicion, we are back to fishing expeditions.
The FBI’s admission that it uses the CIA and the NSA to spy for it came in the form of a 906-page FBI rulebook written during the Trump administration, disseminated to federal agents in 2021 and made known to Congress last year.
Last week, when FBI agents searched Ritter’s home in upstate New York, in addition to trucks, guns, a SWAT team and a bomb squad, they arrived with printed copies of two years’ of Ritter’s emails and texts that they obtained without a search warrant. To do this, they either hacked into Ritter’s electronic devices — a felony — or they relied on their cousins, the CIA and the NSA, to do so, also a felony.
But the CIA charter prohibits its employees from engaging in domestic surveillance and law enforcement. Nevertheless, we know the CIA is physically or virtually present in all of the 50 US statehouses. And the NSA is required to go to the FISA Court when it wants to spy. We know that this, too, is a charade, as the NSA regularly captures every keystroke triggered on every mobile device and desktop computer in the US, 24/7, without warrants.
The search warrant for Ritter’s home specified only electronic devices, of which he had three. Yet, the 40 FBI agents there stole a truckload of materials from him, including his notes from his U.N. inspector years in the 2000s, a draft of a book he is in the midst of writing and some of his wife’s personal property.
The invasion of Scott Ritter’s home was a perversion of the Fourth Amendment, a criminal theft of his private property and an effort to chill his free speech. But it was not surprising. This is what has become of federal law enforcement today. The folks we have hired to protect the Constitution are destroying it.
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM




