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Common Surgeries Surprisingly Fail to Outperform Placebo

Esteemed orthopedic surgeon Ian Harris joins the Radically Genuine Podcast!

DR. ROGER MCFILLIN | JULY 23, 2024

Welcome to a landmark episode of the Radically Genuine Podcast! I’m thrilled to present our first full video episode, exclusively available to our valued paid subscribers. Your support has made this exciting new format possible, allowing us to bring you an enhanced, immersive experience of our thought-provoking conversations.

In this shocking episode, I interview Professor Ian Harris, an esteemed orthopedic surgeon and author of the book “Surgery, The Ultimate Placebo”. This conversation unravels the complexities of surgical outcomes, challenging conventional wisdom and highlighting the critical need for evidence-based practice in modern medicine.

Key points explored:

1. The placebo effect in surgery: We dissect how patient expectations and non-specific effects can significantly influence surgical outcomes, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing these from the procedure’s direct physiological impacts.

2. Challenges in surgical research: We discuss the difficulties in conducting placebo-controlled surgical trials, shedding light on the methodological hurdles that complicate efforts to establish definitive evidence of surgical efficacy.

3. Surgeon bias and decision-making: The conversation explores the cognitive biases that can affect surgeons’ judgments, potentially leading to unnecessary procedures or overestimation of benefits.

4. Overuse of surgical interventions: Harris presents compelling arguments about the prevalence of surgeries that may lack solid scientific backing, advocating for a more cautious approach to surgical recommendations.

5. Non-operative alternatives: The discussion highlights the often-overlooked potential of conservative treatments, particularly emphasizing the benefits of weight loss and exercise for conditions like knee arthritis.

6. Financial incentives in healthcare: We touch on the complex interplay between economic motivations and medical decision-making, exploring how these factors can influence treatment recommendations.

7. Placebo and nocebo effects: The conversation examines how both positive (placebo) and negative (nocebo) expectations can impact patient outcomes, underscoring the power of patient beliefs in the healing process.

8. Informed consent and patient education: We stress the importance of providing patients with accurate, evidence-based information to facilitate truly informed decision-making about their care.

This episode serves as a compelling call to action for increased scientific rigor in surgical practice and a more critical evaluation of established medical interventions. It challenges listeners to reconsider their assumptions about surgical efficacy and encourages a more nuanced understanding of the factors contributing to medical outcomes.

July 24, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

AIPAC, the leading Israeli lobby group, and its role in subversion of US democracy

By David Miller | Press TV | July 23, 2024

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most famous and equally notorious Israeli lobby group in the world. But how important is it really?

Some argue that its influence has been exaggerated and it can at best influence American policies at the margins, while others say it wields considerable clout in US power corridors.

Many of these arguments come from the political left like the one published in Mother Jones, the US leftist magazine, or the one from the former stalwart of the Palestinian cause, Christopher Hitchens, or even the one by Novara Media, a British “leftist” website.

In it, David Wearing presents his argument in these words:

AIPAC may best be seen as performing a disciplinary function within US politics. One can certainly argue that US support for Israel is made somewhat firmer given AIPAC’s role, and these marginal factors matter. But they are still marginal.

Certainly, the Zionist movement is keen to downplay its influence. A report in the Tablet: “How Influential Is AIPAC? Less Than Beer Sellers, Public Accountants, and Toyota” states:

The way AIPAC is talked about, you’d think they’d be a lobbying juggernaut, surely one of the largest in the nation’s capital. Wrong…:

Between 1998 and 2018, AIPAC didn’t make a dent in the Center for Responsive Politics list of the top-spending lobbying groups. In 2018, total pro-Israel lobbying spending was around $5 million, of which AIPAC accounted for $3.5 million.

In contrast, Native American casinos spent around $22 million that year. By Tablet’s count, AIPAC was the 147th highest-ranked entity in terms of lobbying spending in 2018.

This is an attempt to pretend that the influence of the Zionist movement is much less than suggested by observers.

However, based on our findings, we can present these facts:

  • Taking the figure disclosed to the lobbying regulator as if that was all AIPAC spends on lobbying is profoundly mistaken. Though it disclosed only $2.7 million lobby expenditure in 2022, its actual total expenditure was £79.1 million.
  • In addition, AIPAC controls another nonprofit, the American Israel Education Foundation. It discloses nothing to the regulator, yet had a 2022 expenditure of a further $44.6 million.
  • When we add campaign contributions the figures rise significantly. Donations by AIPAC’s Political Action Committee (PAC for short) and its new Super PAC, the United Democracy Project, in the most recent period (2024) total $17.4 million and  $31.5 million respectively.  It’s worth noting that none of this was donated by AIPAC itself. This adds to donations it has raised from others. The United Democracy Project is the third largest Superpac in the US in terms of 2024 expenditure, according to Open Secrets, the US lobby watchdog. This easily outstrips all corporate-related Superpacs.
  • Looking more widely at the Israel lobby in general declared lobbying expenditure by the lobby in 2018 was $7 million not “around $5 million” as stated by the Tablet. The figure for 2022 was $5.4 million, with the following groups making significant declarations: Anti-Defamation League ($340,000), Christians United for Israel ($240,000), Foundation for Defense of Democracies ($180,000), J Street ($640,000), Jewish Federations of North America ($893,000), Republican Jewish Coalition ($320,000), Zionist Organisation of America ($160,000).  But of course, their actual budget/expenditure is much higher than the narrow specific lobbying disclosure data.

However, taking figures the lobby narrowly conceives are woefully inadequate as it does not include money spent by Israeli firms or by foreign agents registered with the US Federal government’s Foreign Agents Registration Act office.

  • $6.3 million was spent in 2022 by Israeli firms including arms firms Elbit ($770,000), Rafael ($680,000), Israel Aerospace Industries ($446,000), and phone hacking firm Cellebrite ($440,000).
  • $16 million in the same year was spent by registered foreign agents of Israel including the regime itself, the World Zionist Organisation ($4.2 million), the Jewish Agency ($9.5 million), and the phone hacking firm NSO Group ($1.5 million).

But even that pales in comparison to data compiled by the Israellobby.org website.

It collates data on Zionist groups providing subsidies to the Zionist entity (including illegal settlements and the occupation forces) and lobbying and education.

It shows a total annual budget of £3.6 billion as long ago as 2012, rising to an estimated £6.3 billion in 2020. These figures do not include the data above on Israeli firms or foreign agents.

However extensive this data is (the best available source on the extent of the economic basis of the Zionist movement), it does not include the following:

There is hardly any research on the depth and extent of the Zionist penetration of US society which is cognizant of this data.

It’s time to dig deeper and reveal the actual spending power and reach of the lobby.

Turning back to AIPAC, it has a deserved reputation as the most powerful Israeli lobby group in the US.  However, a key Zionist talking point is the claim that it is not so powerful.

AIPAC was created by Isiah Kenen a contractor for the Zionist regime in 1963.  It was initially called the American Zionist Council. Two months after the American Zionist Council was ordered to register as a foreign agent, Kenen incorporated AIPAC which did not register as a foreign agent, though it is.

One element of AIPAC activities not well understood is its role in spending millions every year ferrying Israeli settlers for eight-day junkets.

The trips are organized through a cutout called the American Israel Education Fund, a charitable organization founded by AIPAC, from which it borrows its offices, board members, and even part of its logo. Like other tax-exempt nonprofits, AIEF must file a Form 990 every year with the Internal Revenue Service, but donors are redacted from the public version.

Recently, an unredacted tax filing for 2019 was obtained by The Intercept. It revealed that the financiers are a clutch of large foundations and nonprofits, some of which are family-run, which also offer funds to other genocidal Zionist groups.

They include foundations associated with the following families, Koret, Swartz, Schusterman and Singer.

The role of AIPAC in campaign contributions is also poorly understood. In November 2023, it was reported that AIPAC was “airing attack ads and beginning to back primary opponents to challenge Congress members who are not voting for or supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.”

According to the report in the Guardian :

Although AIPAC’s roots trace back to the 1950s, the group spent decades focusing most of its attention on lobbying members of Congress – only getting directly involved in races in the past few years. In late 2021, AIPAC announced the formation of a political action committee, known as AIPAC Pac, and a Super Pac, the United Democracy Project, to get more directly involved in congressional campaigns.

The groups hit the ground running in the 2022 midterms, spending nearly $50m across the election cycle. Aipac Pac boasts that it supported 365 pro-Israel candidates from both parties in 2022, while critics condemned the group’s endorsement of dozens of Republicans who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The Guardian reported that A group of Super Pacs and dark-money non-profits – most notably groups such as the United Democracy Project ($31,679,020) and the Democratic Majority for Israel ($35,000) – as well as other PACs (AIPAC PAC ($1,491,025) tied to Israeli interests contributed about significantly to US campaigns during the last cycle, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.

Open Secrets data show that this amounts to some $58.4 million in the past year.

In the spring of this year, it was revealed that AIPAC had a $100 million war chest for the upcoming election cycle.

AIPAC’s Super Pac is amusingly named the United Democracy Project. It spends targeted funds on lawmakers who challenge any pro-Israel policy including the mildly critical Squad of Democrat representatives and also Libertarian Republicans such as Thomas Massie who has voted against military aid to Israel.

It was Massie who revealed in an interview with Tucker Carlson that AIPAC appoints handlers for each Congress person.

Here is his description: ”It’s like your babysitter. Your AIPAC babysitter who is always talking to you for AIPAC. They’re probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in AIPAC.

In November 2022, AIPAC claimed that “more than 95% of AIPAC-backed candidates won their election last night! Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”

In July 2024, AIPAC claimed “So far this cycle, all 90 AIPAC-endorsed Democrats have won their primary election”

When all of this data and activity is considered we can see that AIPAC is much more of a player than is admitted in those views from the right and left who minimize its importance.

AIPAC is part of a complex network of lobby groups which collectively can be described as the “Israel lobby”.  Further, the lobby is itself only a smallish part of the much larger Zionist movement.  It is this which needs to be assessed in all its complexity.

When we do that a more rounded and complex account emerges.  The role of AIPAC cannot be considered outside its role in the wonder movement because its activities including raising funds and deploying them through other groups and organizations are a core element of its strategy.

Reducing AIPAC to its lobbying disclosure expenditure or its total budget cannot capture its significance in the movement, let alone the significance of the Zionist movement in total.

Hence, AIPAC, and the rest of the Zionist movement, must be stopped.

David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy. 

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

“Tear Up Texas”: FBI Encouraged a 2015 Shooting & Did Nothing to Stop It

Remembering the Curtis Culwell Center attack in which an undercover FBI agent encouraged shooters, followed them to the attack site, and didn’t stop them.

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | July 23, 2024

The most plausible hypothesis for the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania is that Thomas Matthew Crooks was already on the radar of the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, or the FBI in the days before he went to the event with his rifle.

Most likely, he indulged in some online chatter with others whose true identity he himself did not know. In the course of this chatter, he identified himself as being passionately interested in shooting rifles and frequently practiced firing his rifle at a range—a representation that could be easily verified. A good investigator would also examine the hypothesis that he somehow—probably in veiled language—indicated he was interested in shooting Donald Trump.

Instead of discouraging this fantasy, someone on the other side of the chat encouraged it, and encouraged him to attend the scheduled rally in Butler to take a shot at Trump. Again, the language was probably veiled—something along the lines of, “I hear there’ll be a nice shooting range at the Butler Show Grounds this Saturday between the American Glass Research building and the stage.”

Contemplating this hypothesis reminded me of the Curtis Culwell Center attack in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015. The perpetrators had been monitored by the FBI for years, as they were suspected of consorting with Islamic terrorists and probably planning a terrorist attack on American soil.

The would-be shooters, who lived in Phoenix, Arizona, thought they were exchanging text messages with a fellow Islamic terrorists. In fact they were texting with an undercover FBI agent who encouraged them to attack an event scheduled at the Curtis Culwell Center. As the agent memorably put it in a text message, “Tear Up Texas.”

The two perpetrators then loaded their car in Phoenix and hit the road to Arlington. Again, unbeknownst to them, they were being tracked the entire time. On the day of the convention, they parked by the Curtis Culwell Center, got out of their car with their loaded weapons, and walked towards the entrance—with the FBI undercover agent following right behind them.

While the undercover agent did nothing to intervene, a local security guard saw the armed men approaching, and he took decisive action, using his own sidearm to neutralize the men before they could enter the convention center with their semi-automatic rifles and innumerable loaded magazines. Had the security guard not intervened, God knows how many people in the building would have been shot.

Not long after the incident, it was discovered that the undercover FBI agent had encouraged the shooters, followed them to the event, and done nothing to intervene. The security guard—who was shot and wounded but survived his injury—sued the FBI and Department of Justice, which dodged liability when their declaration of sovereign immunity was upheld in court.

Readers who are interested in learning more about the Curtis Culwell Center attack may check out this 2018 news report on the lawsuit.

A proper investigation of the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt on Donald Trump would start with the hypothetical proposition at least one federal law enforcement agent knew about Thomas Matthew Crooks before he attended the rally. Crooks drove to the rally without encountering any intervention and then climbed onto the roof of the American Glass Research building with his rifle—again with no law enforcement intervening to stop him.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

Congressional Incompetence in Its Trump-Shooting Investigation

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 23, 2024

Members of Congress are besides themselves over the testimony of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle regarding the near-assassination of former president Trump. They are upset that Cheatle was unable to provide them with adequate explanations as to what appears to be incompetence at best and willful blindness, conscious indifference, or complicity at worst on the part of the Secret Service.

But if incompetence is the right explanation, it is matched by the incompetence of Congress in its supposed investigation into the shooting. After all, Cheatle wasn’t even there. Therefore, anything to which she testifies is necessarily based on nothing more than what others have told her. How is that type of testimony supposed to get to the bottom of what actually happened? It’s not.

If Congress really wants to determine what happened and why, it should subpoena every single Secret Service agent and every single police officer on duty that day. Take the sworn testimony of all of them. Don’t let any of them sit inside the chamber and listen to what other witnesses are saying. Then put all that sworn testimony together and see if there are any contractions, anomalies, etc. If there are, then follow up on them.

That’s the only way for Congress to determine whether the facts and circumstances go beyond incompetence and cross the line into conscious indifference, willful blindness, or complicity.

If this was a deep-state operation, as some are alleging, it would be extremely difficult to pierce it, especially since the purported shooter, Thomas Crooks, is dead and, therefore, can’t talk. After decades of study and practice, the deep state is very good at state-sponsored assassinations and, equally important, at keeping its role in such assassinations secret.

Recall the CIA’s assassination manual from 1953 that was uncovered in the 1990s. It not only provided the means of assassination, it also provided the means of conducting such assassinations without anyone figuring out that it was the CIA that was behind the assassination. Getting away with the assassination is as important as committing it.

Thus, ordinarily the only way that a deep-state assassination is going to be pierced is with a fierce investigation that specifically makes the deep state a target of investigation. Simply having a big-publicized political circus in which some head of a federal agency is skewered and maybe even forced to resign will not pierce a deep-state assassination. It will just garner big publicity and political satisfaction.

The big reason why Congress or any other federal agency will never aggressively investigate whether the Trump shooting went beyond incompetence is that nobody within the federal government can afford to suggest that the Secret Service might have crossed the line from incompetence to willful blindness, conscious indifference, or complicity. That’s because they would then be acknowledging that such a thing is possible here in the United States. Nobody within the federal government or even the mainstream press wants to go down that road.

We saw this phenomenon in the JFK assassination. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination and afterward, the standard question among U.S. officials and the mainstream press was: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone or in a conspiracy? Hardly anyone asked: Could this be a highly sophisticated national-security state regime-change operation in which Oswald, who was now dead, was being made a patsy? That’s because it was considered to be simply inconceivable that such a thing could happen here in the United States. That type of thing only happens in foreign countries.

Thus, hardly anyone thought it strange, for example, that the military took control over JKF’s autopsy or that former CIA Director Allan Dulles, who JFK had fired after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, was appointed to the commission that was ostensibly intended to investigate the crime.

In the 1970s, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, in response to public pressure, reopened the investigation into the JFK assassination. It hired a fierce and honest criminal prosecutor from Pennsylvania, Richard Sprague, to lead the investigation. Sprague specifically targeted the CIA for investigation. He refused to comply with the CIA’s demand that Sprague sign a secrecy agreement, responding that he, not the CIA, was in charge of the investigation. He also forced a CIA official named David Atlee Phillips to testify regarding Oswald’s trip to Mexico City. Sprague caught Phillips red-handed committing perjury and recommended that he be indicted for perjury.

Sprague soon learned the difficulty in making the deep state a target of investigation in a state-sponsored assassination. He was run out of town before he could get to first base. He was replaced by a lawyer named Robert Blakey, who followed a deferential policy toward the CIA.

My prediction? Cheatle will be made a sacrificial lamb and be forced to resign, and the Trump shooting will be blamed on incompetence. The congressional “investigation” into the shooting will be over. Most everyone in Washington, D.C., will be satisfied.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Deception | | Leave a comment

NATO Plans to Destabilize Asia

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 23.07.2024 

NATO’s plans to establish a foothold in Asia to counter China better is nothing more than a sure recipe for disaster. Coming to Asia and beating war drums against a country that has not attacked anyone is akin to pushing it to take any and all necessary steps to protect its interests. NATO, thus, is pushing China to shun its regionally focused pacificism in favour of a more belligerent stance. A more aggressive China will, in NATO’s calculation, push Asian countries to move more towards the US out of their common fear of Beijing as the hegemon. However, Asian countries are not readily buying the US narrative. They remain sceptical, even as they are still committed to maintaining a balance between China and the US to avoid getting trapped in the ‘Cold War 2.0’.

NATO’s Intended Exploits in Asia

In recent years, NATO has upped the ante in Asia to establish its tentacles. The linchpin of this strategy is to hijack the Asian countries’ defence and military strategies and shape them in strictly Western ways. This will include, as in the West, military competition plus a shift away from deep economic ties with Beijing. Once accomplished, this will help isolate China globally. In the US, since 2016, the successive administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been taking steps to “de-couple” from China. The European Union, too, is now increasingly coming round to this idea of putting serious curbs on trade with China. A key reason for this is the inability of both the US and the EU to compete with Chinese products. Ultimately, they want Asia to ‘learn’ the same lesson.

This was precisely the idea that Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s existing Secretary General, sold in an article he wrote for Foreign Affairs in early July. Addressing the China-Russia ties and blaming China for the combined failure of the US, EU, and NATO to defeat Russia in Ukraine, Stoltenberg said “this shows that in today’s world, security is not a regional matter but a global one. Europe’s security affects Asia, and Asia’s security affects Europe … These are big challenges that call for bold decisions”.

The bold decision, as it stands, is to link Europe’s security with Asia unnecessarily and at any cost. This will help the West centralize Asia’s security narrative under a common framework, with Asian countries ultimately losing their agency and autonomy. At least this is the idea.

How China Sees it

China has already warned NATO not to create “chaos” in Asia.  “China urges NATO to … stop interfering in China’s internal politics and smearing China’s image and not create chaos in the Asia-Pacific after creating turmoil in Europe,” said Chinese spokesperson Lin Jian.

Still, NATO’s narrative could work against it, even as China will make sure to frame it in a way that could wean regional states away from it. For instance, as is already evident, China is projecting NATO’s narrative, with evidence, in terms of how the US – and the collective West – are actually pushing for confrontation even when Beijing does not have a history of engaging in aggression with its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region.  No shots have yet been fired that could draw a global outcry, calling for military solidarities against Beijing.

There is, therefore, a high degree of exaggeration and propaganda. If the imperative is really to counter China, why are the US and NATO countries not putting a premier on building deep economic ties with Asian countries? The reason is that they don’t have any economic plan of such magnitude that can counter China.  Therefore, the West cannot help but offer military help. But this is a help that not many countries in Asia are even looking for. Defence cooperation with the US is one thing, but welcoming NATO, a typical military alliance, in their territories and developing a global military alliance is an entirely different thing.

How Asian Countries See It

For many countries in Asia, any step towards NATOizing their security is reminiscent of colonial and imperialist relations that defined these territories’ and peoples’ relations with the West for centuries. Therefore, they seem to put a very high premium on maintaining their strategic autonomy.

Ironically, the opposition to developing a fully-fledged alliance is visible even in such countries as the Philippines that are otherwise known for being ‘pro-US’. President Ferdinand Marcos has called on the region to reject a “Cold War mindset”. Kishore Mahbubani, formerly Singapore’s ambassador to the United Nations, for example, warned as early as 2021 that the “biggest danger” of NATO’s Indo-Pacific shift is that the alliance “could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture” to East Asia. Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto, for instance, stated in June that his country would “continue our strong cooperation with China” but “at the same time, we will work to expand and deepen our close partnership with the US and the West”.

Let’s also not forget that this region also includes a critical mass of countries – such as Indonesia – that have a history of ‘non-alignment’. They refused to take sides during the Cold War, and they are again showing strong signs of maintaining a similar stance in the current scenario.

Still, these countries’ scepticism is intensified by NATO’s recent performances. It has thus far badly failed in Ukraine. It wreaked havoc in Libya and Afghanistan, ultimately failing in both cases to bring stability. Does it have a track record of fulfilling its promises and achieving its objectives? For countries in Asia, establishing an alliance with an organization with such a poor record is a poor trade – not only because it will not bring much benefit, but also because it might directly – and negatively – affect their flourishing economic ties with China.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

NEW STUDIES SHOW PEDIATRIC “BEST PRACTICES” NOT BASED IN SCIENCE

The Highwire | July 18, 2024

Learning nothing from the opioid crisis, research misconduct and regulatory failure has opened the door to widespread public harm from new classes of weight loss and trans medicine drugs classes. Also, a new kind of scientific methodology is being brought to the forefront, driven by AI.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | | Leave a comment

The Titanic scale of floating wind turbines quantified

By David Wojick | CFACT | July 17, 2024

My regular readers know that I have often referred to the huge size of floating wind turbine assemblies. They are much bigger than fixed offshore wind turbine assemblies because there is a big float attached. This makes floating wind far more expensive than fixed wind, which is already far more expensive than reliable fuel-fired electric power.

Simple physics says that if you want to put a 2,000-ton generator on top of a 500-foot tower with three 300-foot wings attached on a boat and have it still stand up in hurricane-force winds, it will have to be a mighty big boat.

Happily, Philip Lewis from strategic analyst Intelatus has put some numbers on this nonsense in Offshore Engineer.

See https://www.oedigital.com/news/504812-addressing-the-challenges-of-developing-floating-wind-at-scale

And https://www.oedigital.com/news/514835-preparing-for-floating-wind-leveraging-the-oil-gas-supply-chain

Of course, these are just estimates based on proposed designs, not measurements. Keep in mind that no one, anywhere, has ever built one of these Titanic monsters. Governments are setting huge targets for a technology that does not exist.

Based on UK permit applications, we are looking at a colossal individual floater footprint of around 160,000 square feet. That is roughly three football fields, so a mighty big float. And the UK does not get anything like hurricane-force winds. Maybe 100 mph, but never 160.

Weight-wise, Lewis suggests up to 5,000 tons of steel or 20,000 tons of concrete per float. Mind you, 5,000 tons of steel floaters will not keep 2,000 tons on a tall pole upright. These designs are what are called “semi-submersible”. This means the Titanic float is something like half full of water. There is enough air to float it but also a lot of water to hopefully weigh it down. I have yet to see the math on all this and have my doubts about its viability, but this is what is reported.

Of course, these huge floaters make floating wind power extremely expensive. The guess is at least three times as much as the already ridiculously expensive fixed-bottom offshore wind power. It could be a lot more.

These enormous numbers are based on 15 MW turbines, which are the biggest built today, although none has yet been installed and operational offshore. But bigger are coming with 18 MW on order and 20 MW advertised. Floater size and weight scale exponentially with turbine weight and height, so the above huge numbers may actually be quite small.

As an engineer, I would build a few of these monster floating assemblies and run them through a few hurricanes to see how they did, especially if they survived. Of course, the hell-bent Biden folks and green States are doing nothing like that.

For example, next month, Biden’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is selling 15,000 MW of floating wind leases in the Gulf of Maine. California just announced a 25,000 MW floating wind target with 5,000 MW already leased by BOEM.

Just to play with numbers, this 40,000 MW of floaters would take just under 3,000 of these monster 15 MW floaters. In addition to filling up a lot of surface ocean, each has to be anchored to the sea floor with at least three mooring cables, more likely around eight each. Plus each has a live wire cable transmitting its energy output.

Lewis says the depths involved are like this: “In the U.S., the first commercial-scale projects will be off California (500-1,300 meters). Future activity is planned off Oregon (550-1,500 meters), the Gulf of Maine (190-300 meters), and the Central Atlantic (over 2,000 meters).” A mile is roughly 1,600 meters.

So we have many millions of feet of mooring cables and hot wires filling the ocean between the floaters and the sea floor. This is a whole new form of harassment that needs to be authorized (or not) under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

What is really funny is I see no plans for building these thousands of Titanic floating wind assemblies. I recently pointed out that the Biden Transportation Dept was illegally diverting almost a billion dollars to build floating wind fabrication facilities in Maine and California. But, neither facility design has what it would take to actually make this stupendous semi-submersible junk, starting with dry docks.

I strongly suggest we put a big hold on leasing and funding floating wind technology. Let’s first see how and if it works and at what cost.

July 22, 2024 Posted by | Environmentalism | , | Leave a comment

Scott Ritter: Biden’s Election Withdrawal Shows Who is Actually Running America

Sputnik – July 22, 2024

The timing of Joe Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the presidential race raises questions, argues former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

“There’s no doubt that Joe Biden is unfit to be president of the United States. No doubt. But here’s the question. If he’s unfit to run as the candidate of the Democratic Party, why did they put him up?” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter said, noting that signs of Biden’s frailty were visible during the G7 summit in Italy last month.

According to him, the fact that Biden is unfit to be the POTUS but was still allowed to “function” begets the question: who is really in charge in the United States?

“Who’s running America? Because it’s not Joe Biden. We don’t know who. It’s an unelected group of handlers who are drawn from what I guess we can call the establishment. Some people might refer to it as the deep state. And these are the people who are calling the shots,” Ritter stated, noting that “the critical decisions of governance” this group makes are made “for the American people, but not necessarily on behalf of the American people.”

He describes the 2024 presidential election in the US as “a test of American democracy” and a “contest between established elites that are found in the Democratic Party and this surge of populism in the form of Donald Trump who is taking control of the Republican Party.”

Yet while Americans are normally allowed to “have a say in the outcome” of this process, the Democratic Party and the “elites known and unknown” now opted to meddle in this process and “will be selecting who their candidate will be for the presidency in the 2024 elections,” which is “not the way it’s supposed to be,” he noted.

“America is in a crisis, a crisis of democracy, a crisis of identity. And it doesn’t look like we have a solution because for the most part, the American people have been confused and misled and manipulated by the mainstream media into somehow thinking that this is normal,” Ritter lamented.

July 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

What Is Joe Biden’s Legacy?

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 22.07.2024

Biden announced he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race on July 21. It came amid calls by prominent Democrats and donors to withdraw following his performance in last month’s debate against former President Donald Trump.

In a statement on his decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, President Joe Biden also reflected on the results of his four years in office, claiming that the US has built the “strongest economy in the world.”

He touted efforts to expand what he described as “affordable healthcare to a record number of Americans,” also arguing that his administration allegedly provided “critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances.”

Is It So, Joe?

First and foremost, the US economic meltdown shows no signs of abating, with 36% of Americans recently surveyed by Pew Research rating the national economy as “poor”. Add to this the fact that America’s state debt, which now stands at nearly $34.4 trillion, is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days.

Also, the US migration crisis persists as new data by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reveals a significant surge in illegal border crossings, with more than 205,000 apprehensions in June alone, pushing the total for fiscal year 2024 to 2.5 million.

Drug overdose, meanwhile, remains one of the leading causes of injury death in adults in the US and has risen over the past several years. Overdoses specifically pertain to synthetic opioids (fentanyl) and stimulants (cocaine and methamphetamine), according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Biden’s Foreign Policy Track Record

The Ukraine crisis is in full swing, as the Biden administration continues to add fuel to the fire by providing the Kiev regime with military supplies despite Russia’s repeated warnings that such assistance would only prolong the standoff.

Separately, the Gaza war is still in place despite Biden’s much-hyped plan to help clinch a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The US president last month said that the Gaza war must end now and Israel must not occupy the Palestinian enclave after the end of hostilities – another statement that apparently fell on the Jewish state’s deaf ears.

As a cherry on the top, Biden failed to deliver on his promise to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, with the Vienna talks on the matter finally coming to a standstill.

July 22, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Government ‘Saddled’ With COVID Vaccine Injury ‘Mess’ — While Vaccine Makers Avoid Liability

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 18, 2024

As early as January 2022, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers were aware of at least 850 peer-reviewed case reports and/or research articles about COVID-19 vaccine reactions, according to emails obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

In one email (name and agency redacted), NIH researchers were told the federal government was “saddled” with the “mess” of dealing with those injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, due to the liability shield enjoyed by vaccine manufacturers.

The emails, part of a 309-page batch of documents released to CHD on June 21, originated from a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) request to NIH researchers for input on a report highlighting several injuries common among people who received the vaccines.

CHD requested the documents via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NIH in November 2022. When the NIH hadn’t responded by April 2023, CHD sued the agency.

In an October 2023 settlement, the NIH agreed to produce up to 7,500 pages of documents at a rate of 300 pages per month.

The batch of documents released in June — which include emails to Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research — revealed that by fall 2021, key NIH researchers were aware of scientific studies on serious adverse events, including persistent neurological symptoms, following COVID-19 vaccines.

As with prior releases of the NIH documents, June’s tranche also included several emails from vaccine-injured individuals to NIH researchers, seeking help for their symptoms — with one person asking, “Why aren’t you studying vaccine injuries?”

‘Tinnitus … was a freight train in my head for the first four months’

On Jan. 10, 2022, NIH researcher Dr. Avindra Nath was forwarded an email from someone whose name is redacted, with the subject line: “Followup [sic] Jan 4th Meeting” (pages 281-289).

The original email, dated Jan. 9, 2022, was sent to FDA officials including Marks and Dr. Janet Woodcock, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, who apparently participated in a meeting on this topic on Jan. 4, 2022.

The Jan. 9, 2022 email included a list of “persistent symptoms following the Covid vaccines” and the names of researchers who were studying these conditions, which included dysautonomia, neuropathy, tinnitus, multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), myocarditis, blood clots and parasthesias.

The email was accompanied by a spreadsheet listing approximately 850 “peer-reviewed case reports/research articles about Covid vaccine reactions.”

Regarding dysautonomia — a nervous system disorder that disrupts automatic bodily functions — the email stated that the condition is “grossly under diagnosed” and “is not diagnosed in ERs or ICUs” but in “autonomic specialty labs.”

The email noted that such labs are less likely than hospitals to file reports with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and added that there “likely are issues with identifying this syndrome if only looking through VAERS or similarly reported databases.”

As a result, the email suggested “it would be reasonable to approach autonomic specialists / long covid specialists about their observations.”

A 2011 Harvard study found that less than 1% of all adverse events are reported to VAERS.

The Jan. 9, 2022, email also noted unusual trends regarding diagnoses of neuropathy — a set of neurological symptoms that includes numbness and tingling in the hands or feet, and a burning, stabbing or shooting pain in affected areas.

According to the email, “Historically, neuropathy presents in the predominantly male population aged 59+. However as discussed previous [sic], neuropathy in our case is predominantly female, aged 29-40.”

As with dysautonomia, the email noted that neuropathy is “likely to be inadequately reported through the VAERS and BEST [Biologics Effectiveness and Safety] systems because of the circumstances previously mentioned for dysautonomia.”

The Jan. 9, 2022 email also acknowledged that tinnitus was a common post-vaccination injury, noting, “Our findings are that this is not just J&J [the Johnson & Johnson, or Janssen, COVID-19 vaccine] … not by a long shot.”

According to the email, “This symptom is more proportionate to the general neuro symptoms by brand as previously reported in our patient led survey of 500 participants.”

The email’s author also noted that, “in my case yes, I have tinnitus now and it was a freight train in my head for the first four months.”

‘Is it reasonable to dismiss … 20 new symptoms … in a single person post vaccine?’

According to the email, myocarditis and blood clots were already “acknowledged by the FDA and CDC” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

“Every person in our groups that have one of these two conditions, also have accompanying neuro issues like those of us who are not currently acknowledged by the FDA and CDC,” the email said.

The conditions included postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), “brain fog/memory loss, and inflammation (MCAS)” — mast cell activation syndrome.

“Even the perfectly healthy very fit young males with the lasting myocarditis are struggling with the POTS and inflammation/brain fog/memory loss. Makes me suspect that somehow these all are a result of the same mechanism of action,” the email stated.

The Jan. 9, 2022, email also acknowledged parasthesia — a condition that causes a burning, prickling sensation — and MIS, a condition in which numerous organs become inflamed, as concerns.

The email openly questioned why more wasn’t being done to connect these conditions in the vaccinated, to the COVID-19 vaccines themselves, noting that vaccinated people were frequently demonstrating multiple rare symptoms:

“While we understand that correlation does not equal causation, we also find a strong correlation with the change in our blood that mirrors long-haul, and symptomology that mirrors long-haul.

“Because of this, I have to ask what is the process by which Covid PASC [post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or long COVID] symptoms have been so readily tied back to Covid, whereas the same symptoms due to the Covid vaccines have not?

“Also, while it may be coincidental to have one or maybe two strange symptoms pop up, is it reasonable to dismiss 10, 15, 20 new symptoms that occur in a single person post vaccine.”

‘Insanely challenging for these people suffering … to walk this path alone’

In the Jan. 10, 2022, email to Nath an NIH researcher wrote, “The FDA has asked once again for us to provide any input from those who have experience with this disease. Very prompt responses and more active engagement on their part lead me to believe they will now examine these problems with some effort.”

The author also asked Nath if he knew researchers “who could fill in the gaps” and asked him if he would “kindly be willing to discuss with Peter Marks?”

“The gov has conveniently absolved the drug companies of any liability, and the federal government is now saddled with the responsibility of figuring out this mess,” the email continued. “I am happy to orchestrate a meeting of the minds with NDR [non-disclosure] agreements if that would get the discussion started in a way that is similar to how previous new diseases have been investigated.”

The email also noted talks with public health officials in Germany and France.

“It has been insanely challenging for these people suffering to have to walk this path alone. They grow more and more desperate by the day. Knowing there is someone, somewhere looking into this makes a big difference for these people to just hang on.”

Even though public health agencies were aware of this information and were discussing vaccine injuries in early 2022, official government advice to the public continued to claim the COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective,” including statements by Dr. Anthony Fauci in November 2022.

And in testimony before Congress in February, Marks dismissed the COVID-19 vaccine injury reports filed with VAERS, stating that numerous false reports are submitted to the database — a claim some experts have disputed.

As of today, the CDC continues to recommend the COVID-19 vaccines “for everyone ages 6 months and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or might become pregnant in the future.”

NIH researchers aware of vaccine injury studies in fall of 2021

The June 2024 tranche of NIH documents also revealed that, at least as early as fall 2021, researchers with the agency were aware of scientific studies and surveys highlighting serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.

In a Sept. 2, 2021, email (pages 109-121), Farinaz Safavi, M.D., Ph.D., of the NIH Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurovirology was sent the results of the “Covid Vaccine Persistent Symptoms Survey” conducted by React19, a group advocating on behalf of COVID-19 vaccine injury victims.

The version of the survey included in the email was accurate as of Aug. 31, 2021, and contained the results of 382 questionnaires submitted by people “suffering persistent neurological symptoms after receiving the Sars-CoV2 Vaccine in the United States.”

According to those results, 71% of respondents said they had no preexisting health conditions prior to the symptoms they developed following their COVID-19 vaccination, and 94% said they had never previously experienced a reaction to other vaccines.

The most commonly reported symptoms included paresthesia, tinnitus, heart palpitations, tachycardia, chest pain, visual disturbance or loss, muscle twitching, joint pain, muscle aches, brain fog, fatigue and anxiety attacks.

Almost all respondents said these symptoms began less than two weeks following vaccination.

In a Nov. 15, 2021, email (pages 300-305), Nath was sent a scientific paper, “Neurological side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations,” authored by Austrian researcher Josef Finsterer, M.D., Ph.D.

According to this paper, “The most frequent neurological side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are headache,” Guillain-Barré syndrome, venous sinus thrombosis and transverse myelitis.

“Safety concerns against SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are backed by an increasing number of studies reporting neurological side effects. … Healthcare professionals, particularly neurologists involved in the management of patients having undergone SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations, should be aware of these side effects and should stay vigilant to recognize them early and treat them adequately,” the paper concluded.

Nath received a review copy of this paper, which has since been published in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.

And in a May 17, 2021, email (pages 292-299), Nath was sent a preprint of “Sudden Onset of Myelitis after COVID-19 Vaccination: An Under-Recognized Severe Rare Adverse Event,” co-authored by William E. Fitzsimmons, doctor of pharmacy, and Dr. Christopher S. Nance.

According to the preprint, “Myelitis has been reported as a complication of COVID-19 infection. However, it has rarely been reported as a complication of COVID-19 vaccination.”

The paper focused on the example of one of Fitzsimmons’ patients, a 63-year-old previously healthy male who developed myelitis after his second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine — and treatment that was effective in his case.

Other emails apparently sent by Fitzsimmons highlighted the injuries and the progression of treatment of this 63-year-old man (pages 145-150).

‘A blood clot as a cause of your paralysis would make the most sense’

In an email chain to Nath beginning Sept. 20, 2021, (pages 228-233) with the subject “Paralyzed after J&J Covid Vaccine,” the author (whose name is redacted) said that less than 24 hours following vaccination, the patient “lost bladder control.” He later developed a blood clot and erectile dysfunction, before becoming paralyzed.

In a response that day, Nath told the patient, “The temporal association of the symptoms with the vaccine does make is [sic] suspect, but I do not know of any way how to sort it out.”

In a follow-up email that day, Nath said, “A blood clot as a cause of your paralysis would make the most sense, however, proving cause and effect related to the vaccine in a single patient is virtually impossible.”

In a Dec. 13, 2021, email to Nath (pages 234-236), another vaccine injury victim, who “was healthy prior to vaccination,” described injuries following both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, including paresthesia, tachycardia, severe tinnitus, intractable insomnia and “POTs-like symptoms.”

“I have been diligent and determined in seeking care near and far, but have continued to face skepticism, half-interest, and an inability to know how best to treat,” this person wrote.

And in a series of emails beginning Jan. 24, 2022, (pages 246-247), a “woman who was completely healthy before taking the Pfizer vaccines” told Nath about a series of neurological symptoms and inflammation she experienced following her second dose, in addition to symptoms like tinnitus, insomnia and brain fog.

“Why isn’t the NIH doing research on this?” she asked in a follow-up email on Jan. 25, 2022.

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.

July 21, 2024 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Reviewing the Extraordinary Unsolved Murder of Seth Rich

DNC Staffer Seth Rich, murdered on July 10, 2016
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | July 20, 2024

The murder of Seth Rich—in the middle of one of the most brutal presidential election years in history—has always struck me as an example of the authorities NOT investigating a matter of public interest. The mainstream media and half the country were so blinded by partisan passions that they couldn’t see the grounds for suspecting that the young man’s murder was politically motivated. Just a few hours after the incident occurred—before there was any time to perform an investigation—the Metropolitan Police Department announced that the murder appeared to be a “botched robbery.”

Since Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016—12 days before Wikileaks published embarrassing DNC e-mails—there has been much speculation that he could have been the source because he was upset about how the DNC had treated Bernie Sanders. A good investigator wouldn’t speculate about the crime, but he would certainly notice that, statistically speaking, the murder is extraordinary.

Seth Rich was shot in the back near his apartment building, and though he was carrying a valuable watch, wallet, and cell phone, these were not taken by the assailant. Perhaps it was a botched robbery, as the Metropolitan Police Department quickly announced, but shooting a guy in the back without taking his valuables is not typical of armed robbery. Other robberies in the same neighborhood around the same time followed the conventional pattern of the assailant threatening the victim and demanding his or her valuables instead of opening fire on the victim.

In the year 2016, there were 135 homicides in Washington D.C., which has a resident population of 672,000, which comes to approximately one murder per 5000 residents— a dramatic decline from the city’s murder rate in the early nineties. Incidentally, the Metropolitan Police conducted an analysis of homicide for the years 1998-2000—after homicide rates had dropped significantly—and concluded that the primary motives were

1) Argument/conflict

2). Drug related

3). Revenge/retaliation

4). Robbery

5). Gang related.

During this period, homicides were not equally distributed throughout the city, but were concentrated in particular neighborhoods. 92% of the victims were African Americans 3.2% were Hispanic and 3.2% were white. Though one must consider the possibility that homicide trends in DC have changed since 2000 (apart from merely decreasing in numbers) it’s notable that, of the currently unsolved homicides in Washington DC in the year 2016, Seth Rich is the only white victim in a city that is now 44% white.

Julian Assange has always insisted the DNC e-mails were leaked and not hacked. Former NSA technical director William Binney has also insisted that if the DNC e-mails were hacked, it would be child’s play for the NSA to establish the precise routing of the hack, which indicates that the e-mails were more likely leaked by an insider.

Regarding motive, a good investigator would consider the hypothesis that Seth Rich was murdered NOT in retaliation, but to eliminate him as a witness that the DNC e-mails were leaked by an insider and not hacked by Russians. Almost immediately after the embarrassing e-mails were published, Hillary Clinton’s campaign hired CrowdStrike to perform a forensic cyber analysis of the server. CrowdStrike falsely proclaimed it was Russian hackers who were responsible, and never presented evidence to support this assertion.

Regarding the assailant: A good investigator would consider the hypothesis that he was contracted to murder Rich but knew nothing about his target or the motive for killing him. This hypothesis is consistent with Rich being murdered as he approached the entrance to his home—that is, the contract killer was provided only with the address and a photograph of his target.

Another notable aspect of this crime was the extremely emotional tone of press reporting from the same reporters who so passionately embraced the Russian meddling story. The mere suggestion that Seth Rich’s murder was politically motivated prompted these same people to angrily denounce this (perfectly reasonable hypothesis) as “wild, right wing conspiracy theory” and to demand that reporters cease and desist from exploring this hypothesis.

While the murder of Seth Rich was done at night and many of the details were concealed, the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump was performed in broad daylight with millions watching. The fact that proper security was withheld from the event is so obvious that people have a hard time believing it was an intentional act.

Surely, naive people think, those currently in power wouldn’t perform such deeds so out in the open. And yet, there it is, plain to see, right under everyone’s nose.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Could Trump’s election end NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia?

Strategic Culture Foundation | July 19, 2024

The presidential nomination of Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance as his running mate raises the prospect of a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Ukraine. Both have been vociferous critics of the NATO proxy war and the arming of the Kiev regime. Vance has even proposed a peace settlement that is close to Moscow’s demands.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is recently pushing peace diplomacy, has voiced optimism that the omens are good for a settlement later this year to the worst war in Europe since the Second World War – if Trump and Vance are elected.

Only days after Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt, he was officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate amid ecstatic scenes at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

After the tumult and drama over the last week – a long time in politics, as the saying goes – the Trump election campaign is in the driving seat. His vice presidential running mate is 39 years of age and gives the Republican Party a youthful zest. Both men are very much singing from the same hymn sheet regarding their “Make America Great Again” vision.

Trump has united the GOP under his leadership. All former party rivals lined up this week in Milwaukee to endorse the former real estate magnate in his bid to seek re-election to the White House in November. That helps to solidify his manifesto, which bodes well for diplomacy in Ukraine.

By contrast, the election campaign of Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden has run into a ditch. This week he was self-isolating in Delaware having reportedly incurred a third-time Covid infection. Biden increasingly looks toast. His apparent mental decline – the latest gaffe this week was not remembering the name of his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, referring to him haltingly as “a black man” – has provoked a crisis in the Democratic Party and the largely favorable U.S. corporate news media. Senior figures including former President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are reportedly urging Biden to stand down and pass the torch to a younger candidate. Panic is in the air.

There are reports that Biden may throw in the towel within the next few days as the Democrats head into their National Convention to officially nominate their presidential candidate. The trouble for the Democrats is they do not have a viable alternative candidate at this late stage in the campaign – with less than four months to election day on November 7.

That means there is now a serious chance that Trump could return to the White House after he lost the election in 2020, which MAGA loyalists hotly disputed as “stolen”.

That election outcome turns attention to one issue in particular: the war in Ukraine. The conflict erupted in February 2022 and has cost the lives of over 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Under the Biden administration and aligned European NATO members, there is no sign of the war coming to an end. Biden and European allies have pledged to keep sending weapons to Ukraine and tens of billions of dollars to prop up a hopelessly corrupt NeoNazi regime in Kiev.

Trump and Vance have pitched a diametrically opposite policy on the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

That stance is causing the Deep State and its military-industrial complex acute anxiety. The Ukraine war racket has been a bonanza that vested interests in the U.S. ruling class do not want to end. That tension provides a plausible explanation for the attempted assassination of Trump during an open-air rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Salient questions remain about how the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old student, gained access to such a high-security position to fire his rifle at Trump.

The Republican candidates have warned that the Ukraine conflict is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear world war. Trump has said that he would end the war immediately by cutting off the military aid spigot and forcing the Kiev regime to begin negotiations with Russia.

Tantalizingly, JD Vance (R-Ohio) has been even more explicit in proposing that the warring parties should accept the territorial gains made by Russia – including Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson provinces – and that Ukraine must accept Moscow’s demand that it remain neutral and outside of the NATO alliance.

Such a position is a breath of fresh air for its rationality. Many respected American scholars and diplomats have also recommended this historically coherent position as a solution, including Professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs. At least Trump and Vance seem to be cognizant of this reality, unlike the Biden administration and the rest of the Democrat Party, along with the Western media establishment and European minions who insanely push a fraudulent war to the last Ukrainian.

Moreover, polls show that the majority of American citizens (and Europeans) would prefer to see a diplomatic solution to the worst war in Europe since 1945.

Hungary’s Orban has admirably advocated peaceful diplomacy and for his troubles, his government has been sanctioned by the European Union establishment. Slovakia’s Robert Fico has also called for an end to the war in Ukraine, which many believe led to an assassination attempt on his life in May.

The conflict in Ukraine is a senseless, bloody slaughter that should never have escalated if Russia’s peace proposals in December 2021 had been accepted instead of dismissed out of hand by the Biden administration and its NATO lackeys in Europe. Also, a peace deal was possible in April 2022 but again was scuppered by malicious U.S. and British intervention.

If an American presidential candidate is proposing a diplomatic end to the conflict then that should be welcomed. It seems that common sense is prevailing.

Having said that, however, there are caveats. The Trump-Vance rhetoric could be empty pre-election canvassing for votes.

Trump’s record is one of hyping expectations and not delivering. When he ran for the presidency in 2016, he promised to normalize relations with Russia – and did not deliver.

He also boasted about solving the conflict in the Middle East with a “deal of the century” – only to embolden Israeli aggression towards Palestinians and Iran.

A reality check is strongly advised on what Trump and Vance can achieve.

While both men express skepticism about “endless wars” and NATO, it should be borne in mind that the conflicts the U.S. empire is fueling have a systematic cause. The United States is desperately fighting to maintain its failing hegemony against the rise of a multipolar and more democratic global order.

Washington and its European vassals are unleashing wars as a matter of necessity for preserving their erstwhile global dominance. History teaches that wars are always the refuge of the Western imperialist ruling classes.

It is notable that while Trump and Vance talk about ending conflict in Ukraine, they are at the same time talking belligerently about confronting China and Iran.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans are deprecated by the U.S. establishment as being “isolationists” in their vision of pursuing “America First”.

But the notion of “isolationalism” is an oxymoron when one considers the objective reality of U.S. imperialism. Foreign wars are an insatiable appetite for Western dominance.

American relations with the rest of the world are all about power projection, dominance and ultimately using violence to assert its “might is right” presumed national privileges. That applies whether the incumbent in the White House is a Democrat or Republican.

Trump may sound more reasonable on the issue of conflict in Ukraine with Russia. That alone makes him a more plausible candidate compared with the reckless warmongering of Biden and the Democrat-Deep State nexus.

The war in Ukraine must be stopped as soon as possible and a more reasonable security arrangement for Europe must be negotiated as Russia has long been consistently advocating.

Any diplomatic opening towards achieving peace and ending the killing must be welcomed.

Trump and Vance might just deliver on ending the hostilities in Ukraine which in itself would be a huge step forward away from the abyss of all-out war with Russia. On that score alone, their election might bring about an improvement.

But alas there is a contradiction. Don’t expect world peace to break out in other parts of the globe, because U.S. imperialism is cranking up its war machine. Trump and Vance are hawkish in their policy towards China and Iran.

A comprehensive solution to ending U.S. aggression and militarism is not a change of personnel at the White House. A profound, systematic change in American politics and economics is required.

Is partial peace sufficient? Maybe it is for now.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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