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CDC Director Said All the Right Things in Commencement Address. So Why Does Her Agency Get Things so Wrong?

Reform Pharma Team | The Defender | May 23, 2024

On Monday, Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), delivered a commencement speech at Wake Forest University.

Although she was there to inspire, her overly rehearsed speech epitomized everything wrong within the healthcare system.

Cohen shared a story from early in her career when she did what she thought was right, but both her actions and the system she worked in failed.

“I didn’t do a good enough job learning about the person in front of me,” Cohen told the audience.

Cohen explained that she was treating “Jennifer” for unexplained hair loss, lethargy, weight loss and bloating. After running a series of tests over eight weeks — all of which came back normal — she was stumped by the patient’s results.

It wasn’t until a nurse tech instructed Cohen to ask the patient if she had had enough to eat that Cohen realized she missed the patient in front of her.

Cohen allowed her patient to needlessly suffer for eight weeks because she failed to ask the most basic foundational medical question. She, like many other doctors, followed protocol — or what Reform Pharma calls the Big Pharma agenda — rather than practice medicine.

While Cohen admitted she failed in caring for her patient, today she sits as the director for the CDC, the very organization creating the kinds of protocols that lead to patients being overlooked, misdiagnosed and victims of pharmacide — death and injury caused by Big Pharma corruption.

Doctors follow Cohen’s CDC recommendations. They treat patients as if they were products on an assembly line, giving the same treatment to everyone.

Patients are tossed into the “Pharma Sell Cycle” that guarantees continuous profits for Big Pharma and dependency on our failed healthcare system.

“The system I worked in made it super easy for me to miss the person in front of me,” Cohen said during her speech.

It’s the same system that makes it super easy for her and other healthcare providers to dismiss vaccine injury.

It’s the same system that watches and wonders why the rates of chronic disease and illness in children are skyrocketing while the system pushes toxic vaccines on children, pregnant women and adults, causing serious injury and death.

Cohen pointed out that it is easier to prescribe than it is to heal. It was easier to order tests than it was to be a doctor and connect a patient’s lifestyle to their health.

Who taught her to think like that? She said she is a “pretty smart person” with a “very pricey education.” Yet, she failed to look at the basic needs of her patient and instead, prescribed a Big Pharma solution.

“It was really easy to spend money on the wrong things, ordering blood tests, CAT scans. But it actually was really hard to connect her to the housing, counseling and food resources that she really needed to keep her healthy and thriving,” Cohen said.

Cohen’s story was intended to give testimony to how she now shows up for people and delivers “health in a way that puts people and their health at the center.”

But her claims ring hollow, as she has not had an active license to practice medicine in over 10 years and now works for an agency that only creates one-size-fits-all protocols.

Here is the advice Cohen shared:

  • Actually show up.
  • Look people in the eye.
  • Listen.
  • Bring your full self to the table
  • Build trust by demonstrating your trustworthiness.

Cohen touts truth and transparency but so far, her words have been nothing more than scripted speeches and vague, dismissive testimonies that continue to erode the public trust.

Dr. Cohen has an opportunity to build trust by bringing her full self to the table as a mom, public servant and doctor to talk with Reform Pharma.

Reform Pharma has invited Cohen to have an open and frank, mom-to-mom conversation to discuss the disturbing and declining state of children’s health in the U.S.

The CDC responded by asking for additional information, which was provided. Reform Pharma hopes that Cohen will take this important opportunity to talk with us. We will come to Atlanta to make it easy for her.

Meanwhile, while she parades across the country, we sit in solace with those who have been and will be injured by her organization’s protocols — and we wait for Cohen to “actually show up,” “look us in the eyes” and “listen.”

Reform Pharma is an initiative of Children’s Health Defense. Our mission is to remove Big Pharma corruption and restore healthcare integrity. For more information visit ReformPharmaNow.org.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US Expends 530 Munitions, Over $1 Bln Fighting Houthi Hellfire Raining Down on Its Carrier Group

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.05.2024

The US and Britain hastily assembled a coalition of the willing in December 2023 to target the Houthis, a month after the indefatigable Yemeni militia began a campaign of ship seizures, drone and missile attacks targeting Israeli-linked merchant vessels in the Red Sea, in solidarity with Gaza.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower supercarrier-led US Navy strike group has expended over 500 munitions targeting Houthi-launched missiles, UAVs and drone boats over and in the Red Sea, and positions inside Yemen, a new tally of Navy data has revealed.

The figures, seen by Business Insider, reportedly included almost 430 instances of US warships and aircraft engaging “planned and dynamic Houthi targets,” with the Eisenhower’s onboard F/A-18 Super Hornet strike jets flying over 27,200 hours across roughly 12,100 sorties, launching 350+ air-to-surface missiles and 50+ air-to-air missiles.

Guided-missile destroyers and cruisers accompanying the Eisenhower have reportedly launched 100 Standard Missile-2 interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles at Houthi aerial and ground targets.

The figures offer the most detailed insight to date into the expenses the US-led anti-Houthi mission in the Red Sea has sustained to date.

Last month, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers from the Senate Appropriations Committee that the US had spent nearly $1 billion in the Middle East, including against the Houthis, since the Israeli-Hamas escalation in October, and asked for more money.

But the Navy figures cited by Business Insider suggest the costs could be much higher. For example, F/A-18 jets have an average per hour flight cost of more than $30,400, meaning if the Navy-provided data are correct, the US has spent close to $827 million on sorties alone, not counting expended missiles. The latter include AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, priced between $125,000 and $400,000 apiece, and AGM-88 HARM air-to-surface missiles, which go for between $284,000 and $870,000 each.
Ship-launched standard Missile-2 interceptors cost $2 million apiece, with the more advanced Standard Missile-6 – which the US carrier strike group has also deployed against the Houthis, costing $4.3 million each. Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, meanwhile, have a price tag of roughly $2 million.

The Pentagon’s anti-Houthi strategy has recently taken flak from US lawmakers over its exorbitant cost.

“In the Red Sea, the Houthis are sending $20,000 drones and we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost $4.3 million. The math doesn’t work on that, gentlemen. It just doesn’t work. What are we thinking?” Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces chairman Angus King said earlier this month during a grilling of senior DoD officials on the (apparently) shambolic state of America’s air and missile defense capabilities.

US-led military operations in the Red Sea, dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian, have failed to stop or even scale back the extent of Houthi attacks, with the militia ramping up its strikes in the Red and Arabian Seas in recent months, and expanding drone and missile forays into the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin hinted at the intensity of Houthi operations on Friday, revealing that the USS Carney guided-missile destroyer alone had had 51 “engagements” with Houthi missiles and drones over six months, “which is the most direct Navy engagement with a foe since World War II.”

The Carney returned home to Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida on May 19 after its long Red Sea deployment.

Separately on Friday, the Houthis announced that they had targeted three more Israeli-linked ships, including the MSC Alexandra and the Greek-owned Yannis bulk carrier (which the militia said was heading toward Israel) in the Red Sea, and the Essex LPG carrier – a Liberia-registered vessel managed by Zodiac Maritime, owned by Israeli tycoon Eyal Ofer, in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean attack came just a few days after an anonymous Pentagon official confirmed to reporters that the Houthis have weapons that could reach the body of water – situated over 2,000 km from militia-held areas of Yemen.

Along with their attacks on ships, the Houthis have been stepping up their efforts to target US military assets operating over Yemeni airspace. Last week, the group downed its fifth MQ-9 Reaper drone using a “locally-made” surface to air missile while the $32 million aircraft was “carrying out hostile acts” over Marib province in western Yemen.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine attacked key element of Russia’s nuclear umbrella — Russian senator

RT | May 25, 2024

The US should be seen as directly responsible for a Ukrainian strike on a key element of Russia’s nuclear umbrella, Senator Dmitry Rogozin has said, warning that such attacks could lead to the collapse of the entire global nuclear security architecture.

In a statement on Telegram on Saturday, Rogozin, a senator who previously headed up the Russian space agency Roscosmos and is now in charge of a military technical center called Tsar’s Wolves, said that the attack targeted a nuclear early warning system in the southern Krasnodar Region. The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the matter, while the extent of the damage remains unclear.

Rogozin suggested that it was extremely unlikely that the strike, which Ukrainian media reported involved several drones, was carried out at Kiev’s sole initiative and without US involvement.

According to the senator, Washington has always sought to achieve military superiority over Moscow since the very dawn of the nuclear age, but this rivalry was mostly limited to a battle of minds between scientists, strategists, and policymakers.

This seems to have changed, however, as “the US has commissioned a crime by hiring an irresponsible bandit” to attack Russia’s early warning system, the official said, apparently referring to Vladimir Zelensky.

Rogozin claimed that Washington’s “deep involvement in the armed conflict and total control over Kiev’s military planning means that the version that the US does not know about Ukrainian plans to strike Russia’s missile defense system can be discarded.”

Thus, we stand not on the precipice, but on the very edge… If such enemy actions are not stopped, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of nuclear powers will begin.

The attack apparently targeted an advanced Voronezh radar station in the city of Armavir, which went into operation in 2013. The system can detect incoming cruise and ballistic missiles at a range of 6,000km and can track up to 500 targets. During the inauguration of the system, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it would significantly increase the country’s defense capabilities in the southern and southwestern directions.

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

BILLIONS IN DOCTOR PAYOUTS RAISE CONFLICT QUESTIONS

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | May 23, 2024

Conflicts of interest within the medical community have reached record highs as concerns for patient safety and independent scrutiny of Big Pharma products are driven by newly released information showing serious conflicts of interest.

SHOCKING TESTIMONY REVEALS NIH FUNDING GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH AND AVOIDING FOIA REQUESTS

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | May 23, 2024

As the investigation into the origins and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic takes center stage through congressional hearings, shocking testimony is being revealed to the public. Shockingly, Dr. Lawrence Tabak, principal Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health, has admitted under oath that NIH was funding gain of function research. In an even more shocking turn, newly released emails from Dr. David Morens, who worked as Senior Advisor to the Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases directly under Dr. Anthony Fauci, reveal shocking revelations that senior officials at NIH were purposely using private emails and having in person conversations to avoid FOIA requests. Amidst all of this, HHS has stripped all funding from Peter Daszak, and Eco Health Alliance.

Fauci aide triggers deeper concerns about hidden emails on COVID origins

By Emily Kopp | U.S. Right To Know | May 22, 2024

Testimony from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Senior Scientific Advisor David Morens — a longtime aide to former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci — only deepened congressional concerns about the possibility of concealed or destroyed emails concerning connections between the institute and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

memo and over 150 emails released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Wednesday show that Morens spent considerable time and energy avoiding the Freedom of Information Act — a law that requires federal agency records to be provided to the public on request with limited exceptions.

Morens deleted sensitive emails, conducted official business on a private email account, and worked with an NIAID administrator in the Freedom of Information Office to strategically misspell keywords that the public might request to be searched, the committee alleges.

Morens sought to conceal emails in which he championed his close friend EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak, a scientist who subcontracted NIAID funding to the lab in Wuhan for experiments that made coronaviruses more deadly. Morens said that he and Daszak met twenty years ago and were part of the same close knit “fraternity” among emerging infectious diseases experts.

The subpoenaed emails make clear that Morens repeatedly advocated for EcoHealth and Daszak from within Fauci’s inner circle — serving as an intermediary between Daszak and Fauci — and often using his private Gmail account to shuttle messages.

One email released by the committee suggests that Fauci himself may have subverted public records requests through use of a personal email account, bypassing official channels.

“I can either send stuff to Tony on his private email or hand it to him at work or at his house,” Morens emailed on April 21, 2021. “He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

Other emails show Morens and Daszak strategizing about how to convey information to Fauci without leaving a paper trail.

Morens confirmed Wednesday that he discussed grants from NIAID to the Wuhan Institute of Virology with Fauci.

“I certainly told him some things that he asked me to tell him about the situation with Peter [Daszak],” Morens said.

That statement contradicts a transcribed interview Morens gave the committee earlier this year in which he said he did not recall discussing EcoHealth or the Wuhan lab with Fauci.

“The evidence establishes that Dr. Morens likely provided false testimony to the Select Subcommittee,” the committee’s memo states.

The committee may recommend that the Department of Justice investigate Morens for making false statements, a crime in violation of Title 18 Section 1001.

The testimony follows revelations last week that Morens stated he would delete any “smoking guns” implicating a connection between Daszak’s organization and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Far from allaying concerns, Morens’ subpoenaed emails and testimony only raised more questions about the culture at the NIAID around transparency and public records requests. Indeed, the emails and testimony suggest NIAID may have systems in place to help employees evade FOIA requests.

NIAID did not reply to a request for comment.

In addition, Morens wrote an email about the possibility of a “kickback” for helping to restore EcoHealth’s NIAID funding. He wrote profane emails that referred to binge drinking and sex, and made a remark about former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky wearing a skirt, raising concerns about his lack of professionalism and attitudes toward women.

“It is very disturbing to witness this type of behavior from Dr. Fauci’s senior advisor, but the evidence is clear and overwhelming. Dr. Fauci’s NIAID was unfortunately less pristine than so many, including the media, would’ve had us all believe,” said Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio.

In one of the emails obtained by the committee, Morens acknowledges that the reputation of EcoHealth and Daszak affect the reputations of Fauci and former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.

“From Tony’s numerous recent comments to me, and from what Francis has been vocal about over the past 5 days, they are trying to protect you, which also protects their own reputations,” Morens wrote in October 2021.

Morens’s attorneys turned over 30,000 emails to the committee responsive to a subpoena on April 30, just before Daszak testified to the committee on May 1.  It remains to be seen whether more emails come to light following the new revelations that Fauci apparently used a private Gmail account and that Morens used a Proton Mail account in addition to his Gmail account.

Morens said that the emails about a “back channel,” a “kickback,” and “smoking guns” simply reflected “black humor.” Morens also expressed regret for how his emails had undermined trust in NIAID.

“I’ve already apologized for making snarky and profane comments but I made them thinking that they were made on my private Gmail in a manner that was just between a small group of friends,” Morens said. “It’s embarrassing to me. I shouldn’t have done it. But I accept that I did it. I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry.”

However Morens gave unclear testimony in response to the question of whether he improperly used his personal email to conduct official business.

Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., read out six separate emails in which Morens referred to avoiding FOIA. It took over three minutes to read every one.

“This Gmail communication thing was set up purely to deal with personal things that were not government business,” Morens said.

“How can you say that when in all of these emails you said you were intentionally avoiding FOIA? You said it in your own words, sir,” Lesko said.

Lesko countered that official emails had been forwarded to his private Gmail, that the emails on his Gmail had his official NIAID position in the email signature.

Morens blamed a technical issue.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe you,” Lesko replied.

‘Do I get a kickback???’

When the novel coronavirus emerged from the same city in China with a high security lab specializing in coronaviruses, Daszak’s collaboration with the lab and with University of North Carolina gain-of-function coronavirologist Ralph Baric came under scrutiny — including from non-virologists like Wenstrup.

Morens, Fauci and Daszak all went into action.

Fauci met with virologists concerned about viral engineering, dispatched another aide to investigate any NIAID ties to the research and met with Baric to discuss these papers. Daszak organized a letter in a prestigious scientific journal dismissing lab origin concerns as conspiratorial.

For his part, Morens helped Daszak with non-public information when concerns about the Wuhan lab prompted NIH to suspend EcoHealth’s grant. Morens forwarded Daszak an email marked “for official use only” in April 2020.

Morens appears to have helped Daszak navigate around NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer’s request for more information about the Wuhan lab in 2020 as a condition of the reinstatement of the grant, possibly hampering the U.S. government from accessing more information about the research underway there. Morens even personally edited EcoHealth’s response to Lauer, one email shows. That email too contradicts Morens’s transcribed interview earlier this year, perhaps exposing him to criminal penalties.

Daszak’s testimony earlier this month indicated that he never asked the Wuhan lab for genomic data beyond 2015 or so or for relevant lab notebooks — instead merely forwarding a request for information from NIH.

Morens also alerted Daszak to the forthcoming publication of documents released under FOIA in September 2021.

Morens invoked Fauci’s name in an email in which he appealed to an EcoHealth Alliance board member to continue to support the organization upon Daszak’s request.

After the grant was reinstated — despite Daszak’s failure to provide the data and information about the Wuhan lab that NIH requested — Morens sent an email referring to a “kickback.”

“Ahem…. Do I get a kickback??? Too much fooking money! DO you deserve it all? Let’s discuss….” he wrote.

“Of course there’s a kick-back,” Daszak replied.

Morens said the emails were in jest and denied receiving payment or any gifts from EcoHealth or Daszak.

Members of the committee of both parties expressed concerns that Morens used official resources and the imprimatur of the NIAID to improperly assist the embattled EcoHealth, and how that could impact NIAID.

“I just hope you’re going to be very careful as you are telling us what the facts are because I’m very disturbed about other people who may be thrown under the bus in some of the wiley statements you made on your personal statements,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., an apparent reference to Fauci and Collins.

The Department of Health and Human Services has suspended federal funding both to EcoHealth and to Daszak personally pending an investigation into their handling of taxpayer funds. EcoHealth and Daszak could face debarment of any federal funds for several years.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who recently co-launched a bipartisan investigation into biosafety issues at the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, called upon the DOJ to investigate Morens Wednesday and alleged a criminal conspiracy to conceal records at NIAID.

The emails also indicate that Morens played a central role at NIAID in early debates about gain-of-function experiments — specifically, controversial experiments on highly pathogenic avian flu in 2011 — and that he privately criticized scientists in favor of stronger biosafety regulations at Rutgers University, Harvard University and Stanford University.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Russia Muting Musk’s Starlink Satellites Using Sophisticated Electronic Warfare Tools

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 24.05.2024

The Russian military possesses perhaps the most comprehensive, multilayered and multi-domain electronic warfare capabilities in the world, using an array of short, medium, long and ultra-long range systems to effect throughout the course of the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine.

The Russian military continues to ramp up its ability to disrupt the Starlink internet capabilities Ukraine’s troops use to coordinate their forces, collect intel and launch drone attacks on Russian frontline positions, causing mass “outages” in the Kharkov area of the front and playing a role in the rapid pace of Russia’s recent advances.

That’s according to Ukrainian officials, soldiers and electronic warfare specialists queried by the New York Times to find out why Russia’s EW operations had slowed frontline troops’ ability to communicate using Starlink internet to a crawl, forcing troops to resort to simple text messages.

NYT warned that if Russia’s massed efforts to disrupt Starlink “continue to succeed, it could mark a tactical shift in the conflict, highlighting Ukraine’s vulnerability and dependence on the service provided by Mr. Musk’s company,” while raising “broader questions about Starlink’s reliability against a technically sophisticated adversary.”

“We’re losing the electronic warfare fight,” a deputy commander from the Ukrainian 92ndAssault Brigade’s drone battalion told the newspaper. “One day before the attacks, it just shut down. It became super, super slow,” he complained.

A Ukrainian drone operator confirmed the connectivity issues. “During the first hours the front line was very dynamic. The enemy was moving. And we were moving as well. We needed to be to be fast in communicating,” the soldier said, complaining that the loss of Starlink connectivity “made everything more complicated” and “time consuming.”

Starlink, which operates by beaming internet down to portable Earth-based terminals using vast constellations of satellites, has been in Russia’s crosshairs since the early months of the Ukrainian crisis.

Sputnik has detailed the technical minutiae of some of the tools Russia has at its disposal to jam Starlink’s operations in Ukraine without breaking international law – including the use of ground-based radars to detect the operation of and pinpoint the location of Starlink terminals, and jamming signal transmission directly. The Borshchevik is one such system.

Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov told the NYT that Russia’s latest attacks against Starlink appeared to be using more advanced technology, saying the Russians were “testing different mechanisms to disrupt the quality of Starlink connections because it’s so important for us.”

Fedorov did not elaborate on the nature of these “powerful” Russian EW systems, but said Kiev has maintained constant communication with Starlink to try to resolve the problems.

Experts from NATO countries aren’t entirely certain what’s causing the signal loss – improved and more precise Russian jamming equipment, or a new breed of special electronic warfare weapons mounted on drones to confuse the GPS signals. NYT also didn’t rule out that “solar storms” may be responsible for random outages.

Russia has demonstrated a mounting technological advantage over Ukraine in recent months, blasting through heavily fortified defensive lines in the Donbass – which Ukraine’s military had spent nearly a decade building up with NATO’s help, and advancing rapidly in the Kharkov region to create a “sanitary zone” after repeated Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure, including the border city of Belgorod.

Retired US Army Lieutenant General and former spec ops commander Mike Nagata warned last week that America was “falling behind” its adversaries in electronic warfare despite its best efforts.

“The gap between where the United States should be and where we are, in my judgement, continues to expand not everywhere, but in far too many places,” Nagata said at a Special Operations Forces Week conference in Tampa, Florida.

The former commander’s assessment was echoed by Hudson Institute senior fellow Daniel Patt in recent Congressional testimony. Patt warned in March that Russian EW systems had resulted in a dramatic drop in the effectiveness of some US GPS-guided munitions sent to Ukraine from 70 percent to as low as six percent.

Over the past two years, Russia has fine-tuned its electronic warfare capabilities to jam NATO artillery shells and JDAMs, heavy and long-range strike drones, and missiles. An informed source told Sputnik last October that Russia’s EW troops were preparing equipment to suppress F-16s when they arrive in Ukraine.

Electronic warfare has been a traditional Russian strong suit going back to Soviet days, when doctrines emphasized the “total integration of electronic warfare and physical destruction resources” on the battlefield.

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Blinken’s blunders epitomize the bankruptcy of U.S. power and diplomacy

Strategic Culture Foundation | May 24, 2024

As the Iranian nation mourned the tragic death of President Ebrahim Raisi this week, the United States could not even muster a respectful offer of condolence.

The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, officially that country’s top diplomat, made a crass remark that the Iranian people would be “better off”. This as the Islamic Republic had declared five days of mourning for the late president whose funeral in the city of Mashhad was attended by millions of Iranians.

President Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash along with the country’s much-respected Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and several other dignitaries who were also on board the aircraft. The fatal crash happened in treacherous weather over a mountainous region in northwest Iran as the president’s entourage returned from a visit to Azerbaijan.

Most of the world expressed shock and grief over the loss. The UN General Assembly held a minute’s silence and at the funeral, 68 nations were represented including officials from Russia and China.

The United States and Iran have been staunch adversaries for almost half a century following the Iranian revolution in 1979. Nevertheless, it is a basic matter of diplomacy and etiquette for countries to show a token of sympathy at such a time of national mourning.

The disgraceful and cheap comments about the death of Iran’s president show how inadequate Blinken is as the supposed U.S. primary diplomat. But the failure is not merely a personal matter, it epitomizes the general collapse of Washington’s political quality and international standing.  The United States presumes to be a world leader but it evidently has no class. Biden, the president and Blinken’s boss, is a foul-mouthed crank who regularly insults other leaders with ignorant prejudice.

On Blinken’s insult over the Iranian president’s death, Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed the disgust of many observers around the world when he said: “It is hard to believe that a diplomat — let alone a high-ranking official of a country such as the United States — would make such a clumsy remark, to say the least. In essence, it was an insult directed at an entire nation.”

Apart from the lack of human decency, there is a total lack of politics. Blinken’s offensive comment comes at a moment of extreme tension in the Middle East amid a genocide perpetrated by the Israeli regime with support from the United States. The powder-keg situation could explode at any time into an international war engulfing the entire region. Israel and Iran have already exchanged military blows.

All diplomats worth their salt should be trying to calm tensions, not inflame them. Blinken’s contemptible insult to the Iranian people is a reckless provocation.

But such sensibility and respect are too much to expect from Blinken who has shown himself to be way out of his depth as a diplomat.

Last week, the “top diplomat” embarrassed his office by playing guitar on stage in a bar during an official visit to Kiev. Blinken was in the Ukrainian capital promising billions of dollars more in military aid to prolong a bloody and futile proxy war against Russia. Reliable estimates put the Ukrainian military death toll at over 500,000 in over two years of combat. Yet, here was Blinken strumming electric guitar with a local rock band. Even more cringe-making was his choice of song, Neil Young’s ‘Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World’. Not only was Blinken tone deaf to the horror of war, but he was oblivious to the fact that the song is an explicit condemnation of American imperialist barbarity.

How could anyone be so stupid and insensitive? That is the measure of Antony Blinken right there.

Lamentably, Blinken has a lot of dubious company in Washington. Their collective arrogance and incompetence are driving the world to calamity. It is reported this week that Blinken is among those in Washington advocating for the supply of long-range U.S. weapons to strike Russian territory. Others pushing this recipe for World War Three include Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and former State Department official Victoria Nuland.

Blinken’s blunders should have seen him sacked long ago in disgrace. He was a chief cheerleader for arming the Kiev regime long before the conflict escalated in February 2022. He along with Nuland and others was instrumental in setting the course for this proxy war that runs the risk of spiraling into a nuclear war.

During his previous posts as national security advisor to President Obama and Biden when he was vice president, Blinken endorsed the NATO “human rights” war on Libya and the “pro-democracy” proxy war for regime change in Syria. The latter involved Washington arming sectarian terror gangs – until Russia and Iran put an end to that dirty operation.

This trail of disaster chartered by Blinken should have ensured his barring from ever ascending to the prominence of Secretary of State. However, that is assuming such appointments are made based on sanity and sound foreign policy.

No, Blinken is a war criminal whose ignorant narcissism knows no bounds. He is nothing but a useful tool for American imperialist warmongering. The guitar-playing, Harvard-educated Blinken is a manikin that provides a pseudo-liberal image to cover for the barbarity of US global power.

His ineptitude is leading the world to an abysmal state of confrontation in the Middle East and between nuclear powers over Ukraine.

What’s more though is the deplorable truth that Washington is full of clones like Blinken. The level of political culture in the U.S. establishment that spawns the likes of Blinken is so putrid and prevalent, that it is difficult to envisage any quality thinkers and leaders emerging.

The degeneration of politics and diplomacy in the United States has been on a long decline much like its global power. Some of Blinken’s more recent predecessors include Mike Pompeo (“we lie and cheat all the time”) and Hillary Clinton (who gloated about the murder of Muammar Gaddafi with “we came, we conquered, he died”); Condoleezza Rice (of Iraq war and rendition torture notoriety) and Colin Powell (who told barefaced lies to the UNSC over WMD). The list of degenerates goes on.

But in Blinken’s case, he’s probably the high point – or maybe that should be the low point – of polished incompetence.

Cometh the hour of U.S. failure, cometh the man who embodies abject failure.

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Should Quit Sending Money to Ukraine, Try to Negotiate Peace — Congressman Massie

Sputnik – 25.05.2024

WASHINGTON – The United States should stop sending money to Ukraine and attempt to negotiate peace as soon as possible, US Congressman Thomas Massie told Sputnik on Friday.

“I think we should quit sending money there. I think we should try to negotiate peace as soon as possible,” Massie said on the sidelines of the 2024 Libertarian National Convention.

US lawmakers are showing dwindling support for sending military aid to Ukraine each time the matter comes to a vote, Massie highlighted.

“The support for sending weapons to Ukraine is weakening in the US Congress, as you can see with each subsequent vote,” the congressman emphasized.

There should be some effort made to bring both Ukraine and Russia to the upcoming conference in Switzerland as it is hard to imagine negotiations without Russia, Massie stressed.

“This sounds kind of hard to negotiate a peace if they don’t have Russia at the table. So I think there should be some effort to have Ukraine and Russia there,” the congressman said.

Talks Must Go On

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden could help solve the conflict in Ukraine, and even lower-level discussions between top diplomats could help achieve progress, Massie highlighted.

“I think it could help,” Massie said when asked whether talks between Biden and Putin could help solve the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. “Although, even lower-level negotiations would help as well, I think.”

When asked at what level such discussion should be held, the congressman said, “Maybe at the secretary of state level, for instance.”

Massie expressed his view that it is “wrong” that communications between the US and Russia are limited.

“I think there should be talks,” he said.

‘Very Short-Sighted Policy’

The US government freezing of foreign assets, including those of Russia, is a very short-sighted policy and sends a message to the international community that the United States may stop honoring transactions, the congressman emphasized.

“I think it’s very short sighted of our government to freeze for instance, Treasury assets, that are held by other countries, such as Russia, because it sends a message to the world that if you buy our debt, then we may not honor the transaction at some point,” Massie explained.

The representative added that US moves to freeze foreign assets are “extremely dangerous” because they will increase the price that Washington has to pay to finance its debt.

“I’m sure that our closest allies will still trust that we’ll be good on our word, but other sovereign funds will have a diminished appetite for financing our debt,” Massie said. “So, I think it’s very short-sighted of us to do that.”

Moscow has maintained that any attempt to confiscate its frozen assets would violate international law, with the Russian Foreign Ministry labeling such an action as theft.

No More Money to Ukraine

The congressman argued that he opposes the US government sending more money to Ukraine unless such assistance achieves peace.

“I told our own speaker – if you want to send $60 billion and the goal is to achieve some kind of peace, I might be compelled to vote for it. But I’m not voting for $60 billion that will then only necessitate another $60 billion,” the representative clarified.

Massie also said that both sides to the conflict in Ukraine will eventually run out of people if fighting continues.

“I think it’s immoral to grind up people in this war on both sides,” Massie added.

Earlier on Friday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the United States was providing a new weapons package for Ukraine worth $275 million.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday the United States has already delivered many of Ukraine’s “top-priority requirements” and much more assistance is on the way.

Austin added that he expects a steady flow of US assistance for Ukraine on a weekly basis.

Russia has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Ukraine by the collective West, saying they would only prolong the conflict but would not change the situation on the ground.

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

No Velocity Whatsoever: Hyper-Velocity Pipe-dreams

By Bill Buppert | The Libertarian Institute | May 24, 2024

Since October 2021, it has either failed the flight test or scrubbed launches.

Three years.

The joint Army/Navy Dark Eagle Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, that despite the $8.3 billion in R&D invested in it have so far failed to successfully fire a single AUR, All Up Round, it doesn’t fill you with confidence after the cancellation of the Air Force AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), both are/were hyper-sonic glide missiles.

Don’t believe the January 2023 estimates of 41 million per missile if it ever gets off the ground. Yet another signature failure of the sclerotic and arthritic Pentagon spending sprees using an acquisition system the Soviets would blanch at.

The US remains the most expensive paper tiger in the history of the Earth.

The ARRW program was launched in April 2018 and originally planned to achieve initial operational deployment in 2022. However, in November 2023, after conducting two test flights in August and October 2023, the ARRW hypersonic program was officially cancelled.

The U.S. Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW): Dark Eagle

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Inter-EU Spat Over Air Defenses Scratches the Surface of Deep Divisions in Europe

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 24.05.2024

Poland and Greece on one side and EU behemoth Germany on the other have presented competing visions of a common European air defense system. Sputnik asked respected Polish political observer Mateusz Piskorski about the hidden tectonic political, economic and geostrategic tensions that the rival plans have laid bare.

Warsaw and Athens on Thursday urged the European Union to join forces to create a common “air defense shield” for the bloc.

“Europe will be safe as long as the skies over it are safe,” Polish and Greek prime ministers Donald Tusk and Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote in a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. “That is why the EU needs a new flagship program – a European air defense shield – a comprehensive air defense system to protect our common EU airspace against all incoming threats.”

The ‘shield’ “must be a program which addresses [the] major vulnerability in our security” resulting from an array of global crises, and one “which strengthens the EU’s overall defense capabilities and incentivizes European defense companies to develop cutting-edge technologies,” the letter stressed.

Von der Leyen, up for reelection in the quickly approaching elections to the European Parliament in June, quickly endorsed the Polish-Greek proposal at a debate Thursday night.

The new air defense proposals comes after –and apparently as a direct challenge to, a German-led initiative floated in 2022 to create a ‘European Sky Shield’, involving the joint European purchase of pricey air defense equipment. That project fell into obscurity after other major EU partners, including France, expressed opposition to purchasing weapons made outside the bloc.

France and Italy have been pushing their own sophisticated rival to the American Patriot missile system known as the SAMP/T – priced at roughly $500 million per battery and $2 million per interceptor missile (compared to about $1 billion per battery and $4 million per missile in the Patriot’s case). Both systems have been thrashed by Russian forces after being sent to Ukraine.

The competing EU air defense proposals and inability to agree on a bloc-wide policy to date is logical outcome of a union divided by internal political divisions, economic and strategic considerations, and the overbearing influence of Europe’s partners in Washington, says Mateusz Piskorski, a former Sjem lawmaker, independent political observer and columnist for the Mysl Polska (‘Polish Thought’) newspaper.

Piskorski reminded Sputnik that the second of the competing air defense proposals have been unveiled on the eve of elections to the European Parliament, and recalled that both the Polish and Greek prime ministers are members of the same European-level party – the center-right, pro-Europeanist European People’s Party.

“As representatives of this pan-European party, the ranks of which incidentally include Ursula von der Leyen, they are likely trying to demonstrate in the framework of pre-election activities that they have their own version and vision of a European air defense system. In other words, this is an election campaign issue,” Piskorski explained.

From that perspective, the observer stressed that there’s no question that the Polish-Greek ‘European Air Defense Shield’ is an alternative to the German European Sky Shield proposal, recalling that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats are direct competitors to the European People’s Party at the EU level.

“Secondly, of course, there are certain political subtleties,” Piskorski said, pointing to lingering Greek animosities to Germany’s treatment of Athens a decade-and-a-half ago when Greece suffered economic collapse, and the strict austerity programs enforced on it at Berlin’s direction.

Poland too has “historical and political grounds” of its own to express skepticism of German initiatives, Piskorski said.

“Everyone understands that the creation of such a system – the development of this program would require the effort of all EU members,” and that a major European power – Germany or France, would have to take the lead, the observer noted.

One of the prime reasons Europe already doesn’t have its own common air defense system comes down to the influence of its “Anglo-Saxon friends, and, naturally, first and foremost the USA, who are protecting their own interests and see continental Europe as their protectorate,” Piskorski said.

The UK plays second fiddle in this arrangement, having left the EU through Brexit, closing the door to any pan-European integration projects, including defense policy.

With Central European countries like Poland owing their allegiance to the US, Piskorski rules out the creation a genuinely European mutual air defense arrangement at the current stage. “No one will say so directly, but such an initiative would not be received kindly by Washington and American authorities, just like attempts to create a common European defense policy,” he said.

“Attempts to create large, powerful structures in the military-industrial complex of continental Europe are projects which contradict the main economic and geopolitical interests of the United States,” Piskorski stressed.

That said, the observer doesn’t rule out a European move toward “strategic autonomy,” to quote President Macron of France, including as far as questions related to defense are concerned, after the presidential elections in the US, and in the event that Washington scales back its participation in and financing for various defense-related projects in Europe.

“This would make these projects more concrete and substantive. But this is a question for the future. It’s a slow process. I think that the process of gaining autonomy in this area may take at least several years, perhaps several decades,” Piskorski stressed.

Discord in Europe

Besides US intransigence, up to and including the possible use of agents of influence to resist EU air defense initiatives, there are issues of financing, as well as “technological barriers,” the observer believes.

“There are many factors here, but first and foremost of all is the question of financing. We know that, unfortunately, the European Commission’s sanctions policy and the so-called ‘green agenda’ on environmental issues, among other things, has resulted in European industry being curtailed. Europe is in a fairly deep economic crisis, at least for now,” Piskorski said.

As for technological barriers, “they are connected, first of all, with the fact that Europe has relied exclusively on the United States in this regard in the past, and did not have time to develop its own technologies to the same level… And of course, within Europe there is competition between the defense-industrial complexes of different nations. Naturally, any EU country will seek to support the interests of its own manufacturers, developers of technology, and so on,” the political observer summed up.

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The Empire’s Outdated Tank

Tales of the American Empire | May 23, 2024

Symptoms of a dying empire are arrogance and a refusal to adapt to change. The M-1 Abrams tank is an outdated Cold War symbol of the power of the US Army. It was designed in the 1970s, costs far too much to upgrade and maintain, burns far too much fuel, lacks overhead protection from drones, and is far too heavy for most off-road operations and rural bridges. This was exposed during the war in Ukraine when M-1 tanks were easily destroyed on the battlefield. The Ukrainians were sent 31 70-ton M-1s and quickly asked to trade them for German Leopard tanks since the super heavy M-1s easily got stuck in mud, broke down often, and required daily refueling. After seven M-1s were destroyed during their first three months of sporadic combat, most were withdrawn from units.

____________________________________

“The Army’s M-1 Tank”; Greg Williams; POGO; January 1, 1990; https://www.pogo.org/reports/armys-m1…

“The Tank is Dead”; Carlton Meyer; G2mil; 2017; https://www.g2mil.com/Anti-armor.htm

“Ukraine pulls US-provided Abrams tanks from the front lines over Russian drone threats”; Tara Copp; AP News; April 25, 2024; https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-ru…

“M1 Abrams Ineffective By 2040 In Fight Against China: Army Study”; The Warzone; Joseph Trevithick; October 4, 2023; https://www.twz.com/m1-abrams-ineffec…

“M44 (155mm Self-propelled Howitzer)”; Armed Conflicts; https://www.armedconflicts.com/M44-15…

“Rhinos”; Carlton Meyer; G2mil; 2015; small, heavily armored vehicles needed to support infantry; https://www.g2mil.com/tankitas.htm

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Video | | Leave a comment

Employee Sues Hospital That Fired Her for Reporting COVID Vaccine Injuries to VAERS

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 22, 2024

A physician’s assistant is suing a New York hospital system, alleging it violated the federal False Claims Act by failing to complete mandatory reporting of injuries associated with the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

Deborah Conrad worked at United Memorial Medical Center, part of Rochester Regional Health (RRH), until October 2021, when she said she was fired for reporting vaccine-related adverse events.

Conrad filed the lawsuit in May 2023, but the complaint wasn’t unsealed and made publicly available until February, TrialSiteNews reported last week.

She is seeking job reinstatement and back pay for herself and civil penalties on behalf of the U.S. government.

Most importantly, Conrad told The Defender, she hopes the lawsuit will lead to changes in how vaccine adverse events are reported.

“How can anybody trust the vaccine program when medical professionals are not adhering to the reporting requirements of the one system we have in place that is meant to assure us that these things are safe?” she asked.

“I want policy change. I don’t care about the money, the vindication. I want to be able to trust the health system,” Conrad said.

Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can file a lawsuit on behalf of the federal government against an entity they allege profited from taxpayer funds by defrauding the government.

False Claims Act cases are initially sealed while the government investigates the cases and determines whether it will intervene and take the case on itself, or allow the whistleblower to proceed with the action.

The government decided not to intervene in the case. It is now unsealed and moving forward with Conrad as the “relator,” who gives evidence to the court on behalf of the U.S. government.

She told The Defender the evidence she is submitting to the court is substantial — she meticulously saved every email, patient file and recorded conversations with supervisors and other hospital staff.

United Memorial Medical Center, like all institutions in the U.S. that administered the COVID-19 vaccines, signed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider Agreement, according to the complaint.

The agreement stipulated that organizations providing the shots and which received compensation for doing so from the federal government were required to “report moderate and adverse events following vaccination” to VAERS.

By not doing so, Warner Mendenhall, the attorney representing Conrad, told The Defender, they were out of compliance with the agreement. And, he added, the agreement clearly stipulates that non-compliance violates the False Claims Act.

The hospital not only failed to report cases, it blocked Conrad from submitting approximately 170 reports of serious adverse events to VAERS between May 27 and Oct. 6, 2021, Conrad said.

The hospital system also failed to report over 12,000 adverse events, the complaint alleges.

Mendenhall said they estimated that number based on the number of people vaccinated at one of the healthcare facilities or another nearby clinic who then presented at the hospital for treatment for an injury that was likely linked to the vaccine.

The complaint contains several examples of such cases.

On behalf of the U.S., Conrad is seeking damages that fall into what Mendenhall described as “three buckets.”

First, he said, each entity was paid an administrative fee — approximately $40 — for each injection. The suit seeks a refund of that money to the government for the thousands of shots administered.

Next, for every failure to report, there is a mandatory penalty of at least $20,000. For 12,000 cases, that would total more than $240,000,000.

Finally, the “third bucket” of damages would be the cost of the treatment that people had to pay for their vaccine injuries. By failing to meet their obligations as a vaccine provider, he said the hospital failed to provide people with the proper necessary treatment they ought to be entitled to and those costs should be reimbursed.

If Conrad prevails in court, the hospital will go bankrupt — but that isn’t the intent, Mendenhall said.

“We don’t want to bankrupt community hospitals,” he said. “That’s not what we are about. We want them to do their job, to do what they are supposed to do and file the reports,” he said. “And we want Deb Conrad rehired to run the program.”

Conrad is suing only one hospital system, but there are roughly 2,800 systems in the country, Mendenhall said. “As far as I know, not a single one of them met their obligations under the vaccination program participation agreement. And they all signed it.”

The False Claims Act, “is a way for us as a people, if we want to hold these providers accountable for their wrongdoing, we actually can do it,” Mendenhall told Trial Site News. “There’s a very clear pathway here. It’s outlined here, and they all agreed to it.”

Ray Flores, senior outside counsel for Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender the case represented a “bold effort to hold those who allegedly defrauded the people of the United States accountable.”

In detailing the ways the hospital precluded providers from reporting to VAERS, “the allegations in the complaint solve part of the mystery of why only 1% of vaccine injuries are reported,” he said.

Mendenhall also represents Pfizer whistleblower Brook Jackson, who sued the drugmaker under the False Claims Act.

Conrad: ‘I kept getting gaslit and made fun of and told I was crazy’ 

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Conrad had been a physician assistant for nearly 20 years. She spent most of that time as a hospitalist, working in inpatient medicine and the intensive care unit in the same hospital.

At United Memorial, she was director of Advanced Practice Providers, sat on the medical executive board, saw patients and was the first non-physician to receive the Physician Excellence award.

When the COVID-19 vaccine came out, her whole life changed, Conrad said. As she had done throughout her career, she reported to the hospital the safety issues and new trends in illness that she was seeing, such as elderly vaccinated people hospitalized for COVID-19 or young people with blood clots.

In researching whether providers in other places were witnessing the same issues, Conrad discovered VAERS — which she said she and her colleagues had never been told about, despite claims later made by the hospital — and began reporting cases.

She volunteered to take on this reporting role for the hospital, reporting all of the adverse events that came into the facility.

As the number of adverse events grew, the reporting became too onerous, so Conrad asked the hospital to develop a plan to efficiently complete the reports, to protect patients and to remain in compliance.

Instead, the hospital informed her it would be auditing her work.

The hospital accused Conrad of over-reporting and being “antivaxxy.” This was a problem, the hospital informed her in an email included in the complaint, because “we are very much advocating for patients to receive the vaccine.”

She was forbidden from filing reports for any patient she was not directly caring for, even though her leadership role meant she oversaw all patients, Conrad said.

If she had other concerns, they said she could register them in the hospital’s internal email system, “Safe Connect,” which she did. However, those reports weren’t going anywhere.

Concerned the events weren’t being reported and that the hospital was out of compliance with the agreement it had signed, Conrad began reaching out to the CDC, the FDA, the New York State Department of Health and the hospital accreditation board.

Rather than receiving support, Conrad said:

“I kept getting gaslit and made fun of and told I was crazy.

“Then I got called into a meeting and they threatened to report me to the state for spreading misinformation, saying that basically doing VAERS reports and talking to patients about their potential side effects is misinformation, and that I was spreading vaccine hesitancy, and that’s not allowed.

“And they said if it continued they were going to report me to have basically my license taken away. Wow. So at that point, I knew I was in real trouble.”

She contacted a lawyer and went public with her experience on The Highwire and in The New York Times. She also started a GoFundMe campaign, anticipating her possible firing.

The hospital threatened to report her to the New York State Society of Physician Assistants for spreading vaccine misinformation. Just a few months earlier, the same organization had nominated Conrad for a seat on the New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct.

In what Conrad called “direct retaliation,” on Oct. 6, 2021, she was publicly surrounded at her workstation by human resources staff and escorted to a room where she was interrogated about her public comments.

“They basically told me, are you going to leave quietly or are we going to walk you out?” she said.

Conrad said the firing was very public and humiliating, which she thought was meant to scare others. “As a result of me being publicly fired, it’s my understanding that now no one [at the hospital] is reporting to VAERS,” she said.

Providers aren’t trained to use VAERS

The VAERS system is the primary public reporting system for flagging vaccine safety issues. For members of the public, it’s a voluntary system. However, healthcare professionals are required to report certain events.

Yet, Conrad said, she never learned about VAERS in her medical training and the hospital never offered training for the system. She said they never mentioned the system to staff until she complained publicly.

“We come out of school knowing every side effect for every drug known to man, because they have no liability shield, but we are never taught there could be anything wrong with vaccines,” she said.

“We didn’t even know there’s a reporting system. Why is that? Why do we have a liability shield for vaccines if they’re so safe? Why would we need it when we don’t have it for drugs that we know are not always safe? None of it makes sense,” she added.

Conrad said this “flawed” and “fraudulent” system is responsible for the rise in “vaccine hesitancy.” “They blame people like me for this hesitancy,” she said, “but they are the ones who created the issue by not enforcing” safety and injury reporting.

Instead, she said, the public health agencies normalized previously unthinkable ideas, such as it’s normal for vaccines to make people sick, or that reused cloth masks would protect from infectious disease and much more.

Healthcare is about safety, she said. “First, do no harm. That’s the oath I took when I graduated. But they’re using the doctors to harm patients unknowingly and not teaching them about the safety mechanisms we put in place.”

Conrad said she hopes the lawsuit will help change that. Now that it is unsealed, she said, “We’re able to go back out there and start talking about things because the public cannot forget. We cannot forget what has been done. Otherwise it’ll happen again.”

Mendenhall said he expects a response from the hospital system next week. He predicts they will submit a motion to dismiss, which he intends to contest.

“This is the first case of its kind,” he said. “I predict we will succeed in defending any motion to dismiss because Deb did such a good job with the evidence and her story is very compelling.”

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.

May 24, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

US plans to be ‘very involved’ in post-war Gaza – Politico

RT | May 24, 2024

The US wants a “prominent” role in Gaza after Israel’s military operation in the Palestinian enclave ends, Politico has reported. Washington expects a joint Palestinian-Arab force of several thousand troops to take charge of security in Gaza after the current conflict.

On Thursday, Politico reported details of discussions within the administration of US President Joe Biden about what a post-war settlement should look like, citing four officials and a leaked document from the Department of State.

The US reportedly wants to retain a “civilian adviser” to any future security force, likely based in Egypt or Jordan. American forces, however, would “never enter Gaza itself” in order to avoid the impression that Washington was “dictating the future of the territory.”

A classified document from March envisioned an American filling the role of a “director-general” of the future security mission, according to the outlet. Under that proposal, the force would consist of roughly 2,000 Palestinians and 1,000 troops from Arab-speaking nations. It would be commanded by an officer from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, or “ideally” Egypt.

The timeline for the implementation of Washington’s plans are unclear, according to a US intelligence assessment described by Politico earlier this week. The document said Israel had managed to reduce the strength of Hamas forces by up to 35% since the group’s attack on Israel last October. However, it has recruited thousands of new fighters in recent months, a source in the intelligence community told Politico.

The Pentagon’s widely reported efforts to deliver humanitarian aid via a floating pier have been undermined by logistical and security issues. No food reached starving Palestinians between last Friday and Tuesday of this week, spokesman Pat Ryder told reporters, blaming the delay on local NGOs that were tasked with distributing the aid.

The US has refused to work with the UN Refugee Agency, a prominent provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, after Israel accused some of its employees of involvement in the October 7 attack. Last month, the UN said it had closed or suspended its probes into the allegations because Israel had failed to provide any evidence substantiating its claims.

May 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment