‘Tacit Admission of Guilt’: Two Top Journal Editors Decline to Testify Before Congress on Scientific Censorship
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 17, 2024
Only 1 of 3 science journal editors invited to testify before Congress on government interference in the peer-reviewed publication process accepted the invitation this week.
Holden Thorp, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, on Tuesday testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Magdalena Skipper, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of Nature, and Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, “declined to participate,” according to the subcommittee’s website.
“We invited the editors-in-chief of The Lancet, Nature and Science. Only the editor of Science had the courage to come and help us be better,” Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said.
In his opening remarks Tuesday, Wenstrup said, “This subcommittee was established so we can collectively take a look back on the pandemic and see what we can do better for the next time.”
But experts who spoke with The Defender said they were disappointed with the editors who declined to testify — but also with the members of the subcommittee, who they argued failed to address key issues during the hearing.
Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender, “The committee and Thorp disappointed academic researchers and the public alike.”
McCullough, author of more than 1,000 science journal articles, added:
“Thorp was silent on harmful retractions of fully published papers … This has happened repeatedly for manuscripts describing early treatment(s) and protocols for ambulatory acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and for reports of COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities and deaths.
“Who is behind these retractions? Why are they working to suppress early therapeutic options for patients and scrub any concerns over vaccine safety?”
Epidemiologist and public health research scientist M. Nathaniel Mead told The Defender, “It seems very telling” that Skipper and Horton skipped Tuesday’s hearing.
“In the context of SARS-CoV-2 origins, these two journals have been accused of being unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry and government agencies,” Mead said. “Such conflicts can impede unbiased scientific reporting and commentaries.”
“Skipper and Horton’s absence would seem to be a tacit admission of guilt on the part of the two journals they represent,” said Mead, who wrote a peer-reviewed paper that was retracted by the journal Cureus after publication.
McCullough said two papers for which he was senior author were retracted. “In both instances, the public and the practicing community were harmed by the intentional omission of critical side effects from the knowledge base on these products.”
Independent journalist Paul D. Thacker has investigated scientific censorship for The Disinformation Chronicle. He told The Defender, “The science and medical journals did not publish the best research available during the pandemic. They just served as gatekeepers to protect people, institutions and corporations in power.”
Thacker added:
“Holden Thorp should resign. He oversaw a news section that ran several fake stories about the pandemic to misinform the scientific community. And Science published studies that have been noted in the peer-reviewed literature for poor statistics to deny a possible lab accident. It’s a historical low point for this publication.
“Nothing will change from these hearings. My only hope is that some researchers will understand how corrupt the scientific process has become and this hearing will spur them to make change.”
‘No place for politics’ or government influence over journals
During his opening remarks, Wenstrup said the hearing was not intended “to see how the government can be more involved in the journal editorial process, but to make sure that the government does not involve itself or influence this process.”
“There’s no denying the awesome power these periodicals as well as their editors hold over the medical and scientific communities,” Wenstrup said. As a result, “there can be no place for politics or inappropriate government influence of journals.”
But Wenstrup accused the journals and their editors of not always being “arbiters of truth.” Instead, he said, they “provide a forum where scientific claims are made, defended, and debated by peer review.” Wenstrup added, “We saw a breakdown of that during the pandemic.”
“Rather than the journals being a wealth of information and opinions about this novel virus of which we knew so little, they helped establish a party line that literally put a chilling effect on scientific research regarding the origins of COVID-19,” Wenstrup said.
Wenstrup cited the “Proximal Origin” paper — published by Nature in March 2020 — as an example, saying that it helped “set a precedent … that the natural origin of COVID-19 was the only plausible theory.”
“Anyone else who had even the inkling of another plausible scientific thought was immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist … How is that acceptable in the scientific community when the entire crux of the field is open for debate?” Wenstrup said.
During his opening remarks, Ranking Member Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) contradicted Wenstrup’s statements, claiming the subcommittee has not proven that top government public health officials such as Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins orchestrated the publication of the “Proximal Origin” paper.
‘Clear evidence of malfeasance and dishonesty’
Thorp told members of the subcommittee that he is “extraordinarily proud of the Science journals’ work” and “of the role that the scientific enterprise plays in society.”
He said the Science journals “abide by a rigorous multi-step peer-review process” and “a careful process to ensure that the reviewers do not have a conflict of interest.” This “well-established process,” he said, “was applied consistently to the nearly 9,000 research papers submitted to the Science family of journals related to SARS-CoV-2.”
Thorp referred to a May 2021 letter by virologist Jesse D. Bloom that Science published in its commentary section. “This letter called for a thorough investigation of a lab origin of COVID-19,” Thorp said, citing the commentary as evidence the journal did not conduct viewpoint censorship.
“Publication of this letter turned the tide in the discussion of COVID origins toward considering the possibility of a lab origin,” Thorp said.
Thorp also referred to two papers, by virologists Michael Worobey and Jonathan E. Pekar, published in Science’s research section 2022 that supported but “[did] not conclusively prove the theory of natural origin.” He said the government did not influence the publication of these papers.
“To be clear and to state upfront, no government officials from the White House or the NIH [National Institutes of Health] prompted or participated in the review or editing of [these] papers by us,” Thorp said.
Upon questioning by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) about communications between Fauci, Collins and Thorp in May 2021, Thorp said they supported an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 at the time and did not dissuade Science from publishing the Bloom letter.
Responding to Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), Thorp acknowledged that opinion pieces “go to 8,000 reporters four days before they’re published.” Because some of these pieces mention government figures, he “from time to time let[s] them know ahead of time that there’s an opinion piece coming that they might get asked about.”
“Scientists are not and never will be perfect,” Thorp said. “We are human, but the scientific method enables us to reach beyond our individual limitations by requiring evidence and constant self-correction. It helped us end the pandemic.”
Referring to the Worobey and Pekar papers, Wenstrup said, “It seems that these studies, much like ‘Proximal Origin’ … were used to stifle debate.”
Similarly, Mead told The Defender that, in recent years, “It seems clear that prestigious high-impact journals like Nature and The Lancet were inclined to prioritize certain narratives or findings that align with the interests of their influential stakeholders.”
“The result has been a suppression of alternative theories or evidence that diverges from these interests, undermining the integrity and objectivity of scientific inquiry,” Mead said, adding that this obstructed the “open exchange of information critical for understanding how this pandemic got created in the first place.”
“The more insidious fundamental issue concerns the biases of the editors themselves and the behind-the-scenes communications they receive from industry and government sources that want them to uphold a specific narrative,” Mead said.
Noting that Democrat members of the subcommittee appeared to defend former government officials like Fauci and Collins during the hearing, Mead said, “It seems fairly clear … that the mega financial relationships between biopharmaceutical companies and the Democratic Party have tainted the conversation around the politicization of science.”
“Why are Fauci and Collins being so assiduously protected by the Democrats when there is clear evidence of malfeasance and dishonesty on their parts?” Mead asked. “This seems to be yet another attempt to whitewash what happened during the pandemic.”
Deleted Thorp tweet contradicts his congressional testimony
Wenstrup questioned Thorp about a now-deleted March 2023 tweet referring to the origins of COVID-19, in which Thorp said, “One side has scientific evidence, the other has a mediocre episode of Homeland,” noting that “the tweet appears to contradict your testimony today.”
“I was not as careful expressing my personal opinions on my personal Twitter page as I should have,” Thorp said. “That does happen on social media. From time to time, I’ve gotten off Twitter and I highly recommend that.”
Wenstrup also asked Thorp about a November 2021 editorial in which he claimed that research allegedly conducted by the University of North Carolina, the EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology on inserting furin cleavage sites into novel coronaviruses did not occur.
Thorp said he is under pressure to write a 720-word editorial “every two weeks” and, at the time, he “was going from what was reported in news stories” about the issue.
Mead told The Defender that Thorp’s admission that he was basing his editorials on information reported in news stories “is quite alarming.”
“Relying solely on mainstream news reports rather than direct investigation through primary sources and interviews with Ralph Baric and other researchers risks perpetuating misinformation and totally undermines the integrity of scientific inquiry,” Mead said.
‘Redactions were never mentioned’ during the hearing
“The government will never earn the trust back from the Americans by deeming all information that it doesn’t like as misinformation, nor will it deserve that trust if that’s what our government is doing,” Wenstrup said in his closing remarks.
But experts told The Defender that there was much that Wenstrup and other members of the subcommittee left out of Tuesday’s hearing.
“Congress needs to explore ways to cut off taxpayer funding for journals that do not want to be accountable to taxpayers,” Thacker said.
“The behavior of Nature has been atrocious, both in terms of the biased news they ran during the pandemic and the corrupt studies they published, such as the ‘Proximal Origin’ paper, which has all the hallmarks of ghostwriting that I looked into while leading congressional investigations,” Thacker added.
Mead said the relationships of key virologists with Fauci and the Wuhan Institute of Virology “should have been discussed openly” during the hearing.
“Retractions were never mentioned in the context of scientific journals and censorship by those journals,” Mead added. “Problems with the peer review process need to be more fully fleshed out, such as how to avoid overly biased reviewers being skewed in a particular direction to suit the editors’ own biases.”
“It would be interesting to find out how much of Science’s revenue depends on pharmaceutical advertising,” he added.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
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.
US to Allocate $40Mln in Defense Aid to Argentina Wishing to Be NATO’s Partner – Embassy
Sputnik – 19.04.2024
The United States will allocate $40 million to support defense modernization of Argentina, which has declared its intention to become NATO’s global partner, the US Embassy in Buenos Aires said.
On Thursday, Argentine Defense Minister Luis Alfonso Petri said that Buenos Aires wanted to become NATO’s global partner and had already submitted a corresponding request. NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana welcomed the request, saying that closer political and practical cooperation could benefit both parties.
“The United States is proud to announce that it is providing $40 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to support Argentina’s defense modernization,” the embassy said in a statement released on Thursday.
The diplomatic mission noted that such support is provided only to the US’s important partners.
Argentina will be able to purchase defense products, training services, and improve interaction thanks to US military aid. The funds will also contribute to Argentina’s purchase of F-16 fighter jets, the statement read.
In November 2023, Javier Milei won the runoff presidential election in Argentina. During the presidential campaign, Milei spoke against joining BRICS and cooperating with China, Brazil and Russia, and advocated a foreign policy oriented toward Israel and the United States.
From the river to the sea – a call for rightful decolonisation
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | April 19, 2024
Israeli media is celebrating another win for its narrative, as the US Congress passed a resolution condemning the Palestinian resistance chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, as anti-Semitic. The resolution’s text reads like a series of snippets that supposedly justify the anti-Semitic nature of the slogan but, instead, comes across as Israel’s exhausting propaganda that shields it from accountability for colonialism, war crimes and even genocide.
The text is typical of the usual conflation between Jews and Israel, purporting that the slogan promotes violence “against the state of Israel and the Jewish community globally”. It also partially states, “Whereas the slogan ‘‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’’ is an anti-Semitic call to arms with the goal of the eradication of the State of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.” In political terms, this would mean decolonisation – the dissolution of a colonial structure which the international community legitimised and recognised, despite it being built upon the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. There is no anti-Semitism in decolonisation – only a political right.
To allegedly prove a point, the resolution brings in Iraq’s former President, Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and several Hamas members, besides peddling several allegations that have since been proven false, such as Hamas beheading babies on 7 October. The resolution would only be taken seriously by Israel’s allies, who do not question the Zionist manipulation of anti-Semitism to suit its expansionist agenda. Even with the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
How come a slogan – a resistance call that is not backed up with any tangible resistance support for Palestine – prove to be dangerous in the bigger scheme of things, when Israel is eliminating the Palestinian people from Gaza?
“Hateful rhetoric obstructs peace efforts”, the resolution partly states. And genocide does not? Or is US Congress now advocating for genocide for peace, in much the same way Israel would prefer peace – without Palestinians?
The slogan has been used by allegedly “violent protestors” – where is the proof? Or is the Zionist construction of violence one where the colonised and their supporters are calling upon political rights to be recognised? The resolution claims that the slogan “perpetuates hatred against the state of Israel and the Jewish people”. Another false claim – Israel has perpetuated hatred against itself and any hate spilling over for Jewish people is a result of Israel equating Judaism and Zionism together, despite the difference. To put it simply, Jews are objects in the eyes of Israel – tools for colonial expansion to be used and exploited. Jews who are not Zionist recognise this fact, just as Christians who are Zionist do not, for example.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” speaks of Palestine without Zionism, of Palestine with roots in a history that Israel is frantically trying to eradicate. There is no violence in Palestinians remembering their land. No incitement but an assertion of what rightfully belongs to Palestinians. Colonialism breeds the need for anti-colonial struggle, and that is where the focus should shift – on the anomaly of a European colonial ideology thieving land that is not theirs, and committing genocide to retain it.
ISIS kills Palestinian fighters in Syrian desert
The Cradle | April 19, 2024
At least 20 fighters from Liwa al-Quds, a Palestinian armed group supporting the Syrian army, were killed when their bus was ambushed by unknown militants in the eastern countryside of Homs Governorate in Syria, Sputnik reported on 19 April.
Sputnik’s correspondent added that the ambush was carried out by militants likely affiliated with ISIS. The militants attacked the bus with heavy machine guns and B7 artillery shells while it was traveling between the village of Al-Koum and the city of Al-Sukhnah in the eastern Badia desert near Palmyra.
Several Liwa al-Quds members were also seriously injured, suggesting the death toll may rise.
The Syrian army sent reinforcements to the area and began extensive combing operations in search of ISIS cells.
The Badia desert near Al-Suknah lies north of the 55-kilometer “protected” area surrounding the illegal US military base at Al-Tanf on the Syria–Iraq–Jordan border.
Pro-Syrian forces are not allowed to enter the protected zone and are bombed by US warplanes if attempting to do so.
The Syrian and Russian governments have accused the US of training militants from ISIS and other mercenary armed groups in the protected zone and allowing them to use it as a base for attacks on Syrian forces elsewhere in the Badia desert region.
The Russian military has supported the Syrian army’s effort to defeat ISIS since 2015. On Thursday, Russian Major General Yuri Popov confirmed that the Russian Air Force destroyed three militant bases in remote areas in Homs Governorate.
During a press conference, Popov said, “The Russian Air Force destroyed three bases for militants who left the Al-Tanf area and were hiding in inaccessible areas in the Al-Amur mountain range in Homs Governorate.”
In recent months, ISIS has escalated its operations, targeting civilians, soldiers, and forces supporting the Syrian army.
ISIS attacks on Syrian forces have coincided with Israel’s ongoing shadow war with Iran, including in Syria. On 1 April, Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing a prominent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general.
Iran responded last week by launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, damaging the Nevatim airbase and an intelligence collection center on Jabal al-Sheikh mountain on the Lebanon border.
Syria is part of the Axis of Resistance forces, along with Iran, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, that have sought to resist Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
US Shows True Attitude to Palestinians by Casting Veto on State’s Membership in UN – Russian Envoy
Sputnik – 18.04.2024
UNITED NATIONS – The United States has shown its true attitude towards the Palestinians by blocking the recommendation to admit the country to the UN. For Washington, the Palestinian people have no right to their own state, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
“In essence it was a simple question: whether the Palestinians deserve to be part of the world family, to fully participate in all decisions of international life,” Nebenzia said.
“By using the veto for the fifth time since the beginning of the escalation in Gaza, they have again demonstrated their true attitude towards the Palestinians. For Washington, they do not deserve to have a state of their own. They are only an obstacle on the way to the realization of Israel’s interests,” the representative added.
The United States veto cast against the proposed resolution on Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations is a hopeless attempt to change the course of history, the envoy stressed.
“Today’s use of the veto by the US delegation is a hopeless attempt to stop the inevitable course of history. The results of the vote, where Washington was practically in complete isolation, speak for themselves,” Nebenzia emphasized.
However, history will not forgive the United States for its actions, the diplomat added.
Earlier on Thursday, the UN Security Council convened and discussed the proposed resolution on Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations. The United States, which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, cast a veto against adopting the proposed resolution.
Wheels Within Wheels: Complexity is Real in War
By Bill Buppert | The Libertarian Institute | April 18, 2024
Sober observers may find another reason for the Iranian attack against Israel this month in retaliation for the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate annex building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria on April Fools Day.
May I suggest it is more important in this case to exhaust the kinetic Israeli/US air defense assets and accuracy doesn’t matter as long as exquisite munitions are exhausted; whether shoot/shoot/look or shoot/look/shoot which is a slight permutation on dynamic retasking, controlled pairs or more of air defense munitions are launched as a matter of course to service incoming ordnance. If the object here is to empty the western magazine cupboards by sending your older and less effective munitions aloft (Iran), mission accomplished and you have a very sufficient intelligence mapping of Israeli Anti-Access Air Defense (A2AD) dispositions and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) for follow-on responses.
Nations and regions do stumble into war precipitously but there are conflicts in history where the weaker opponents plan and shape the conditions to prevail before the conflict is started; Vietnam is the best example in recent history of reading the tea leaves and setting the stage for success against superior forces.
The west has a manufacturing crisis right now that is existential in restocking and reconstituting the emptying stocks of war materiel. One can either favor or oppose doing that but the fact remains the manufacturing base and capability is an open question for America and its allies.The chaos avalanche of the competency crisis, the reproducibility problems in STEM research & application and the very real infrastructure failures increasing in frequency year by year doesn’t bode well for those wishing to replenish the diminished war stocks potentially reconstituting with stuff that simply doesn’t work.
The second 155mm artillery shell manufacturing plant in the west just went up in flames in the UK in less than a week. One in Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in PA and the BAE Systems Glascoed Plant in Monmouthshire, UK.
In war, there is a lot to be said for how to leverage shaping the conflict left of bang.
I’m fond of saying that many people are in charge but no one is in control.
Ukraine strikes hospital in Donbass, injuring eight – authorities
RT | April 18, 2024
Ukrainian troops have struck a hospital and blood donation center in the Donbass town of Gorlovka, the head of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, has said. Eight civilians including a child were injured in the attack.
The victims sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the strike, Pushilin wrote on Telegram on Thursday.
The Ukrainian forces “deliberately” targeted the town center where healthcare facilities are located, he claimed. Both the hospital and the donation center were damaged in the strike.
Gorlovka Mayor Ivan Prikhodko published photos and videos from the scene showing damaged buildings, including the hospital and the blood donor center. The images show smashed windows and the area nearby littered with debris. One clip also showed destroyed and damaged furniture in a room at the healthcare facility.
Kiev’s troops used the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) in the attack, according to preliminary data gathered by the Russian authorities.
Washington has sent dozens of these multiple rocket launchers to Ukraine since mid-2022. The systems provided to Kiev have a range of up to 160km (100 miles) when equipped with longer-range ATACMS missiles. Other projectiles launched by HIMARS and available to the Ukrainian military have a range of around 70km.
According to Pushilin, Kiev’s forces carried out a total of 12 attacks on Thursday – missile and drone strikes – targeting Gorlovka as well as Donetsk and some other Donbass settlements. Cluster munitions were used in some of these attacks, the official said.
Last week, Ukrainian forces conducted a missile strike targeting a machinery plant in the city of Lugansk. Nine people were injured, including seven machinery plant workers and two local residents, the leader of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, said at that time. UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were used in that assault, according to Russian law enforcement.
The collapse of the concept of a rules-based international order
By Veniamin Popov – New Eastern Outlook – 18.04.2024
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States believed that a unipolar world would last forever: year after year, day after day, it became increasingly blatant in its disregard for the interests of others and the opinions of the rest of the world.
Then the concept of an international “rules-based order” was born: a group of American scholars, former and future officials, presented a paper at Princeton in 2006 entitled “A World of Freedom Under Law”. They framed this as a response to the weaknesses of international law, suggesting that when international institutions fail to produce the outcomes preferred by the “world of freedom”, there is “an alternative forum for liberal democracies to authorise collective action”. In practice, this forum has most often been the White House.
During the Libyan crisis of 2011, the United States and its allies used Security Council authorisation for a no-fly zone to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.
American troops have now been operating in eastern Syria for more than eight years – yet there is no justification in international law for their presence.
Even American political scientists describe this concept as a kind of asterisk placed over international law. The “rules-based order” absolves the US and its allies of responsibility and fundamentally undermines the concept of international law. US policymakers use this theory to entrench US advantages as a global power. When the prerogatives and rules of international law coincide with the canons they establish, Washington calls them synonymous. Thus, on the eve of February 2022, i.e. the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, Secretary Blinken warned of a moment of danger for “the foundations of the United Nations Charter and the rules-based international order that preserves stability around the world”, but when US prerogatives diverge from international law, the concept of a “rules-based order” comes into play, which “should ultimately benefit global stability”.
A prime example is the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which the George W. Bush administration cynically justified as a means of enforcing UN disarmament mandates. Iraq was declared an invader, it survived the military occupation, the death toll of Iraqis is approaching 1 million, and the country is still reeling from America’s brazen attack.
Washington’s military and economic might at the time ensured that America would face few consequences for invading without UN authorisation.
The very concept of a “rules-based order” set America at odds with the rest of the world, which recognised that international relations were becoming multipolar. Many leaders of developing countries, especially Russia, China, India and Brazil, talked about the same thing. Even American allies tried to show the flaws in the concept. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder warned of the “undeniable danger of US unilateralism”, and former French Minister Hubert Védrine once said that “France’s entire foreign policy … is aimed at making tomorrow’s world consist of several poles, not just one”.
According to Harvard University professor Stephen Walt, the US was carried away by a show of force, disregarding the opinions of even its allies and international organisations, and then went off on its own to gain the advantage.
The Gaza war drew a final line under the concept of the “rules-based order”: on 25 March, 14 members of the UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate end to the war in Gaza, with the US abstaining. The resolution became a legally enforceable document, but Israel, unwilling to accept UN mandates, continued to bomb the southern town of Rafah and besiege Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Shortly after the vote, a spokesman for the Biden administration called Resolution No. 2728 “non-binding”, in a clear attempt to deny its status as international law. At a State Department press briefing, the spokesman said the measure would not lead to an immediate ceasefire or affect the complex hostage negotiations.
International law is clearly against what Israel is doing in Gaza. 2 months before Resolution No. 2728 was adopted, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s ongoing campaign could plausibly be considered genocide and called on Israel to take measures to prevent genocide.
On the eve of the passage of Bill 2728, the Canadian Parliament passed a motion to halt new arms transfers to Israel. On the day the Security Council adopted the resolution, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, recommended that member states “immediately” impose an arms embargo on Israel for failing to comply with mandatory measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.
After the above resolution was passed, White House national security spokesman John Kirby clarified that American arms shipments and sales to Israel would not be affected, while the State Department stated, and the White House later confirmed, that “there are no incidents where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law.
All of this comes after Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children, and displaced and permanently starved two million people in Gaza. In addition, the Israeli military bombed a convoy of aid workers from the World Central Kitchen.
The crux of the matter is that Washington is arming a country that has been ordered by the Security Council to cease hostilities. Washington’s actions are at odds with reality: the massacre in Gaza has made many foreign figures and organisations reluctant to listen to American officials on other issues. According to US press reports, Annelle Sheline, a State Department human rights official who recently resigned, said that some activist groups in North Africa have simply stopped meeting with her and her colleagues: “Trying to defend human rights has simply become impossible as long as the US is helping Israel,” she said.
Two years ago, US diplomats seeking support for Ukraine faced “a very clear negative reaction to America’s penchant for defining the global order and forcing countries to take sides”. In this regard, the New York Times concluded on 10 April this year that “Resolution No. 2728, which passed without result, may well be remembered as a watershed moment in the decline of the ‘rules-based international order’ – that is, the world the United States seeks to build and preserve… Gaza is a chilling reminder that in a world of exceptions to international law, it is the least powerful who suffer the most.
All these developments were accurately characterised by China’s Permanent Representative to the UN, who described the US statements and actions as incompatible with the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and said that Washington was undermining the authority of the Security Council.
Could the Russians Seize Congress?
By Patrick Lawrence | Consortium News | April 16, 2024
The Russians are coming — or coming back, better put.
As the November elections draw near, let us brace for another barrage of preposterous propaganda to the effect Russians are poisoning our minds with “disinformation,” “false narratives,” and all the other misnomers deployed when facts contradict liberal authoritarian orthodoxies.
We had a rich taste of this new round of lies and innuendo in late January, when Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who served as House speaker for far too long, asserted that the F.B.I. should investigate demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza for their ties, yes indeedy, to the Kremlin.
Here is Pelosi on CNN’s State of the Union program Jan. 28:
“For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine… I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the F.B.I. to investigate that.”
O.K., we have the template: If you say something that coincides with the Russian position, you will be accused of hiding your “ties to Russia,” as the common phrase has it.
Be careful not to mention some spring day that the sky is pleasantly blue: I am here to warn you—“make no mistake” — this is exactly what “Putin,” now stripped of a first name and a title, “would like to see.”
There is invariably an ulterior point when those in power try on tomfoolery of this kind. In each case they have something they need to explain away.
In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the polls, so we suffered four years of Russiagate. Pelosi felt called upon to discredit those objecting to the Israeli–U.S. genocide in Gaza.
Protest against Israeli genocide in Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C., Nov. 4, 2023. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Now we have a new ruse. Desperate to get Congress to authorize $60.1 billion in new aid to Ukraine, Capitol Hill warmongers charge that those objecting to this bad-money-after-bad allocation are… do I have to finish the sentence?
Two weeks ago Michael McCaul, a Republican representative who wants to see the long-blocked aid bill passed, asserted in an interview with Puck News that Russian propaganda has “infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” Here is the stupid-sounding congressman from Texas, as quoted in The Washington Post, elaborating on our now-familiar theme:
“There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it — and it’s almost identical on our airwaves. These people that read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda.”
I read in the Post that McCaul’s staff abruptly cut short the interview when Julia Ioffe, a professional Russophobe who has bounced around from one publication to another for years, asked him to name a few names.
So was this latest ball of baloney set in motion.
A week after McCaul’s Puck News interview, Michael Turner, an Ohio Republican who, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, swings a bigger stick, escalated matters when, reacting to McCaul’s statements, reported that this grave Russian penetration was evident in the upper reaches of the American government, as again reported in The Washington Post :
“Oh, it is absolutely true. We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti–Ukraine and pro–Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.”
Masked communications uttered on the House floor: Hold the thought, as I will shortly return to it.
The VOA Rendition
The taker of the cake — so far, anyway — arrived last week from Voice of America, the Central Intelligence Agency front posing as a radio broadcaster, under the headline, “How Russia’s disinformation campaign seeps into U.S. views.” Same theme: The Rrrrrussians are poisoning America’s otherwise pristine discourse in an effort to block authorization of the assistance bill, which also includes aid to Israel ($14.1 billion) and Taiwan ($4 billion).
To drive home its point, VOA quotes a lobbyist named Scott Cullinane, who works for something called Razom, which means “together” in the Ukrainian language. Razom is a non-governmental organization “formed in 2014 to support Ukrainians in their quest for freedom.” That is, Razom’s founding coincided with the coup in Kiev the U.S. orchestrated in February 2014.
Razom works with a variety of Ukrainian NGOs to advance this cause and sounds to me like a player in the old civil-society-subterfuge game, though one cannot be sure because, on its website and in its annual reports, it does not say, per usual in these sorts of cases, who funds it.
Here is a little of VOA’s report on Cullinane’s recent doings on Capitol Hill:
“On a near daily basis, Scott Cullinane talks with members of Congress about Russia’s war in Ukraine. As a lobbyist for the nonprofit Razom, part of his job is to convince them of Ukraine’s need for greater U.S. support to survive.
But as lawmakers debated a $95 billion package that includes about $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, Cullinane noticed an increase in narratives alleging Ukrainian corruption. What stood out is that these were the same talking points promoted by Russian disinformation.
So, when The Washington Post published an investigation into an extensive and coordinated Russian campaign to influence U.S. public opinion to deny Ukraine the aid, Cullinane says he was not surprised.
‘This problem has been festering and growing for years,’ he told VOA. ‘I believe that Russia’s best chance for victory is not on the battlefield, but through information operations targeted on Western capitals, including Washington.’”
Straight off the top, there has been no Washington Post “investigation.” The Post simply quoted two paranoid congressmen without bothering to question, never mind investigate, the veracity of their assertions.
Beyond this, the question of Ukrainian corruption is another case of the sky being blue. There is no “alleging” the Kiev regime’s corruption: It is thoroughly documented by, among other authorities, Transparency International, which ranks Ukraine among the world’s most corrupt nations.
You see what is going on here? This is an echo chamber, ever treasured by the propagandists.
Puck News, a web publication of no great account, puts out a warmongering reporter’s interview with a warmongering congressman, The Washington Post reports it, another congressman seconds the assertions of the first, the Post reports that, and then VOA joins the proceedings to report that well-established, beyond-dispute facts are Russian disinformation.
And the echoes multiply, like the circles in a pond when a rock is tossed in. Here is how Tagesspiegel, a Berlin daily whose Russophobia dates to its founding during the U.S. occupation after World War II, reported on the assistance bill immediately after the VOA report:
“The controversy about the aid, which has already passed the U.S. Senate, is reflected in numerous posts on social media and articles on news sites. As The Washington Post reports, one actor has played a decisive role in this: the Russian government.”
When propaganda is king, you have to conclude, what goes around keeps going around.
It is well enough to laugh at this silly business, transparently calculated as it is. Except that this kind of chicanery has a long history, and we learn from it that the Russians have been coming, off and on, for seven-plus decades. The consequences of these conjured imaginings, we also learn, are very other than funny.
When I decided to write the book that came out last autumn as Journalists and Their Shadows, exploring the past was essential to the project. If we want to understand our “press mess,” as I call the current crisis in our media, we had better understand how it got this way.
In the course of my researches into the exuberant anti–Communism of the early Cold War years, I came upon a lengthy takeout Look magazine published on Aug. 3, 1948, under the headline, “Could the Reds Seize Detroit?” This piece was exemplary of its time.
“Detroit is the industrial heart of America,” the writer began. “Today, a sickle is being sharpened to plunge into that heart… The Reds are going boldly about their business.”
Before he finishes, James Metcalfe — let this byline be recorded — has Motor City besieged in “an all-out initial blow in the best blitzkrieg fashion.” The presentation featured masked Communists murdering police officers and telephone operators, seizing airports, blowing up bridges, power grids, rail lines, and highways.
“Caught in the madness of the moment, emboldened by the darkness, intoxicated by an unbridled license to kill and loot, mobs would swarm the streets.” Communist mobs, naturally.
It is easy to read this now with some combination of derision and contempt. Do we have any grounds to do so? Are we doing things so differently now?
There were dangers implicit in the Look piece. It published Metcalfe’s paranoic fantasy a year and a few months after President Harry Truman gave his famous “scare hell out of the American people” speech to Congress in March 1947. Look was in essence recruiting the public as the Truman administration launched the Cold War crusade.
Representatives McCaul and Turner are on a recruitment drive of the very same kind. They are not lying to one another in any kind of effort to clean up Congress. Do not wait for them to lift a finger on that score. They are lying to you and me in what amounts to a scare-hell operation.
And the danger this time is the same as the danger last time. It is the cultivation of a climate of fear wherein the American public is to acquiesce as the new Cold War proceeds and all manner of laws and constitutional rights are abused.
Last Friday the House reauthorized, for two more years, the law known as Section 702, which allows the intelligence cabal to surveille Americans’ digital communications — without warrants and on U.S. soil — if they claim to be targeting foreigners suspected of subversive activities.
What does this have to do with the way the paranoids on Capitol Hill, reporters at The Washington Post, and professional propagandists at VOA are currently carrying on about assistance to Ukraine?
Nothing. And everything.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for The International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored.
Insurers claim ‘government’ could have sabotaged Nord Stream – Kommersant
RT | April 18, 2024
Insurance policies for the Nord Stream gas pipelines sabotaged in 2022 do not cover destruction or damage caused during military hostilities, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Thursday, citing a claim filed at the High Court in London by two major Western companies.
The reported claim by Lloyd’s of London and Arch Insurance comes in response to a court filing in March by Nord Stream AG, the pipeline’s operator.
The enterprise, which is 51% owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, alleged at the time that insurers had failed to pay about €400 million ($438 million) for damage caused by the explosions at the pipelines, according to the Financial Times. Nord Stream AG reportedly estimates it would cost over €1.2 billion to fully repair the infrastructure and replace the lost gas inventory.
In response, the two insurers are said to have claimed that “loss or damage directly or indirectly occasioned by, happening through, or in consequence of war” cannot be covered by the policies. They added that Russia-Ukraine conflict, which began in February 2022, “satisfies the terms war, invasion hostilities or military power.” The insurers also argue the damage could have been caused “by or under the order of any government,” according to Kommersant.
Commenting on the report, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said major concerns have been raised over the credibility of Western insurance giants. Any refusal to pay liabilities adds to a series of hostile acts towards Russia, according to Zakharova, including the seizure of state assets and private property, as well as alleged threats to damage civilian infrastructure.
Built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea, the Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by unknown perpetrators in a series of explosions in September 2022. The blasts left three out of four pipelines inoperable, causing what is believed to be the largest single methane leak ever.
Shortly after the sabotage, Germany, Denmark and Sweden – in whose economic zones the attack took place – launched separate investigations, although no results have been published. Earlier this year, Denmark and Sweden said they had closed their probes.
The Russian authorities have claimed the US had the most to gain from the sabotage, pointing to the opposition to the pipelines repeatedly voiced by the White House. Moscow has also accused the West of stonewalling the investigation.
Last year, award-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh accused Washington of being behind the bombing, although the White House dismissed the allegations. Several Western media outlets later reported that Ukrainian citizens had been involved in the sabotage. Kiev has denied any connection to the attack.
As a result of the sabotage, gas supplies from Russia to Germany via Nord Stream 1 were halted. Nord Stream 2 had never been put into operation due to EU bureaucratic setbacks.
X Says “Anti-Misinformation” Agency Spreading Falsehoods Caused “Incalculable” Damage
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 18, 2024
DoubleVerify, which says it is in the business of helping brands advertise more effectively while focusing on “transparency and authenticity” has caused X to lose a number of advertisers because it rated the platform’s “brand safety” erroneously.
The factual false information that DoubleVerify published to the world, all the while supposedly working to tackle misinformation, has to do with what the company said was “a graphical error in the display of X’s Brand Safety Rate in DV’s Pinnacle dashboard.”
This error continued to be displayed for four and a half months, showing a false, lower rate, admitted CEO Mark Zegorski.
The DoubleVerify CEO went on to say they took “full responsibility” and apologized, also revealing that the brand safety rate enjoyed by X “across all campaigns” the company measured “exceeded 99.99%.”
The damage done in this way is described by X Corp’s Business Operations chief Joe Benarroch as being “incalculable.”
According to him, dozens of firms justified their decision to pull out of advertising on X referring to DoubleVerify’s rating. This started happening after Elon Musk acquired then Twitter – while previously, those same brands had no problem advertising when the platform had a “politically liberal CEO.”
This was the case even though, according to Benarroch, Twitter had “little to no” brand safety capabilities before the Musk takeover, and that as much as 90% of those capabilities were built afterward.
The context of all this becomes even more interesting considering that the demand for DoubleVerify’s services (and resulting huge revenues) stems from the likes of the controversial Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM, currently investigated by the House Judiciary Committee) “normalizing” the notion that companies must not advertise if a platform is found guilty of “misinformation.”
This has spawned a whole industry of third-party “raters” who are often criticized as using their role and influence to push a certain – namely, left-leaning – political agenda, that results in conservative media, but also those that are center-right, as well as “disobedient” social platforms, losing sometimes vital ad revenue.
DoubleVerify in 2020 bragged that it was the first to harmonize its product with the rules pushed not only by GARM (an initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers with links to the World Economic Forum) but also by the 4A’s Advertising Protection Bureau (APB).
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From the Archives
The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
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