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America’s Domestic Party Politics Fuel the Ukraine Catastrophe

The war can only end when it helps Biden reelection

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 29, 2023

I am surely not the only one who has noticed that the defensive propaganda lines that are flowing out the Democratic Administration have become more than ordinarily ridiculous of late. One is astonished at the melding of fact and fiction to create narratives that depict the White House and all that pertains to it as forging a new and more wonderful country. Wasn’t “Build Back Better” the battle cry, whatever that is supposed to mean? And the spin is endless, even when a clueless Joe Biden belatedly winds up in Maui to relate to the tragedy in which at least 1,000 died, only to be greeted by surviving local residents saluting the president with their middle fingers upraised. As the president looked out over the destruction of an entire city by fire he reminisced by recalling his long ago “almost” encounter with a fire in his kitchen. Locals who were screaming for help from government were, in fact, getting almost nothing while the nation’s Chief Executive was in the Oval Office gloating over sending another $23 billion to the arch crook Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, money to fight a war that Biden encouraged and has blithely entered into.

Washington politicians characteristically have no morals and are driven only by their desire to perpetuate their party’s dominance so that the corruption that makes so many of those who adhere to the process rich, including Joe Biden continues. How do 500,000 dead Ukrainians and Russians matter if a myth about the United States and its values can be exploited to obtain electoral victory for Biden in 2024? As the greatly esteemed monster Madeleine Albright once put it, “I think it is worth it!”

I would suggest that our political class and the parasites that surround it are approaching depths not yet plumbed when I occasionally peruse articles or listen to speeches produced by the Washington DC spin machine. But even by that measure, I was appalled by a recent article that appeared in Politico and which immediately received considerable replay in other publications frequented by the inside-the-Beltway crowd.

Politico was acquired by Axel Springer, a German publisher in 2021, Europe’s largest newspaper and magazine conglomerate. Ideologically, some have described Springer publications’ political bias “as leaning left of center or moderate” but my personal exposure to the group since my army days in Germany has led me to believe that it is actually much more conservative than that. All employees at Springer, to include Politico, are expected to support the European Union, NATO, Israel, the war against Ukraine, the open society, and free market policies.

The article is entitled “Here Are 3 Ways to End the War in Ukraine. One Might Actually Work” with a subtitle “Putin has a veto over two endgames for Ukraine. But there’s a third that would bypass him.” The piece was penned by one Tom Malinowski, an assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration before serving as a Democratic Party congressman from New Jersey’s 7th district between 2019 and 2023. He is currently under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics over “substantial reason to believe” that he had violated federal laws relating to conflicts of interest. He had reportedly traded and failed to disclose approximately $1 million of stock in medical and technical companies that would be receiving taxpayer assistance as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response, which would inevitably result in a large surge in stock values.

Malinowski is currently a senior fellow at the McCain Institute, one of those foundations funded by defense industries where politicians go to hide and get rich between terms in elected office. The Institute is a Washington DC based allegedly “nonpartisan think tank established in cooperation with Arizona State University.” Its declared mission is to “fight for democracy, human dignity, and security for a world that is free, safe, and just for all people.” Inevitably, it is rather selective in terms of who exactly benefits from its largesse and one might recall that its eponymous founder Senator John McCain hardly ever saw a war he didn’t like and once dismissed Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a “gasoline station pretending to be a real country.” McCain was also a major player in the “regime change” operation in Ukraine in 2014, suggesting that his judgement about America’s relationship with the rest of the world just might be a little flawed.

Malinowski is inevitably fully on board with the White House view of why the United States has gone whole hog in a proxy war against Russia that uses Ukraine as its instrument of choice . He says in his first paragraph that “’Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia — never,’ President Joe Biden said in a speech in Poland this year, and rightly so. For the war in Ukraine to end on terms consistent with American interests and ideals, Ukraine must be seen to have won, and Russia’s invasion must go down in history as a decisive failure, enough to deter other authoritarian powers from launching similar wars of aggression in the future.”

Malinowski poses his “3 Ways” as follows: first, for “its armed forces to take back all the territory Russia has unlawfully seized since its first invasion in 2014 — including Crimea. This would be a fantastic outcome. It is still possible. And the United States should do everything possible to support it, including, if Congress approves more funding, by providing the more advanced weapons Ukraine has requested.”

If Malinowski thinks armed victory by Ukraine is “still possible” he is delusional, but he does not seriously expect that outcome, except for the “more funding” part. His Second Way, also a “red herring” to disguise where he really wants to go, would be “through a diplomatic agreement. Earlier this month, 40 countries, including China and the United States, met in Saudi Arabia to discuss President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 10-point plan for peace, which would require the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, the return of abducted children and justice for war crimes. Any settlement based on that plan would, of course, be wonderful. But Russia under Putin has never ended its wars at the negotiating table; at best it has frozen them, keeping its options open. Russia has shown zero interest in making concessions that would come close to the minimal requirements of Ukraine and its allies. As long as his military avoids total collapse, and he believes there is a chance of political change in the West, Putin will likely keep sacrificing Russians to stay in the fight.”

So Malinowski’s Second Way is a deliberately designed dead end and he, of course, blames it all on Putin. His actual “solution” would be the Third Way: “So if Russia manages to stymie plans A and B, where would that leave us by, say this time next year? Should Ukraine and its allies simply carry on, hoping for a breakthrough in 2025 or beyond? Given what’s at stake — not just the survival of Ukraine but of the whole international order — that would be risky. It would make success dependent on events we cannot predict or control, including on the outcome of elections in Western countries, including the United States. And while we have no right to tell Ukrainians to stop fighting before their country is whole, we also have no right to expect them to keep fighting at any cost. Fortunately, there is a third possible way to satisfy the need for Ukrainian success and Russian failure, over which Putin would have no veto.”

Malinowski requires that “the United States would give the Ukrainian military whatever it needs to advance as far as possible in its counteroffensive. At an appropriate point next year, Ukraine would declare a pause in offensive military operations and shift its primary focus to defending and rebuilding liberated areas while integrating with Western institutions. Then, at its July, 2024 summit in Washington, NATO would invite Ukraine to join the Western alliance, guaranteeing the security of all territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at that point under Article 5 of the NATO treaty… This would be a defensive pact, but not a commitment to take direct part in any future offensive operations Ukraine might choose to undertake. Ukraine joining NATO could itself be how the war ends, consistent with Biden’s current policy — and at a time and on terms set by Ukraine and its allies, not by Russia. Gaining security within NATO as a strong, pluralistic, democratic state would absolutely count as a victory for Ukraine — arguably as big as quickly regaining Crimea. It might make it politically possible for Zelensky, if he so chooses, to emphasize nonmilitary strategies for reclaiming any parts of his country still under Russian occupation, which Ukraine’s allies would also continue to support — potentially including anything from diplomacy and sanctions to blockade and sabotage… Adding a democratic Ukraine in NATO would mark the utter and permanent defeat of Putin’s crusade to absorb it into a Russian empire… Yes, Russian forces could try to go on the offensive again, but the likely futility of attacking fortified Ukrainian positions now backed by the threat of NATO firepower would be a strong deterrent. Meanwhile, sanctions on Russia would remain; its economic and military strength would continue to erode; and Putin could only watch as his frozen assets abroad are drawn down to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction.”

It is easy to see what is wrong with the Malinowski Third Way apart from it being an open door to initiating a nuclear World War III. And one might suggest that it is also possible to discern the US domestic politics that are driving it. How the war in Ukraine ends all depends on Zelensky behaving rationally, which he is not renowned for, and he is quite capable of joining NATO before using a false flag or otherwise provoking an incident with Russia that would require NATO Article 5 intervention. Also, all the other parties involved would have to act predictably and sanely, including the US, which is unlikely. Zelensky in particular is desperate to draw the US and NATO into his war and will do whatever it takes to arrive at that point and his non-negotiable demand for full restoration of all Ukrainian territory including Crimea, endorsed by Malinowski, is a deal breaker that in any event Russia could not accept.

Even the up-until-now supportive US mainstream media is beginning to see the light and is admitting both that the highly touted Ukrainian counteroffensive has been a failure and that Ukraine has no ability to defeat Russia no matter how many weapons are put in the pipeline at great cost to sustain it. And there is also the fraud from the Biden regime that is taking place with reports that even the normally biddable CIA has been warning to no avail that the war is unwinnable. The fact that as many as half a million Ukrainians and Russians have already been killed or wounded is starting to hit home with both Americans and Europeans and will increase demands to end the fighting as unconditionally as necessary.

A final but very important point that must be made is the deliberate timing of Malinowski’s “3rd Way” which very conveniently presents Joe Biden with a great military victory just before the US presidential election, erasing all memories of the disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan. It apparently matters not that in doing so it continues a bloody and pointless war and destroys Ukraine as a state and as a people. Online substack observer Simplicius the Thinker describes how “Democrats will need all the help they can get. If a plan could be designed and packaged in a way where it can be sold as a major ‘victory’ then certainly Democrats will attempt to drag it out until the eve of the election to try to use ‘Biden’s major Ukrainian victory’ as a huge final hour boost.” Joe and Malinowski apparently believe that victory in an election is more important that finding the sanity to take steps to save hundreds of thousands of lives and they will continue to do whatever it takes to “win.” Sickening.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 29, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

A Second Geo-Strategic Shoe (Other Than Ukraine) Is Dropping

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 28, 2023

Whilst it has become clear to increasing numbers of people in the West that something has gone terribly wrong with the élites’ Ukraine project, and that the exaggerated predictions and expectations of Russian forces being ‘knocked for six’ by an armoured ‘fist’ have proved spectacularly wrong, those same élites are going wrong again – on another strategically decisive issue: They again largely ignore ‘reality’ – for the sake of control of the ‘narrative’. In this case, the West prefers to sneer at the implications of the new accessions to BRICS (let alone the other 40 states ready to join): ‘Nothing to see there’.

The BRICS is just a jumble of states lacking any cohesion, or common thread, western MSM proclaims. It can never challenge the U.S. global power, nor the sheer financial weight of the dollar sphere. However, China’s Global Times explains in mild tones, a different backdrop:

“The reason why the BRICS mechanism has such great appeal … reflects a general disappointment of many developing countries with the global governance system dominated and interfered by the U.S. and the West. As China has repeatedly emphasized, the traditional global governing system has become dysfunctional, deficient and missing in action, and the international community urgently expects the BRICS mechanism to strengthen unity and cooperation”.

Others in the Global South say it more starkly: The BRICS mechanism is seen as a means to slough off the last vestiges of western colonialism and to acquire autonomy. Yes, of course, BRICS 11 initially will be more cacophony than smooth opera, but nonetheless, it represents a profound shift of global consciousness.

BRICS 11 establishes a pole of influence and global heft that has the potential to eclipse in scope that of the G7.

The ‘mess’ in Ukraine is commonly attributed to mere ‘miscalculation’ by the western élites: They did not expect Russian society to be so robust, nor so steadfast under pressure.

Yet this was no minor ‘slip up’ by the West, since the recognition of NATO’s doctrinal contradictions, its second-rate weaponry and its inability to think rigorously – beyond tomorrow’s sound-bite – has (inadvertently) shone the spotlight on the deeper dysfunction within the West – one that runs far deeper than just the situation around the Ukraine project. Many in the West see major institutions of society locked within suffocating orthodoxy; in an intense level of political and cultural polarisation; and with political reform effectively locked-down.

The proxy war on Russia nevertheless was launched through Ukraine, precisely to reaffirm western global vigour. It is doing the opposite.

The financial war (as opposed to the ground war in Ukraine) was the counter-play to generating regime change in Moscow: Financial war was intended to underline the futility of opposing the sheer ‘muscle’ that dollar hegemony – acting in concert – represented. It was the jealous hegemon demanding obeisance.

But this back-fired spectacularly. And this has directly contributed not just to the expansion of BRICS, but to the energy resources of the Middle East and the raw materials of Africa sliding out of western control. Rather than the western scatter-gun threats of sanctions and financial ostracisation creating fear and reaffirming obsequiousness, the threats contrarily, have mobilised anti-colonial sentiments across the globe; fed the understanding that the western financial construct amounted to tutelage, and that any acquisition of sovereignty required the act of de-dollarisation.

And here, again, egregious mistakes were committed: Errors of geo-strategic magnitude were embarked upon almost casually, and without due diligence.

The primordial mistake was that of Team Biden (and the EU) illegally seizing Russia’s overseas reserve assets; expelling Russia from the financial clearing system, SWIFT; and imposing a trade blockade so complete that (it was hoped in the White House) its effects would tear down President Putin. The rest of world understood – they easily could be next. They needed a sphere that was resistant to western financial predations.

Yet, the second strategic error by Biden (& Co.) magnified the error of their initial ‘unprecedented’ financial blitz. This blunder marked the ‘second shoe to drop’ in Biden’s de-fenestration of the American financial imperium: He treated Mohammad bin Salman (and the Saudis generally) with contemptuousness: ordering them to increase oil production (in order to bring down the price of gasoline before the mid-term Congressional elections), and disdainfully threatening the kingdom with “consequences”, were it to fail to comply.

Perhaps Biden, so consumed with his electoral prospects, did not think it through. Even now, it is not clear that the White House understands the consequences of it having treated MbS as some aberrant underling. There is an eleventh-hour attempt to dissuade Saudi from joining BRICS, but it is too late. It’s application to join has been approved and will take effect from 1 January 2024. The West misread the mood.

The shared ethos within Gulf states is one of self-assured, assertive leaders, who are no longer willing to accept binary ‘with us or against us’ U.S. demands.

For the avoidance of mis-understanding, Biden, through the combination of these two strategic mistakes, has launched the West’s financial hegemony onto a slipway leading to incremental unwinding of much of the $32 trillion of foreign investment in fiat dollars which has accumulated in the U.S. system over the last 52 years – with an implicit acceleration towards ‘own currency trading’ amongst the majority of non-western states.

Ultimately this likely will lead to a BRICS trade settlement medium – possibly anchored to gold. Were a trading currency to be anchored in some way to a gram of gold, that currency would, of course, acquire status as a store of value, based on that of the underlying commodity (in this case gold).

The point here is that when inflation was zero-bound, U.S. Treasury bonds were seen as a store of (enduring) value. However, wide de-dollarisation undermines the synthetic (i.e. the imposed) demand for dollars that owed entirely to the Bretton Woods and the Petro-dollar frameworks (that demanded that commodities be traded only in U.S. dollars) and to the implicit understanding that U.S. Treasuries offered a certain store of value.

But what did Team Biden do? They have driven Saudi Arabia – the lynchpin to the Petro-dollar, and one of the pillars (together with other Gulf States and China) underpinning the huge holdings of U.S. Treasury debt – into the arms of BRICS. Put simply, the BRICS 11 incorporates six out of nine of the top global energy producers, as well as the principal energy consumers. OPEC+, in effect, has been swallowed to make a self-enclosed, self-sufficient circle of trading in energy (and raw materials) that does not need to touch dollars. And over time, this will amount to a major monetary shock.

The ‘consequences’ threatened towards Saudi Arabia by the White House have been rendered inconsequential. Saudi and Iran can sell their oil to other BRICS consumers (in non-dollar currencies). Members no longer need to be so concerned at western threats – one of the key provisions of BRICS is the joint refusal of all members to permit or facilitate any ‘regime change’ manoeuvres against BRICS members.

To be clear, what this all means is further price inflation in the West, reflecting the falling purchasing power of fiat currencies as dollar-demand subsides. Inevitably, a weakening dollar will lead to higher interest rates in the U.S. This – simply – will be one major consequence of de-dollarisation. Higher interest rates will impose great stress on the U.S. and European banks.

The first BRICS 11 summit is set for October 2023 in Kazan. By ‘coincidence’, full membership of the new states will coincide with Russia taking the rotating annual presidency of the BRICS on 1 January 2024. Putin already has made clear his determination to move towards resolving the complexities of a separate BRICS currency – “one way or another”.

August 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

A New Covid ‘Variant’… Just in Time for Election Season!

By Ron Paul | August 28, 2023

Just four and a half months since President Biden declared an end to the Covid “emergency,” the media is suddenly full of stories about the return of Covid. This time a new “variant” is being rolled out and the media, in collusion with big Pharma and the fear-industrial complex, are churning out stories about how forced masking is making a comeback.

Also, the “unvaccinated” are again to be denied basic human rights in the name of fighting a virus that the vaccine demonstrably does not protect against.

In short, they are desperately trying to revive the tyranny, insanity, and utter irrationality of the two-year Covid scare. And they are pretending none of us remembers how they destroyed society with their lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates. They are hoping that none of us will remember the suicides, lost jobs, broken marriages, increased alcoholism and drug abuse, and the rest of what went along with the world’s experiment with global lockdown.

Even Fauci himself is back – like a moth drawn to the light of publicity. Despite all the scientific evidence that the lockdowns were a disaster, that they did far more harm than good, Fauci has re-emerged with his trademark arrogance and claimed that they were the right thing to do and should be done again if that’s what it takes to force people to take the vaccine. A vaccine that does not work.

They won’t even allow us to mention the spike in all-around mortality or the millions who may have been vaccine-injured the first time around. They want us to think that 20-year-old world-class athletes have always just dropped dead of heart attacks out of the blue. It’s all normal! Don’t question it! What are you, some kind of conspiracy theorist? Are you a science-denier?

Yes, look for a renewal of all those old hollow phrases used to attack those of us who can see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. Their slogans are meant to silence any debate. The same “experts” like Fauci who claimed “I am the science” are back and they shamelessly demand to silence us again.

The big question is… why? Why are they doing this and how do they think they can get away with it a second time? One reason they believe they can get away with it again is that no one has ever been punished for what they did the first time. The Federal Government made sure that the pharmaceutical companies would not be liable for vaccine damages.

The public figures who openly became monsters, demanding the unvaccinated be drummed out of society and maybe even off the face of the earth have not been shamed or shunned. Politicians who displayed cowardice and worse have not been voted out of office for their treachery.

Why are they coming back around for another round of Covid tyranny? Fear is a weapon to gain control. Last time around they generated fear to radically change how America voted. Suddenly everyone was mailed ballots. How closely were they checked? No one knew and no one dared ask. The people who did ask about the election are now facing jail terms.

They want us to shut up while they do it again. Will we?

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

The Washington Post Calls For Reducing Free Speech To Improve Democracy

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | August 28, 2023

In very post-2016 fashion, The Washington Post last week published an article implying democracy might require curbs on freedom of speech. This unsettling approach suggests concerns around “misinformation” on social networks supersede freedom of speech, a move that has elicited intense debate and, rightly so; criticism.

In what appears to be a shift in public discourse towards further censorship, the widely-read Washington Post article critiqued Elon Musk’s reinstatement of former President Donald Trump on the social media platform, X, previously known as Twitter.

The article suggested that the proliferation of what it calls “political misinformation” disturbs democracy, sparking concern amongst proponents of free speech.

The perspective is reflected in the reporting by The Washington Post journalists Naomi Nix and Sarah Ellison. However, their piece lacks critical analysis of the ambiguity surrounding the term “misinformation” and fails to address the consequential question of how to moderate content in situations where politicians’ statements are arguably false or misleading.

The article’s glaring omission of any mention of the First Amendment – a core pillar of American democracy fostering media freedoms – also raised eyebrows amidst media and legal circles.

The Washington Post reporters worryingly suggest the retreat of social media companies from combating online falsehoods could impact the 2024 presidential election. They fault Musk, along with Facebook and YouTube, for taking a step back from reining in what they call misleading claims and conspiracy theories.

Nix and Ellison also critique X for permitting Tucker Carlson’s President Trump interview, which they deem as a platform for Trump to reiterate his allegations about the 2020 election. They contend that social media should only host political content if its accuracy can be proven, posing an unrealistic expectation that conceals underlying issues of censorship under the pretext of curbing “misleading” or “hateful” speech.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Pfizer drip feeds data from its pregnancy trial of covid-19 vaccine

Analysis of the data so far shows the trial was underpowered, poorly designed and incomplete

BY MARYANNE DEMASI, PHD | AUGUST 24, 2023

In January 2021, in the absence of any human data in pregnancy, the CDC stated on its website that mRNA vaccines were “unlikely to pose a specific risk for people who are pregnant.”

Former CDC director Rochelle Walensky backed it up with a full-throated endorsement of covid-19 vaccination in pregnancy.

“There is no bad time to get vaccinated,” said Walensky.

“Get vaccinated while you’re thinking about having a baby, while you’re pregnant with your baby or after you’ve delivered your baby,” she added.

Behind the scenes however, Pfizer was scrambling to conduct a clinical trial of its vaccine in pregnant women.

By February 2022, Pfizer revealed it still did “not yet have a complete data set.” Its statement read:

“The environment changed during 2021 and by September 2021, COVID-19 vaccines were recommended by applicable recommending bodies (e.g., ACIP in the U.S.) for pregnant women in all participating/planned countries, and as a result the enrollment rate declined significantly.”

This month, Pfizer finally posted some trial results on clinicaltrials.gov.

The data do not appear in a peer-reviewed journal or a pre-print, nor has it been submitted to the FDA for evaluation.

I spoke with experts who have analysed the data with a fine-tooth comb and made some alarming observations.

Trial design

Pfizer originally planned to recruit 4000 healthy women aged 18 or older who were 24 to 34 weeks pregnant. Half would be randomised to the vaccine and the other half to a saline placebo.

The efficacy and safety of the vaccine would be determined by assessing covid-19 cases, antibody responses, and adverse events.

Peculiarly, Pfizer planned to vaccinate all the mothers in the placebo group, one month after giving birth to their babies.

Retsef Levi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management said that vaccinating mothers in the placebo group during the assessment period would introduce a new variable into the experiment and “corrupt” the data.

“We now know that mRNA from the vaccine is detected in the breast milk, so those babies born from mothers who were all vaccinated after giving birth, are also potentially exposed to mRNA through breastfeeding,” explained Levi.

“This corrupts the comparison of the two groups of babies because you don’t have a true control group anymore,” he added.

Sample size too small

Less than 10% of the originally planned 4000 study participants ended up in the trial.

“Only 348 women were recruited – 174 in each arm – meaning that the trial was never going to have the statistical power, particularly when analysing potential harms,” said Levi.

Notably, study protocols indicate that Pfizer was given the green light as early as May 2021 by drug regulators to scale back the trial and reduce the sample size.

“To me, the wording in the protocol suggests that the FDA or another regulator basically gave Pfizer permission to do less,” remarked Levi.

“It’s not surprising though. The vaccine had already been recommended for pregnant women and many have taken it, so there is no upside to completing a trial that may detect signals of potential harms. It can only create problems for them, right?” he added.

Given that pregnant women were being vaccinated with a product that had not undergone rigorous safety testing in pregnancy, the FDA was asked if and why it allowed Pfizer to scale back the trial.

The FDA replied, “As a general matter, FDA does not comment on interactions it may or may not be having with sponsors about their clinical trials.”

Angela Spelsberg, an epidemiologist and medical director at the Comprehensive Cancer Center Aachen in Germany agreed that the integrity of the study had been compromised.

“There are just not enough babies in this trial to detect rare or very rare adverse events. We learned from studies in animals that lipid nanoparticles in the vaccine can deposit in many organs including the ovaries, so we must be extremely cautious about the potential negative impacts of the vaccine on reproductive health,” said Spelsberg.

“The scientific community urgently needs access to the pregnancy study data on the patient level for transparency and independent scrutiny of vaccine safety and efficacy because regulatory oversight is failing,” she added.

Exclusion criteria

The small sample size may have been the result of the strict selection process.

Pfizer recruited participants with an impeccable pregnancy history, and most were in their third trimester (27-34 weeks gestation), a stage when the baby’s major development has already occurred.

“It appears that they cherry picked the mothers to get the best results,” said Levi. “We have no idea what impact this vaccine has on the early stages of development of an embryo or foetus, because all the women had advanced pregnancies when they were recruited.”

Spelsberg agreed.

“The first trimester is particularly vulnerable to adverse reproductive health outcomes,” she said.

“Based on only weak observational evidence, regulators have reassured the public that the vaccines are safe throughout pregnancy. However, we don’t have reliable evidence on the vaccine’s impact on miscarriages, malformation, foetal deaths, and maternal health risks because they excluded pregnant women from pivotal trials,” added Spelsberg.

Missing data

Levi also noticed that “only partial data” were published.

“It doesn’t include any important metrics such as covid infections or antibody levels and its says we must wait until July 2024 for those results. It’s disturbing to say the least,” said Levi.

Also missing from the dataset was a full account of birth outcomes. Of the 348 women in the trial, Pfizer only reported on the birth of 335 live babies.

Of the 13 pregnancies unaccounted for, Pfizer reported one foetal death (stillbirth) in the vaccine group and the outcome of the other 12 pregnancies remains unknown.

“This is unacceptable,” said Levi. “Failing to report the outcome of 12 pregnancies could mask a potentially concerning signal of the vaccine in pregnancy. What happened to the babies, did they all die? Were their mothers vaccinated or unvaccinated?”

Trial dropouts

Finally, there were quite a few babies that were lost to follow-up in the trial.

“Twenty-nine babies in the placebo arm didn’t get to the end of the 6-month surveillance period, versus 15 babies in the vaccine arm. That’s almost double. Again, this is concerning and requires a detailed and transparent explanation,” said Levi.

Overall, both Levi and Spelsberg say the delays and failure to disclose vital data are unacceptable.

“Pfizer took a year to publish the data. When they finally did, it is incomplete. And we are expected to wait until July 2024 for the next batch of results, while authorities continue to recommend the vaccine in pregnant women,” said Levi.

“We still don’t have solid scientific evidence whether this vaccine is safe for pregnant women and their babies,” said Spelsberg. “It’s a tragedy and a scandal that vaccine use has been recommended, even mandated to women before, during and after pregnancy.”

Questions were put to Pfizer, but the company did not respond by the deadline.

Moderna is also conducting a clinical trial of its mRNA vaccine in pregnancy, but no data are available.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Will This Man Prevent World War Three?

By Patrick MacFarlane | What They’re Not Tellin’ You | August 28, 2023

In April, Tucker Carlson, the most popular show host in American news media, was unceremoniously fired from Fox News.

He has since taken to the platform “X,” formerly Twitter, to continue publishing his own program.

Last week, during the first Republican primary debates, Tucker posted an exclusive (softball) interview with former President Donald Trump.

The episode received 260 million “impressions” within the first day.

Although an “impression” on Twitter only counts as an appearance in someone’s feed, if only one-tenth of those impressions equated to one view, the viewership would still be 23 million people. In comparison, Tucker’s Fox News program, Tucker Carlson Tonight, averaged 3.25 million viewers in March 2023.

The exclusive interview with Trump was a master stroke by both figures. It allowed Donald Trump to get his message across in a long format without actually muddying himself on the debate stage. Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy played, in effect, the role of Trump’s stand-in, but still won the debate in his own right.

Tucker walked away with incredible numbers, even if not as spectacular as the 230 million impressions would suggest.

Yesterday, RT reported that Tucker Carlson has “strongly” requested a meeting with Vladimir Putin, ostensibly to publish as an episode of his new program.

With all these developments, an attempt to decode the former Fox News host’s real role in the media landscape is akin to cracking a modern-day enigma.

Many laud Tucker as a rogue voice, fighting the establishment, using a microphone as a holy scepter.

It cannot be denied that on some critical issues like opposing escalation over Ukraine, Tucker Carlson’s voice is vitally important. But, Tucker Carlson has his own interests, and a background that does not suggest he is some populist hero, or an antiwar dove (of critical importance, he certainly is not on China).

That said, it would be immensely valuable for the West to see an intimate and honest one-on-one interview between Vladimir Putin and Western news media—one that was not intent on painting Putin as the new Hitler.

Maybe Tucker Carlson, though imperfect, is the figure best positioned to do it?

When America’s Commander-in-Chief, Joe Biden, still has not spoken with Putin since the February 2022 invasion, its puzzling that the job defaults to the United States’ most popular current events news host.

Exactly what does that mean—and what will come of it?

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Vivek Caves on Plan to Cut Aid to Israel: ‘We Would Never Cut Off Aid to Israel Until Israel Told Us They Were Ready’

By Chris Menahan | Information Liberation | August 27, 2023

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ran away from his proposal to cut aid to Israel by 2028 on Saturday, instead promising that he would provide endless US aid to Israel “until Israel told us they were ready for it” to be cut off.

“To be clear, we would never cut off aid to Israel unless Israel told us they were ready for it,” Ramaswamy told an Israeli news outlet in an interview he shared to his own Twitter page.

“The US-Israel relationship will be stronger by the end of my first term than it has ever been in US history and than it ever will be under any of those other administrations if anybody else is elected,” he said.

The idea Israel would ever ask the US to stop giving them billions of US taxpayer dollars for free is just comical. As I noted earlier this week, Israel regularly uses the billions we give them to buy US treasuries — effectively lending us back our own aid money and charging us interest. The US Treasury’s latest numbers showed Israel is currently holding $46 billion in US treasuries.

Ramaswamy also pledged that he wants to expand the Abraham Accords — a scam worked out by the Israel lobby which consists of bribing Arab kings to normalize relations with Israel by offering them billions of US taxpayer dollars and high-tech weaponry which can be used to oppress their own populations — with the “Abraham Accords 2.0.”

He said his “2.0” plan would bring “Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar [and] Indonesia” into the pact (aka bribery scheme).

“The other area where I think the US-Israel partnership is critical is staying strong with respect to making sure Iran never ever ever becomes a nuclear power — even has basic nuclear capabilities — we will never allow that to happen on our watch,” Ramaswamy said.

Fellow GOP presidential contender Nimrata “Nikki Haley” Randhawa called Ramaswamy out during the debate on Wednesday for wanting “to go and defund Israel.”

“You want to cut the aid off!” Randhawa said. “Let me tell you, it’s not that Israel needs America, America needs Israel!”

It only took Ramaswamy three days to not only abandon but completely reverse his “America First” policy.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

3M to pay billions to settle lawsuits over US military earplugs

RT | August 28, 2023

American multinational conglomerate 3M has agreed to pay more than $5.5 billion to settle hundreds of thousands of lawsuits, claiming that it supplied defective combat earplugs to the US military, people familiar with the deal told Bloomberg.

According to the agreement, the company will be paying the money out over a five-year period, the agency reported on Sunday. 3M’s board is yet to sign off on the settlement, it added.

When approached on the issue by Bloomberg, a representative of 3M said the company does not comment on rumors or speculation.

3M faces more than 300,000 lawsuits from US troops, consolidated in a multi-district litigation, claiming that the earplugs that the company’s subsidiary Aearo Technologies provided to the military between 2003 and 2015 were defective, and failed to protect their users from hearing loss and tinnitus.

Current and former servicemen alleged that the company knew its earplugs were faulty, but did not inform the military about the problem, while making no steps to fix the product.

The earplugs, designed to protect the hearing of troops during training and combat, were standard issue for US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3M failed 10 out of 16 early trials over the plugs, and has been told to pay over $250 million in damages to more than a dozen plaintiffs.

Bloomberg noted that the reported settlement would allow the company to avoid a much larger liability, which it estimated at up to $9.5 billion.

“Sounds like 3M negotiated a pretty good deal for itself, given this litigation has been weighing on them for the better part of a decade,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told the agency.

3M had earlier sought bankruptcy for Aearo Technologies in an attempt to shield itself from the lawsuits over earplugs. However, this June, a judge ruled that the firm’s financial troubles were not harsh enough to initiate the procedure.

The same month, 3M announced that it had reached a $10.3 billion settlement with a host of US public water systems to resolve water pollution claims tied to so-called “forever chemicals” or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) used in the company’s products.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism | | Leave a comment

Nikki Haley, the Most Reckless Candidate for President

Des Moines, Iowa, USA – August 12, 2023: Former South Carolina Governor and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley greets supporters at the Iowa State Fair political soapbox in Des Moines, Iowa.

By Ted Galen Carpenter | The Libertarian Institute | August 28, 2023

After the initial debate among GOP presidential aspirants, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is clearly the darling of the hawks who have given us debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Indeed, the laudatory assessments of her debate performance among conservatives in the pro-war news media seemed to be a sophisticated, highly coordinated propaganda campaign.

The key feature that Haley and her cheerleaders have in common is an unwillingness to consider any alternatives to the policies that have brought America and the world so much grief. Congenitally hawkish New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that he had previously considered Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), but that he now had concluded that Haley was the best candidate to thwart not only Donald Trump but broader undesirable trends in the Republican Party.

He left little doubt that those trends mainly involved foreign policy. “Haley dismantled [Vivek] Ramaswamy on foreign policy. It was not only her contemptuous put-down: ‘You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.’” Brooks was especially pleased because, “She took on the whole America First ethos that sounds good as a one-liner but that doesn’t work when you’re governing a superpower. Gesturing to Ramaswamy, she said, ‘He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends.’” In other words, Haley loyally mouthed the interventionist cliches that Brooks and other neocons refuse to question.

Brooks’ colleague at the Times, David French, was even more enthusiastic about Haley’s debate performance and at least as vitriolic toward Ramaswamy. “When Nikki Haley mustered all her experience and knowledge as America’s former ambassador to the U.N. and all the moral clarity of traditional American resistance to Russian tyranny, she decimated Vivek Ramaswamy’s populist isolationism. She won on style and substance and reminded voters why she was once considered a Republican rising star.”

The always reliable pro-war Wall Street Journal editorial board tried to embrace Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence with roughly equal fervor. “Pence often seemed like the adult in the room, especially on foreign policy. He and Nikki Haley pounded Mr. Ramaswamy for his willingness to withdraw support for Ukraine.” Ms. Haley “made the moral case against Vladimir Putin’s depredations.” Being an “adult” in the Journal’s view apparently requires ignoring evidence of Ukraine’s corruption and authoritarianism as well as dismissing the risks of confronting a major power having 6,000 nuclear weapons over a country with minimal strategic or economic importance to the United States.

Haley’s actual level of foreign policy maturity can be judged by another of her simplistic comments about the Ukraine conflict. “The American president needs to have more clarity, they [presidential candidates] need to know the difference between right and wrong. They need to know the difference between good and evil.” She criticized Ramaswamy and another skeptic of continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for lack of such moral clarity and then added a cheap shot; “This guy [Putin] is a murderer and you are choosing a murderer.”

Fox News highlighted Clinton administration adviser Mark Penn’s favorable assessment of Haley. Penn contended that Haley’s debate performance was impressive and that she was clearly the best choice to be Secretary of State in an incoming Republican administration. Penn’s comment highlighted the continuing bipartisan nature of the pro-interventionist foreign policy blob.

Haley would be a reliable front woman for the war machine in nearly every respect. She favors a rabidly hostile policy toward Russia along with an equally unthinking posture of support for Ukraine. Indeed, she criticizes President Joe Biden for being “far too slow and weak in helping Ukraine.” That is a strange and troubling comment, given that the United States has given Kiev more than $130 billion in assistance.

But that is not the only arena in which Haley’s virulent hawkish orientation emerges. In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, she even criticized Donald Trump for being insufficiently hostile to China. “We must act now to keep the peace and prevent war,” she said. “And we need a leader that will rally our people to meet this threat on every single front… Communist China is an enemy. It is the most dangerous foreign threat we’ve faced since the Second World War.”

As if simultaneously pursuing confrontational military policies against Russia and China were not enough, she also embraces utterly uncompromising policies toward both Iran and North Korea. Haley even favors putting U.S. Special Forces into Mexico to battle the drug cartels. “When it comes to the cartels, the Mexican president said yesterday we don’t want the U.S. to do anything. Well, you know what? You tell the Mexican president, either you do it or we do it. But we are not going to let all of this lawlessness continue to happen.”

What comes through clearly from both her rhetoric and policy positions is that Nikki Haley has no sense of the limits of U.S. power or the dangers inherent in America’s strategic overextension. A lengthy list of conflicts and tensions around the world all seem to be existential moral struggles requiring maximum U.S. engagement in her world view. Her approach invokes images from World War II and the worst years of the Cold War. It is a thoroughly obsolete and ahistorical approach.

Haley and her pro-war fan club epitomize a dangerously faulty perspective regarding U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, it is apparent that they have learned nothing from the spectacular failure of their recommendations in the post-Cold War era. Instead, they insist on doubling down on that blundering strategy, and dismissing any alternatives with the silly allegation that they amount to isolationism. To her hawkish supporters, Nikki Haley is a thoughtful, mature leader, but her casual recklessness likely would be a catastrophe for America and the world.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Zionism | | Leave a comment

Rabid Russophobia now mandatory in the political West

By Drago Bosnic | August 28, 2023

From the “Ghost of Kiev” and “the last stand of the Snake Island defenders” to pickle jar air defenses and the “Goat of Kiev”, there have been many mindless anti-Russian tropes aiming to present the Russians as supposedly “inferior” or at the very least “incompetent”. And yet, such claims were just laughably obvious propaganda that serves as an IQ test of sorts. In terms of actual impact, it was all largely inconsequential. However, the real issue is when these tropes become anything but a laughing matter. For instance, on August 5, Michael John Cirillo (now pretending to be a “woman” named Sarah Ashton-Cirillo), an American-born spokesperson for the Neo-Nazi junta forces, boastfully proclaimed that the Russians are “most definitely not human”.

Ever since this glorified crossdresser characterized an entire nation as “subhuman” (although it’s unclear who exactly mandated “her” to issue such proclamations), it seems this has effectively become the state policy of some Western countries. It now seems that disagreeing with Cirillo’s racist rant is a “crime” of sorts and that the witch-hunt for the “perpetrator” is a must. Namely, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier, one of the most prominent European directors, “dared” to publicly state that “Russian lives matter also!” in an Instagram post. However, he didn’t stop there. To add “insult to injury”, he also criticized the Danish government for the delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to the Kiev regime forces.

Von Trier made the post almost a week ago, on August 22, but the “backlash” persists. The mainstream propaganda machine is engaged in an unrelenting witch-hunt, while the Neo-Nazi junta is “demanding” a retraction of the statement and most likely an official “apology”. Von Trier addressed his post to “Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin, and not least Mrs Frederiksen (who yesterday, like someone head over heels in love, posed in the cockpit of one of the scariest killing machines of our time, grinning from ear to ear)”. Although F-16 fighter jets are hardly “one of the scariest killing machines of our time”, they certainly have killed a lot of people in countless US/NATO illegal invasions around the world, making Von Trier’s statement rather adequate.

Still, as the pressure isn’t subsiding in the slightest, Lars von Trier was forced to “clarify” his reasoning in a follow-up post, where he stated that he supports the Kiev regime “with every beat of [his] heart”. He further added that “[he] was just stating the obvious: that all lives in this world matter! A forgotten phrase it seems, from a time when pacifism was a virtue”. Von Trier obviously didn’t get the memo that pacifism is “only a virtue” when you’re fighting “humans”. And since Russians have been “disqualified” as such, hatred and hostility towards them is “perfectly fine”. Still, the Danish filmmaker stood his ground, so he’s now accused of “hatred” (!?) and for somehow being “sympathetic to the Russian side” in the Ukrainian conflict.

Von Trier’s example is very telling. Not only is it acceptable to spew poisonous hatred at an entire nation, but it’s even “desirable” at this point. Worse yet, any attempt to present the Russian people as human is simply unacceptable in the political West. According to this “logic”, the Russians are “disqualified from life” for the sole reason of being Russian. For well over a year and a half, both individual Russians and whole teams have been banned from various sports, including paralympic competitors. This mindless hatred also extends to Russian restaurants, tea rooms, churches, trees, cats, etc. In addition, Russia’s world-class culture (including its music, operas, literature, etc.) is still being banned in Western countries.

Von Trier should probably be sent to a reeducation camp, preferably run by former high-ranking NATO general and the current Czech President Petr Pavel. He’s (in)famous for his intention to place the Russians currently living in Western countries in “Japanese-style camps”. Had Von Trier stated something like that, he would’ve received no backlash. On the contrary, he would’ve been hailed as the “hero of pacifism”. The more absurd and hateful one is towards the Russian people, the more popular and “humane” he or she is in the political West. It’s the new “chic” that “should” be followed by everyone else. Unfortunately for the belligerent power pole, the (actual) world is doing exactly the opposite. Perhaps this is the main reason why Josep Borrell characterized it as “the jungle”.

It would seem the (actual) world simply doesn’t understand this highly peculiar form of “pacifism” that applies only to those who unequivocally adhere to the “rules-based world order“. The so-called “fence sitters” are just not “civilized enough” to understand it. However, fortunately for the rest of us who are “not blessed” with living in “the garden”, our “jungle” is expanding, so we get to live our “not human” lives together.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The COVID Lie That Started It All

Matt Orfalea | August 23, 2023

Twitter ▶https://twitter.com/0rf
Rumble▶https://rumble.com/Orf
Patreon ▶https://patreon.com/Orf
Substack▶https://substack.com/MattOrf

Bonus video:

2 Minutes of “Experts” Being WRONG About the COVID Vaccine

To those who still repeat the Big Pharma lie that “Nobody Ever Said The Vaccine Would Stop The Transmission Of Covid Virus”

Here are many people saying it!

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

West enabling Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets – The Economist

RT | August 27, 2023

Ukraine relies on Western intelligence and satellite surveillance to guide its drones toward targets within Russia, The Economist reported on Sunday. The report backs up Moscow’s claims that the West is complicit in these “terrorist” strikes.

Russia’s extensive air defense and electronic warfare capacity mean that Ukrainian drone operators often need outside help to hit targets deep inside Russia, The Economist reported, citing anonymous sources within Ukraine’s multiple drone programs. This assistance includes “intelligence (often from Western partners) about radars, electronic warfare, and air-defense assets,” the report stated.

Feedback on the success of a strike is compiled from satellites, the report noted. Ukraine has only a single surveillance satellite, meaning that any imagery collected in between its 15 daily orbits is likely provided by Western satellites.

While Ukraine often attempts to hit military targets within Russia, many of its strikes are focused on civilian infrastructure and residential areas. In the most recent incident, a small drone slammed into an apartment block in the city of Kursk, shattering windows but leaving nobody injured. Successive waves of drone attacks have targeted Moscow’s central business district in recent weeks, and although the strikes on the capital have not killed anyone, an attack on the border region of Belgorod earlier this week left three people dead.

Moscow has previously accused Ukraine’s Western backers of complicity in these “terrorist strikes.” Speaking after a small drone hit the Kremlin in May, government spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated: “We know very well that decisions about such actions, about such terrorist attacks, are made not in Kiev but in Washington.” Moscow has also accused British and American special forces of assisting Kiev’s recent missile attacks on the Crimean Bridge.

According to Peskov, Moscow views the attacks as “acts of desperation,” carried out to compensate for Ukraine’s failures on the battlefield. The strikes are viewed similarly in the West, the New York Times reported on Friday. Citing US officials, the newspaper said that the drone operations are intended “to bolster the morale of Ukraine’s population and troops,” and show that Kiev “can strike back” amid its failing counteroffensive.

August 27, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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