THIS DELEGADATION WILL GET IT FIXED FAST!
We Are Change | June 18, 2023
Why the US sought secret talks with Iran
By Batoul Suleiman | The Cradle | June 20 2023
In an unforeseen development, the US initiated indirect talks with Iran in May, signaling Washington’s desire to de-escalate tensions between the two adversary states – even while publicly acting otherwise.
Hosted by the Sultanate of Oman, the indirect talks were attended by delegations of US and Iranian diplomats, but it is unclear whether any final agreement was reached, or, for that matter, what topic occupied the negotiations.
Despite countless rumors of nuclear negotiations being on the agenda in Muscat, Tehran has point-blank denied this. The Iranians have held firm that they will not entertain any temporary fixes to the 2015 nuclear agreement, which was unilaterally abandoned by the US in 2018.
While the secret negotiations may not directly pertain to Iran’s nuclear program, a potential formula for a deal has reportedly emerged, involving the mutual release of prisoners and the unfreezing of up to $10 billion held in South Korean banks and in Iraq, currently blocked by US sanctions.
But why would Washington offer up a slate of “rewards” to Iran for no obvious price? Especially given that the US has been the primary spoiler in prisoner exchange deals and the release of Iranian funds for years?
Washington’s two faces on Iran
On the surface, the US is assisting in the release of Iranian funds at the same time as the Pentagon escalates its threats against the Islamic Republic and stirs maritime tensions between their respective navies.
This kicked off in February, when Bloomberg published an unverified news report quoting two unnamed “senior diplomats” saying that Tehran had enriched uranium to 84 percent – “the highest level found by inspectors in the country to date, and a concentration just 6 percent below what’s needed for a weapon.” A nuclear bomb requires a 90-95 percent enrichment purity of 25 kilograms.
Iran immediately dismissed these reports, confirming through a senior official that Tehran had not carried out any uranium enrichment procedure to more than 60 percent.
In an unusual show of support for Tehran’s position, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in late May shut down the “84 percent” rumors by declaring its investigation of those allegations to be closed.
But as likely intended, the anonymously-sourced Bloomberg story spawned months of “Iran is close to a nuclear bomb” narratives, which has conveniently provided an excuse for increased US and Israeli threats against the Islamic Republic to gain leverage at the negotiating table.
‘Two weeks away’
In March, US Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley testified before a Congressional committee that Iran could potentially produce sufficient material for a nuclear bomb within a span of two weeks, requiring only a few additional months to complete the construction of the weapon.
Milley’s statement, it appears, was the start of a leverage-building campaign against Iran on the ground.
First, the US Navy in the Arabian Sea seized Iranian oil aboard a tanker en route to China. In response to the move, Iran detained in the Gulf of Oman a tanker carrying American oil en route from Kuwait to the United States. Less than a week later, Iran also detained an oil tanker as it transited the Strait of Hormuz towards the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
This comes after statements by White House Spokesman John Kirby in which he claimed that his country has detected repeated Iranian threats to commercial shipping in the Gulf, and that the US Department of Defense will begin to strengthen its defense position in the region.
That round was like a field test to increase pressure before returning to the negotiating table, but the Iranian response, according to political sources in Tehran, thwarted American pressure.
After this public escalation, Washington secretly requested – via Oman – to open communications with Iran. US sources familiar with the indirect talks told Axios that “the goal of the negotiation is to reach an understanding on ways to de-escalate Iran’s nuclear program, its behavior in the region, as well as its intervention in the conflict in Ukraine.”
But actual US aims are far less ambitious than what is stated for public consumption, Iranian analyst Amin Berto tells The Cradle:
“The only thing the US wants now is to stop the increase in uranium enrichment in Iran, without military conflict, because the US is involved in the crisis of Russia and Ukraine and tension with China.”
The US is reluctant to engage in further conflicts in West Asia, as it recognizes the potential consequences of an Israeli aggression against Iran, which could escalate into a larger war in the geostrategic Persian Gulf.
Additionally, the US is not interested in allowing Iran to become a “nuclear threshold” state, where it possesses the capability to produce a nuclear bomb at any given time without actually taking that final step.
Turning things up a notch
Presupposing Tehran reaches 90 percent enrichment, both Israel and the US would find themselves with limited options.
They would either have to resort to war or accept the new reality, wherein they could attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, impose stricter sanctions, or incite internal unrest within Iran. However, it is important to note that all of these options have been previously explored without causing a significant shift in Tehran’s “behavior.”
Confronted with this reality, Washington is compelled to engage in negotiations with Iran and strive to reach an agreement that curbs the enrichment rate. The objective is to avert a war that would detrimentally impact American and Israeli interests in the region.
Furthermore, it aims to prevent the emergence of a “nuclear threshold” state in Iran, which could have far-reaching regional deterrent effects. It is important to note that tightening sanctions could potentially push Iran towards strengthening its alliances with counterweights Russia and China.
Sources familiar with the ongoing negotiations in Muscat suggest that the current discussions revolve around a new, partial agreement rather than a comprehensive one similar to the 2015 deal.
The proposed understanding requires the US to take the initial step of releasing Iran’s funds held abroad, reportedly in exchange for Iran not enriching uranium past 60 percent purity. The process of releasing Iranian funds has already commenced, including the transfer of over $6 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and more than $3 billion in Iranian funds from Iraq.
While the coming days are expected to witness the mutual release of prisoners, the sources indicate that what hinders reaching a final solution is determining the maximum enrichment level to which Iran is willing to adhere. The negotiation revolves around whether it will be set at 60 percent or 20 percent, in exchange for freezing the sanctions imposed on Iran.
What does Iran want?
Iran has shown openness to reaching a new understanding that would lead to the lifting of sanctions, the release of seized funds, and enhanced economic opportunities. The understanding would serve as a placeholder for the defunct Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and not a replacement.
And Iran’s willingness to negotiate does not by any means imply acceptance of all US conditions. Tehran’s end goal will require the complete, verifiable lifting of US sanctions in exchange for establishing parameters on the country’s enrichment rate and nuclear activities.
This has been explained by recent statements of the Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, who said that “There is nothing wrong with the agreement (with the west), but the infrastructure of our nuclear industry should not be touched.”
The comments were made during a meeting with a group of Iranian nuclear experts on 11 June, during which Khamenei also explained that:
“We were dealt blows because of these misplaced trusts. It is very important that a nation and the officials of a country know and understand where they should trust and where not. We have understood it over the past twenty years. We understood who is trustworthy and who is not.”
Notably, Khamenei’s statements came shortly after the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, stated that Iran’s objective in enriching uranium is to lift US sanctions. Observing the historical context, it becomes apparent that Iran has increased its enrichment levels in response to persistent Israeli hostilities, often with US support, targeting its nuclear infrastructure. These escalations have also been prompted by incidents like the assassination of nuclear scientists, exemplified by the case of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
Where does this leave Israel?
Only Israel, who incidentally views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, maintains that a US-Iran backroom agreement is imminent.
While Tehran and Washington have denied making any significant progress in reviving the nuclear agreement, Israel expresses doubts over these claims. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated during a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after his visit to Saudi Arabia, that Israel opposes any US agreement with Iran, and that “No deal with Iran will oblige Israel, which will do everything to defend itself.”
According to a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, any new nuclear agreement between Washington and Tehran will reflect a danger to Israel through several factors, most notably that “Iran is likely to continue to develop nuclear weapons technology and ballistic missile programs”; and that the agreement will provide Iran with tens of billions of dollars, which will enable it to enhance its military capabilities and the capabilities of its allies in West Asia.
The Israeli think-tank also noted the great concern experienced by the entity’s officials in terms of their inability to influence the Biden administration and Congress:
“However, some senior officials in the Israeli security establishment believe that a new temporary nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers might be the lesser of two evils compared to the current situation, where Iran continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions unchecked.”
The last point about Iran’s unchecked pursuit of nuclear ambitions is a key driver for Washington to seek an understanding with Tehran – mainly so that it can placate Tel Aviv and turn its geopolitical attentions to more pressing matters elsewhere.
EU preparing $55 billion bailout for Kiev – Bloomberg
RT | June 20, 2023
The European Commission wants member states to cough up €50 billion ($55 billion) to bankroll the Ukrainian government, so it can pay wages and pensions, and commence reconstruction projects, sources cited by Bloomberg have said.
The terms of the proposed bailout are subject to change pending an official announcement on Tuesday, the outlet reported on Tuesday. The package will be financed by direct contributions from member states, as opposed to borrowing from the market.
The aid will be provided in the form of grants, concessional loans and guarantees rather than some “burdensome reconstruction instrument,” the outlet said, adding that the money would be provided between 2024 and 2027.
The Ukrainian budget has been receiving cash injections from Western sponsors to keep it running. Washington and its allies have pledged to help Kiev “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia, including through the provision of non-military support.
The US alone provided $26.4 billion in budgetary aid between January 2022 and February 2023, according to the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The aid package announced by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on February 24 was worth $9.9 billion.
Critics of the policy have claimed Ukraine has a lengthy record of grafting and argued that the money could have been spent by Western nations at home to solve their own immediate problems. Bloomberg sources suggested that the EU funding would be made conditional on Kiev delivering reforms “to improve the rule of law and address corruption.”
According to Reuters, the European Commission is set to publish a report this week about Kiev’s effort, which will state that it has met two of the seven conditions to start membership negotiations. The milestones reportedly relate to judicial reform and media regulation.
Republican Presidential Candidates Lining Up in Support of War on Mexico
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | June 19, 2023
On April 10, I wrote about Republican presidential candidates being open to pursuing war on Mexico — sending the US military into Mexico to fight drug cartels despite the opposition of the Mexico government to such intervention.
Mexican-American War II advocates, I noted, included candidates Donald Trump, Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy.
It turns out the list of Republican presidential candidates open to such US military action is longer. Republican presidential candidates Tim Scott and Nikki Haley have announced they support war on Mexico, as detailed by Brad Dress in a Saturday The Hill article.
Ron DeSantis, who has the second most support among Republican presidential primary candidates, has so far refrained from endorsing war on Mexico. Dress wrote:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the top candidate after Trump, has not explicitly endorsed military action but said last month “we really need to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable” over migration concerns.
If DeSantis were to come out strongly against war on Mexico, he could set himself apart from the field and challenge front-running candidate Trump’s claim to the title of “peace candidate” in the Republican presidential primary contest.
Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute
Kiev ‘Politically Pushed’ by NATO to Launch Counteroffensive Despite Being Unprepared
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 19.06.2023
The long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, touted both by the regime in Kiev and its Western backers for months, finally began this month, although it seems that it has so far failed to produce the results its masterminds desired.
While Ukrainian forces demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for losing manpower and military hardware by charging across minefields into fortified positions held by Russian forces, they haven’t managed to get close to, let alone breach, the first line of Russian defense.
Retired USAF Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik that Western media “has reported very little concrete information about the counteroffensive,” with much of the information on the subject coming straight from Ukrainian media and thus being “difficult to verify.”
According to Kwiatkowski, Kiev was “politically pushed” into launching this counteroffensive by “its NATO sponsors,” despite the fact that, as it turned out, Ukrainian forces simply weren’t prepared for it.
“The results are an increasingly desperate battlefield for Ukraine, and increasingly desperate measures being taken by Ukraine and its political leadership,” she said. “When I say desperate, I’m suggesting that the Ukrainian leadership has decided to write off regaining the eastern lands including Crimea and now are ready to do what they can to simply increase costs for Russia in the future – by destroying civilian and energy infrastructure, and the ability of that part of Ukraine to become productive as easily as they might.”
Rather than an actual counteroffensive meant to allow Kiev to seize control over Donbass and Crimea, Kwiatkowski argued, we are witnessing what she described as “dog in the manger” military scenario.
It also remains unclear whether NATO leaders and the Kiev regime are even in agreement about what the “end goal” of this “strangely-designed counteroffensive” actually is, the ex-DoD analyst mused.
“When US policymakers are asked about this ‘goal’ they say simply, ‘no peace, no freeze, keep fighting until the last Ukrainian,'” she added.
As Kwiatkowski explained, the Kiev regime and its NATO backers are unlikely to achieve any “serious progress” if they “continue solely with what they have been doing.”
Theoretically, Ukrainian forces might achieve success if their “ground and limited sea capability” could be “refreshed, well-led, focused on a specific mission, AND a specific counter-offensive coordinated with a temporary destruction of air command and control, or a major destruction of Russian airfields or aircraft,” she said.
However, “the very imaginative consideration of how many ducks would need to be in a row for this to succeed is mind-blowing, and certainly unsustainable by current Ukrainian capabilities,” Kwiatkowski remarked.
“In a sense, this has been the story of the Ukraine war — and fantasies that have fed Ukrainian political strategy since 2014. These fantasies are based in trust in American politicians and diplomats – who know very little about actual war-fighting, actual democracy, and economy,” she continued. “The same people who promised cakewalks and flowers in Iraq and new energy pipelines across Afghanistan, also promised Zelensky things that cannot be delivered.”
Kwiatkowski did warn, however, that this does not mean that the “neocons in the West, who have insisted upon this war, are not dangerous to Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the planet.”
Putin’s shocking revelations show there can be no negotiations with Kiev
By Drago Bosnic | June 19, 2023
Respecting deals between countries or governments goes back millennia and includes civilizations such as Sumerians and Ancient Egyptians. This was always considered a sort of litmus test of a certain country’s or ruler’s reputation and it stuck for a very long time. In essence, this practice predates the very concept of international law and is in many ways its direct predecessor. However, it would seem certain countries haven’t really got the memo about how important respecting treaties is and what disastrous consequences may follow if one doesn’t.
On June 17, during a meeting with a number of African leaders and delegates who came to Moscow to offer a solution that would end the Ukrainian conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a shocking revelation and even gave details of a March 2022 peace deal with the Kiev regime. The agreement, titled the “Treaty on the Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine” (negotiated with the mediation of the Turkish government), was actually signed by the Kiev regime. However, the Neo-Nazi junta decided to discontinue its compliance with the treaty as soon as Russia kept its own initial end of the bargain.
Apart from other, more technical details, the deal included a clause that was supposed to be one of the key points of the Ukrainian Constitution and that would guarantee the country’s permanent neutrality. The very fact that Russia was insisting on this makes the claims that Moscow allegedly wanted to “conquer Ukraine” a moot point. In return for neutrality, the Russian military was to pull out and effectively end the special military operation (SMO). To back up his claims, President Putin also presented the relevant documentation of the abortive peace deal to the African delegates.
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, with President Erdogan’s assistance, as you know, a string of talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Turkey so as to work out both the confidence-building measures you mentioned, and to draw up the text of the agreement. We did not discuss with the Ukrainian side that this treaty would be classified, but we have never presented it, nor commented on it. This draft agreement was initiated by the head of the Kiev negotiation team. He put his signature there. Here it is,” Putin stated and then presented the documents.
The documents also revealed that apart from Russia, other guarantors of the agreement were the United States, the United Kingdom and France. The only non-Western guarantor was China. The deal also specified the future size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), as well as what types of weapons and equipment it would be allowed to field. Expectedly, numbers proposed by the two sides were vastly different, as Moscow suggested the AFU shouldn’t have more than 85,000 soldiers, while the National Guard should be limited to 15,000. On the other hand, the Kiev regime insisted that the number should be 250,000.
In terms of weapons and equipment, Russia proposed that the AFU should be capped at 342 MBTs (main battle tanks), 1029 armored vehicles, 96 MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems), 50 combat and 52 support aircraft. However, for its part, the Neo-Nazi junta insisted on having 800 MBTs, 2400 armored vehicles, 600 MLRS, 74 combat and 86 support aircraft. The agreement was also supposed to include limitations on the number of ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles), MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems), mid to long-range SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems and several other types of weapons and military equipment.
To show that its goal was never to “conquer Ukraine”, as well as to demonstrate its readiness to honor the peace treaty, Moscow even pulled out its troops from northern Ukraine, including from the outskirts of Kiev it reached in mere days. Obviously, the actual aim of the SMO was to conduct an operation similar to that in Georgia in 2008, when Tbilisi was forced to sign a peace deal after it foolishly attacked Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However, the Kiev regime withdrew from the talks immediately after the Russian military left northern Ukraine, clearly indicating that the Neo-Nazi junta never intended to honor the agreement.
“After we pulled our troops away from Kiev – as we had promised to do – the Kiev authorities … tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history. They abandoned everything,” Putin stated, adding: “Where are the guarantees that they will not walk away from agreements in the future? … However, even under such circumstances, we have never refused to conduct negotiations.”
Indeed, how is Russia to ever trust any official agreement signed by the Kiev regime when the latter repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to break any and every deal so far? Worse yet, the so-called “guarantors” from the political West have shown that they’re equally untrustworthy, as their (current and former) leaders have not only admitted, but are even openly boasting about “giving Ukraine time” by signing deals that they knew would be broken. This only reinforces the notion former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev (rightfully) insists on – negotiating deals with the political West and its vassals and satellite states only demonstrates weakness.
It should also be noted that thanks to this treachery, approximately 200,000 forcibly conscripted Ukrainians were sent to certain death, while at least twice as many have suffered permanent, life-altering injuries. Worse yet, these are not conclusive numbers, as there’s no indication that hostilities will end any time soon. Moscow clearly demonstrated that it didn’t want this, but it also showed what its armed forces are capable of. Either way, the political West awakened a sleeping giant that is extremely unlikely to go back to hibernation now that its opponents have shown their true colors.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Media Attacks Spotify For Allowing Robert F Kennedy Jr. Joe Rogan Episode
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 18, 2023
Spotify, the audio streaming giant, is once again in the crosshairs of media critics for allowing an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” that featured Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The episode is accused of spreading vaccine “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories” without sufficient censorship by the platform, and the media is questioning Spotify’s decision to host it.
Joe Rogan, a major podcasting force in the US, hosted the three-hour long show that touched on vaccine skepticism, 5G technology, and alternative COVID-19 treatments. This comes as part of a broader scrutiny from media outlets urging platforms to put a lid on content that challenges mainstream narratives and contradicts the stances of global health organizations.
Media outlets including Vice and The Verge point fingers at Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his criticism of vaccines and pharmaceutical companies, for allegedly making several false claims during the podcast. These include the claim linking vaccines to autism and an assertion regarding vaccines containing harmful forms of mercury. The media’s bone to pick with Spotify is its decision to not clamp down on Kennedy’s suggestion that “Wi-Fi radiation” could play a role in various chronic illnesses.
Peter Hotez, Baylor microbiology professor and public health advocate, threw the spotlight on the issue by sharing a critical article via Twitter. Not one to back down, Rogan threw down the gauntlet to Hotez for a debate with Kennedy, sweetening the pot with a $100,000 donation to charity if Hotez agreed. He didn’t.
Despite the uproar and calls for censorship, Spotify defended its position. A spokesperson from the company maintained that neither Rogan nor Kennedy crossed the line in terms of the platform’s policies.
Spotify’s history with attacks from the media is somewhat checkered. Flashback to early 2022, when artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell yanked their music from Spotify as a show of protest against Rogan’s questioning of Covid vaccine efficacy, including his statement that vaccines don’t halt infection spread.
The Great Debate that won’t happen
Kennedy vs. Hotez might be a narrative-changer.
BY BILL RICE, JR. | JUNE 18, 2023
In south Alabama we have an expression: “If you’re scared, say you’re scared.”
Well, Dr. Peter Hotez – one of the best-known vaccine advocates and defenders of all the Covid mitigation measures – is obviously scared to death. He just needs to come out and admit it.
What scares Dr. Hotez is an invitation for him (Hotez) to debate presidential candidate and contrarian Covid expert Robert Kennedy, Jr. on Joe Rogan’s ultra-popular podcast show.
Apparently, Hotez kept bad-mouthing “disinformation super-spreader” Kennedy and Rogan finally had enough.
Rogan offered to donate $100,000 to Hotez’s favorite charity if Hotez would just come on his show and, in a debate with no time-table, debate Kennedy on vaccine effectiveness, safety and all the other allegedly “settled” Covid science.
As I write, the debate invitation has gone viral on Twitter with plenty of other wealthy people (like Steve Kirsch) ponying up money to make the debate happen. At last look, Dr. Hotez could net $1.5 million for his favorite charity by simply talking to Kennedy and Rogan for two or so hours.
Talk about easy money.
Needless to say, Kennedy is game for a “cordial” debate and, needless to say, he doesn’t need to be bribed to participate. He’ll do it for free and pay his own expenses to show up in the studio.
Truth be told (there’s that word – “truth”) … Nobody is surprised that Dr. Hotez is running from a genuine debate on Covid topics. This is because no expert in America has participated in a genuine debate on Covid topics in 40 months.
Apparently, one new feature of our “New Normal” “scientific method” is that real debates are no longer necessary.
In fact, they are strongly discouraged, which is exactly why Facebook, Google, YouTube, the CDC, “Joe Biden’s” White House and the corporate press have been pushing for censorship on steroids for so long.
For those who haven’t picked up on this yet, censorship also precludes real debates.
Hotez and every “expert” and authority of his ilk has been saying for almost four years that people like Kennedy who are spreading “disinformation” and “misinformation” are potentially killing and harming massive numbers of people with their false Covid claims.
According to the experts, the claims made by Kennedy, Kirsch (and Bill Rice Jr.!) are ridiculous, preposterous, obviously false, easily discredited, etc.
Such claims are interesting as they suggest that any debate with a Covid skeptic would be a lay-up or gimme to win. Even a cave man could humiliate RFK, Jr. in a debate about real science.
So, if victory would be so easy – and if one can make a couple million for his favorite charity – why not do this?
Speaking for myself, I’m tired of acting like I’m obtuse when I’m not. We all know the answer: The Dr. Hotez’s of the world are scared to death of a real debate.
If this isn’t a giant “tell” about these frauds and charlatans nothing is.
Also, every one of them are pro-censorship.
Facebook has been censoring content left and right for three-plus years, but Hotez’s cabal of “influencers” are demanding that Congress and the White House make social media companies censor even more content/speech that they don’t like.
The entire justification for North Korea-style censorship is that the disinformation spreaders are harming people. Presumably, Hotez’s noble goal is to save lives and shut up all the “disinformation” spreaders.
Well, what would shut them up more than a pay-per-view prize fight between one of the leading advocates of the Status-Quo narrative and the best known Covid skeptic in the world?
Once Dr. Hotez wipes the floor with Kennedy, every other vaccine super spreader will crawl back into a cave and keep his mouth shut from here on out.
My side will be disgraced and humiliated … and every neutral person will now know this.
In one fell swoop, the “disinformation” movement will suffer a lethal blow. Millions of lives will be saved because, in the future, everyone will know that Dr. Peter Hotez and Dr. Anthony Fauci were exactly right with everything they said about Covid.
Not only will Kennedy lose this “science” debate, his hopes of pulling an upset and winning the White House will also go down the toilet.
Dr. Hotez would be THE hero to all the groups, companies and bureaucracies who are having nightmares about Kennedy beating their chosen candidate, “Joe Biden.”
Kennedy’s Children Health Defense non-profit, which has been growing by leaps and bounds, would wither up and die.
Everyone would know that not only did the Covid vaccines save millions of lives, they’d also know that the massive spike in autism cases in recent decades had nothing to do with vaccines and the flu vaccine – which is now being questioned by more and more Americans – would once again be perceived as a must-get annual shot.
Hotez could also put to bed the claim that his side is anti-free speech because they would be allowing Kennedy and Rogan to deploy their dad-blasted free speech in said “debate.”
“See, we are NOT censors and we do believe in free speech and genuine debates in our democracy,” Hotez could show the world in this debate.
For all these reasons, it would seem Dr. Hotez and his side would achieve a panoply of positive, life-saving results, with no down-side whatsoever.
The only downside might be if, Hotez, in fact got annihilated in this debate and every American who witnessed the event started questioning all the claims the experts had made in the last four years (or decades for that matter).
But this scenario can’t be a possibility because the science is so “settled” and Kennedy is such a “wacko” and conspiracy theorist that he would have no chance of prevailing in any debate … right?
Of course, we all know Dr. Hotez knows he’d get his ass whipped in any debate with Kennedy. Fauci knows this, The New York Times knows this, Bill Gates knows this, every commentator at MSNBC and CNN knows this.
“Whatever you do, do NOT debate Robert Kennedy on Covid topics!” they are all now screaming at Dr. Hotez.
If the debate is held, it will set Internet ratings records. The fact that Hotez is running from said debate is already giving another huge boost to the presidential campaign of RFK, Jr, who is having no trouble going around the MSM “gatekeepers of the news,” who all despise and fear him.
In fact, that’s another reason the debate can’t be allowed. It’s almost a given that RFK, Jr. would go off on the captured mainstream press in said debate.
Dr. Hotez would be the one defending the credibility of The New York Times and singing the praises of Big Pharma, which has of course always been as honest as the day is long.
If enough Americans keep calling Dr. Hotez a sissy, maybe this will goad the previously cocky doctor into taking the bait and actually debating Kennedy.
If so, this might qualify as a game-changer and give the world it’s very first honest discussion of Covid policies. It might also help elect a president who genuinely wants to dismantle the Military Industrial Complex and the Science/Medicine Industrial Complex.
But my bet is Dr. Hotez won’t debate.
There’s another expression we’ve all heard: “You can run, but you can’t hide.” Well, in our surreal New-Normal times, apparently the experts and authorities CAN run and they can hide. That’s what they’ve been doing for 40 months and, as far as I can tell, they are still in power. So that strategy is working perfectly.
What’s Wrong With This Study? CDC Finds COVID Shots ‘Safe and Effective’ for Kids Under 4
By Angelo DePalma, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 16, 2023
An analysis published earlier this month in Pediatrics concluded the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective in preschool-age children — a conclusion trumpeted by media outlets such as Parents and Medscape.
But the study, conducted by Kaiser Permanente researchers with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), raises more questions than it answers.
Researchers followed children (mostly 4 years old or younger) who collectively received more than 245,000 doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA products and “found no indications of serious side effects,” according to a Kaiser Permanente news release.
Using a form of surveillance monitoring known as rapid cycle analysis, investigators performed weekly sequential analyses for 19 safety signals, including myocarditis, pericarditis, seizures, heart attack, Bell’s palsy, neurological inflammatory conditions, anaphylaxis and several others.
The study period was from June 2022 to March 2023.
Instead of using a comparable group of unvaccinated children as the control, the authors compared adverse events occurring 1-21 days after vaccination in one group, with outcomes among children in another group who had received the shot at some point between 22 and 42 days previously.
Time since inoculation was the only distinguishing feature, and the only factor that might account for inter-group differences.
The study, therefore, boils down to the question of whether children who received an mRNA shot about 10 days previously experienced more or fewer adverse events than children who received their jab about 32 days previously.
Data were mined from the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a repository of patient data from eight private healthcare systems, which included five Kaiser Permanente regions and three other large health entities.
Up to three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech product were given to 135,000 children, ages 6 months to 5 years, while 112,000 children, ages 6 months to 6 years, got the Moderna gene therapy.
Subject demographics more or less reflected the populations served by these healthcare companies.
The authors wrote that their safety surveillance over nine months “did not detect a safety signal for any outcome during the 21 days after vaccination. Importantly, no cases of myocarditis or pericarditis occurred after vaccination.”
The accompanying press release framed the conclusion even more positively. According to corresponding author Dr. Nicola Klein:
“Parents can be assured that this large study found no serious side effects from the mRNA vaccines. … Parents can protect their young children from COVID-19 in the same way they vaccinate their children to protect from other serious childhood diseases.”
Perhaps anticipating the long list of questions regarding their work, the researchers discussed the potential limitations of their analysis, which they said included:
- Reduced statistical power, particularly for rare outcomes.
- Low vaccine uptake in the evaluated age group (“only” 24.7% of the eligible population received at least one shot).
- Surveillance did not include “all potential safety concerns.”
And the kicker:
“We may have underestimated or missed potential safety concerns if the biologically plausible risk interval for an outcome differed from our specified risk interval.”
Together, the choice of control group and the time period selected almost guaranteed “reduced statistical power,” particularly when comparing the two groups.
In a 2022 paper Klein noted reports from “worldwide” sources of myocarditis/pericarditis after mRNA COVID-19 treatments “especially among younger male persons [italics mine] 0 to 7 days after receiving dose 2.”
Although the incidence of heart inflammation was low in the 0-5 age group for the Pfizer product (14.4 per million doses, mostly after the second shot), the incidence of serious cardiac events rose markedly for older groups.
No data were available in the 2022 study for the Moderna shot.
For 18- to 29-year-old males — the youngest age group for which both Pfizer and Moderna data were available — Klein reported, based on VSD numbers, a cumulative myocarditis/pericarditis incidence of 135 cases per million for children who had received the two injections plus the booster.
For the Moderna product, the incidence was 185 per million. For females, the rates were about 10 per million for both mRNA shots.
Given the serious long-term consequences of heart inflammation, and its known occurrence among vaccinated teenagers and young adults, one wonders at the wisdom of giving mRNA shots to children who are even younger than those known to get sick from the treatments.
COVID-19 itself has been blamed for the rise in heart inflammation, but a search for data from very early in the pandemic, before this storyline emerged (possibly to hide the incidence of “vaccine” injuries), shows this to be a red herring.
A 2022 Italian study comparing myocarditis/pericarditis incidence pre- and post-COVID-19 reported that the annual incidence of myocarditis was significantly higher before the pandemic than during, with a rate of about 80 per million “pre” and 60 per million “during.”
The authors made a point to emphasize that “the incidence of myocarditis was significantly lower in COVID than in PRECOVID in the class of age 18-24 years” than for their general study population, which averaged 40 years of age.
The incidence of pericarditis was unchanged between the two time periods, at about 45 per million.
Comparing data from two far-flung studies should be undertaken with caution. However, the difference between a baseline of fewer than 60 cases per million for 18- to 24-year-old adults (the Italian study) and the 185 per million for “male persons” between 18 and 29 post-mRNA treatment (Klein et al.) clearly and inconveniently shatters the “safe and effective” narrative.
The lack of statistical power in Klein’s 2023 study, despite a very large “denominator” (total patients studied), is almost certainly due to the relatively small number of cases — which is exactly what one would expect when uncommon (but serious) side effects over such short time periods are compared.
True, this is an apples-to-apples comparison — but in this case, investigators pretty much used the exact same apples and reported their similarities as somehow noteworthy.
Klein’s data source(s) raise additional questions. Although the VSD is connected to the national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), how much of her raw data came from VAERS and how much came from VSD is unclear.
Eleven of VSD’s 13 participating commercial and academic hubs are “data reporting sites” whose contributions presumably include vaccine side effect reports.
The concern here is about motives and incentives. VAERS data are based mainly on self-reporting and are known to be gross underestimates of the actual number of incidents.
By contrast, hospitals and healthcare systems, e.g. those participating in VSD, were robustly incentivized to promote and administer the COVID-19 shots.
Along those lines, note that one author “received funding from Janssen Vaccines and Prevention for a study unrelated to coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines.” And lead investigator Klein “received grants from Pfizer for coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine clinical trials and from Merck, GSK, and Sanofi Pasteur for study work unrelated to the current study work.”
The rationale for immunizing children against COVID-19 has been hotly debated since the shots were first available to older adults in late 2020.
But by the time these treatments were authorized for children, it was already clear that kids do not get very sick from COVID-19 and are not a significant source of infection, either for the community or for “grandma” in her rocking chair at home.
As of early 2021, with the huge wave of Delta-variant fatalities in freefall, the number of U.S. pediatric COVID-19 deaths reported by the CDC was close to zero, both in terms of absolute cases and as a percentage of all deaths.
Yet in her interview with her institution’s media department, lead author Klein said:
“Even as the COVID-19 emergency has ended, we know that the coronavirus poses a long-term, serious threat to all ages, including children. Vaccinating children against COVID-19 benefits them by reducing the burden of illness, avoiding spreading the virus to family and others, and mitigating the small but real risk of serious illness.”
Angelo DePalma, Ph.D., is a contributing editor for The Defender.
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.
Biden regime top aide in Saudi Arabia to further push for normalization with Israel after Blinken failure
Press TV – June 18, 2023
A top advisor to US President Joe Biden has reportedly traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of Washington’s relentless push to broker a normalization deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
The US-based news website Axios reported on Saturday that Brett McGurk, Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, had arrived in Saudi Arabia to hold “talks with Saudi officials that will focus on the administration’s efforts to reach a normalization agreement between the Israel and the kingdom as well as other issues.”
According to the report, McGurk was also expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman to discuss the kingdom’s normalization of relations with Israel.
McGurk’s visit is part of attempts by the White House to push for a Saudi-Israeli deal in the next six to seven months before Biden’s presidential election campaigns.
The top advisor’s trip to Saudi Arabia comes less than two weeks after US Secretary of State Tony Blinken visited the kingdom and met bin Salman, with Saudi officials having snubbed the US diplomat’s latest push for the normalization deal.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said at a joint press conference with Blinken that “without finding a pathway to peace for the Palestinian people… any normalization will have limited benefits.”
Saudi Arabia cautiously welcomed the US-brokered normalization deals between the Israeli regime and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020.
The oil-rich kingdom itself, however, has been expected to jump on the bandwagon since then, as the two sides have seen growing contacts and de-facto rapprochement in recent years, despite claims that it is committed to the 2002 so-called Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions normalizing ties with Israel on the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
The Riyadh regime in November 2020 granted permission for Israeli airlines to use its airspace, hours before the first Israeli flight to the UAE was set to take off.
Palestinian leaders, activists and ordinary people have repeatedly rejected Arab-Israeli normalization deals as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people.”
Putin Chose The Perfect Time To Reveal Details About The Now-Defunct Draft Treaty With Ukraine
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 18, 2023
President Putin surprised his guests from the African peace delegation on Saturday by revealing details about Russia’s now-defunct draft treaty with Ukraine. It would have re-enshrined neutrality in that country’s constitution and also limited its number of military forces. According to him, it had even been signed by the Ukrainian side, which then discarded it in response to pressure from the Anglo-American Axis (AAA) despite Russia pulling its troops back from Kiev as part of an agreed-upon goodwill gesture.
The special operation could have been over just a month after it started, thus meaning that this development marked the beginning of the NATO-Russian proxy war in hindsight seeing as how that bloc hadn’t yet gone all-out in supporting Ukraine until right after that happened. This suggests that while the AAA was indeed surprised by President Putin preemptively averting Kiev’s planned reconquest of Donbass, they eventually saw an opportunity to weaken their rival by perpetuating this conflict.
They seemingly calculated that it would quickly collapse due to combined proxy war and sanctions pressure, though that obviously didn’t happen. The following fifteen months ended up hurting the Global South a lot more than Russia as proven by the food and fuel crises that ravaged these developing countries as a result of the West’s unilateral restrictions on their target’s financial dealings. The so-called “grain deal” also failed to relieve their suffering since Kiev never shipped its supplies to those states.
It was in the context of those countries’ plight that some of their leaders decided to embark on a peace mission to the two direct combatants in this conflict. They reportedly sought to convince both sides to agree to a ceasefire and other de-escalation measures such as lifting some of the sanctions in order to restore their previously reliable grain imports from those two. President Putin was aware of why they visited him and thus took the chance to prove that Russia wasn’t responsible for their problems.
His country regards Africa as an emerging pole in the ongoing global systemic transition to multipolarity, hence the importance of comprehensively expanding their relations. To that end, the Russian leader must absolutely ensure that his counterparts and their people aren’t misled by the West’s propaganda blaming it for the food crisis, especially since the “grain deal” is unlikely to be renewed due to its terms never having been fulfilled and a renewed round of information warfare will predictably follow.
President Putin therefore chose the perfect time to reveal details about Russia’s now-defunct draft treaty with Ukraine in order to show them that it’s Kiev and its AAA patrons who are responsible for disrupting Africa’s previously reliable import of grain from Eastern Europe. The supplementary context of Kiev’s disastrous NATO–backed counteroffensive also enabled him to show average Westerners that this catastrophe was entirely avoidable had the AAA not meddled in the Russian-Ukrainian peace process.
About those talks, they might very well resume around wintertime after Kiev’s doomed counteroffensive finally comes to an end, during which time the African peace delegation might be requested by both sides to informally mediate. By informing them of the details contained in the signed agreement that was ultimately discarded by Ukraine under the AAA’s pressure, they’ll be able to pick up where those two left off and thus be able to more effectively facilitate their talks in that scenario.
For these reasons, it makes sense why President Putin waited until now to reveal details about this treaty. He wanted to reassure Russia’s African partners that it isn’t responsible for the food crisis ahead of the next foreseeable round of information warfare claiming otherwise, which will likely commence once the “grain deal” expires next month in the days leading up to the second Russia-Africa Summit. By sharing proof of this with their peace delegation, President Putin ensured that they won’t be misled.
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Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
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