Gilbert Doctorow | September 9, 2022
The UK and Commonwealth may be mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday. I am in mourning as well, but for a very different reason: the gathering in the Ramstein air base in Germany yesterday reshuffled the deck on Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine, raising contributions to the ongoing holy crusade against Russia from still more nations and adding new, still more advanced precision strike weapons to the mix of deliveries to Kiev. It was an open summons to the Kremlin to escalate in turn, as were the test firing the same day of a new intercontinental rocket, the Minuteman III, from Vandenberg air base in California and the unannounced visit to Kiev yesterday of not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was featured in Western media accounts, but also other top officials of the Biden administration. The most notorious member of this delegation was surely Blinken’s deputy, Victoria Nuland, who had stage managed the February 2014 coup that put in power in Kiev the Russia-hating regime that Zelensky now heads.
The Russians may be compelled to take the bait due to the course of military action on the ground. As now becomes clear, they have just suffered some losses in very heavy ground and artillery fighting these past few days around Kharkov. The Ukrainian gains were facilitated by the advanced weaponry recently arrived from NATO countries, by the targeting data they are receiving from the U.S. and from off-stage tactical direction from NATO officers. By ‘take the bait,’ I mean the Russians may escalate to all out war on Ukraine. This question figured prominently in yesterday’s major news and political talk show programs of Russian state television. I will go into these matters in some detail below.
Regrettably, all of the foregoing also obliges me to revisit the critique I published a couple of weeks ago on the latest essay in Foreign Affairs magazine by John Mearsheimer. His overarching message on the dangers of our stumbling into a nuclear war is better substantiated by the latest developments, even though I believe that Mearsheimer failed to identify the several successive steps that lie ahead before we find ourselves in such a war. Mearsheimer oversimplified Russian options to deal with setbacks on the ground. This also will be a central issue in my narrative below.
Finally, in this essay I will direct attention to the second dimension of the ongoing confrontation between Russia and the entire Collective West: the economic war being waged on the Russian Federation via sanctions, which now far outnumber those directed against any other country on earth. This war, as I will argue, is going well for the Russians. More importantly for us all, it is the sole area in which the peoples of Europe may have a say in putting an end to the mad policies being pursued by their national governments under the direct pressure of Washington.
*****
Over the past ten days, we have witnessed the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive which was preceded by so much anticipation in Western media. A reversal of Russian fortunes in the war was predicted, leading to the stalemate or outright defeat for Russia which Mearsheimer and some other analysts in the US foreign policy community feared would trigger a nuclear response from the Kremlin.
In fact, the Ukrainian counter-offensive got off to a very bad start. It opened in the south, in the Kherson region. Kherson, which is predominantly Russian-speaking, was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to the Russians and it has strategic importance for ensuring Russian domination of the Black Sea littoral. However, first results of the Ukrainian attacks there were disastrous for the Ukrainian armed forces. It soon was obvious that they had deployed new recruits who had little or no military experience. The infantry attacked across open terrain where they were easily destroyed in vast numbers by the Russian defenders of Kherson. I have heard the figure of 5,000 Ukrainian casualties in the Kherson counter offensive. Obviously the Russians were jubilant, though there were reports of some Ukrainian reservists being withdrawn from the field of action for redeployment elsewhere.
What followed was something the Russians evidently did not expect, namely a well prepared and implemented assault on their positions around the northeastern city of Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city. Kharkov was briefly surrounded by Russian forces at the start of the war, but was left in relative peace as the Russians refocused their strategy on taking the Donbas and avoiding major urban warfare except in one place, Mariupol. Exactly what the Russian game plan has been was recently explained in a remarkable paper published by a certain ‘Marinus’ in the Marine Corps Gazette.
A couple of days ago I picked up the following amidst the chatter of panelists on Evening with Vladimir Solovyov: “yes, we made some mistakes, but it is inevitable in a war that mistakes are made.” As from the latest news on the apparent loss of Balakliya and surrounding villages on the outskirts of Kharkov, we can see that the Ukrainian tactics were precisely those which Russia had been using so effectively against them from day one of the ‘special military operation,’ namely a feint in one war zone followed by all-out attack on a very different region. Of course, the ‘feint’ around Kherson, if that is what it was, entailed the cynical sacrifice of thousands of young and not so young Ukrainian foot soldiers. But the resultant distraction prevented the Russians from bringing up sufficient manpower to successfully defend their positions around Kharkov, which include the strategically important city of Izyum.
Izyum is close to the Russian-Ukrainian border southeast of Kharkov and is a major logistical base for munitions and weaponry that are sent onward to support the Donbas operation. The latest information on the Russian side appears to be that the Russians have now dispatched large numbers of reservists to this area to hold their positions. They also speak of intense artillery duels. We may well assume that both sides have experienced heavy loss of life. As yet, the outcome is unforeseeable. Meanwhile, Russian war correspondents on the ground in Donetsk insist that the Russian advance towards Slavyansk, in the center of the former Donetsk oblast, is continuing without pause, which suggests that the strikes on their munitions stores claimed by the Ukrainians have not been totally effective. If Slavyansk is taken in the coming few weeks, then Russia will quickly assume control of the entire territory of the Donbas.
In last night’s talk show program, host Vladimir Solovyov said that this latest push in the Ukrainian counter-offensive was timed to coincide with the gathering at the Ramstein air base, Germany of top officials from NATO and other allies under the direction of the visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. If the Ukrainian efforts were failing in the field, then the cry would go up: we must provide them with more weapons and training. And if the Ukrainian efforts in the counter-offensive were succeeding, those in attendance at Ramstein would hear exactly the same appeal to aid Kiev.
Though Evening with Solovyov, on air from about 23.00 Moscow time, offered viewers some few minutes of video recordings from the opening of the Ramstein gathering, far more complete coverage was provided to Russian audiences a few hours earlier by the afternoon news show Sixty Minutes. Here, nearly half an hour on air was given over to lengthy excerpts from CNN and other U.S. and European mainstream television reporting about Ramstein. Host Yevgeni Popov read the Russian translation of the various Western news bulletins. His presentation clearly sought to dramatize the threat and to set off alarm bells.
For his part, Vladimir Solovyov went beyond presentation of the threat posed by the United States and its allies to analysis of Russia’s possible response. He spoke at length, and we may assume that what he was saying had the direct approval of the Kremlin, because his guests, who are further removed from Power than he is, were, for the most part, allowed only to talk blather, such as the critique by one panelist of a recent pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia article in The New York Review of Books by Yale professor Timothy Snyder, who counts for nothing in the big strategic issues Russia faces today.
So, what did Solovyov have to say? First, that Ramstein marked a new stage in the war, because of the more threatening nature of the weapons systems announced for delivery, such as missiles with accuracy of 1 to 2 meters when fired from distances of 20 or 30 kilometers thanks to their GPS-guided flight, in contrast to the laser-guided missiles delivered to Ukraine up till now. In the same category, there are weapons designed to destroy the Russians’ radar systems used for directing artillery fire. Second, that Ramstein marked the further expansion of the coalition or holy crusade waging war on Russia. Third, that in effect this is no longer a proxy war but a real direct war with NATO and should be prosecuted with appropriate mustering of all resources at home and abroad.
Said Solovyov, Russia should throw off constraints and destroy the Ukrainian dual use infrastructure which makes it possible to move Western weapons across the country to the front. The railway system, the bridges, the electricity generating stations all should become fair targets. Moreover, Kiev should no longer be spared missile strikes and destruction of the ministries and presidential apparatus responsible for prosecution of the war. I note that these ideas were aired on the Solovyov program more than a month ago but then disappeared from view while the Russians were making great gains on the ground. The latest setbacks and the new risks associated with the Western policies set out at Ramstein bring them to the surface again.
Solovyov also argued that Russia should now use in Ukraine its own most advanced weapons that have similar characteristics to what NATO is delivering to the other side. As a sub-point, Russia should consider neutralizing in one way or another the GPS guidance for U.S. weapons. Of course, if this means destroying or blinding the respective U.S. satellites, that would mean crossing a well-known U.S. red line or casus belli.
Next, in the new circumstances, Russia should abandon its go-it-alone policy and actively seek out complementary weapons systems from previously untouchable countries, such as Iran and North Korea. Procurements from both have till now been minimal. On this issue, a couple of panelists with military expertise were allowed to explain that both these countries have sophisticated and proven weapons that could greatly assist Russia’s war effort. Iran has unbeatable drones which carry hefty explosive charges and have proven their worth in operations that are unmentionable on public television. And North Korea has very effective tanks and highly portable field artillery which are both fully compatible with Russian military practice, because the designs were based on Chinese weapons, which in turn were copies of Russia’s own. These weapons also have shown their worth in the hands of unnamed purchasers in the Middle East. Moreover, North Korea has a vast store of munitions fully compatible with Russian artillery. It was also mentioned in passing that insofar as Kiev has mobilized in the field many Western mercenaries and covert NATO officers, Russia should also recruit from abroad, as for example, whole brigades from North Korea available for hire.
If any of these ideas put out by Solovyov last night are indeed implemented by the Kremlin, then the present confrontation in and over Ukraine will truly become globalized, and we have the outlines of what may be called World War III. However, I note that the use of nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, does not figure at all in the set of options that official Moscow discusses in relation to the challenges it faces in its Ukraine operation. Such a possibility would arise only if the NATO forces being sent to the EU’s ‘front line states’ grew in number by several times those presently assigned and appeared to be preparing to invade Russia.
*****
Before Ramstein, before the news of Ukrainian successes on the ground in the Kharkov sector, I had plans to write about a very different development this past week that coincided with a different calendar: the end of summer vacations and return to work of our national governments. With the return, our presidents and prime ministers would finally have to address the critical state of the European economies, which are facing the highest inflation rates in decades and an energy crisis brought about by the sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. Speculation was rife on what exactly they would do.
I was particularly struck by several articles in the 7 September edition of The Financial Times and planned to comment on them.
For months now, the FT has been the voice of Number 10, Downing Street, at the vanguard of the Western crusade to crush Russia. Their editorial board has consistently backed every proposal for sanctions against Russia, however hare-brained. And yet on the 7th their journalists ran away with the show and cast doubt on the basic assumptions held by their bosses. One article by Derek Brower in the “FT Energy Source” newsletter has the self-explanatory title “The price cap idea that could worsen the energy crisis.” As we saw today, Brower’s concern was misplaced: finally, the EU could not agree a price cap policy. This notion, promoted from the United States by none other than the Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, is in full contradiction with the practices of the global hydrocarbon market, as even a few EU leaders understood, depriving the initiators from the Baltic States of their hoped for consensus.
Another article of the 7th in FT, by Valentina Pop, Europe Express Editor, analyzed quickly and competently the problems facing European policy-makers in their bid to alleviate the pain to households and industry that the latest electricity and heating bills would otherwise present, given that they are several times higher than just a year ago and are unaffordable by large swathes of the population. Pop identified the key issue thus: how to provide aid quickly to those most in need given the constraints and resources available to the various government bureaucracies: “Some capitals will take many months in determining which households require help” she says. Of course, ‘many months’ of patience in the broad population will not be there.
But the most surprising article in this collection from the 7th was in the “Opinion Lex” section of the paper which was nominally about how Russian banks have weathered the storm that broke out when the EU sanctions on their industry first were laid down shortly after the start of Russia’s ‘special military operation.’ Indeed, VTB and other major Russian banks have returned to profitability despite it all. The author finds that ‘sanctions are biting less than western politicians hoped.’ Not only did the expected banking crisis not materialize, but the ruble is at five-year peaks and inflation is falling. Moreover the official Russian financial data behind these generalizations is said to be sound by independent and trustworthy market observers. The key conclusions are saved for last: “Russia has shown it can bear the pain of western sanctions. Western Europe must endure reprisals as robustly, or concede a historic defeat.’ The ‘reprisals’ in question are the complete shutdown of Russian gas deliveries through Nord Stream I until Europe lifts its sanctions.
It is interesting that even the Opinion article by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg published on the 7th in FT carries the following grim warning: “We face a difficult six months, with the threat of energy cuts, disruptions and perhaps even civil unrest.’ [emphasis mine]
To be sure, here and there in Europe, there are a few clever administrators who find promising solutions to the pending crisis of energy bills. In her first day in office, Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss announced one such solution: to immediately freeze the maximum energy bill per household at the present level of 2500 pounds sterling per year and then to turn around and agree with the power companies a subsidy for them to cover their losses.
This is fine for nipping in the bud possible ‘civil unrest.’ But the question remains how Britain will finance the estimated 150 billion pounds this will cost in the first year alone. If a similar solution were approved in the EU, the overall cost would surely approach the 800 billion euros of assistance borrowed to cover losses attributable to the Covid pandemic a year ago. But whereas the Covid aid was financed by collective borrowing of the EU, no such solidarity is likely to deal with the energy crisis, given that Germany, the Netherlands and other northern Member States oppose this becoming a general practice and will apply a veto. The British solution, however clever it may be, will hardly be available to many countries in the EU on their own given their high state indebtedness.
Then there is the second question of what to do to assist industry. Failure to give industry proper relief will result in company closures and rampant unemployment, which finally also sparks political protest. In any case, such solutions do not deal with the knock-on effects of vastly increased government borrowing to finance the energy subsidies, something which in the best of times always reduces capital available for other government services and capital available to private business for investment and job creation.
These various problems in dealing with the energy crisis that Europe created for itself by imposing sanctions on Russia may well be intractable and may well lead to spontaneous protests in a number of European countries this fall.
There is no anti-war movement on the Old Continent to speak of. So popular protests over the ‘heat or eat’ dilemma being imposed from the chanceries on the people without anything resembling public debate may be the salvation of us all if they induce war mongering politicans to resign.
By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 10.09.2022
The total powerlessness of the current US authorities (visible even on the face of their president) striving for a unipolar world, against the background of the ongoing removal of the United States from the “global throne,” is forcing mentally exhausted US strategists to jump into more and more failing adventures.
By unleashing a Russophobic sanctions policy and imposing it through Washington’s long-prepared coalition of a “new wave” of pro-American military and political elites in Europe, the United States has not only doomed itself to further defeat – it has also blatantly thrown Europe and its current ruling establishment under the bus by making them responsible for the current financial, economic and energy crisis the US has triggered. As a result, there is growing resentment among Europeans of the policies of their overtly Washington-oriented rulers, which could turn into mass protests in the coming days. These could undoubtedly sweep away not only governments in many European countries, but could also give further impetus to similar political “adjustments” in the United States itself.
And this process of “change” has already begun with demonstrations in Leipzig, Cologne and other German cities against the blatantly “anti-people” policies of Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and their overt adherence to instructions from Washington to the detriment of national interests.
Mass protests are sweeping the Czech Republic, as some 70,000 people took to the streets on September 3, dissatisfied with the government policies and capable, according to German newspaper Die Welt, of rocking protest rallies in Germany even further.
Anti-government demonstrations, according to the Independent, also began in Britain, just after Liz Truss was appointed, outside the prime minister’s residence.
Realizing the inevitability of this protest wave spilling over the ocean and the threat of impeachment of the current US administration by Americans, the White House unfortunately sees the chance of prolonging the existence of the current political elite not in adjusting its domestic and foreign policies, but in unleashing a big war, in the expectation that it will serve to justify all the blunders of the authorities.
Meanwhile, the position of the Biden administration has strained US relations with two superpowers, Russia and China, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stressed in an August interview with The Wall Street Journal. As a member of the old conservative school, Kissinger, despite viewing Russia and China as enemies, takes the “wise” approach of the long-term political and diplomatic game of “pitting” enemies against each other to facilitate the task of defeating them, rather than unleashing a straight war with an unclear end, which he calls an imbalance and dangerous equivocation. “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger pointed out.
For the past two years, the American establishment has become quite open about its plans to “contain” Russia and China. Specifically, the plan was to first unleash a conflict with Russia at the hands of the US proxies in Ukraine and then finish Moscow off with sanctions, in the hope that it would quickly lose, swallow its pride and bow down to Washington. In the next phase of their confrontation with Moscow and Beijing, the White House “wise men” intended to pit their proxies in Taiwan against China, expecting to defeat the Chinese adversary as well.
Suddenly, however, these plans were thwarted, as were the hopes for Joe Biden’s political and mental longevity. And just as Biden’s doctors’ “energizers” are not helping him, so have the anti-Russian sanctions, which led Europe to an energy collapse, and virtually all of NATO weapons redeployed by Washington to Ukraine not brought about a victory over Moscow. But they have left the EU without arms to ensure its own security, and without gas, for which the Europeans intend to hold accountable not only their own authorities, but Washington as well.
Not fazed by the clear defeat of the chosen strategy, Washington nevertheless intends to place particular emphasis in the near future on unleashing an armed confrontation with Moscow and Beijing in the Pacific theater. In particular, by exacerbating the situation in the Taiwan Strait and pumping more and more weapons into Taiwan, following the Ukraine model, and by switching to a confrontation with Russia in the Far East. A concrete confirmation of these plans was the large article by military analyst Cropsey, posted on the Hong Kong-based online resource Asia Times. It proposes to rectify Washington’s failure in Ukraine by increasing confrontation with the Russian Navy in the Far East, in the hope that something will come of it.
With such provocative and ill-considered policies, the US is heading for a third world war and does not even realize it, The Hill reports.
But the senile “wise men” in the White House are completely oblivious to the fact that Russia and China are now in the best relationship they have ever had. And not only in the sphere of trade and political interaction, but also in the military sphere, conducting regular joint exercises, including in potential hot spots such as the Sea of Japan. Not to mention the combined military potential of the PRC and Russia, including in nuclear weapons. Especially considering that Russian resources and technology plus Chinese industrial production make it possible to replenish their military capabilities almost indefinitely, which cannot be said of NATO.
And in the heat of its phobias and its desire to survive at all costs, Washington does not want to heed warnings about the obvious inadvisability of waging a two-front war, from either its politicians, in particular Henry Kissinger, or from the independent US media (independent of the White House, that is). In particular, The National Interest has shown quite objectively and justifiably that America cannot simultaneously confront China and Russia in a war, because with the current budget deficit America’s military capabilities are insufficient and in these circumstances American “strategists” need to accept the reality of a US defeat in the event of such a military conflict. The publication therefore recommends that instead of trying to challenge and contain Russia and China along their borders and coastal seas, the United States should pursue some, albeit limited, satisfaction of its vital interests through diplomacy.
Samizdat – September 9, 2022
Some of the heavy weapons brought by the US to Japan for a joint training exercise will remain there for the time being, General Charles Flynn, the US Army’s Pacific commander, has told Reuters.
“It’s an opportunity for us to keep capabilities forward,” Flynn said, as quoted by the news agency on Friday.
On Thursday, Flynn visited Amami Oshima Island to inspect a military base operated by the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The facility, which was opened in 2019, is located on the edge of the contested South China Sea and is about 850km from Taiwan, a hotspot of growing US-Chinese tensions.
During a joint press conference with General Yoshihide Yoshida, chief of staff of the GSDF, the visiting US general said the US military presence in Japan helped “deter bad behavior” by other nations. The location of the island is strategically important for countering China, Flynn said.
The US official also inspected the island’s military installations from a helicopter and was given a tour of the Japanese Type 12 anti-ship missiles stationed on it.
According to Reuters, the American military equipment was brought to the Amami Oshima base for the annual Orient Shield military exercise, which lasted for a week and concluded on September 3.
Flynn said the hardware would stay for the next drill, the report said, adding that two more US-Japanese exercises are scheduled for this year. Among the equipment the US is leaving behind are HIMARS wheeled multiple launch rocket systems, which can also fire tactical ballistic missiles, Reuters said.
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | September 8, 2022
During the coronavirus scare, a small dissident group of American doctors stood up against the concerted effort of many politicians, people in the media, “public health” bureaucrats, doctors, and medical organizations to portray the coronavirus “vaccine” shots as “safe and effective” and something everyone should take.
Dissenting doctors also explained that, despite the scare campaign proclaiming otherwise, exposure to coronavirus created natural immunity, most people — especially younger and healthier people — faced minimal to nearly zero risk of death or serious sickness from coronavirus, and early treatments with common medicines and vitamins could prevent serious sickness.
Some doctors also wisely pointed out early on that actions such as mask wearing, business closures, and “social distancing” were ineffective in stopping the spread of coronavirus. A major warning from dissident doctors was that hospital protocols for dealing with coronavirus such as forced isolation of patients from friends and family, as well as routine use of ventilators early on and remdesivir later, created huge health risks of their own.
Pushers of the coronavirus scare denigrated all of these arguments of dissenting doctors as fringe and dangerous. But, as time has passed, more and more evidence supports these arguments. It is becoming increasingly understood among critical observers that it is the doctors derided as disinformation agents who turned out to be right all along.
These brave doctors stood up for people’s health and liberty by disputing the heavily pushed, and dangerous, coronavirus party line.
If only more people had heeded these doctors’ protestations, the harm from coronavirus and extreme actions taken in the in the name of countering coronavirus could have been significantly reduced.
Government, media, and big tech companies sought to silence these heroic doctors. In some cases, medical boards even sought to revoke their licenses — an action that puts a doctor out of business.
Now, in California, Governor Gavin Newsom has a bill — AB 2098 — on his desk that tells the state’s medical boards to punish doctors who challenge the coronavirus orthodoxy. AB 2098 directs the state medical boards to take action against such doctors in the state, including revoking these doctors’ license. That threat hanging over doctors would serve as a huge disincentive for even a small group of doctors to stand up for what they believe is true. It is a means of placing on doctors a medical propaganda straitjacket preventing them from using their unique expertise to advise people.
Suzanne Burdick provides a detailed examination of AB 2098 in a Wednesday Children’s Health Defense article you can read here.
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald has condemned the Government, media and Big Tech for coordinating to censor dissent. Writing on Twitter on Tuesday, the Intercept cofounder blasted those who have taken advantage of a series of ‘crises’ as a pretext to conspire to suppress their ideological opponents. The searing Twitter thread is reproduced in full below.
The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet – by a consortium of Washington D.C. Democrats, billionaire-funded ‘disinformation experts’, the U.S. Security State, and liberal employees of media corporations – is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood.
A series of “crises” have been cynically and aggressively exploited to inexorably restrict the range of permitted views and expand pretexts for online silencing and deplatforming. Trump’s election, Russiagate, January 6th, Covid and war in Ukraine all fostered new methods of repression.
During the failed attempt in January to force Spotify to remove Joe Rogan, the country’s most popular podcaster – remember that? – I wrote that the current religion of Western liberals in politics and media is censorship: their prime weapon of activism.
But that Rogan failure only strengthened their repressive campaigns. Dems routinely abuse their majoritarian power in D.C. to explicitly coerce Big Tech silencing of their opponents and dissent. This is Government censorship disguised as corporate autonomy.
There’s now an entire new industry, aligned with Dems, to pressure Big Tech to censor. Think tanks and self-proclaimed ‘disinformation experts’ funded by Omidyar, Soros and the U.S./U.K. Security State use benign-sounding names to glorify ideological censorship as neutral expertise.
The worst, most vile arm of this regime are the censorship-mad liberal employees of big media corporations (@oneunderscore__, @BrandyZadrozny, @TaylorLorenz, NYT tech unit). Masquerading as ‘journalists’, they align with the scummiest Dem groups (@mmfa) to silence and deplatform.
It is astonishing to watch Dems and their allies in media corporations posture as opponents of ‘fascism’ – while their main goal is to unite state and corporate power to censor their critics and degrade the internet into an increasingly repressive weapon of information control.
A major myth that must be quickly dismantled: political censorship is not the byproduct of autonomous choices of Big Tech companies. This is happening because D.C. Dems and the U.S. Security State are threatening reprisals if they refuse. They’re explicit.
But the worst is watching people whose job title in corporate HR Departments is ‘journalist’ take the lead in agitating for censorship. They exploit the platforms of corporate giants to pioneer increasingly dangerous means of banning dissenters. These are the authoritarians.
This is the frog-in-boiling-water problem: the increase in censorship is gradual but continuous, preventing recognition of how severe it’s become. The EU now legally mandates censorship of Russian news. They’ve made it illegal for companies to air it.
So many new tactics of censorship repression have emerged in the West: Trudeau freezing bank accounts of trucker-protesters; Paypal partnering with ADL to ban dissidents from the financial system; Big Tech platforms openly colluding in unison to de-person people from the internet.
All of this stems from the classic mentality of all would-be tyrants: our enemies are so dangerous, their views so threatening, that everything we do – lying, repression, censorship – is noble. That’s what made the Sam Harris confession so vital: that’s how liberal elites think.
This is why I regard the Hunter Biden scandal as uniquely alarming. The media didn’t just ‘bury’ the archive. CIA concocted a lie about it (it’s ‘Russian disinformation’); media outlets spread that lie; Big Tech censured it – because lying and repression to them is justified.
The authoritarian mentality that led CIA, corporate media and Big Tech to lie about the Biden archive before the election is the same driving this new censorship craze. It’s the hallmark of all tyranny: “Our enemies are so evil and dangerous, anything is justified to stop them.”
How come not one media outlet that spread this CIA lie – the Hunter Biden archive was ‘Russian disinformation‘ – retracted or apologised? This is why: they believe they are so benevolent, their cause so just, that lying and censorship are benevolent.
The one encouraging aspect: as so often happens with despotic factions, they are triggering and fueling the backlash to their excesses. Sites devoted to free speech – led by Rumble, along with Substack, Callin, and others – are exploding in growth.
But as these free speech platforms grow and become a threat, the efforts to crush them also grow – exactly as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, other Dems and their corporate media allies successfully demanded Google, Apple and Amazon destroy Parler when it became the single most popular app in the country.
It is hard to overstate how much pressure is now brought to bear by liberal censors on these free speech platforms, especially Rumble. Their vendors are threatened. Their hosting companies targeted. They have accounts cancelled and firms refusing to deal with them. It’s a regime.
It’s not melodrama or hyperbole to say: what we have is a war in the West, a war over whether the internet will be free, over whether dissent will be allowed, over whether we will live in the closed propaganda system our elites claim the Bad Countries™ impose. It’s no different.
In even the most despotic nations, the banal, conformist citizen thinks they’re free. As Rosa Luxemburg said: “He who does not move, does not feel his chains.” Of course the Chris Hayeses and Don Lemons think this is all absurd: Good Liberals threaten nobody and thus flourish.
The measure of societal freedom is not how servants of power are treated: they’re always left alone or rewarded. The key metric is how dissidents are treated. Now, they are imprisoned (Assange), exiled (Snowden) and, above all, silenced by corporate/state power (dissidents).
For more than a month, I’ve removed myself from the news cycle and the Discourse because my only priority right now is my family, my kids and my husband’s health. But distance brings clarity. This censorship mania consuming Western liberals is deeply dangerous – and growing.
As I’ve often said, the media outlets screaming most loudly about ‘disinformation’ are the ones that spread it most frequently, casually and destructively (NBC/CNN/Washington Post, etc.). It’s equally true of those now claiming to fight ‘fascism’: real repression comes from them.
I’m going to remain detached until the health crisis in our family is resolved. But internet freedom and free speech are not ancillary causes. They are central. This was the core cause of the Snowden reporting. Without a free internet and free speech, dissent is an illusion.
Above all, stay focused on who your real enemies are. They’re not your neighbours who have been deceived into supporting the wrong party or wrong ideology. They are victims of the repression, which is all about maintaining a closed system of propaganda that can’t be challenged.
The worst of all – the most repugnant and despicable – are those calling themselves ‘journalists’ while doing the opposite of what that term implies: they serve rather than challenge power, they deceive rather than inform, they demand censorship rather than free and open inquiry.
Heap scorn on the corporate outlets and their deceitful, pro-censorship employees abusing the ‘journalist’ label. Read them with full scepticism, or just ignore them. Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it.
At the Daily Sceptic we would of course add climate alarmism and wokery to the list of current pretexts for censorship.
BY JEFFREY A. TUCKER | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
A lawsuit against the federal government – Anthony Fauci in particular – from the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana has been brewing for a good part of the summer of 2022. The issue concerns the censoring of certain high-level experts on social media, three of whom are senior scholars of the Brownstone Institute. We know for sure that this censorship began early in the pandemic response and included exchanges between Fauci and then head of NIH Francis Collins, who called for a “quick and devastating takedown” of the Great Barrington Declaration.
At issue is whether and to what extent the government itself has had a hand in encouraging tech companies to squelch speech rights. If so, this is unconstitutional. It flies in the face of the First Amendment. It never should have happened. That it did required arduous legal means to expose and, hopefully, stop.
The Framers guaranteed that Congress would make no law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The Constitution never allowed an exception for an administrative bureaucracy answerable not even to voters to collaborate with large-scale private corporations to obtain the same result by other means. It’s still a violation of free speech.
It is of course true that any private company can regulate itself and make terms of use. But matters are different when its managers directly collude with government agencies to distribute only information of high priority to administrative bureaucrats while censoring dissident voices at the behest of government and its interests.
In order to determine if that happened, courts need access to full information on precisely what was going in their circles of communication. On September 6, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty released a decision that orders the government to give up information relevant to the case and do so in 21 days.
Dr. Fauci’s communications would be relevant to Plaintiffs’ allegations in reference to alleged suppression of speech relating to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origin, and to alleged suppression of speech about the efficiency of masks and COVID-19 lockdowns. (Karine) Jean-Pierre’s communications as White House Press Secretary could be relevant to all of Plaintiffs’ examples.
Government Defendants are making a blanket assertion of all communications to social media platforms by Dr. Fauci, and Jean-Pierre based upon executive privilege and presidential communications privilege. Plaintiffs concede they are not asking for any internal White House communications, but only external communications between Dr. Fauci and/or Jean-Pierre and third-party social media platforms.
This Court believes Plaintiffs are entitled to external communications by Jean-Pierre and Dr. Fauci in their capacities as White House Press Secretary and Chief Medical Advisor to the President to third-party social media platforms…
The initial complaint was filed May 5, 2022 and can be read in full here. It includes vast evidence of collusion between government officials and social media companies. But the government answered by claiming some kind of executive privilege and would not fork over information.
An amended complaint added the fireworks: It documented that 50 government officials in a dozen agencies were involved in applying pressure to social media companies to censor users, reports Zachary Stieber of Epoch Times.
That second filing might have flipped the switch and resulted in the judge’s decision to pull no punches. Indeed, it is a remarkable document, reproducing vast amounts of correspondence between government agencies and Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
What you see here is not antagonism but obsequious friendship: ongoing, relentless, guileless, as if nothing could be wrong here. They knew what they believed to be the problem voices and were determined to stamp them out. And that target included the documented censorship of top scientists associated with Brownstone Institute along with thousands of other credible experts and regular citizens who disagreed with the government’s extreme policy response to Covid.
Martin Kulldorff, Aaron Kheriaty, and Jay Bhattacharya are represented in the filing by the New Civil Liberties Alliance with Jenin Younes leading the legal team for the scientists. Within weeks, we’ll have a better sense of whether and to what extent these individuals were the targets directly and how many other accounts were named in takedown orders. For example, we know for sure that Naomi Wolf, another writer for Brownstone, was directly named in correspondence between the CDC and Facebook.
All of this went on for the better part of two years, during which time the First Amendment was a dead letter insofar as it concerned Covid information on platforms that are overwhelmingly dominant on the Internet. Through those means, individual citizens were restricted in their access to a diversity of views and instead inhabit a world of censorship and tedious hegemonic exhortation that have seriously hurt the credibility of the platforms that cooperated.
Finally we see courts coming around to the view that government needs to be held accountable for its actions. It is happening far too little and far too late but at least it is happening. And at long last, we might gain a clearer look into the mysterious works of Fauci and its imperial reign over American public health during the worst crisis for constitutional rights in many generations.
Jeffrey A. Tucker, Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute, is an economist and author. He has written 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press.
MEMO | September 8, 2022
Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu placed cameras in the room where he met with a delegation of US senators, without informing them beforehand that the meeting’s venue would have recording equipment, Israeli website Walla News reported.
A member of the American delegation noticed a video camera in the meeting room, which one of Netanyahu’s advisers had turned on while Netanyahu was holding a microphone in his hand.
The news site added that the US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides asked Netanyahu why he was holding a microphone, but Netanyahu tried to evade the question saying, “This is nothing.” But the ambassador and the senators were not convinced and asked for that recording equipment to be removed before the start of the meeting.
Walla cited sources as saying that Netanyahu wanted to record the meeting in order to use the footage in his campaign for the upcoming Knesset elections.
Israel is set to hold its fifth election in four years in October after the Knesset was dissolved in June.
Samizdat | September 8, 2022
Artillery ammunition, armored vehicles, and remote-launched mines make up the bulk of the new package of US military aid to Ukraine, which Washington values at $675 million, according to a list published by the US Department of Defense on Thursday.
This is the 20th “drawdown” of equipment for Ukraine from US military stocks since August 2021 – months before the conflict escalated.
According to the Pentagon, Kiev will receive ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARM) – without specifying the quantities of either – as well as 36,000 105mm artillery rounds and four howitzers of the same caliber.
In addition to 100 armored Humvee cars, Ukraine will get 1.5 million bullets, 5,000 anti-tank rockets, 50 armored ambulances, and 1,000 rounds of the 155mm Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems, as well as some night vision devices, the Pentagon said.
Speaking at the meeting of the “Ukraine Defense Contact Group” in Ramstein, Germany, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin boasted that Kiev has so far received 126 of the M777 howitzers since April, and a total of 26 multiple-launch rocket systems – including the US-made HIMARS – capable of firing long-range missiles.
Austin claimed the weapons have “demonstrably” helped Ukraine in the conflict, but said it was time for NATO to “sustain Ukraine’s brave defenders for the long haul” by “moving urgently to innovate and to push all of our defense industrial bases” so they could supply Kiev on “the hard road ahead.”
Of other countries that have chipped in, Austin singled out the UK for sending 2.3 billion pounds in military aid, and Poland for “serving as the linchpin of our efforts to support the Ukrainians,” including “generous donations” of tanks and artillery.
By the Pentagon’s own admission, the US has committed “more than $17.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine” since 2014, and another $14.5 billion since February. Just this week, the US State Department pledged another $2 billion for long-term investments in military industry, half to Ukraine and half to 18 of its neighbors.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
The Russian president accused Western leaders of hurting their own people through rank corruption and gross incompetence
Samizdat – September 7, 2022
President Vladimir Putin delivered a lengthy speech at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East.
Among other things, he commented on the unfolding crisis in the global economy, which he attributed to the shortsightedness of Western elites. According to Putin, they are trying to cling to global power while it slips from their hands.
Here are some of the key points Putin made in his address…
Western dominance is dwindling
The world is facing serious economic challenges, and unlike the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the current turmoil is the result of conscious decisions made by Western nations, Putin said. The West caught “sanctions fever” as it sought to impose its will on other nations.
According to the president, though this is nothing new, the current situation is marked by special circumstances – the US is losing its dominance in the global economy and politics, a “tectonic shift” that Western elites are not willing to acknowledge.
Elites are ‘lashing out’
“Western nations want to preserve the old world order, which benefits only them, to make everyone follow the ‘rules’ they invented themselves and which they regularly break or change to their benefit,” Putin said.
Resistance from other nations “makes Western elites to ‘lash out’ and take shortsighted cavalier decisions affecting world security, politics, and economics” he added.
Western leaders are ‘detached’ from their people
The policies adopted by the leaders of the US and its allies run counter to the public’s interests, which they are supposed to protect – this shows the Western elites are “detached from their own people,” according to Putin.
EU governments are a good example – they decided to decouple their economies from Russia, denying their businesses affordable energy and access to the Russian market, which makes them unable to compete, he said.
Putin predicted that American companies would lead the charge to capture the market shares of businesses based in the EU as a result. “When [the Americans] pursue their interests, they don’t limit themselves or shy away from anything.”
The West deceives poor nations
The global economic crisis will hurt vulnerable nations worst of all, according to the president – for many people, it’s a life-and-death situation, as impoverished countries will have no ability to buy crucial products.
Meanwhile, Western nations pretend they want to help while only doing what is in their own interests, as exemplified by the Ukraine grain export deal, according to Putin. Russia agreed to help ships loaded with grain to leave Ukrainian ports under an arrangement mediated by Turkey and the UN in July. However, most of the ships have gone to EU nations rather than struggling countries, the president said.
“Just two ships out of 87 were loaded [in Ukraine] under the UN Food Program, which works to provide assistance to needy countries… just 3% that were sent to developing nations.”
According to Putin, Western nations have decades and even centuries of experience in plundering colonies, and are using the same approach today. In order to prevent humanitarian disasters, Russia suggests limiting the destinations for Ukrainian grain to change the situation.
Russia is weathering the sanctions
Russia is dealing with the damage caused by the West’s “economic, financial and technological aggression” relatively well, Putin said. He noted that the country’s financial system had been stabilized, inflation is going down, and unemployment is at record lows.
Some companies were indeed hurt, especially those whose business depended on Europe in some way, he said. The Russian government has mechanisms in place to support them.
Asian nations want cooperation
Most of the nations in the Asia-Pacific Region (APAC) reject “the destructive logic of sanctions” and seek to foster business ties and economic growth for the benefit of their people, Putin said. Russia appreciates players that share its attitude to national sovereignty. The abundance of countries like this in APAC is “its great competitive advantage” and a source of long-term development.
Russia did not start the conflict in Ukraine
When asked by the host for comments on how the crisis in Ukraine has affected Russia, he reiterated Moscow’s position that the conflict was forced upon it.
“We did not start anything in terms of military action. We are trying to end it. Military action was started in 2014, following an armed coup in Ukraine by those who did not want normal development and sought to subjugate their own people, carrying out one military action after another, and subjecting Donbass citizens to genocide for eight years.”
Russia decided to use military force eight years later. Doing so was a moral obligation to the people of Donbass, who Moscow could not protect through peaceful means, Putin said. In the end, Russia will emerge from the conflict stronger domestically and internationally, he added.
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Colloidal Silver — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | October 16, 2026
Silver was medicine. Not alternative medicine. Not folk medicine. Medicine. In surgery. In obstetrics. In the burn ward. In water treatment. In the household medicine chest. Every physician before 1938 knew this.
By the 1870s, silver nitrate was standard in surgical wound care across the leading hospitals of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Colloidal silver preparations — Collargol, Argyrol, Protargol — entered European and American practice through the 1890s and early 1900s and became standard antiseptics in military field medicine. By the time Fleming grew his first penicillin mould in 1928, silver was the first-line antimicrobial of the Western pharmacopoeia. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal carried the clinical reports in volume. The practice ran continuously through the Victorian era, the Edwardian era, the First World War, the interwar period. By 1980, almost all of it was gone.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a four-thousand-year clinical record disappeared from mainstream medicine within four decades of the Flexner Report — and what the honest account of silver looks like once that record is reassembled.
Colloidal Silver reconstructs the pre-1938 record from The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the primary literature of the era; recovers Robert Becker’s bioelectric framework from the regeneration research the pharmaceutical model buried; and places silver inside a practical terrain-paradigm guide to its current place — in water, on the body, inside the body, and in the chronic conditions where antibiotics have failed. … continue
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