How many Americans have gotten their second booster?
By Meryl Nass, MD | September 5, 2022
7%. Seven percent. SEVEN PERCENT! Americans have said, “No more.” And so the authorities are trying a new con job to get more of us to offer our arms. The new improved version that the government and manufacturers were too scared to test! How many times do they think they can fool you?
In its article on the new booster authorizations last Wednesday, the WaPo had quotes from Peter Hotez and Michael Osterholm, both huge vaccine supporters. Neither was happy about the rush to get the boosters out before any human testing had been done.
Neither the WaPo nor the NY Times nor most other media bothered to tell their readers that the FDA had refused to convene an advisory committee meeting so the public could see the evidence for the boosters and hear a discussion about them. They must have been instructed what to leave out.
The claim is that flu shots get grandfathered in each year with minor tweaks, so why not COVID shots? Here’s why:
- Flu shots have been around for decades and their differences from year to year are well understood
- Flu shots are used first in the southern hemisphere, so the US actually gets the benefit of six months of data before using them
- But the HUGE difference is that flu shots are licensed! They have liability! You can apply to the vaccine injury compensation program for damages. You get a legal hearing with a “special master’“ judge. The new COVID boosters are unlicensed, have no quality standards they are required to meet, and the manufacturers and government are off the hook if anything goes wrong
They fooled us enough. This time it’s shame on me.
Dancing with the Politicians
US Foreign policy has become a full-time comedy routine

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
If the non-stop dancing duo Biden and Blinken is seriously seeking to validate its view that the United States of America is and should be the world’s hegemon, they are going about it the wrong way. They should be taking their lead from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky by turning their press conferences into entertainments with dancing bears and scantily clad chanteuses pirouetting and singing across the stage. They would benefit from recalling how Zelensky rose to power through his performances of comedy routines in which he would be prancing around on high heels with three colleagues who appeared to be mocking what might be construed as gay mannerisms to amuse the audience? Or perhaps the rather more outre performance where Zelensky would play a piano with his penis? If one can remember all that it would most definitely help to understand the foreign policy that is somehow playing out in Ukraine, where Zelensky has transitioned into a serious, unsmiling guy who is adept at solicitations for money and weapons. His pleading has become a shameless full-time endeavor as he now appears on thousands of screens via video link all over the world, saturating the airwaves and dropping in on both major and minor gatherings. Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone recalls how he has appeared on “the Grammy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, the World Economic Forum and probably the Bilderberg group as well, [while also] having meetings with celebrities like Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, and Bono and the Edge from U2. It’s as busy a PR tour as he could possibly have without having a discussion about the strategic importance of long-range artillery with Elmo on Sesame Street.”
Elmo might in fact be coming next as NPR is clearly one of Zelensky’s biggest fans. One also suspects that before the Ukrainian President is finished, he will be addressing a rotary meeting in Sioux Falls South Dakota. And Zelensky has even turned begging into a family affair, with his wife Olena welcomed by the President and First Lady at the White House while also going on to address the US Congress, entreating America’s Solons to provide plenty of cash and things that go bang to thwart the ambitions of one Vladimir Putin. As she put it, she is concerned lest her son and daughter be unable to return to school and university in the fall. She then observed that “We would have answers if we had air defense systems” which would enable a “joint victory in the name of life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.”
Indeed, a high point of the recent antics has to be the unique cover photo shoot by Vogue magazine, in which the lovey-dovey couple Volodymyr and Olena grin and hug before the cameras. Zelensky declares his undying affection. Vogue aside, the entire Zelensky performance, choreographed as it is by neocons inside and outside the administration, is perfectly color and image coordinated. Zelensky has an endless supply of olive drab t-shirts and he entertains in Kiev a steady stream of statesmen and even heads of government from Europe and the US, including the US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has appointed a seasoned Justice Department “Special Investigations”, i.e. “Nazi hunter” investigator, named Eli Rosenbaum to look into possible Russian war crimes.
The Garland/Rosenbaum dynamic duo will not be looking into possible Ukrainian war crimes like the recent assassination of Darya Dugina in Moscow as it is not part of the mandate from Biden/Blinken and besides which the Ukes are America’s friends, just like the Israelis who are such great friends that they also get a pass on whatever they inflict on the Palestinians, including shooting or blowing up civilians. Indeed, Zelensky’s White House approved message is always the same: “give us money and guns and we will defeat the Russkies.” So Honest Joe Biden gives them the cash and the things that go bang in the night and in return they get a hearty hand shake when the bundles of Benjamins get transferred into the trunk of someone’s car. All of which leads one to wonder if Mr Z is the best reliable source for anything having to do with himself and the corrupt toadies that adhere to him, given the recurring reports that some donated weapons are already making their way into the black market just as quickly as the money goes into officials’ pockets. Zelensky has reacted to criticism by shutting down opposition parties and media, assassinating dissident politicians and firing or imprisoning any other official who might be inclined to disagree with him.
Apart from that, there is allegedly a war going on, which may not be evident from all the horse trading taking place at the presidential palace. It also would appear to be counter-intuitive that the Russians, blamed without much in the way of evidence for atrocity after atrocity, have apparently proven willing to let Zelensky entertain all his guests undisturbed. If you are truly committing a lot of war crimes, why not add one more to the list by blowing up the Kiev presidential palace and both killing Zelensky and probably ending the war at a stroke?
There are, in fact, two wars taking place simultaneously. There is, to be sure, fighting going on around Donbas, but the more important conflict is the phony war being waged by the Biden Administration and a number of European Chancelleries in support of whatever is actually taking place in Ukraine. This latter aspect of the war consists of perhaps the most stifling – and effective – propaganda effort the world has ever seen. It includes Joe Biden and his brigade of clowns, but it also has a supporting cast consisting of NATO, a number of European heads of state and virtually the entire western media. Social media has also joined in the struggle, banning Russian originating news stories and opinion, and using algorithms and other forms of manipulation to make reporting favorable to Moscow go away. The allied effort to defeat and destroy Russia relies on lies, half-truths, and out-and-out deception. But why bother to do it? It is because the war was preventable and avoidable, which is what the White House and other governments cannot admit to the public. It makes absolutely no sense and will benefit no one when it is over, and “over” might mean “really over” as nuclear weapons are on the table.
But what about the good old American exceptionalism which Biden-Blinken and that stalwart warrior Merrick Garland are supposed to be defending? Well, that seems to have taken a hit as much of the world, watching the fiasco unfold in Ukraine, apparently doesn’t appreciate the Anglo-Saxon sense of humor. To them, the war in Ukraine would never have started if the US and Europeans had invested in the tiniest effort as mediators to come to a negotiated solution. They have given up on the United States as a “force for good” and have rather concluded that Washington is a global bully and a regular aggressor.
Former US Air Force colonel and PhD Karen Kwiatkowski has an interesting tale to tell about how far the mighty have fallen. She writes “… I saw that the Solomon Islands refused (ignored really, which is even better) a US Coast Guard request to come to port, to buy fuel, like with real American dollars, y’all! Why was the US Coast Guard floating around the South Pacific – were they lost? After getting a fuller picture – they were looking for lawbreaking fishermen and that’s where their mission took them…” So what was the US response to this outrage, which was immediately blamed on interference by the Chinese? We need “a new embassy in the Solomon Islands… along with a new five year engagement plan in the Pacific.”
During the Cold War before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a commonly heard comment was that the country had become economically and politically an “Upper Volta with rockets,” which implied that the USSR spent so much on weapons that the civilian economy was starved of resources. Well, welcome to the former United States of America. As the nation’s decline and fall will no doubt be facilitated due to the millions of mostly Latino “asylum seekers” flowing over America’s southern border, the US as a “Bolivia with nukes” might be more appropriate. The world is tired of Washington and its pretenses and the walls will inevitably come tumbling down when the Biden unsustainable trillions of dollars of added debt-surge brings on bankruptcy Argentina style. A sharp change in course might be able to fix some of the problems, but there is an election coming up which the White House is keen to win by flooding its cherished constituencies with funny money in exchange for votes, a practice which once upon a time would have been seen as corruption. Come to think of it, the US has become a banana republic run by an essentially criminal gang that alternates every few years to pretend to be a democracy. Can’t get much lower than that, but Biden sure is trying!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is temporarily pmgiraldi@gmail.com.
Biden speech is ‘dangerous escalation,’ most Americans say – poll

Samizdat | September 6, 2022
More than half of Americans believe that President Joe Biden’s September 1 speech in Philadelphia was a “dangerous escalation” of political rhetoric, designed to “incite conflict” in the US. Republicans and independents are overwhelmingly alarmed by Biden’s words, and even 18% of Democrats agree, according to a poll published Tuesday by the Trafalgar Group.
Standing before Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Biden used Thursday’s televised speech to claim that “equality and democracy are under assault” by “MAGA Republicans” led by his predecessor Donald Trump.
According to the Trafalgar survey, 56.8% of the Americans saw the speech as “a dangerous escalation in rhetoric and is designed to incite conflict amongst Americans,” while 35.5% said it was “acceptable campaign messaging that is expected in an election year.”
Broken down by party affiliation, 89.1% of Republicans, 18.7% of Democrats and 62.4% of independents considered Biden’s speech dangerous and divisive. Only 4.7% of Republicans and 31.2% of independents thought it was normal, along with 70.8% of Democrats.
“When voters tell you they think that the prepared remarks of a sitting president of the US is a dangerous escalation and was designed to incite conflict, we are living in terrifying times,” said Mark Meckler of Convention of States, the group that commissioned the poll.
“Perhaps even more terrifying is the fact that a huge majority of Democrats think this was just a routine, election year stump speech,” he added.
Biden, who repeatedly promised to unify the country, “has become the most divisive President in American history,” added Meckler, whose group advocates a constitutional convention to further limit the power of the US government.
In the speech critics have branded the “red sermon,” Biden claimed that Republicans “embrace anger… thrive on chaos… live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies,” and have no respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, or the results of a free election.
Trafalgar conducted the survey between Friday and Monday, on a sample of 1,084 likely general election voters. A quarter of those surveyed were independents, while the sample skewed Democrat at 39.3% versus 35.6% for Republicans.
Is Russia “weaponizing” natural gas against the EU?
By Drago Bosnic | September 6, 2022
For years, the political West has been accusing Russia of so-called “weaponization” of its natural resources, particularly gas and oil. Moscow is being blamed for using these essential resources to supposedly “blackmail” the European Union, while Brussels, partly pushed by US imperialist belligerence, partly by its own (neo)colonialist ambition, kept creeping up to Russia’s geopolitical backyard, creating ever-escalating tensions with the Eurasian giant. Moscow would never allow the repeat of the Nazi invasion which took tens of millions of Russian lives, in addition to the unprecedented devastation left in its wake. To make matters worse, “Barbarossa” was yet another on the long list of attempts by the political West to destroy Russia. For over a thousand years, many in Europe have tried to neutralize the Eurasian giant. Russia prevailed each and every time, but it had to do it with the force of arms.
However, in recent decades, Moscow has been trying hard to establish mutually beneficial cooperation with the political West, especially its European portion. This included making long-term deals with the EU, particularly those concerning the supply of essential commodities such as natural gas, oil, food and other raw materials which were helping fuel the growth of entire industries in Europe and elsewhere. Russia’s hope was to establish long-standing ties with the EU and make sure the strategic security on its western borders would be ensured through economic cooperation, not military might. However, Washington DC had other plans and the compliant elites in Brussels followed suit, making sure NATO military infrastructure (especially the strategically impactful US military facilities) kept expanding eastwards, getting ever closer to Russia’s heartland.
Even in this situation, Moscow tried de-escalating. Although it still kept working on ways to counter this crawling encroachment militarily, especially through the development and fielding of strategically unrivaled capabilities, Russia was hopeful that “cooler heads” would eventually prevail in Brussels and other major EU capitals, particularly Paris and Berlin. This hope still somewhat held on even after the disastrous 2014 Maidan coup which brought the Neo-Nazi junta to power in Kiev. For nearly a decade, Moscow kept trying to bring the political West to its senses. Unfortunately, to no avail, since this approach was seen as a weakness in Washington DC and Brussels. On February 24, Russia decided to put a stop to it all.
Now, after months of a failed economic siege of the Eurasian giant, especially after the sanctions boomerang started ravaging Western economies, the political West is trying to play a rather comical blame game, accusing Moscow of “weaponizing” its own natural resources. Faced with the prospect of a disastrous winter, the EU is now caught between its suicidal subservience to Washington DC and the need to simply survive. While the US keeps importing Russian commodities (at a volume of approximately $1 billion per month), it is forcing Brussels to effectively enforce a self-imposed embargo which is causing untold damage to the EU’s already dwindling production sector, causing a cascading effect of economic devastation on other seemingly unrelated industries.
Instead of trying to make a deal with Moscow, Brussels joined the economic war on Russia, prompting the Eurasian giant to respond. Now, when natural gas prices are upwards of 400% higher than just a year ago, EU powers, particularly Germany, are faced with the prospect of a near-complete industrial shutdown. And the burning issue isn’t only coming from soaring natural gas prices, but also the shortages. For months, high prices were bleeding the EU economies dry of cash, but after the Nord Stream stopped pumping natural gas altogether, the issue is exponentially worse, as entire industries are at risk of collapsing completely.
In addition to the production sector shutdown, many EU members are faced with soaring energy prices, which is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on households, which are faced with the prospect of not just bankruptcy, but also freezing, as the cold season in the EU is starting with natural gas storage facilities at their lowest level ever. Thus, the pressure on Brussels is both economic and social. With many EU member states’ governments collapsing, the political instability in the troubled bloc is bound to get much worse in the coming months. In addition to natural gas shortages, there is also the problem of soaring food prices, which also might turn into shortages soon, causing even more social and political instability across the EU.
The question is what will the EU do? Should it ask for help from its overlords in Washington DC? And will the US send food, oil, gas and other essential commodities? Does the US even have enough of those for itself? How will the “moral high ground of sticking it to Putin“ help heat homes, feed hundreds of millions of hungry (and angry) citizens and power entire economies and countries? How will the EU governments explain to their voters that all this is “worth doing“ so that the “young, vibrant democracy in Kiev“ can survive? What will Europe look like in 2023 after it goes through a complete political and social unraveling? Will the EU ever become sovereign enough to realize that whatever happens, the US will continue importing essential commodities from Russia while pressuring others not to do so? The coming winter will be a perfect litmus test of sovereignty and an excellent indicator of who will get the privilege of joining the new multipolar world of sovereign nations.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Moscow accuses West of breaking ‘grain deal’ pledge
Samizdat – September 6, 2022
Western countries have not fulfilled their promise to lift sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizers to allow them reach world markets, the country’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said on Tuesday.
The commitment was part of a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey and signed in Istanbul in July to unblock Ukraine’s grain exports and ease a looming global food crisis.
Lavrov stressed that “artificially inflated” Western claims that Russian actions in Ukraine had undermined the stability of the global food market are “absolutely not the case.”
“On the contrary, our Western colleagues are not doing what we were promised by the UN secretary general, namely, they are not making a decision to remove logistical sanctions that prevent free access of Russian grain and fertilizers to world markets,” the minister pointed out at a joint press conference with his Thai counterpart, Don Pramudwinai.
Lavrov added that Russia continues to work with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his team to ensure the organization fulfills its obligations under the Istanbul agreements.
Wheat deliveries from Ukraine, a major producer, were disrupted after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state in late February. The two sides traded accusations over who was responsible for the stoppage of cargo traffic out of Ukrainian ports. Since August 1, however, when shipments from the ports resumed, 92 vessels have departed, bringing more than 2 million tons of food goods to global markets.
374,705 NYC kids EXCLUDED from public school athletics
Restore Childhood | August 2022
1,172 views Premiered Aug 18, 2022 For a fourth year, public school kids in New York City will have their programming disrupted. 374,705 NYC students will be excluded from the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) and other “high-risk” after-school activities like music because they do not have 2 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. This policy is forcing families like lifetime Harlem residents, the Hicks, to flee the city.
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OPEC+ agrees on oil output cut
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
The OPEC+ meeting at Vienna on Monday came amidst two events affecting the oil market — the G7 finance ministers decision to endorse the US proposal regarding price cap on Russia’s oil exports with effect from December 5 and secondly, Gazprom’s announcement on cutting off all gas supplies to Europe indefinitely.
Although notionally these are unrelated events, the fact remains that the energy scene is increasingly fraught with uncertainties and there are many variables at work such as fears of a global recession, the continuing difficulty to conclude a US-Iran deal on JCPOA that would have lifted the sanctions against Iran’s oil exports.
The statement by the OPEC secretariat on Monday’s meeting in Vienna has sent out a powerful message that not only is there not going to be any increased oil production but a token cut of 100,000 bpd has been agreed upon in September to bolster prices that have slid on recession fears. Oil prices jumped after the announcement. US crude rose 3.3%, to $89.79 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent was up 3.7%, to $96.50, after the decision.
This is in the face of attempts by the Biden Administration to push through a decision on an additional increase in production so that oil prices would go down. Saudi Arabia and the UAE did not agree to the US suggestion, saying that it was outside the scope of the OPEC + agreement.
The cut in oil production by 100,000 bpd is largely symbolic because OPEC+ members are estimated to be some 2.9 million bpd behind the collective quotas allotted to them. But the point is, this is the first OPEC+ oil supply cut in more than a year and it shows that the OPEC+ will not hesitate to take preemptive action.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday that expectations of weaker global economic growth were behind the decision by Moscow and its OPEC allies to cut oil output. Novak said the global energy market is characterised by heightened uncertainty at the moment. “We are not talking about price formation, but about the adequacy of supply on the market, so that on the one hand there is no excess, and on the other there is no shortage.”
The Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has been more forthright, saying, “This (OPEC+) decision is an expression of will that we will use all of the tools in our kit. The simple tweak shows that we will be attentive, preemptive and proactive in terms of supporting the stability and the efficient functioning of the market to the benefit of market participants and the industry.”
The Saudi Minister was implying that the OPEC+ also faces a market where concerns about the strength of demand have started to outweigh supply fears. In fact, crude futures have lost about 20% in the past three months on the threat of a global economic slowdown.
Besides, OPEC+ weighs in on the likelihood that the negotiations to revive a nuclear accord and remove US sanctions on Iran’s petroleum sales might result in a successful agreement in which case, more than 1 million barrels a day will enter world markets shortly, according to the International Energy Agency.
However, the latest indications are that the Biden Administration may find it politically expedient to postpone the future of the JCPOA (2015 Iran nuclear deal) to the post-midterm election period in the US beyond November 7. Of course, both the US and Iran (as well as the European Union) are interested in reaching an agreement and want to restore the JCPOA on favourable terms.
At any rate, the OPEC+ move on Monday can only be seen as a rebuke from Saudi Arabia, the leading member of OPEC, to the Biden administration’s call for its Middle Eastern ally to increase production at a time of rising inflation and western sanctions on Russia’s energy industry. The OPEC+ decision comes less than two months after US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia when he said he expected the kingdom to take “further steps” to increase the supply of oil in the “coming weeks”.
After the OPEC+ decision, the White House said Biden is committed to shoring up energy supplies and lowering prices. “The president has been clear that energy supply should meet demand to support economic growth and lower prices for American consumers and consumers around the world,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
But beyond asking Gulf states to boost production and unleashing crude from emergency stockpiles, western countries have no leverage in the matter, since industry investment and new drilling have lagged behind demand and a significant increase in output is not to be expected.
The OPEC+ has scheduled its next meeting for October 5 but signalled it may hold talks even before that “to address market developments, if necessary.” According to Reuters, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, half-brother of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, has been empowered to intervene whenever necessary to stabilise crude markets by calling for a meeting at any time.
Quite obviously, things are moving in a direction where the G7 decision to impose a price cap on Russian oil is likely becoming the business of the OPEC+ as well, albeit indirectly. Russia has said it will stop supplying oil to countries that support the G7 idea. Signals from the physical market suggest that supply remains tight and many OPEC states are producing below targets even as fresh Western sanctions are threatening Russian exports following up on the G7 idea.
An unspoken factor is that the G7 move sets a precedent that is a cause of concern for all OPEC countries. Today, the G7 is cracking the whip on Russia over Ukraine, which has technically nothing to do with the oil market. Tomorrow, it could as well be on, for example, democracy deficit in the Gulf states. Simply put, the western powers are straying onto turf that OPEC has jealously guarded as its preserve for the past 62 years since the cartel was established — and it is doing so by politicising the core issue of oil prices by introducing extraneous geopolitical considerations.
At any rate, while speaking on the OPEC meeting’s outcome on Monday, Russian minister Novak said, “We shall examine how the market situation will evolve because there are many uncertainties” not least regarding “the declaration by G7 leaders regarding capping of the price of Russian oil” which will sow “uncertainty” on the global market. (Interestingly, Chinese Foreign Ministry has called on the G7 to reconsider its move: “Oil is a global commodity. Ensuring global energy supply security is vitally important. We hope relevant countries will make constructive efforts to help ease the situation through dialogue and consultation, instead of doing the opposite.”)
The bottom line is that the US entreaties to disband the OPEC+ are getting nowhere. The OPEC meeting in Vienna on Monday underscored in its final statement that “OPEC+ has the commitment, the flexibility, and the means within the existing mechanisms of the Declaration of Cooperation to deal with these challenges (higher volatility and increased uncertainties) and provide guidance to the market.”
The message is loud and clear: Saudi Arabia and Russia who form the axis of the OPEC+ are closely coordinating on shaping the world oil market even as they could be competing for market share.
Biden’s Bright MAGA-enta Lights

Samizdat – 03.09.2022
On Thursday, Joe Biden gave a controversial speech in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, while bathed in red lights and flanked by two Marine guards.
In the speech, titled “Soul of the Nation,” Biden attacked “MAGA Republicans” by saying that they “are destroying American democracy” and that the Republican party is “dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.”
While Biden stressed that he was not talking about all Republicans or even “a majority,” it is unclear who he was talking about if not the majority of the Republican party. Ninety-four percent of Republicans who voted in 2020 cast their ballot for Donald Trump. In nearly every poll that includes him as a candidate, Trump has a healthy lead over any potential primary opponent in 2024, including his closest competition, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is often called a MAGA Republican himself.
In 2020, 1.2% of Republicans voted for the Libertarian candidate for President, Jo Jorgensen.
Biden also took flak for including Marine guards in the background during the politically charged speech. The military is seen as an apolitical institution and their presence, in what CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins described as a “full-frontal attack” on his political opponents, could be viewed as fascist itself.
Biden mentioned “MAGA” 13 times during his speech, while specifically calling out Trump three times. The White House has defended the decision to include Marines, saying that the speech was not political.
Fauci’s Red Guards: Lawsuit Reveals Vast Federal Censorship Army
By Michael P Senger | The New Normal | September 2, 2022
One aspect of dictatorships that citizens of democratic nations often find puzzling is how the population can be convinced to support such dystopian policies. How do they get people to run those concentration camps? How do they find people to take food from starving villagers? How can they get so many people to support policies that, to any outsider, are so needlessly destructive, cruel, and dumb?
The answer lies in forced preference falsification. When those who speak up in principled opposition to a dictator’s policies are punished and forced into silence, those with similar opinions are forced into silence as well, or even forced to pretend they support policies in which they do not actually believe. Emboldened by this facade of unanimity, supporters of the regime’s policies, or even those who did not previously have strong opinions, become convinced that the regime’s policies are just and good—regardless of what those policies actually are—and that those critical of them are even more deserving of punishment.
One of history’s great masters of forced preference falsification was Chairman Mao Zedong. As László Ladány recalled, Mao’s decades-long campaign to remold the people of China in his own image began as soon as he took power after the Chinese Civil War.
By the fall of 1951, 80 percent of all Chinese had had to take part in mass accusation meetings, or to watch organized lynchings and public executions. These grim liturgies followed set patterns that once more were reminiscent of gangland practices: during these proceedings, rhetorical questions were addressed to the crowd, which, in turn, had to roar its approval in unison—the purpose of the exercise being to ensure collective participation in the murder of innocent victims; the latter were selected not on the basis of what they had done, but of who they were, or sometimes for no better reason than the need to meet the quota of capital executions which had been arbitrarily set beforehand by the Party authorities. From that time on, every two or three years, a new “campaign” would be launched, with its usual accompaniment of mass accusations, “struggle meetings,” self-accusations, and public executions… Remolding the minds, “brainwashing” as it is usually called, is a chief instrument of Chinese communism, and the technique goes as far back as the early consolidation of Mao’s rule in Yan’an.
This decades-long campaign of forced preference falsification reached its apex during the Cultural Revolution, in which Mao deputized radical youths across China, called Red Guards, to purge all vestiges of capitalism and traditional society and impose Mao Zedong Thought as China’s dominant ideology. Red Guards attacked anyone they perceived as Mao’s enemies, burned books, persecuted intellectuals, and engaged in the systematic destruction of their country’s own history, demolishing China’s relics en masse.
Through this method of forced preference falsification, any mass of people can be made to support virtually any policy, no matter how destructive or inimical to the interests of the people. Avoiding this spiral of preference falsification is therefore why freedom of speech is such a central tenet of the Enlightenment, and why it is given such primacy in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. No regime in American history has ever previously had the power to force preference falsification by systematically and clandestinely silencing those critical of its policies.
Until now. As it turns out, an astonishing new release of discovery documents in Missouri v. Biden—in which NCLA Legal is representing plaintiffs including Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty against the Biden administration for violations of free speech during Covid—reveal a vast federal censorship army, with more than 50 federal officials across at least 11 federal agencies having secretly coordinated with social media companies to censor private speech.
Secretary Mayorkas of DHS commented that the federal Government’s efforts to police private speech on social media are occurring “across the federal enterprise.” It turns out that this statement is true, on a scale beyond what Plaintiffs could ever have anticipated. The limited discovery produced so far provides a tantalizing snapshot into a massive, sprawling federal “Censorship Enterprise,” which includes dozens of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies and components identified so far, who communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation, disinformation, and the suppression of private speech on social media—all with the intent and effect of pressuring social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech that federal officials disfavor.
The scale of this federal censorship enterprise appears to be far beyond what anyone imagined, involving even senior White House officials. The government is protecting Anthony Fauci and other high level officials by refusing to reveal documents related to their involvement.
The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And it rises to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House officials… In their initial response to interrogatories, Defendants initially identified forty-five federal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General (all within only two federal agencies, DHS and HHS), who communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation and censorship.
Federal officials are coordinating to censor private speech across all major social media platforms.
The third-party social-media platforms, moreover, have revealed that more federal agencies are involved. Meta, for example, has disclosed that at least 32 federal officials—including senior officials at the FDA, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the White House—have communicated with Meta about content moderation on its platforms, many of whom were not disclosed in response to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories to Defendants. YouTube disclosed eleven federal officials engaged in such communications, including officials at the Census Bureau and the White House, many of whom were also not disclosed by Defendants. Twitter disclosed nine federal officials, including senior officials at the State Department who were not previously disclosed by Defendants.
Federal officials are granted privileged status by social media companies for the purpose of censoring speech on their platforms, and officials hold weekly meetings on what to censor.
These federal bureaucrats are deeply embedded in a joint enterprise with social-media companies to procure the censorship of social-media speech. Officials at HHS routinely flag content for censorship, for example, by organizing weekly “Be On The Lookout” meetings to flag disfavored content, sending lengthy lists of examples of disfavored posts to be censored, serving as privileged “fact checkers” whom social-media platforms consult about censoring private speech, and receiving detailed reports from social-media companies about so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation” activities online, among others.
Social media companies have even set up secret, privileged channels to give federal officials expedited means to censor content on their platforms.
For example, Facebook trained CDC and Census Bureau officials on how to use a “Facebook misinfo reporting channel.” Twitter offered federal officials a privileged channel for flagging misinformation through a “Partner Support Portal.” YouTube has disclosed that it granted “trusted flagger” status to Census Bureau officials, which allows privileged and expedited consideration of their claims that content should be censored.
Many suspected that some coordination between social media companies and the federal government was occurring, but the breadth, depth, and coordination of this apparatus is far beyond what virtually anyone imagined. And the scale of this censorship apparatus raises troubling questions.
How could so many federal officials be convinced to engage in the clandestine censorship of opposition to tin-pot public health policies from China which have killed tens of thousands of young Americans and—let’s be honest—were never really that popular to begin with? The answer, I believe, is that high-level White House officials such as Anthony Fauci must have been simultaneously threatening social media companies if they did not comply with federal censorship demands, while also threatening entire federal bureaucracies if they did not toe the Party line.
By simultaneously threatening both the federal bureaucracy and social media companies, a handful of high-level officials could effectively transform the federal government into a sprawling censorship army reminiscent of Mao’s Red Guards, silencing any opposition to tin-pot public health policies with increasing detachment and certitude as this systematic silencing falsely convinced them that the regime’s policies were just and good. A few of these federal employees must have eventually let slip to the Republicans that this jawboning was taking place, which appears to have been how this suit began.
In plaintiff Aaron Kheriaty’s words:
Hyperbole and exaggeration have been common features on both sides of covid policy disputes. But I can say with all soberness and circumspection (and you, kind readers, will correct me if I am wrong here): this evidence suggests we are uncovering the most serious, coordinated, and large-scale violation of First Amendment free speech rights by the federal government’s executive branch in US history.
Michael P Senger is an attorney and author of Snake Oil: How Xi Jinping Shut Down the World.
US biggest winner in Ukraine crisis, which deserves world’s vigilance: Zhao Lijian
Global Times | September 2, 2022
As the initiator of the Ukraine crisis, the US has been its biggest winner, standing on the sidelines while reaping the benefits. This deserves consideration and vigilance from the world, a spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
The remarks came in response to comments by some in the European media who have said that the US is masquerading as a savior while banking huge profits by selling gas to European countries, with the latter facing energy shortages due to sanctions targeting Russia that forced them to buy US natural gas at high prices.
The comments are very reasonable, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Friday during a regular press briefing.
“The comprehensive escalation of the Ukraine crisis has continued for more than half a year. Facts have once again proved that unilateral sanctions by the US and the West cannot solve the problem. On the contrary, their spillover effects continue to snowball,” said Zhao.
“As the initiator of the Ukraine crisis, the US has now become the biggest winner, reaping the benefits. This is worthy of consideration and vigilance by the whole world,” Zhao warned.
Zhao said that he is aware of reports that the gap between gas prices in the European and US markets is now as much as 10 times, a record high.
Zhao cited George Galloway, former British parliamentarian, who said that the US “is ready to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood, in the end, it’s prepared to fight to the last drop of European blood.”
Galloway also said that the working classes of Europe and North America will pay the price of the NATO-crazed suicide-mission against Russia.
According to data published by Business Insider, an American financial and business news website, US companies are making more than $100 million per container ship of liquefied natural gas bound for Europe.
“Obviously, while US arms dealers and grain merchants have been cashing in on the Ukraine crisis, US energy companies have not been left behind. As a result, the public across Europe faces soaring electricity prices, lower heating temperatures and even prescheduled blackouts,” said Zhao.
According to industry statistics, the current import price of natural gas in Europe has increased by over 200 percent from a year earlier.
One of the examples is the Rose and Crown, an award-winning British pub, which on Sunday posted an energy bill on its Twitter account, showing that its annual electricity bill is 61,667.94 pounds ($71,243), or 97.05 pounds per kilowatt-hour. The price in May was 15 pounds per kilowatt-hour, which means an increase of 547 percent.

According to her claims to the police and her testimony at the Grand Jury hearing, and according to the New York Times, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, the Wall Street Journal and many others:



