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Fauci is Now Performing Gain-of-Function on the Spanish Flu

By Tom Renz | Tom’s Newsletter | August 19, 2022

This will be short because it really does not need much comment. In fact, this is so absurd that I am just starting with the reference document because I am concerned no one will believe it. Here it is:

Spanish Flu Gof
2.12MB ∙ PDF File – Read now

Yes, that is right, Fauci and crew are now actively performing gain-of-function (GoF) work and infecting primates with the Spanish Flu. For those of you that are unaware, GoF does not have a single agreed upon definition but, as it relates here, is essentially the modification of the Spanish Flu virus to make “more functional.” In this case, as with COVID, I have little doubt the GoF supporters will argue that this is not GoF but the article actually notes that this disease was created in canine kidneys with supplemental bovine serum. Here is a quote from the document:

Virus and cells. Influenza virus A/South Carolina/1918 (H1N1) was generated by reverse genetics (9) and handled in biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) containment at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML). Sequences of the 1918 influenza viral segments were based on data reported under GenBank accession numbers DQ208309, DQ208310, DQ208311, AF117241, AY744935, AF250356, AY130766, and AF333238. 1918 influenza virus was cultured usingMadin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK; ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA) cells. MDCK cells were grown in minimum essential medium (MEM; HyClone) supplemented with 5% fetal bovine serum (FBS; HyClone) and 1 L-glutamine (L-Glu; Gibco, Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY, USA).

A passage 2 (P2) virus stock was prepared using MEM supplemented with 0.1% bovine serum albumin (BSA) (fraction V; HyClone), 1 L-glutamine, and 1 mg/mL N-tosyl-L-phenylalanine chloromethyl ketone (TPCK)-treated trypsin (Sigma-Aldrich). This stock was used for animal inoculation. The mouse 50% lethal dose (MLD50) for this stock was determined previously to be 103.2 PFU (9); this value was confirmed prior to the use of the stock for macaque infection.

I frankly do not care to debate the nuance of whether the recreation of generally extinct virus “generated by reverse genetics” using pieces and parts of other animals qualifies as GoF; what I care about is that we have recreated the Spanish Flu and are experimenting with it on other animals. I also care that one focus of this article is the fact that scientists are frustrated that the recreated Spanish Flu is not dangerous enough. We do not have to get far in this to see this frustration. At the beginning of the article in the summary of its importance this statement is made:

Here, we demonstrate that even at the highest doses tested, 1918 influenza was not lethal in these two macaque species, suggesting that they are not ideal for the development and testing of novel pandemic influenza-specific vaccines and therapies. Therefore, other physiologically relevant nonhuman primate models of pandemic influenza are needed.

At this point I am preparing to release the results of a major investigation we have been undertaking at Renz Law that will demonstrate that SARS-COV2 was in fact created in the Wuhan labs as part of a GoF project. We believe the investigation demonstrates this in a way that far exceeds a preponderance of the evidence standard and probably exceeds reasonable doubt. With that in mind, and given the result of the the previous coronavirus GoF, can ANYONE possibly argue GoF work on the Spanish Flu is a good idea? Even the simple recreation of the disease demonstrates an incredible lack of respect for the disaster created by the coronavirus GoF.

So you may be asking, what moron could possibly be oblivious enough to support GoF work on the Spanish Flu while the world is still dealing with the nightmare that is COVID? The answer should not be surprising and is here:

Mable Chan,ᵃ Meenakshi Tiwary,ᵇ,ᶜ Helen L. Wu,ᵇ,ᶜ Nikesh Tailor,ᵃ Robert Vendramelli,ᵃ Jonathan Audet,ᵃ Bryce M. Warner,ᵃ Kevin Tierney,ᵃ Alix Albietz,ᵃ Thang Truong,ᵃ Kaylie Doan,ᵃ Alexander Bello,ᵃ Marnie Willman,ᵃ Bryan D. Griffin,ᵃ,ᵈ Patrick W. Hanley,ᵉ Jamie Lovaglio,ᵉ David Safronetz,ᵃ,ᶠ Jim Strong,ᵃ,ᶠ Jonah B. Sacha,ᵇ,ᶜ Darwyn Kobasaᵃ,ᶠ

a. Special Pathogens, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

b. Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland,

c. Oregon, USA Oregon National Primate Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA

d. Vaccine Safety Surveillance, Immunization Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

e. Rocky Mountain Veterinary Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana, USA

f. Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

So, NIH and NIAID are involved. Apparently Fauci does not mind what he did with funding the creation of COVID and is at it again. You might also note the vaccine development crew’s involvement. A foundational point in this article is that the newly recreated Spanish Flu is not dangerous enough. Here is a pull-quote:

However, 1918 influenza was uniformly nonlethal in these two species, demonstrating that this isolate is insufficiently pathogenic in rhesus and Mauritian cynomolgus macaques to support testing novel prophylactic influenza approaches where protection from severe disease combined with a lethal outcome is desired as a highly stringent indication of vaccine efficacy.

This means that these people are arguing that we need to make a more dangerous version of the Spanish Flu so they can make “better” vaccines for it… despite the fact that until they recreated it, it likely no longer existed in nature. Much like with COVID, these snake oil salesmen create the disease and then create the cure. Given the complete failure and innumerable dangers of the COVID jabs, the real question is whether the cure will be worse than the disease?

For my part I find the fact that I am even writing this article to be incredible. In this election year I sincerely hope that this article is put in front of every elected official in Washington and they are asked to explain how this is continuing on their watch.

August 20, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden Steps Up Somalia Strikes After Redeploying Troops

By Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | August 20, 2022

American airstrikes in Somalia are on the rise in recent months, with US Africa Command (AFRICOM) conducting a flurry of operations against al-Shabaab militants since President Joe Biden reversed a full troop withdrawal ordered by his predecessor.

AFRICOM has carried out at least five bombing raids in Somalia so far in 2022, stating that its most recent strike last weekend killed 13 Shabaab fighters near the town of Teedaan. Four other missions were conducted between February 22 and August 9, alleged to have wiped out a total of 11 jihadists.

The Pentagon maintains the latest operation on August 14 resulted in zero deaths or injuries to civilians, in line with virtually every previous AFRICOM report on US strikes in the country. In the command’s last casualty assessment published in late July, it said it received no new reports of civilian deaths, though went on to note possible “discrepancies” between its own numbers and those of humanitarian monitors – some of which have accused the Pentagon of serious underreporting.

While the military launched a comparable number of strikes in Somalia last year, air operations appear to have accelerated since Biden’s decision to redeploy some 500 troops to the country in mid-May. Former President Donald Trump had ordered a full withdrawal of the roughly 800 soldiers on the ground in 2020, but Biden’s Pentagon later stressed the need for a “persistent US military presence in Somalia” in order to “enable a more effective fight against al-Shabaab.”

Despite years of American bombing raids and ground missions against al-Shabaab, however the group has only grown more radical since its 2006 founding, even pledging loyalty to al-Qaeda in 2012. It has also gained in strength in the meantime, with the United Nations estimating up to 12,000 fighters in its ranks earlier this year – potentially tripling its membership since 2013, when the African Union offered a lower-end figure of 4,000.

Shabaab rose from the ashes of Somalia’s civil war in the early 2000s, when warlords vied for power and control following the collapse of the Somali state. Though it began as a youth wing of the more moderate Islamic Courts Union (ICU) – which resumed some semblance of governance in Mogadishu and worked to oust warlords – foreign interventions led by Washington helped to drive the group into increasing militancy until it finally broke off from the ICU, eventually growing into an armed insurgency which rages on to this day.

August 20, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Americans increasingly see FBI as ‘Biden’s Gestapo’ – poll

Samizdat | August 20, 2022

A majority of respondents in a new survey have said they view the FBI as President Joe Biden‘s “personal Gestapo,” reflecting increasingly polarized views about the federal policing agency amid an investigation into the former commander in chief.

A Rasmussen poll published on Thursday showed major divisions in Americans’ attitudes toward the FBI, with 44% of respondents stating a recent raid on Trump’s Florida home made them lose some trust in the bureau. However, a significant 29% said the move only increased their confidence in the FBI, while 23% said it made no difference.

Asked about previous comments by former Trump adviser Roger Stone – who said “politicized thugs at the top of the FBI” are using the agency as “Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo” – a majority (53%) of those polled agreed, including 34% who concurred “strongly.” That figure is up from 46% last December, though the more recent survey still found 36% disagree with Stone’s characterization. The results were split along party lines, with 76% of Republican and 37% Democrat respondents agreeing with the “Gestapo” claim.

According to officials and an unsealed property receipt, the federal raid on Trump’s Florida home on August 8 was centered on a probe into classified documents allegedly taken from the White House – some of them said to be top-secret and even potentially related to nuclear weapons – with the bureau hoping to recover 11 different sets of material from the residence. It remains unclear what was found in the search, however, and unnamed sources cited by NBC recently said agents will need time to sift through the seized files.

Trump, for his part, has accused the FBI of a politicized raid, and claimed the agency “stole” his passports and privileged legal documents “which they knowingly should not have taken,” although the passports had since been returned. The former president’s lawyers were not permitted to observe the search of his property, and said FBI agents ordered them to shut off security cameras while it was conducted.

August 19, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Details of EU plan to revive Iranian nuclear deal leaked to media

Samizdat | August 19, 2022

A proposal the EU submitted at the Vienna talks to revive the Iranian nuclear deal would reportedly see an immediate lifting of sanctions on over 160 Iranian entities, including banks, in exchange for Tehran gradually scaling down its nuclear activities, Al Jazeera reported on Friday, citing “informed sources.”

The proposal that Brussels previously called “final” reportedly involves four stages and would take at least 120 days to be fully implemented, the media outlet said. The “first day” after its signing would see the lifting of sanctions on 17 Iranian banks and 150 other economic entities. Tehran, in turn, would also begin returning to its commitments under the agreement from day one and scale back its nuclear activities.

The implementation of this accord would also involve the release of $7 billion in Iranian funds that are currently frozen in South Korea, the report said.

During the 120-day period after the signing of the agreement, Iran will be allowed to export 50 million barrels of oil as part of a “verification mechanism,” Al Jazeera said, citing its sources. After that period, the Islamic Republic would be able to export 2.5 million barrels per day.

The proposal also includes an obligation for the US to pay a fine if it ever pulls out of the deal again, Al Jazeera said, without revealing the amount of any such penalty or where the money would go.

Iran submitted a written response to the proposal on Monday, without revealing its details. “There are three issues that if resolved, we can reach an agreement in the coming days,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said at the time. “We have shown enough flexibility… We do not want to reach a deal that after 40 days, two months or three months, fails to be materialized on the ground,” he added, warning that Tehran’s “red lines” should be respected.

Earlier, the US said the 2015 nuclear deal could be revived only if Iran drops its “extraneous” demands, which included an end to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) probe into unexplained uranium traces in Iran and the removal of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the American terrorism list.

Al Jazeera reported on Friday, citing a European official in Vienna, that Tehran is no longer seeking the removal of the organization from the list.

Last week, Politico reported that the EU had proposed watering down the US sanctions on the IRGC as part of efforts to revive the 2015 deal. The news outlet also said Washington was set “to make greater concessions than expected” to revive the deal.

According to Politico, the text of the proposal also said Washington and Brussels “take note of Iran’s intent” to address the issue of the IAEA probe by the time the agreement enters into force again.

The Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, UK, France, and Germany, as well as Russia, China, and the EU. It involved Iran agreeing to certain restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief. In 2018, the US unilaterally withdrew from the deal under President Donald Trump. Talks to revive the deal have been taking place in Vienna for the past 16 months.

August 19, 2022 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

A Democrat President Again Wastes Taxpayer Money On Useless Renewables

By Jerome Corsi | American Thinker | August 12, 2022

This past week, the Senate passed the Biden administration’s “Inflation Reduction Act,” which includes $368 billion for green energy spending targeted to reduce CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2030, a move that will almost certainly increase inflation. In a repeat of the renewable energy project failures that the Obama administration financed with federal grants and tax breaks, the Biden administration is betting more potentially inflationary deficit spending against the odds that renewable energy will be profitable this time.

Ironically, on September 4, 2009, then-Vice President Joe Biden was the one who announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) had just finalized a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, LLC. This green energy company manufactured “innovative cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels that provide clean, renewable energy.” Biden enthusiastically noted the DOE loan guarantee aimed to finance the construction of Solyndra’s manufacturing plant. He also bragged that the annual production of solar panels from the first phase of Solyndra’s plans would provide energy equivalent to powering 24,000 homes a year for over half a million homes during the project’s lifetime.

On September 6, 2011, Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, suspended operations at its headquarters, and laid off 1,100 workers. Solyndra went bankrupt despite $535 million in federal loan guarantees and more than $700 million in venture capital funding. The U.S. Department of Energy blamed the Solyndra bankruptcy on the Chinese, claiming the China Development Bank offered more than $30 billion in financing to Chinese solar manufacturers, “about 20 times more than U.S.-backed loans to solar manufacturers.”

On December 25, 2011, after analyzing thousands of memos, company records, and internal emails, the Washington Post provided interesting insights into Obama’s entire $80 billion clean energy technology program.

First, it concluded that the Obama administration gave preferred access to investors in Solyndra who had donated to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Some of these select investors even took jobs in the administration and helped manage the clean energy program. “Documents show that senior officials pushed career bureaucrats to rush their decision on the [Solyndra] loan so Vice President Biden could announce it during a trip to California.” The same article noted that Obama’s May 2010 stop at Solyndra’s headquarters, “like most presidential appearances,” was “closely managed political theater.”

Second, it noted that Solyndra’s most substantial political connection was George Kaiser, a Democratic fundraiser and oil industry billionaire who happened to be an Obama campaign bundler in 2008. Kaiser had hosted Obama at his home, and his family’s foundation owned more than a third of Solyndra. Kaiser “took a direct interest in its [Solyndra’s] operations.”

Peter Schweizer, head of the Government Accountability Institute, reported that 80% of the money spent in Obama’s 2009 Recovery Act on green energy companies went to companies with individual owners who sat on Obama’s finance committee for his 2008 presidential campaign. Given the number of influential donors in Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign who have considerable financial stakes in green energy companies, Schweizer predicts Biden’s “Build Back Better” green energy program amounts to nothing more than “a wealth transfer to Biden’s biggest bundlers.”

By 2015, the Obama administration had used taxpayer funds to subside solar and other renewable energy in the United States at an average of $39 billion per year over five years, for a total of nearly $200 billion. This massive investment in renewable energy resulted in less than 1% of additional electrical generation.

In total, the Obama administration financed some thirty-four faltering or bankrupt green energy companies, including the following: solar panel manufacturers Solyndra LLC ($535 million loss in federal loan guarantees) and Abound Solar Manufacturing, LLC ($400 million loss); Fisker Automotive ($529 million), a green vehicles program; and green energy storage companies Beacon Power ($43 million) and A123 Systems ($132 million).

On May 5, 2021, Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso, M.D., the ranking member of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced an investigative report that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources had released about a concept he called the “Solyndra Syndrome.” The report contended Biden is heading down the same green energy path as Obama. Throwing billions of taxpayer jobs at various clean energy ventures didn’t work for Obama, and Barrasso argued it wouldn’t work for Biden either. Moreover, like Obama, Biden was putting a stranglehold on the oil and gas industries, where jobs were being created.

The reality is that green energy is an expensive chimera. With today’s technology, it can’t come close to satisfying America’s energy needs.

In a perfect world, batteries the size of flashlight batteries could store enough wind or solar energy to light a city; and ten wind turbines placed a few miles outside a metropolitan area could provide all the electricity that the city and suburbs needed for a week, whether or not the wind blew. If that technology existed, the entire world would instantly switch to these new, powerful solar batteries. Instead, in the real world, renewable energy use in utility-scale electricity generation will remain dependent upon government grants and tax credits for the foreseeable future.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), renewable fuels in 2020 were only 12% of all U.S. energy consumption. When we break down the renewable energy category, solar energy and wind energy together were 37% of the renewable energy used, but only 4.44% of all energy the United States used that year. These numbers would surprise those who consume only the mainstream media.

In September 2019, the EIA released an International Energy Outlook that included global energy projections from 2019 to 2050. The EIA noted that, while renewables are “the world’s fastest growing form of energy,” hydrocarbon fuels “continue to meet much of the world’s energy demand.” The report projected that by 2050, world energy consumption would grow nearly 50%, even as 70% of global energy consumption would remain using oil, natural gas, and coal, with the oil price possibly reaching as high as $175/barrel. Despite the worldwide push for renewable fuels, the EIA projected that, by 2050, renewable fuels would still be only 28% of global energy consumption.

While Trump was still president, the left turned to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to propose an FDR-like, government-mandated, sweeping Green New Deal to shove hydrocarbon fuels into the dustbin of world energy history. On January 19, 2019, at the Women’s Unity Rally at Foley Square in New York City, Ocasio-Cortez declared that young Americans fear “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” She called the fight to mitigate the effects of climate change her generation’s “World War II.”

Guided by Ocasio-Cortez and her understanding of climate science, the Biden administration appears determined to repeat the Obama administration’s failure by once again pursuing an aggressive taxpayer-subsidized green energy policy designed to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions, even if reducing the use of hydrocarbon fuels amounts to the United States committing economic suicide.

Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez has captured the neo-Marxist critical theory left by doubling down on her hysteria that we are facing a world-ending global warming crisis if we fail to declare a climate emergency to force decarbonization. Her argument is only convincing to those whose selective memory chooses to ignore the Obama era “Solyndra Syndrome,” instead believing the global-warming climate catastrophes Al Gore predicted 16 years ago in his 2006 An Inconvenient Truth documentary has come true.

Since 2004, Jerome R. Corsi has published 25 books on economics, history, and politics, including two #1 New York Times bestsellers. In 1972, he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University. He currently resides in New Jersey with his family. His current book, The Truth About Energy, Global Warming, and Climate Change: Exposing Climate Lies in an Age of Disinformation, published on June 28, 2022, was listed by Amazon.com as a “Best Seller” in the first week of sales. Dr. Corsi’s new website, DrJeromeCorsi.com, is now on the Internet in its first phase of redevelopment.

August 19, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US on verge of becoming party to Ukrainian conflict, Moscow warns

Samizdat | August 19, 2022

Washington’s continued support for Kiev during Moscow’s military operation has put the US on the verge of becoming party to the Ukrainian conflict, Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov has said.

“We don’t want escalation. We’d like to avoid a situation, in which the US becomes a party to the conflict, but so far we don’t see any readiness of the other side to take these warnings seriously,” Ryabkov told Rossiya 1 TV channel on Friday.

Moscow rejects Washington’s explanation, that providing Ukraine with weapons and other aid is justified by Kiev’s right to self-defense, he pointed out.

“Excuse me, what kind of self-defense is it if they are already openly talking about the possibility of attacking targets deep in the Russian territory, in Crimea?” the deputy FM wondered.

According to Ryabkov, such statements are being made by the Ukrainian side “not just under the blind eye of the US and NATO, but with the encouragement of this kind of sentiment, approaches, plans and ideas directly from Washington,” Ryabkov insisted.

“The ever more obvious and deeper involvement in Ukraine in terms of countering our military operation, in fact, puts this country, the US, on the verge of turning into a party to the conflict,” he reiterated.

The US has been the strongest supporter of Kiev amid its conflict with Russia, providing Kiev with billions of dollars in military and financial aid, as well as intelligence data. Washington’s deliveries to the Ukrainian military have included such sophisticated hardware as HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, M777 howitzers and combat drones.

Reuters reported on Friday that US President Joe Biden is about to announce another lethal aid package for Kiev of around $800 million.

An unnamed official from the Biden administration told Politico on Thursday that the White House had no problem with Ukraine attacking Crimea, which became part of Russia after a 2014 referendum staged in response to a violent coup. The US believes that Kiev can strike any target on its territory, and “Crimea is Ukraine,” the American official insisted.

There have recently been a number of explosions near a Russian ammunition depot and at a military airfield in Crimea, which the Defense Ministry said were acts of “sabotage.” However, Ukrainian authorities haven’t officially confirmed involvement in the attacks.

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.

August 19, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Justice For Liberty

Justice For Liberty.org | August 16, 2022

On June 8, 1967, Israeli forces tried to sink a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing 34 American servicemen and wounding 174. ‘Justice for Liberty’, filmed at the crew’s 54th anniversary reunion in Pensacola, Florida, allows the survivors to tell the American public their stories, some for the first time. It is time for the truth to come out. Visit the Justice for Liberty website at https://justiceforliberty.org/.

(A 30-second trailer for this was broadcast on the Tucker Carlson show on August 16th, reaching approximately three million people.) According to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, “In attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States….

Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government.” The survivors are still awaiting justice.

The Liberty crew is one of the most decorated in U.S. Naval history. Yet, for decades this attack has been covered up and misrepresented.

Please share our trailers! ( TV30 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S7uL…

TV60 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im6v2…

00:00:00 – Intro

00:02:12 – The Crew

00:05:01 – June 8th, 1967

00:15:16 – Torpedo Attack

00:26:37 – Topside

00:37:14 – Fight for Life

00:47:37 – Dry Dock

00:55:41 – Cover Up

01:10:39 – Fight for Truth

01:23:04 – Echoes

01:31:40 – A Call to Action

01:42:11 – RIP

August 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

White House “Climate Adviser” Banned from the National Academy of Science for Science Fraud

… while White House Officials Beg Social Media to Silence Opponents

By Igor Chudov | August 18, 2022

Climate change is a very important topic! According to Bill Gates-sponsored scientist Kari Nadeau, climate change is responsible for the recent rise in heart attacks, stillbirths, and cardiovascular disease, especially in children. So, knowing how important climate change is, I am paying attention to news about it, though with lesser intensity than I devote to Covid news.

Finally, we have a great climate change story! White House “climate official” Jane Lubchenco was just banned by the National Academy of Science (archive link) for science fraud. She was an editor of a paper written by her brother-in-law. Jane did not disclose this family relationship and promoted her brother-in-law’s article. The article itself contained false data that was known to be out of date at the time the article was written, and thus the paper was fraudulent.

Jane is now not allowed to participate in many scientific activities due to violating ethics rules meant to prevent fraud in science.

What is the White House’s biggest priority right now, when it comes to climate change? Perhaps it is cleaning up the place and making sure that we have honest science? Not really. The priority is demanding that major social networks silence climate change skeptics. Watch this video at 11:10:

The White House adviser says in the interview:

And frankly, the tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation.

I am not a big climate change skeptic — I do not care about climate change all that much right now — but coincidentally, Twitter recently suspended my dog’s account for 7 days.

So, I am not allowed to spread misinformation. The White House, on the other hand, has climate change advisors who perpetrate scientific fraud.

On a more serious note, my dog’s Twitter account was not alone and was suspended among hundreds of others last week, ostensibly for antivax misinformation. Why is this happening now? Why the urgency? It certainly is NOT about helping to vaccinate the public, as COVID vaccine uptake is at historic lows and everyone made up their mind already. Censorship would not help much with vaccination! Why, then, is it intensifying?

My own guess is that these suspensions are not so much related to Covid, but are happening due to the fact that the White House and the woke social networks are preparing for the November elections and want to silence dissent in advance. Why?

  • to influence the election, and
  • to prevent people from questioning election conduct and fairness afterward

They — the White House, Twitter, Facebook and Google — know that they will have to face very uncomfortable questions about their role in forcing the so-called “Covid vaccine” onto young people, as they “own” the outcome of this. They want to postpone that moment of reckoning and thus are deleting as many dissenting voices as they can.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

The CDC Failed, So Spin It Off and Make It More Powerful?

BY JEFFREY A. TUCKER | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | AUGUST 17, 2022

The failure of the CDC to manage Covid-19 was baked in from the first moments of its response. A government agency was never going to mitigate much less get rid of this sort of pathogen. This is because the virus never cared a whit about prestige degrees, job descriptions, big budgets, high-end connections, media agitprop, or polls. It went on its merry way, hit everyone, and immune systems adapted as they always have done.

The great experiment was an enormous flop.

The costs of the experiment we know: it is the catastrophe that Donald Henderson predicted it would be in 2006.

Thus does it make sense that the present overlords of the agency have admitted at least partially to have made some errors. The question is what were these errors. From the latest news concerning some impending shakeup, I see no evidence of any serious rethinking of the crazed and cockamamie lockdown orders it issued from March 2020 onward. Not even preposterous mandates like plexiglass at retail counters, two years of school closures, “six feet of distance,” one-way grocery aisles, band members in bubbles, mask mandates, and limits on how many people you can have in your home have prompted remorse.

Instead, every indication is that the CDC believes the real problem was that it did not have a high-enough budget and enough power. Plenty of lawmakers are willing to go along – not that anyone is asking them. Therefore, its tremendous pandemic powers need to be tweaked and invested mainly in a division known as the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR.

Says The Washington Post :

The Biden administration is reorganizing the federal health department [HHS] to create an independent division that would lead the nation’s pandemic response, amid frustrations with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Joy!

The new head of this high-level division (same level as FDA/CDC) is Dawn O’Connell who has a background in literature (Vanderbilt) and law (Tulane), not science or medicine. She is a political appointee who took the reins as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response, as confirmed by the Senate in 2021. She is now elated to report that her division will be elevated to become just as important as the CDC and the FDA.

Here is her memo to the staff:

ASPR Team:

As you know firsthand, ASPR is at the forefront of many of HHS’s and the Biden-Harris Administration’s top priorities. Whether your work involves strengthening our core preparedness and response capabilities, tackling new and emerging challenges, or providing essential support services to the team, please know that the work that you do matters and that it is making a big difference.

In recognition of the tremendous value this team brings to the Department and the American people – and due to the increasing size and scope of what we do – I asked Secretary Becerra to consider making us an Operating Division and I am pleased to report that Secretary Becerra has made the critically important decision to elevate our team from a Staff Division to an Operating Division (OpDiv)!

This change allows ASPR to mobilize a coordinated national response more quickly and stably during future disasters and emergencies while equipping us with greater hiring and contracting capabilities. As an OpDiv, we are now in the same category as other large HHS teams with core operational responsibilities such as CDC, NIH, FDA, CMS, and ACF. This change is an important next step for our organization which has continued to grow and evolve since its creation in 2006 – the pace of which has quickened over the past year. This change is also a recognition of the good work you all have been and continue to do on behalf of the American People…

Along with this reclassification, moving forward we will be known as the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The adjustment to our name signals our elevation to an OpDiv, while maintaining the equity and brand recognition we have built with key internal and external stakeholders, particularly over the course of the pandemic.

Thus must we ask: what the heck is going on here? The Biden administration has no idea. Indeed the Washington Post reports that “some senior Biden administration officials said they were unaware of the plan to reorganize the department, which was approved by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and has been held close by his deputies.”

This point is crucial. This is how the administrative state works. It cares nothing for the elected officials who come and go. It moves on its own, fueled by money baked into the budgets and with power hardly anyone dares to challenge. There is never any accountability. There is only one path forward: more power. Elections be damned.

The most important part of the memo here is the idea of mobilizing a “coordinated national response.” It drove these people utterly bonkers that during the pandemic, several states went their own way. South Dakota never shut down. Georgia opened a month after the shutdowns. Florida and Texas were next. Finally all the states with Republican governors opened while most states with Democratic governors remained closed to some degree.

The empirical results are incredibly obvious. The open states performed as well and often better on disease demographics. Meanwhile their economies did not suffer nearly as much. The kids stayed in school. The churches functioned. There were live musical performances. The museums, libraries, and playgrounds opened. People are less traumatized.

The migration of people from blue to red tells the whole story. Masses of people fled the lockdown states for the open states.

A “coordinated national response” would make such federalist solutions impossible. Forget the 9th and 10th Amendments. These agencies and these people care nothing for them, nor actual science which would encourage a plethora of experiments in the management of a pathogen. These bureaucrats in Washington think they have all the answers, and they demand complete compliance.

Meanwhile, the CDC itself is being reorganized. But don’t be fooled by any appearance of contrition. They still have a legal appeal in process that would put a mask back on your face when traveling. The new agency to which some of its pandemic responsibilities will be transferred will have a 1,000-person staff to start, people paid the big bucks to sit around coming up with new ways to whip up disease panic and start another crackdown.

A better solution would be to abolish the CDC. States can handle all its responsibilities. It did not even exist until 1947. Its purpose was mosquito control, spraying a now-banned chemical (DDT) everywhere. These days we handle that by going to Home Depot.

The CDC as an agency grew out of the 1944 Public Health Services Act that permitted nationally ordered quarantines for the first time. The legislative history of that thing remains a mystery to me. Regardless, it is nowhere justified in the US Constitution. This act needs to go too. So too all the federal agencies to which it gave rise. This is the only real solution.

Certainly creating a new agency is not the answer. And note that ASPR has its roots in 2006 as an outgrowth of the Bush administration’s obsessive panic over bioterrorism. It was also the first year that anyone imagined that lockdowns could be an appropriate path for any free society. It was the year that “social distancing” was invented by a cabal of computer scientists with zero experience in infectious disease.

These fanatics need to be out of power completely, and the regulations, laws, and agencies that enabled them to ruin the country and its freedoms must be ended. This is what any responsive government in a modern society would do. It would see failure and call it and then do something about it. It certainly would not go in this new direction and reward the disease planners with more power and money!

We must learn real lessons and act on them.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics at The Epoch Times, and speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Call to Boost Arm Supplies to Kiev by Former US Officials Violates UN Charter, US Laws’

By Ekaterina Blunova – Samizdat – 18.08.2022

Nearly 20 national security officers and former diplomats have claimed that Washington must further arm Kiev in an open letter to US President Joe Biden. According to them, the US’ “vital interests are at stake” as the Russian special operation in Ukraine allegedly poses “a clear danger to US security and prosperity.”

“The United States has no interest in Ukraine other than to avoid war with Russia,” explained Michael Springmann, a political analyst and former US diplomat with postings in Germany, India and Saudi Arabia. “That country is the holder of half the supply of atomic bombs in the world. This is extremely unprofessional, extremely dangerous, and shows the horrible ties between the military, big business and the American government. They all control the government rather than the politicians or the people.”

According to Springmann, it is especially troubling that former diplomats, national security professionals and State Department officials openly called to intensify weapons supplies to a third country.

“It’s a violation of the UN Charter and America’s own regulations and laws,” he said. “This is an absolute outrage (…) It’s dangerous nonsense.”

Among the open letter signatories are 17th Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General Philip Breedlove, former State and Defense Department official Debra Cagan, 12th Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General (Ret.) Wesley K. Clark, former Ambassador to Finland and Turkey Eric Edelman, and former Ambassador to Ukraine, Uzbekistan and others John Herbst.

The former officials urged the US president to provide Kiev with more ammunition, spare parts, short- and medium-range air defense systems and, most notably, ATACMS munitions fired by High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) “with the 300km range necessary to strike Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine” as well as in Crimea. Previously, the Biden administration ruled out delivering long-range munitions for HIMARS.

Moreover, the authors of the open letter also cited the nuclear card as a possible option.

“The US is also a nuclear power, and it is a strategic mistake to suggest that nuclear deterrence no longer works. Nuclear deterrence still works,” they argued.

US Record of Subversive Actions Against Russia

If the letter’s signatories think that they can win a war against the Russian Federation, they are completely detached from reality, argued Springmann. Still, the letter’s agenda does not surprise him: the crux of the matter is that the US has a long record of subversive actions against Russia, he explained.

“The United States has been at war with first the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation for the past century,” he said. “In 1919, Peace President Woodrow Wilson sent 13,000 American soldiers to fight the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution, and in 1940s and 50s and really into the 60s and 70s, the CIA worked closely with Nazi collaborators such as [Ukrainian nationalist leaders] Stepan Bandera and Micola Lebed, who had engaged in murder, war crimes and human rights violations.”

Much in the same vein, the former diplomat claimed that the United States staged a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and “had done their best to ensure that former CIA officials had gone to Ukraine to help set up NGOs and other government agencies.” He warned that the Biden administration is currently arming Kiev and neo-Nazi battalions, thus prolonging the conflict.

“Biden and his predecessors had advanced NATO up to the very frontier of the Russian Federation and now has NATO members stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans,” Springmann said. “They have American bases in these countries and there are other American bases encircling the Russian Federation and other countries.”

Who Benefits From Ramping Up the Russo-Ukraine Conflict?

While US military contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon have benefitted from Biden’s arming of Ukraine, US and European economies have already suffered from the anti-Russia strategy, according to Springmann. Anti-Russia sanctions and the energy embargo have backfired on the US and Europe by sending food and gasoline prices higher and accelerating already soaring inflation.

“The result, of course, has been a collapse of the American economy, a collapse of the European economy,” said the former diplomat. “I’ve seen articles in Germany about how the country is cutting back its lighting systems, telling people not to use hot water for showers and not to use the heating system in their homes and apartments. What Biden and his neocon crazies have done is essentially destroy the European and the American economies.”

According to Business Insider, the US has already provided Kiev with roughly $10 billion in security assistance under Joe Biden. The aid packages included HIMARS, Stinger anti-aircraft systems, Javelin anti-armor systems, drones, small arms, and attack helicopters, among other systems.

On August 8, the Pentagon detailed the content of a $1 billion assistance package for Ukraine provided under presidential drawdown authority, the 18th drawdown so far. According to the DoD’s official website, among the items included in the latest package are additional ammunition for HIMARS; 75,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition; twenty 120 mm mortar systems and 20,000 rounds of 120 mm mortar ammunition; munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS; and 1,000 Javelin and hundreds of AT4 anti-armor systems.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

No longer a pariah? Russia and China could be about to ‘normalise’ North Korea

By Timur Fomenko | Samizdat | August 18, 2022

At the beginning of this week the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had exchanged letters with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

The report stated both countries had agreed to “expand the(ir) comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations with common efforts”.

Matching the anniversary of Korean independence on August 15th, Putin’s outreach comes as Russia seeks new partners away from the West. It also follows reports that North Korean expatriate workers would be assisting in the reconstruction of liberated territories in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, to which it recently granted diplomatic recognition.

But it’s also an indication that the world has changed, significantly. Only a few years ago Russia, as well as China, were at least somewhat willing to cooperate with the United States in imposing sanctions on the DPRK in the bid to curb its nuclear and missile development.

That situation no longer exists. The outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, combined with America’s bid to try and contain the rise of China, now means we exist in a multipolar international environment where multiple great powers are competing for influence.

This breaks down the space for cooperation over common issues, but also increases the need for strategic thinking among the competitors. In the eyes of Moscow, this makes their calculus concerning North Korea even more important than it was before, drawing parallels to the Cold War era.

We should not forget that it was the Soviet Union that enabled the creation of the DPRK in the first place. It was following the closing days of World War II that a strategic contest for influence in East Asia began to emerge between the US and the USSR over the former territories of Imperial Japan. As the Red Army marched south, an agreement was made to divide the Korean Peninsula at the 38th parallel.

Although the original agreement was designed only to make the division temporary, geopolitical frictions soon saw it become permanent, and rival Korean states emerged. The US-backed Republic of Korea in the South, and the Soviet- and China-supported Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the North, headed by former Red Army captain and guerrilla fighter Kim Il-sung.

The two young nations went to war in 1950, again supported by their respective superpower backers. Active fighting in that conflict ended three years later, but a formal peace agreement has not been signed to this day. And while Koreans on both sides of the divide wish for reunification, the scale of foreign involvement in the 1950s war stands as a reminder the peninsula is seen as a strategically critical landmass linking the continent of mainland Eurasia to the eastern seas.

Great powers have always seen it as a chess piece in the bid to dominate North East Asia. This had led to a tug of war which over the centuries has included the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Russian Empire, the Empire of Japan and the United States, the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union.

But for the last three decades, since the end of the original Cold War, North Korea found itself increasingly isolated as China and Russia, for a period of time, both sought ties with the West, as well as the much more lucrative and successful South Korea. US unipolarity meant there was little interest from Moscow or Beijing in opposing America’s wishes to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear trajectory, which it sees as its last hope for regime survival.

But now a new paradigm is emerging, and just like in the times of old the DPRK, it’s seen yet again as a strategically indispensable bulwark against American power and military hegemony on Russia’s own border periphery, not least against its US-backed neighbors such as Japan.

In such an environment, there is no longer any benefit for Russia in cooperating with the US on the North Korean issue. The horse of “North Korea denuclearization” has long bolted, and instead the presence of a nuclear armed DPRK with ICBM capability is another thorn in Washington’s side, which if removed, only expands US power.

Thus, when America demanded another sanctions resolution against North Korea at the UN Security council earlier this year, both Russia and China vetoed it for the first time in over 15 years. It is a sign of the world we live in.

Moving on from here, Russia is likely to deepen its military and economic ties with North Korea, primarily because of its strategic and political worth.

In this view, history has completed a full circle and as the US shores up its allies to confront Moscow and Beijing, the theme of “bloc politics” re-emerges.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Europe decreasing support to Ukraine

Data shows that European countries did not offer new military aid to Kiev in July

By Lucas Leiroz | August 18, 2022

Apparently, European countries are understanding that the path to peace in Ukraine requires stopping military aid. Data show that in July the six major European powers abstained from making new military agreements with Kiev. It was the first month without European aid pledges to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian special military operation, in February. In fact, this indicates that Western support is on decline, leaving only Kiev to decide whether or not to continue with the conflict.

The news was announced by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy – more specifically through Ukraine Support Tracker, which operates within the Institute. According to the researchers, European authorities have become unable to keep up with the speed with which the US, UK and Poland send military aid. This situation has led to a slow decline in the supply of money, weapons and equipment, resulting in July’s absolute absence of support contracts. 

The decline has been occurring since April. Looking from a realistic point of view it is possible that the Russian advance may have discouraged European leaders from maintaining high spending on the conflict, considering it as simply “lost”. Also, the discouragement may have been intensified especially after the Russian victory at the battle of Azovstal in May, when Western analysts finally began to admit that Kiev is losing the conflict.

More than geopolitical realism, there is also the direct pragmatic factor: Europe cannot promise Kiev more than it currently promises simply because it cannot give Kiev more than it currently does. Americans, British and Poles are managing to fulfill their promises because they have taken the Ukrainian situation as a national emergency and are mobilizing their productive forces to meet this demand. However, the EU has many other priorities that make it impossible to give more help to Kiev. In other words: whatever is happening at the front, Europe is not promising Kiev any more aid simply because it can no longer help.

Obviously, the situation will not lead to an abrupt interruption of aid, but a gradual decline. Certainly, the end of support will not be definitive or linear, having expectations for modest resumptions and new interruptions again. For example, at the beginning of August, there was a meeting between European authorities in Copenhagen to re-discuss aid strategies. It was decided that an amount of 1.5 billion euros would be sent. Although the act somehow means that Europeans still “care” about Ukraine, the number is far lower than previous conferences’ packages.

Commenting on the topic, Christoph Trebesch, head of the team compiling the Ukraine Support Tracker, said: “Despite the war entering a critical phase, new aid initiatives have dried up. (…) When you compare the speed at which the checkbook came out and the size of the money that was delivered, compared to what is on offer for Ukraine, it is tiny in comparison (…) I would say [current European support is] surprisingly little considering what is at stake (…)“. 

Trebesch believes that the correct European stance would be to invest in the Ukrainian conflict the same amount of money invested in overcoming previous events, such as the eurozone crisis and the new coronavirus pandemic. Trebesch’s opinion reiterates that of many other pro-Kiev activists, who believe that a Russian victory would be an absolute disaster for the entire Europe and lead to the bloc’s collapse, which is why every possible effort should be made now in order to prevent Moscow from reaching its goals.

And even though political realism is growing among Europeans, many authorities still think like Trebesch. For example, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks asked: “If we are wanting the war to end as soon as possible, they need to ask themselves, are they doing enough?”. 

In fact, realism may overcome ideological or humanitarian arguments. The EU certainly has other priorities to address. The conflict itself brings with it many problems, such as the energy and food supply crisis. Thinking about solutions to problems that affect Europeans should be a priority over thinking about strategies to reverse the military scenario.

Furthermore, the argument that the current crisis should receive the same investment funds from previous crises is unfounded. The conflict in Ukraine, as much as it worries the EU, is a foreign matter and cannot be a priority now. If the US, UK and Poland keep Ukraine as a priority, it is because these countries maintain a geopolitical and ideological rivalry against Russia, which is not the case in Europe.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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