US Diplomacy Continues to be Invisible
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 26, 2022
Remember the Beatles’ song that went like this: “I read the news today, oh boy!”? To be sure there has not been much good news to savor recently, though notably, under the cover provided by the war in Ukraine’s domination of the news cycle, the Israel Lobby in the United States has been working harder than ever to promote the interests of the country that is most dear to its heart. It’s associated media arm has been ignoring the regular killing of Palestinians by Israeli security forces while also dismissing the ultra-violent incursion by the Jewish state’s police at one of Islam’s holiest sites, the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, during Ramadan prayers.
Recently, the Zionist focus has been most intense on one area: to kill the stalled negotiations over the renewal of US participation in the currently ineffective multiparty Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with Iran to monitor its nuclear program and prevent its development of a weapon. Ironically, Israel, unlike Iran, already has an undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal that is even protected from exposure by US officials, who are not allowed to mention it in spite of the fact that its existence is widely acknowledged. Recently, Sam Husseini, a critic of the US pandering to Israeli interests, tweeted how “I recently contacted the offices of @IlhanMN, @AOC, @CoriBush, @RashidaTlaib, @SenSanders and 10 others asking if they would acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons. None would do so.” Not one of the fifteen, mostly describable as progressives, would even confirm that the Israelis possess such weapons, so terrified were they of even mentioning what the entire world knows to be true.
To be sure, the issue of what to do about Iran is certainly the number one foreign policy problem for Israel as it is the only regional opponent of the Jewish state that could reasonably be described as militarily formidable. For something like thirty years successive Israeli governments have been seeking to convince a number of gullible American presidents to treat the Islamic Republic as a serious international threat, which is ridiculous as Iran has neither the necessary resources nor a history of seeking to dominate even its own region. This Israeli persuasion has included manipulation of a bought and paid for Congress and media which support a steady flow of propaganda seeking to depict Iran in the most negative terms, intended to appeal to the American desire to frame its foreign policy in terms of “good versus evil” with the US/Israel always being good no matter what wartime atrocities they might commit.
One might reasonably observe that the pattern of “good versus evil” is also playing out with regard to Russia in Ukraine. Given such a faux ethically based worldview, the US rarely acts in terms of genuine national interests, witness the relationship with Jerusalem more generally speaking. Israel’s security service Mossad has as its motto “By Way of Deception Thou Shalt Do War.” With that in mind it has been hard at work fabricating “intelligence” that the Iranian leadership has initiated a secret nuclear proliferation program. A laptop that surfaced in 2004 through the dissident Iranian group MEK allegedly contained information regarding covert plans for an Iranian nuclear bomb. It was, however, revealed to be a clever Mossad forgery.
Israel has never quite convinced the White House to take the final step and make war directly against the Iranians, though it came close when a gullible Donald Trump ordered the assassination of senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was in Baghdad for peace talks in January 2020. But Israel has nevertheless managed to obtain what is apparently considerable covert CIA collaboration in its own semi-secret program to kill scientists and technicians that might be involved in nuclear research, while also hacking into and sabotaging Iranian computer systems and other infrastructure. Under Trump, CIA Director Mike Pompeo focused particularly on Iran, setting up a “special action group” to counter its presence and claimed “malign activities” in the Middle East. That task force presumably still exists under the current Director William Burns appointed by Joe Biden.
The Joe Biden Administration has long been dancing around re-joining the JCPOA, which was entered into under President Barack Obama in 2015. President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, convinced by his neocon and hardline advisers that it would only provide Iran cover to ramp up its secret program and produce a nuclear weapon. Trump’s associates argued that JCPOA would actually make eventual Iranian acquisition of a nuke inevitable.
As of right now, the discussions on JCPOA in Vienna are at a standstill and appear about to break down completely, though some reports alternatively claim that a new agreement is within reach. The Iranians believe that the US is not negotiating in good faith and is failing to take even relatively minor steps that could lead to a reasonable understanding without compromising the vital interests of any of the parties involved. Those steps could include removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force from the US terrorist list and releasing some frozen Iranian assets, while also cutting back on sanctions. It appears that Biden would actually like to renew the agreement, but his own associates at the State Department, whose top three officials are Zionists, as well as the powerful Israel Lobby are pushing against such a course of action.
In reality the JCPOA is in the interest of the United States, pledged as it is to stop nuclear proliferation, since it permits unannounced inspection of virtually all Iranian research facilities by UN officials. It would make attempted proliferation by Iran extremely difficult, even if an elaborate deception operation were attempted. Nevertheless, a number of the usual journalists and self-proclaimed “experts” continue to push the Trumpean neocon derived argument that the agreement would actually accelerate an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Think tanks like the Foundation of Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have been lobbying Congress and the White House assiduously, as have some conventionally conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, which argues that reviving JCPOA would be a “dangerous mistake.” In a recent paper it maintains that “Reviving the deeply flawed Iran nuclear deal would reward and empower a hostile dictatorship by lifting sanctions and squandering US bargaining leverage. Iran never fully complied with the JCPOA and is currently in violation of it on several accounts. A much more restrictive agreement is necessary. A new agreement should include Iran’s ballistic missile program, disclosure of its past nuclear weapons efforts, and better protection for Israel and Arab allies.”
The Heritage paper is, of course, more speculative than fact-based and false in several respects, particularly the claim that Iran never fully complied with the agreement. Iran opened up to UN inspectors and it was the United States that continued with sanctions contrary to the intent of the original deal. If Iran were to abandon its missile program and provide “better protection” for Israel and select Arab states it would be basically surrendering its sovereignty in the area of national defense.
Another recent effort to attack JCPOA comes from an article written by two Israelis featured in The Atlantic magazine entitled “A Case Against the Iran Deal: Reviving the JCPOA will ensure either the emergence of a nuclear Iran or a desperate war to stop it.” One of the two authors is Michael Oren, until recently the Israeli Ambassador to the United States. The article’s title is self-explanatory and the argument it makes, largely based on what passes for Israeli “intelligence,” is that Iran has a secret weapons program and already has enough of enriched uranium to begin construction of a weapon within a few months. If its clandestine activities are in a sense shielded by a revived JCPOA, they will no doubt do just that, according to the authors.
Against the Israeli argument which, by implication, calls for war to disarm the Iranians, a sustainable inspection routine run by the UN would seem to be a preferable option but a number of Democratic Party Congressmen apparently do not agree and are pressuring President Biden to rethink his acceptance of the desirability of something like a rapprochement with Iran. Eighteen Democratic Congressmen, led by Josh Gottheimer and Elaine Luria, both of whom are Jewish, are pushing back against the Biden efforts, arguing that the agreement is flawed. Gottheimer added that “We need a longer and stronger deal, not one that is shorter and weaker. It’s time to stand strong against terrorists, protect American values and our allies.” Note the emphasis on protecting “our allies,” though one need not point out that there is only one ally in the region that matters to Washington politicians, particularly to folks like Gottheimer.
Republicans are also on board. They are expressing particular concerned because Russia is a signatory to the agreement and would be a guarantor of it, or at least that is what they are arguing to block any Biden effort to reengage. Pennsylvania Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, remarked that he was very concerned about a new deal because “Russia should not be at any table with us right now. They’re committing egregious acts of terrorism and murder in a free democracy in Ukraine, in Europe right now.” That Fitzpatrick, on the Foreign Affairs Committee, should be so ignorant of actual US interests as well as regarding the nuances of the Russia-Ukraine conflict illustrates better than anything the abysmal level of ignorance that prevails in the federal government, leading to a collapse of what used to be called Diplomacy 101.
Finally, nothing better illustrates the disarray in US foreign and national security policy than a brief exchange that took place more than three weeks ago in Israel, where US Secretary of State Tony Blinken was trying in part to sell the possibility that the Biden Administration might actually re-enter the JCPOA. Israel of, course, strongly opposes that option, particularly if it involves any concessions to Iran, while Blinken’s State Department persists in repeating the Israeli line that Iran is the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” while also asserting that “this administration’s commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.” So, what did an obviously between a rock and a hard place Blinken do? He asked Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for suggestions of what might be arranged in lieu of an actual agreement. Naftali reportedly suggested harsher sanctions on Iran. When the US senior-most representative involved in crafting foreign policy feels compelled to ask the agenda-driven head of a rogue foreign government to tell him what to do, there is something very wrong in Washington.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Ukraine wants $2bn per month from US
Samizdat | April 26, 2022
Ukraine’s finance minister, Sergey Marchenko, has solicited at least $2 billion per month in emergency economic aid from the Biden administration. The official also revealed that Kiev hopes to raise an additional $3 billion per month from other sources.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Marchenko said that Ukraine needs “to cover this gap right now to attract the necessary finance and win this war.”
During his visit to Washington, DC last week, Marchenko met with a number of senior US officials, warning them that absent the requested financial support, Ukraine would likely not be able to cope with the humanitarian crisis brought on by Russia’s military offensive. A total of $5 billion per month is needed to cover Ukraine’s immediate needs in April, May, and June, the minister explained. In addition to that, Kiev is expected to request another tranche down the road to help Ukraine recover from all the damage incurred.
Last Thursday, the minister also reportedly attended a private dinner hosted by Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, which included representatives from top US firms such as Goldman Sachs, and the Business Roundtable lobbyist association. Moreover, Marchenko met with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during the G20 summit in Washington last Wednesday.
Since the start of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine in late February, the US has already shelled out approximately $1 billion in economic aid for Kiev. An additional $500 million was cleared by the Biden administration last week, on top of the generous military aid.
Yellen told reporters last Thursday that America has to “find ways to meet Ukraine’s needs.” She added that this “will involve going back to Congress with a supplemental request.” Her comments came shortly after President Joe Biden made it clear that he would ask Congress to give the green light to more financial assistance for Ukraine – something an anonymous US official described to the Washington Post as one of the administration’s top priorities.
Several members of Congress and senior Ukrainian officials alike have repeatedly suggested handing frozen assets belonging to Russia’s central bank over to Ukraine. However, the Biden administration has stopped short of making any promises so far. Yellen described this potential handover as something she “wouldn’t want to do so lightly,” telling reporters that “it’s something that I think our coalition and partners would need to feel comfortable with and be supportive of.”
The Ukrainian finance minister told the Washington Post that his country needs the money to provide care to millions of internally displaced Ukrainians, as well as paying pensions to retirees and salaries to medical and education professionals.
Marchenko concluded by saying that Washington has become “more cooperative” over time, adding that support from the US is “becoming greater and greater.”
The Nation’s Top Scientists Lied
By Dr. Scott Atlas | Brownstone Institute | April 13, 2022
This adapted excerpt is from Dr. Scott W. Atlas’ bestselling book, A Plague Upon Our House, published by Bombardier.
CDC Director Robert Redfield’s congressional testimony on September 23, 2020, immediately caught my attention. I watched in disbelief as Redfield told Congress that “more than 90 percent of the population”—more than three hundred million people in the US—remains susceptible to the illness.
The statement was based on incomplete and outdated data, as well as an apparent lack of understanding of the literature, and it struck me as one of the most erroneous and fear-inducing proclamations of any public health official to that moment. Approximately two hundred thousand Americans had already died from COVID; the last thing the public needed was an exaggeration of the future risks, implying to some that ten times that number could still die.
First of all, the numbers didn’t add up. At that point, confirmed cases in the US already totaled approximately seven million, and the CDC itself had estimated that approximately ten times the number of confirmed cases, a very conservative estimate, were likely to have had the infection. A Stanford seropositivity study back in April had shown that confirmed cases underestimated the total infections by a factor of approximately forty times. It made no sense that only 9 percent, or thirty million Americans, had been infected.
Second, the 9 percent calculation was blatantly wrong. That number came from antibody testing by the states. I looked at the CDC website myself, and sure enough, the data was based on antiquated testing from several states.
Some antibody totals were pulled from several months earlier, before many of those states had experienced a significant number of cases. It therefore grossly underestimated the number of cases that had already occurred. The data was simply not valid, but you needed to pay attention to the details.
More importantly, Redfield’s basic claim was fundamentally flawed. The conclusion that serum antibody testing revealed the entire population of those protected from COVID was counter to an entire body of published literature and contrary to fundamental knowledge of immunology, including other coronavirus infections.
It was well known that antibody tests showed one cross-section in time—they were transient—even though immune protection can last. From studies on SARS-2 and most other viruses, antibody levels change over a span of months. They typically appear in the first couple of weeks, peak in a few months, and then decrease over a span of several months.
The literature on COVID had already shown these patterns. A month before this press conference, a Nature Reviews Immunology study on COVID-19 explicitly stated, “The absence of specific antibodies in the serum does not necessarily mean an absence of immune memory,” and explained, “memory B-cells and T-cells may be maintained even if there are not measurable levels of serum antibodies.”
Japan’s study demonstrated this dramatically. In their study, antibody levels increased from 5.8 percent to 46.8 percent over the course of the summer. The most dramatic increase occurred in late June and early July, paralleling the rise in daily confirmed cases within Tokyo, which peaked on August 4.
Out of the 350 individuals who completed both offered tests, 21.4 percent of those who tested negative became positive, and 12.2 percent of initially positive participants became negative for antibodies. A striking 81.1 percent of IgM-antibody-positive cases at first testing became negative in only one month. They stated that “[antibody tests] may significantly underestimate previous COVID-19 infections.” It had also been widely reported in several major scientific journals that antibody responses are not necessarily detectable in all COVID patients, especially those with less severe forms.
But the flaws in Redfield’s estimate extended deeper. Even those familiar with first-year college biology know that other components of the immune system, memory B-cell and T-cells, provide protection from virus infections. Some T-cells kill the virus, and they also help antibodies form. T-cells develop and provide protection that lasts far longer, even after antibodies disappear—sometimes for years in other SARS viruses.
T-cells for this virus had already been documented, even in people unexposed to SARS-2, meaning that in these cases, cross-protection was present from T-cells originating in response to other coronaviruses. T-cells had also been found in individuals with completely asymptomatic SARS-2 infections.
NIH Director Francis Collins had highlighted that very data in his Director’s Blog a few weeks earlier, writing, “In fact, immune cells known as memory T cells also play an important role in the ability of our immune systems to protect us against many viral infections, including—it now appears—COVID-19.”
Scientists from some of the top research institutions in the world, like Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, San Diego’s La Jolla Institute, Duke University, Berlin, and others had published this evidence. Karolinska demonstrated T-cell immunity in both asymptomatic and mild cases of COVID—even if antibody-negative.
Singapore researchers had noted robust T-cell responses to this virus, SARS2, from seventeen-year-old SARS1 samples. Since T-cells are obviously not discovered by antibody tests, those individuals were not included in Redfield’s count. Yet he apparently had not considered this essential, indeed fundamental, point as he testified to Congress and made headlines.
After watching this debacle on TV, I knew full well what was coming later that day. The media would latch on to this and create even more public panic. I also knew that the responsibility for clarifying this grossly erroneous statement would be mine. There was no question it would come up at the president’s press conference, and even if it did not, it still needed to be explained.
I rushed over to Derek Lyons’s office to update him and to make sure we would alert the president beforehand. A few others in the West Wing were there, so I summarized to them what had been said to Congress.
The mood ranged from amazement to dejection to frustration. An advisor to the president on legal matters warned me, with a smile on his face, “Scott, don’t just bluntly say, ‘Redfield is wrong!’ Say something softer, like ‘He misstated things.’”
I nodded, knowing that I needed to restrain my words, even though this was the same man who had tried to destroy me in the national press a few days earlier. But this wasn’t personal at all. Clarifying the facts about the pandemic and countering the unending barrage of misinformation and pseudoscience about it, in this case coming from within the administration itself, was one of my most important roles in this national crisis.
During the pre-brief in the Oval Office a few hours later, I outlined the issue to the president. It was decided, as expected, that I would answer the question when it came up. And so it did.
A reporter from ABC News directly asked me if Redfield’s statement that more than 90 percent of Americans remained susceptible to the disease was true. I took the friendly advice I had received earlier in the day.
“I think that Dr. Redfield misstated something there,” I said, and then did my best to calmly explain the problems with outdated information and the contribution of cross-reactive T-cells and T-cell protection that would not have been included in his data. I correctly stated what was widely known and factual—that the protection from the virus “is not solely determined by the percent of people who have antibodies.” During my answer, as I fended off interruptions, I tried to explain in understandable language as best I could.
I also made a serious effort to be somewhat delicate, because I felt extremely uncomfortable about having to correct the director of the CDC on the national stage.
Unfortunately, my disgust with the confrontational mood in that press room prevented me from being more diplomatic when that reporter asked, “Who are we to believe?” My reflexive answer was “You’re supposed to believe in the science, and I am telling you the science.” Then I referred him to several expert scientists by name. However, I had the strong sense that he was not really interested in the facts at all. Rather, it was another attempt to amplify discord.
After exiting the press room, I walked alongside the president. He briefly stopped to check the news coverage on the set of TV monitors outside the briefing room, as he typically chose to do. After some banter between the president and the staff standing in the area, we began walking back toward the Oval Office.
President Trump turned to me on his right, smiling wryly but with a genuinely puzzled look on his face. “Is Redfield political or just stupid?” he asked, subtly shaking his head. I looked right back at the president and hesitated. The answer was obvious to both of us.
Needless to say, the media immediately played up the disagreement between me and Redfield. It fed into their narrative of conflict between me and the other Task Force doctors, one that Redfield personally caused with his offensive and unwarranted remark that everything I said was “false.”
Later, Dr. Fauci appeared on TV and criticized my straightforward attempt to clarify important information as “extraordinarily inappropriate.” I wondered if he was more concerned with protecting his bureaucrat colleague’s reputation and undermining mine than ensuring that correct information was being told to the American public.
Martin Kulldorff, the world-renowned Harvard epidemiologist, posted his reaction on Twitter: “Scott Atlas stated the simple fact that immunity is higher than those with antibodies, whereupon Dr. Fauci criticizes him without contradicting what was actually said. Stating a simple scientific fact is not ‘extraordinarily inappropriate.’ What is going on?”
Scott W. Atlas, M.D., is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and a fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom.
5 signs they are CREATING a food crisis
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | April 25, 2022
It’s no secret that, according to politicians and the corporate press, “food shortages” and a “food supply crises” have been on the way for a while now. They have been regularly predicted for several years.
What’s really strange is that despite its near-constant incipience, the food shortage never seems to actually arrive and is always blamed on something new.
As long ago as 2012, “scientists” were predicting that climate change and a lack of clean water would create “food shortages” that would “turn the world vegetarian by 2050”.
In 2019, UN “experts” warned that “climate change was threatening the world’s food supply”.
Later the same year, the UK was warned that they could expect a food shortage as a result of “post-Brexit chaos”.
By early March 2020 supermarkets were already “warning” that the government had been too slow to act on the coronavirus outbreak, and they might run out of food. (They never actually did).
A month later, in April 2020 when the “pandemic” was less than three months old, “officials” warned Covid was going to create a global food crisis. Three months later it had ballooned into “the worst food crisis for 50 years”.
In the Summer of 2021 the British press was predicting the “worst food shortages since world war 2” and “rolling power cuts”, allegedly due to a lack of truck drivers blamed equally on Covid and Brexit (neither the shortages nor power cuts ever really materialised).
By September 2021, the UK was told the gas price spike would create a shortage of frozen food, and just a month later, that we may have to ration meat ahead of Christmas, due to the gas crisis. (There never was any rationing)
In January 2022, Australia saw “empty supermarket shelves” blamed on the Omicron variant crippling the supply chain, while the US had the same empty shelves blamed on bad winter weather.
Moving into the spring of 2022, the food crisis is still on its way…only now it’s because of the war in Ukraine, or China’s “Zero Covid” policies, or the bird flu outbreak.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that – since the food crisis is always expected but never arrives, and is always blamed on the current thing – that it doesn’t really exist. That it’s nothing but a psy-op designed to spread panic and give suppliers an excuse to jack up their prices in response to fake “scarcity” created by the press.
However, there are indications that this may be about to change.
In a Brussels press conference on March 25th of this year, Joe Biden said…
Regarding food shortages – yes, we did talk about shortages, and they’re going to be real.”
… which is a decidedly odd thing to say.
Most of the time the only reason to strongly affirm something is “going to be real” from now on, is that up to that point it was not.
Indeed, there are a few signs that the food supply is about to genuinely come under attack.
1. UKRAINE WAR & WESTERN SANCTIONS
It’s well documented that Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine has driven up the prices of oil, gas and wheat. Partly due to disruption on the ground, but mostly due to Western sanctions.
Russia is the largest exporter of wheat and other grains in the world, and these products are used not just for making food for humans, but also as animal feed. Western nations boycotting Russian wheat will therefore potentially drive up the price of a huge variety of foodstuffs.
We have already seen rationing of sunflower oil (a major Ukrainian export), with reports that this could extend to all kinds of other products including sausages, chicken, pasta and beer.
This war did not need to happen, it could have been prevented (and could still be stopped) by a simple agreement on Ukrainian neutrality. Combine that with the sweeping nature of the anti-Russian sanctions – unmatched in recent history – and you can reason that the chaos on the ground and concomitant increase in food prices is part of a deliberate policy serving the Great Reset agenda.
2. INCREASING THE PRICE OF OIL
The increased price of oil has natural and obvious knock-on effects for every industrial sector – most especially transport, logistics and agriculture. Despite fears of a cost of living crisis, warnings of food shortages and Russia’s status as the largest exporter of oil and gas in the world, Western nations and their allies have made virtually zero effort to lower the cost of oil.
The high oil price has already seen the Russian ruble bounce back to pre-war strength, and yet Saudi Arabia has been increasing their prices, not flooding the market to tank the price as they did in 2014/15.
Keeping the cost of petroleum high is a deliberate policy decision, and one that shows the cost of living crisis – and any resultant food shortages – are being engineered on purpose.
3. BIRD FLU
The press is claiming there is a major bird flu outbreak going on. As we published last week, the dynamics of “bird flu” seem to be identical to Covid. Birds are tested for the virus using PCR tests, culled if they are “positive”, and these culls are then labelled “bird flu deaths”.
This process has already seen at least 27 million poultry birds destroyed in the US alone, the world’s largest exporter of both chicken and eggs. France, Canada and the UK have also culled millions of birds.
Bird flu has already (allegedly) caused the price of chicken and eggs to skyrocket.
(As a potentially important aside, a new report has also warned that pigs can pass “superbugs” to humans, so pigs may be for the chop sometime soon, too)
4. UK & US PAYING FARMERS TO STOP FARMING
Going back to last May, the Biden administration began pushing farmers to add agricultural land to the “conservation reserve program”, a federally funded program allegedly aimed at preserving the environment. The program is essentially paying farmers not to farm. A very odd policy decision, given the widely predicted food shortages.
A state-level plan in California is going to pay farmers to grow less, this time in the name of saving water.
Interestingly, the UK has a similar program going on for (again, allegedly) totally different reasons. Starting this past February, the British government is paying lump sums of up £100,000 to any farmers who want to retire from farming. Again, a strange policy during a period of geopolitical unrest impacting the food supply.
5. MANUFACTURED FERTILISER SHORTAGES
Russia and Belarus are two of the biggest exporters of fertiliser and fertiliser-related products in the world, accounting for around 10 billion dollars worth of trade manually. So, the war in Ukraine (and the sanctions) are already hitting the fertiliser market hard, with prices hitting new all-time highs in March.
China, the third biggest exporter of fertiliser in the world, has had a self-imposed export ban on the product since last summer, allegedly in an effort to keep domestic food prices low.
Given that, it is very strange that America’s Union Pacific Railway has suddenly placed a limit on the number of fertiliser deliveries it will make, informing fertiliser giant CF Industries they will need to cut their train car use by as much as 20%.
In their public response, CF Industries stated:
The timing of this action by Union Pacific could not come at a worse time for farmers…Not only will fertilizer be delayed by these shipping restrictions, but additional fertilizer needed to complete spring applications may be unable to reach farmers at all. By placing this arbitrary restriction on just a handful of shippers, Union Pacific is jeopardizing farmers’ harvests and increasing the cost of food for consumers.”
BONUS: FIRES AT FOOD PROCESSING PLANTS
This get’s a bonus slot, not an official spot, because of the multiple unknowns in this case.
In the strangest and most ephemeral story on the list, it seems there has been a rash of fires at food processing plants all over the United States in the last six months. Since August 2021 at least 16 major fires have broken out at food processing plants all across the country.
In September last year a meat processor in Nebraska burned down, impacting 5% of the country’s beef supply. In March of this year fire shut down a Nestle frozen food plant in Arkansas and a major potato processing site in Belfast, Maine was almost levelled by a huge fire.
The examples just keep on coming.
In just the last week two different single-engine planes have crashed into two different food plants, causing major fires. One at a potato processing plant in Idaho, another at a General Mills plant in Georgia.
Right now we can’t prove this is a deliberate campaign, or even statistically unusual, but it certainly warrants some further investigation.
There’s a good write-up on this story on Tim Pool’s website, and an in-depth twitter thread covering all the recent events from Dr Ben Braddock here.
*
In summary …
- A war which did not need to happen is driving up food and oil prices.
- Sanctions which did not need to be put in place are also driving up food and oil prices.
- Western allies are intentionally raising their oil prices.
- Despite warning of a food crisis, US and UK are paying farmers not to farm.
- A “bird flu epidemic” very much like the fake Covid “pandemic” is driving up the price of poultry and eggs.
- Western companies are actively making the fertiliser shortages worse.
- Bizarre fires are crippling large sections of the US food industry.
Taken individually maybe these points could all be seen as mistakes or coincidences, but when you put them all together it’s not hard to spot the pattern. The press may claim we are “sleepwalking” into a food crisis, but it looks more like they’re running head-first into it.
After years of saying there’s a food shortage on the way, it looks like they might be about to finally actually create one.
Big Tech monopolies are good for national security, former intelligence officials say
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 25, 2022
Big Tech, its lobbyists and allies, have come up with yet another, opportunistic given the current geopolitical situation, “argument” as these corporate behemoths fight to prevent any legislation that would limit their already vast and growing power.
And the argument is that Big Tech serves US foreign policy as an important asset, essentially by means of providing wide-reaching censorship, and needs to be preserved just the way it is: with its monopolistic power not restricted with new laws, and that means no breaking up of these companies into parts that would render their stranglehold on the market weaker, nor passing any meaningful new regulation.
The ongoing war in Ukraine is used as a handy example and excuse for how important Big Tech companies are to the ability of the US to advance its policy around the world. (How this functions domestically, and what ties to what centers of power Big Tech has in that scenario, is a different question.)
The recommendation to leave Big Tech alone for the sake of US national interests abroad came in a letter signed by a number of former intelligence officials, whose names have already been cropping up over the years in a variety of now debunked affairs, complete with the claim that the Hunter Biden emails were not authentic, and were instead a product of Russian disinformation.
These officials include Obama administration-era CIA head Michael Morrell, Leon Panetta, who was both at the helm of Pentagon and the CIA during that time, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Observers critical of the Big Tech-Big Government dynamic, like Glenn Greenwald, consider these figures to be “disinformation agents” themselves, while presenting their activities as a relentless fight against disinformation; and on top of that, some of them have financial ties to some of the largest tech corporations. None of that is stopping these figures from assuming the self-styled role as spokespeople for national security.
But what’s happening here is just another instance of Big Tech lobbying, which has over the years and decades gone through different phases, enlisting at different times lobbying pros, public figures, and even small businesses who wind up suffering from the giants’ grip on the digital markets. Sometimes this lobbying has been “hidden” inside alleged grassroots campaigns, but not this time – this time it’s former spies, bringing up the issue of the importance Big Tech has for foreign policy, at a time when geopolitics is on everyone’s mind.
Boiled down, however, they do it to shore up Big Tech’s offensive against two particular pieces of legislation currently considered at various levels in the US Congress: these are bipartisan proposals that aim to tackle tech giants’ antitrust behavior that harms competition, thanks to the comprehensive nature of these companies’ control over various markets. One example given is how Google can – and does – use its Search to downrank video platforms, competitors to another of Google’s arms, YouTube. Not to mention what are by now notorious app store practices put in place by the Google/Apple duopoly. Beyond that, there’s the issue of the digital ad market tightly controlled by Google and Facebook.
Both bills designed to put an end to this and loosen the monopolistic stranglehold of Google, Apple, Amazon, and others – one in the Senate, and another in the House – have been doing well so far, receiving support from many lawmakers from both parties, emboldened by the general anti-Big Tech mood.
Even those senators that have financial ties with these corporations and refused to sponsor the Senate bill, eventually voted in favor when it was considered by the Judiciary and Antitrust Committee. This is seen as a sign that the public’s odium toward tech giants has now gained momentum that means politicians can no longer afford to ignore it, despite their campaigns, donations, and personal financial priorities.
All in all, many believe that the two bills have a good shot at becoming law – and that has clearly been the signal to the rattled tech juggernauts to bring out the big lobbying guns. And wrap the message in a big narrative: national security, and the Russian threat.
The signatories of the new letter, Greenwald writes, demand that the anti-Big-Tech bills “first be reviewed not only by the judiciary and antitrust committees, but also the national security committees where they wield power and influence, which have traditionally played no role in regulating the technology sector.”
US and Australia spreading fake news – Beijing
Samizdat | April 25, 2022
Beijing has dismissed as “fake news” allegations made earlier by Canberra and Washington that China is intending to set up a military base in the Solomon Islands.
At a press conference on Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, insisted that the “so-called Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands is completely fake news made up by a few people with ulterior motives.” The diplomat also pointed out that cooperation between the two nations was “based on the principles of mutual equality, mutual benefit and win-win results.”
Wenbin called out Washington’s hypocrisy, saying that the US was among the loudest voices expressing concern over China’s alleged plans to set up a base in Oceania, while itself having “nearly 800 military bases in more than 80 countries.”
The Chinese official went on to remind Washington that the Solomon Islands is an “independent sovereign country, not the ‘backyard’ of the United States and Australia.”
Last Tuesday, China announced that State Councilor Wang Yi and Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele had signed a security pact between the two nations.
The US was quick to express concern. The White House National Security Council’s spokesperson claimed that the signing followed a “pattern of China offering shadowy, vague deals with little regional consultation in fishing, resource management, development assistance and now security practices.”
Several days later, the White House revealed that the American delegation to the Solomon Islands had warned the nation’s leadership that the US would “respond accordingly” should Chinese military installations appear in the country.
Canberra has also made it clear that such a military base, which would be some 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Australia’s shores, would represent a “red line.”
Meanwhile, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare insisted that the deal was necessary to beef up security and was “guided by our national interests.” He stated last week that the agreement does not allow China to set up a military base on the islands.
Former US-NATO commander wants to put troops on the ground in Ukraine
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | April 25, 2022
Former NATO top commander Gen. Philip Breedlove is the latest big name to come out for putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. Breedlove, who has been angling for weeks for a more muscular policy against Russia, told The Times of London that it’s time for real action. And he may have the ear of the White House: the article says he’s named as one of “several high-ranking retired commanders advising the Biden administration on Ukraine.”
“So what could the West do? Well, right now there are no Russian troops west of the Dnieper River. So why don’t we put Nato troops into western Ukraine to carry out humanitarian missions and to set up a forward arms supply base?”
Of course it wouldn’t stop there. Most likely Russia will react aggressively, if not explosively, since setting up “a forward arms supply base” would be fully entering this war on the side of Ukraine. NATO would be a co-belligerent in every way, with its 40,000 troops now stationed on alliance’s eastern front considered future enemy combatants. At the end of April, the Pentagon mobilized some 14,000 troops, along with F-35 strike fighters and Apache helicopters to Poland, Hungary, and the Baltics. A total of 100,000 U.S. troops now spread across Europe would no doubt be on some level of alert if NATO entered the fray.
Breedlove, who served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander from 2013 to 2016, said this move was essential for the protection of Odesa, a strategic Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea.
“If Odesa falls, Ukraine will become a land-locked country with no access to the Black Sea. The impact on Ukraine’s GDP would be huge. It would be ruinous for the economy,” he told the Times.
“The West is saying it is providing everything Ukraine needs to defend against the Russians. But the people of Mariupol had to fight without Stingers [anti-aircraft missiles]. That was a failure by the West.”
He added: “Now we need to make sure that the Ukrainians win the battle for Odesa.”
Earlier this month, Breedlove was complaining that the West’s fears of nuclear war were working in Putin’s favor.
“We have been so worried about nuclear weapons and World War III that we have allowed ourselves to be fully deterred. And [Putin], frankly, is completely undeterred. He has switched into the most horrific war against the citizens of Ukraine, it is beyond criminal at this point.”
U.S. weakness on this score bleeds over to our relations with Iran, North Korea, and China, he asserts:
“The message we’re sending to the entire world is if you get a nuclear weapon, you’re going to have a certain reaction from the West and certainly from the United States…[that’s all]. And I don’t think that’s the message we want to send them.”
Of course, a month before this Breedlove said he was “not advocating a war” when asked about what appeared to be his support for a “humanitarian no fly zone.” Today, advocating NATO involvement directly in Ukraine would be a giant leap beyond that, and who knows what kind of opening for others coming down with similar war fever in Washington. Last week, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons was forced to walk back comments he made that suggested he too, was in favor of putting troops on the ground against Russia.
The Dynamics of Escalation: ‘Standing With Ukraine’
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 25, 2022
As it dawns on the West that whereas sanctions are deemed capable of bringing countries to their knees, the reality is that such capitulation never has occurred (i.e. Cuba; North Korea; Iran). And, in the case of Russia, it is possible to say that just ain’t going to happen.
Team Biden still has not fully grasped the reasons why. One point is that they picked precisely the wrong economy to try to collapse via sanctions (Russia has minimal foreign supply lines and oodles of valuable commodities). Biden’s staffers too, have never comprehended the full ramifications of Putin’s monetary jujitsu linking the rouble to gold, and the rouble to energy.
They condescend to Putin’s monetary jujitsu as yet another forlorn strike versus the dollar’s ‘impregnable’ reserve currency status. So they choose to ignore it, and assume that if only the Europeans would take fewer hot showers, wear more woollen jumpers, forego Russian energy, and ‘stand with Ukraine’, the economic collapse finally would materialise. Hallelujah!
The other reason why the West misconstrues the strategic potential of sanctions is that the Russia-China war on western hegemony is assimilated by its peoples to be an existential one. For them, it is not just about taking fewer hot showers (as for Europeans), it is about their very survival – and consequently their pain threshold is much, much higher than the West’s. The west is not going to smoke their challengers out so ridiculously easily.
At bottom, the Russia-China axis possess food, energy, technology and most of the world’s key resources. History teaches that these elements make the winners in wars.
The strategic problem though, is two-fold: Firstly, the window for a Plan ‘B’ de-escalation via a political deal in Ukraine has passed. It is all or nothing now (unless Washington folds). And secondly, albeit in slightly differing context, both Europe and Team Biden have elected to take the stakes sky-high:
The conviction that the European liberal vision faces humiliation and disdain, were Putin to ‘win’, has taken hold. And in the Obama-Clinton-Deep State nexus, it is unimaginable that Putin and Russia still regarded as the author of Russiagate for many Americans, might prevail.
The logic to this conundrum is inexorable – Escalation.
For Biden, whose approval ratings continue to tank, disaster looms in the November mid-terms. The consensus amongst U.S. insiders is that the Democrats are set to lose 60–80 seats in Congress, and a small handful (4 or 5 seats) in the Senate too. Were this to come about, it would not be just a personal humiliation, but would token administrative paralysis for the Democrats until the notional end of Biden’s term.
The only possible path out from this approaching cataclysm would be for Biden to pull a rabbit from the Ukraine ‘hat’ (one that, at the very least, would distract from soaring inflation). The Neo-cons and the Deep State (but not the Pentagon) are all for it. The arms industry naturally are loving Biden’s laundering weapons into Ukraine (with huge ‘spillage’ somehow vanishing into ‘the black’). Many in DC profit from this well-funded boondoggle.
Why are we seeing such euphoria over such a seemingly reckless scheme of escalation? Well, strategists suggest that were the Republican leadership to go bi-partisan on escalation – become complicit in ‘more war’, as it were – they argue that it might prove possible to stem Democratic losses in the mid-terms and blunt an Opposition campaign assault focussed on a mismanaged economy.
How far might Biden go with this escalation? Well, the arms splurge is a no-brainer (another boondoggle), and Special Forces are already in theatre, poised to light a fuse to any escalation; moreover, the mooted no-fly zone seems to have the added advantage of enjoying European support, particularly in the UK, amongst the Baltics (of course) and from the German ‘Greens’, too. (Spoiler Alert! First, of course, in order to implement any no-fly zone, it would be necessary to control the airspace – which Russia already dominates, and over which it implements full electronic-magnetic exclusion).
Would this be enough? Dark voices are advising not. They want ‘boots on the ground’. They even talk of tactical nukes. They argue that Biden has nothing to lose by ‘going big’, especially if the GOP are persuaded to become accomplices. Indeed, it might just save him from ignominy, they urge. U.S. military insiders already point out that the arms supply will not ‘turn around’ the war. A ‘lost war’ must be avoided going into November at all costs.
Is such a consensus for escalation realistic? Well, yes, it is possible. Recall that Hillary (Clinton) was the alchemist who fused the 1980s Neoconservative wing to the 1990s Neoliberals to create an interventionist broad-tent that could serve all tastes: Europeans could imagine themselves wielding economic power in a globally significant way for the first time, whilst the Neo-cons have resurrected their insistence on forceful military intervention as the requisite to maintaining the rules-based order. The latter are cock-a-hoop that financial war is failing.
From the Neo-cons’ perspective, it puts military action firmly back on the table and with a new ‘front’ opening: The Neo-cons today, precisely are questioning the premise that a nuclear exchange with Russia must be avoided at all costs. And from this shift away from the prohibition on actions that could trigger a nuclear exchange, they say that circumscribing the Ukraine conflict on such basis is unnecessary and a strategic error – asserting that in their view, Putin would be unlikely to resort to nuclear weapons.
How can this Neo-con-Liberal interventionist élite superstructure wield such influence when the broader American political class historically has been ‘anti-war’? Well, the Neo-cons are the archetypal chameleons. Loved by the war industry, a regular loud presence on the networks, they rotate in and out of power, with the ‘China hawks’ nesting in the Trump corridors, whilst the ‘Russia hawks’ are migrated to populate the Biden State Department.
Is escalation already ‘baked-in’? There may yet be one iconoclastic ‘fly in the ointment’: Mr Trump! – through his symbolic act of endorsing J.D. Vance for the GOP Senate Primary in Ohio, against the wishes of the GOP Establishment.
Vance is one (amongst many) representatives of America’s populist tradition seeking office in the coming Congressional ‘churn’. But the salience here is that Vance has been questioning the rush to escalation in Ukraine. Many other would-be populist contenders among the GOP’s new crop of interesting senators and senators-in-waiting already have succumbed to GOP old-establishment pressure to endorse war. (Boondoggles again).
The GOP is divided on Ukraine at its upper representational level, but the popular base traditionally is sceptical of foreign wars. With this political endorsement, Trump is nudging the GOP towards opposing escalation in Ukraine. Ross Douthat in the NY Times confirms that the Vance endorsement connects more closely to the sources of Trump’s 2016 popularity, as he mined the anti-war sentiment amongst the deplorables, whose focus more is with caring for their own country’s welfare.
Shortly after the endorsement, Trump issued a statement:
“It doesn’t make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren’t sitting down and working out some kind of an agreement. If they don’t do it soon, there will be nothing left but death, destruction, and carnage. This is a war that never should have happened, but it did. The solution can never be as good as it would have been before the shooting started, but there is a solution, and it should be figured out now—not later—when everyone will be DEAD!”, Trump said.
Trump effectively is wedging apart the possible key fault-line for the coming elections (even if some GOP panjandrums – many of whom are funded by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) – favour a more robust military involvement).
Trump too, always has an instinct for an opponent’s jugular: Biden may be highly attracted to the argument for escalation, but he is known to be sensitive to the thought of body-bags coming home to the U.S. before November becoming his legacy. Hence Trump’s exaggeration that sooner rather than later, everyone in Ukraine “will be DEAD!”.
Again, the fear amongst Democrats with military understanding is that the western weapons airlift to the borders of Ukraine will not change the course of war, and that Russia would prevail, even were NATO to engage. Or, in other words, the ‘unthinkable’ will occur: The West will lose to Russia. They argue that Team Biden has little choice: Better to bet on escalation than to risk losing all with a debacle in Ukraine (particularly after Afghanistan).
To eschew escalation presents such a challenge to the American missionary psyche of global leadership that momentum for it may not be overcome through Biden’s innate caution alone. The Washington Post already is reporting that “the Biden Administration is shrugging off fresh Russian warnings against providing Ukrainian forces with more advanced arms and new training – in what appears to be a calculated risk Moscow won’t escalate the war”.
The EU élites, by contrast, are not just persuaded (Hungary and one faction in Germany, apart) by the logic of escalation, they are frankly intoxicated by it. At the Munich Conference in February, it was as if the EU leaders were intent on out-bidding each other in their enthusiasm for war: Josep Borrell re-confirmed his commitment to a military solution in Ukraine: “Yes, normally wars have been won or lost on the battlefield”, he said upon arrival for a meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, when asked to comment on his previous statement that “this war will be won on the battlefield”.
Their euphoria is centred around the belief that the EU – for the first time – is wielding its economic power in a globally significant way, and, at the same time, enabling and arming a proxy war against Russia (through imagining the EU as a real Carolingian empire, actually winning on the battlefield!).
The euphoria of the EU élites – so completely de-coupled from national identities and local interests, and loyal rather to a cosmopolitan vision in which men and women of consequence network endlessly amongst themselves and bask in their peer approval – is opening deep polarisation within their own societies.
The unease arises among those who do not regard patriotism, or a scepticism towards today’s Russiaphobia, as necessarily ‘gauche’. They are concerned that perception-delimited EU élites, advocating sanctions on Russia and NATO engagement with a nuclear power, will bring disaster to Europe.
The Euro-élites are on a crusade – too highly invested in the emotional charge and euphoria of the Ukraine ‘cause’ to have even considered a Plan ‘B’.
And even if a Plan ‘B’ were to be considered, the EU has less of a reverse-gear than the U.S. The Brussels zeitgeist is set in concrete. Structurally, the EU is incapable of self-reform, or of radically changing course and wider Europe now lacks the ‘vessels’ through which decisive political change can be effected.
Hold onto your hats!
US food production threatened by mysterious fires in meat plants
Free West Media | April 25, 2022
More and more food processing plants are going up in flames in the US. Sixteen such incidents have been recorded so far. The background is unclear, but terrorism is being ruled out.
The fact is, however, that the basic needs of the population are massively threatened in some places by these attacks on infrastructure while authorities downplay the incidents.
Throughout the past year, but especially since February 2022, a series of devastating fires in the United States and Canada have destroyed or severely damaged food processing plants – mostly meat plants (slaughterhouses, hog and poultry farms), but also silage and large-scale grain production plants. As a result, there could be food shortages and price increases in many areas.
Devastating damage
The damage is catastrophic: an employee of an affected factory in Texas estimates that 50 to 100 truckloads of onions were destroyed there alone. A factory in Oregon was completely destroyed by a boiler explosion and all 244 employees had to be laid off. A fire in California had to evacuate 2 700 people around the affected factory.
Food prices are already at record highs in the US. The Rockefeller Foundation released an analysis of when a “massive, immediate food crisis” could start, and added that it would probably be “in the next six months”. The foundation shares the outlook of the World Economic Forum (WEF), advocating for the “Great Reset”.
Fires and explosions: possible connections
Officially, there are various reasons for the fires: the authorities downplay the possibility of any connections, and the Homeland Security Department does not assume terrorist attacks. At least one fire in Georgia last week was caused by a plane crashing onto a factory site. Since fires and explosions on factory premises and similar events repeatedly broke out for unknown reasons, some experts also suspect the likelihood of serial perpetrators and targeted attacks.
Conceivable would be militant animal or nature conservationists, climate activists or enemies of industrial food production, who are resorting to increasingly uncompromising means in the US just as they are in Europe.
Food crisis is getting worse
It is undisputed that the never-ending series of incidents will further exacerbate the food crisis, which is also noticeable in the US, as a result of supply chains that are already strained. In any case, the extent of the damage caused by the destruction in this sensitive key sector cannot yet be quantified; it also depends on how quickly the damaged or completely destroyed facilities can be repaired.
The FBI’s Cyber Division meanwhile published a warning about increased “cyber-attack threats” on agricultural cooperatives.
“Ransomware actors may be more likely to attack agricultural cooperatives during critical planting and harvest seasons, disrupting operations, causing financial loss, and negatively impacting the food supply chain,” the notice read, adding 2021 and early 2022 ransomware attacks on farming co-ops could affect the current planting season “by disrupting the supply of seeds and fertilizer”.
The agency warned, “A significant disruption of grain production could impact the entire food chain, since grain is not only consumed by humans but also used for animal feed … In addition, a significant disruption of grain and corn production could impact commodities trading and stocks. ”
“A Magnet for Conspiracy Theories”: Wikipedia Kills Entry for Hunter Biden’s Investment Company
By Jonathan Turley | April 24, 2022
Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca.
Wikipedia has been accused of raw bias in removing the entry at a time when interest in the company is at its peak, including the possibility of an indictment of Hunter Biden over his financial dealings. Rosemont Seneca is one of the most searched terms for those trying to understand the background on the Biden business operations.
Yet, an editor known only as “Alex” wrote that the company was simply “not notable” — an absurd claim reminiscent of the recent claim by Atlantic Magazine’s writer Anne Applebaum that she did not cover the scandal because it simply was “not interesting.”
Alex wrote: “This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz.” That itself is an odd statement. It is mentioned as one of the key conduits of alleged influence peddling money. Alex added that “keeping it around” ran the risk of the page becoming “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.”
Any Wikipedia page could be a magnet for conspiracy theories, including the page on Hunter Biden himself. The fact is that this is a real company with real dealings that are the subject of a real criminal investigation. Indeed, various Republican members have already pledged to conduct investigations into this and other companies if they secure either house of Congress after the midterm elections.
So Wikipedia killed it just as a United States Attorney is drilling down on financial dealings of Hunter Biden, including money received from foreign sources through Rosemont Seneca.
The bias in the reference to the “conspiracy theories” is glaring. While some clearly misstate the facts of the Hunter Biden dealings (on both sides of the controversy), the central role of the company in these dealings is no conspiracy theory. I have long criticized Hunter Biden and his uncle for engaging in raw influence peddling — a practice long associated with the Biden family.
I have also been highly critical of how media and social media companies killed the Hunter Biden story. Much like Wikipedia’s explanation this week, they claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story was merely conspiracy theories and Russian disinformation before the election. We are now approaching the midterm elections and suddenly Wikipedia is killing the page on this key company.
Republican senators claim that Hunter Biden was a partner in Rosemont Seneca with Chris Heinz, the stepson of future Secretary of State John Kerry, and their friend, Devon Archer. Archer was recently sent to prison for fraud in a matter that did not involve Hunter Biden.
In 2013, Rosemont Seneca entered into a business partnership with a Chinese investment fund called Bohai Capital. There are references in these transactions to Bohai Harvest RST. “RST” stood for “Rosemont Seneca Thornton,” a consortium of Rosemont Seneca and the Thornton Group, a Massachusetts-based firm.
Hunter Biden’s counsel insists that he did not have an equity interest in RST. However, Rosemont Seneca and RST feature greatly in the controversial transactions with foreign figures. Moreover, the Wall Street Journal reports that:
“Prosecutors have focused in particular, those people said, on the payments from Burisma, which first flowed to a company called Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC before going on to Mr. Biden. Between 2014 and 2019, Hunter Biden held a Burisma board seat for which he was paid around $50,000 a month.”
The company has been tied to a series of payments to Hunter Biden from car purchases to cash transfers that are under investigation. Wikipedia does not (and should not) take sides in such allegations. Rather, it can serve as a conduit for those searching the company as part of a major and ongoing controversy.
Yet, “Alex” does not consider any of that “notable” and dismisses references to the company in a federal investigation as mere “conspiracy theories.”
Wikipedia was founded on lofty and even revolutionary goals of empowering the world with free access to sources of knowledge. The key minds behind Wikipedia saw the danger of bias creeping into this work and emphasized the need for strict neutrality.
Larry Sanger declared “Wikipedia has an important policy: roughly stated, you should write articles without bias, representing all views fairly.”
Likewise, Jimmy Wales insisted “A general-purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view. To whatever extent possible, encyclopedic writing should steer clear of taking any particular stance other than the stance of the neutral point of view.”
I have long been a fan of Wikipedia and its noble purpose. For that reason, I am saddened by this move which seems to reject the essential pledge of the company. Wikipedia’s editors have been increasingly accused of bias in such decisions. However, this move is particularly raw and inexplicable. Wikipedia will lose the trust of many if it goes down the path of companies like Twitter in allowing staff to use its platform for their own political agendas.
Wikipedia should immediately reverse and disassociate itself from the decision of “Alex” on the Rosemont Seneca page.
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Book Review & Summary
Calling of an Angel: The True Story of Rene Caisse and an Indian Herbal Medicine Called Essiac (1988)
Dr. Gary L. Glum – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | October 17, 2026
On June 10, 1975, Dr. Chester Stock, a vice president at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, wrote to a Canadian nurse named Rene Caisse: “Enclosed are test data in two experiments indicating some regressions in sarcoma 180 of mice treated with Essiac.” The sentence sat in a letter from one of the world’s largest private cancer research centers, concerning an herbal tea an elderly English woman had learned from an Ojibwa medicine man at a northern Ontario mining camp in the 1890s. The tests were terminated the following year after Sloan-Kettering admitted, in sworn affidavit three years later, that they had prepared the injectable solution improperly from the dried material supplied — freezing and thawing the herb rather than boiling it as Rene had instructed. By the time Calling of an Angel was published in 1988, Rene Caisse had been dead for a decade, having treated thousands of cancer patients across fifty-six years in her Bracebridge, Ontario kitchen, never charging a fee, and refusing every offer — from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the National Cancer Institute, Merck, Parke Davis, and private corporations dangling contracts up to $1 million — to release her formula before the medical establishment admitted her remedy had merit. … continue
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