The whole idea of boycotting Russian vodka reminds too much of “freedom fries” from Gulf War II. It seems stupid and silly until you realize we are stupid and silly and this is how we are led to war.
The tsunami of pro-Ukrainian propaganda is only matched by its transparency. The Ghost of Kiev was crafted out of an aircraft computer game. The Ukrainians on that island who would rather die than surrender surrendered. The supermodels joining the army are holding toy rifles. Zelensky is Where’s Waldo, popping up in undated video with unidentifiable backgrounds, dressed in military cosplay reminiscent of George W. Bush in his flight suit. The simplistic narrative is the same simplistic narrative: plucky freedom fighters against some evil dictator. It’s the same story of the resistance fighters in Syria against Assad, the Kurds against ISIS, the Northern Resistance, the Sunnis who joined our side, the Taliban who Ronald Reagan called the equivalent of our Founding Fathers for their fight against the Red Army.
Putin now is the most evil man on earth, unhinged, mentally unwell. Saddam once was, Assad used to be, and Quaddafi was to the point where America cheered as he was sodomized with a knife on TV. Putin is so unstable we don’t know what he’ll do. Familiar voices are raised: The Brookings Institution’s Ben Wittes demands: “Regime change: Russia.” The Council on Foreign Relations’ Richard Haass roared that “the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.” One headline wishfully notes “knocking Putin’s teams off the sports stage leaves him exposed to his own people.” No one seems to recall, however, our last attempt at regime change in Russia is what put Putin into power in the first place.
Putin’s goals have gone in a matter of days from sorting out Cold War borders to “the restoration of a triumphalist, imperialistic Russian identity, or another bloodstained nationalistic surge to cover for the criminality of his regime, or whether he just has come egotistically unmoored.” One former Iraqi War cheerleader tells us Ukraine, the “front line between democracy and autocracy, is a core interest of the United States… Ukraine is where the battle for democracy’s survival is most urgent. ”
Others are more direct. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Senator Roger Wicker, and Zelensky demand a no-fly zone. They have friends; a poll as the invasion began found “52 percent of Americans see the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to US vital interests” with almost no partisan division. No polling on what those vital interests might be. Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Ruben Gallego want all Russians deported from the US. As if preparing for war, the U.S. has already closed its embassies in Ukraine and Belarus, and placed Embassy Moscow on “Authorized Departure” status for non-emergency staff and family members. On the other end of the government, the CIA is training Ukrainians for an insurgency. You know, like with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan years ago. Lawmakers at a congressional hearing discussed having American intelligence provide more direct assistance to Ukraine, including ground operatives.
No dissent is allowed. You are either “with us or against us.” The homogeneity of our social and MSM is terrifying. Censorship is in full fury; the fact checkers are hands off even the most outrageous claims (the Ukrainians have trained cats to spot Russian laser sights) and Twitter calls out Russian sources but not pro-Ukrainian ones. Facebook and YouTube post Ukrainian propaganda made in violation of the Geneva Convention. Google News will not include anything from Russian state media. The NYT is running anonymously-sourced tales claiming the Russians are deserting or sabotaging their own vehicles. Rolling Stone is naming “the American right-wingers covering for Putin as Russia invades Ukraine,” currently Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, J.D. Vance, and Tulsi Gabbard. The worst of all of course is Trump, whom Liz Cheney claims “aids our enemies” and whose “interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States.” When he proposed Congress vote on military escalations by the US in Ukraine, Senator Mike Lee was quickly called “Moscow Mike.”
If all that isn’t laying the ground work for a fight, it has been an awful lot of work for nothing.
We’ve been here before when everything was the same but not the same. Following Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea, and feints toward Ukraine, then-President Barack Obama said Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there. “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” Obama showed the same realism in 2013 when in the face of war-mongering over Assad “gassing his own people in Syria” he backed away from widening the war (if only Obama had been equally pragmatic over Libya.)
But Biden is not Obama. Biden, due to age and background, is not a strong man. Unlike Obama, he does not see himself awash in the stream of history, but more as a caretaker until the Democratic Party can regroup, the Gerald Ford of his era. Biden is a weak man who will come under increasing pressure to “do something” as it becomes apparent the newest layer of sanctions against Russia accomplishes as little as the last layer of sanctions. The previous sanctions, among other things, did not stop Putin from invading Ukraine.
But more than anything else, Joe Biden is a Cold Warrior, burdened fully with a world view Obama was not. That world view says the role of the United States is to create a global system and enforce its rules. We can invade nations that did not attack us and demand regime change but you cannot. We decide which nations have nuclear weapons and which can not. We can walk our NATO-alliance right to your border but you cannot do the same with yours. We decide what systems control international commerce and who can participate in them. It is right and just for us to talk about crippling an economy, but not you. It was all best expressed by Condoleezza Rice, who commented with a straight face on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.”
This world view says the United States can empower former Soviet satellites and grow American influence by expanding NATO eastward (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Romania formally joined the alliance, East Germany by default) and to do this while taking the nuclear weapons away from those states so that none of them would become a threat or rival in Europe. It was American policy to have weak but not too weak states between Russia and the “good” part of Europe, dependent on America for defense.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, borders were redrawn to match the West’s needs (the same mistake was made earlier by the British post-WWI in the Middle East.) The reality of 2022 is Putin is seeking to redraw borders. Ukraine as a possible NATO member is a threat to Putin and he is now taking care of that. Americans live in a country that has no border threats and fails to understand the mindset time after time; imagine Mexico joining the Warsaw Pact in 1970.
We were warned. After the Senate ratified NATO expansion in 1998 despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ambassador George Kennan stated “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely. I think it is a tragic mistake. No one was threatening anybody else. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.”
That’s the circa-1998 trap Joe Biden is being lured back into. Only months after the America collapse and retreat from Afghanistan, Biden learned nothing. Our defeat did not teach us humility and restraint. It did not school us that America can no longer dictate global rules, sitting as judge while an ally invades a neighbor and then turning to hurl lightening bolts when an enemy invades one. It did not budge us a hair away from the destructive moral certainty that fuels our foreign policy. All that’s missing now is for someone to claim Russia and China are a new Axis of Evil.
Putin invaded Ukraine because, unlike Biden, he understands the new, new world order has different rules. Joe Biden, not always a quick study, has two choices. He can give in to the voices for war and try and prop up the myth of World’s Policemen for another round, or he can understand the consistent failures of American crusades and the global Pax Americana since WWII, especially those in the Middle East of the past two decades, plus the rise of multipolar economic powers to include China, have changed the rules. Negotiation is no longer appeasement. We aren’t in control anymore, and despite Iraq and Afghanistan, Biden may seek another bloody confirmation of that. Or he can understand America’s core interests are not in Ukraine and keep the peace.
March 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Joe Biden, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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US Vice President Kamala Harris has said that, by fighting Russia, Ukraine is defending the US-led NATO alliance in an apparent gaffe.
In a speech to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) winter meeting in Washington, DC on Saturday, Harris argued that Russia’s offensive in Ukraine “threatens not just Ukraine’s democracy” but “democracy and security across Europe,” as well as overseas.
“The ocean that separates us will not leave us untouched by this aggression,” Harris claimed, before seemingly suggesting that Ukraine is doing NATO’s bidding.
“So I will say what I know we all say, and I will say over and over again: The United States stands firmly with the Ukrainian people in defense of the NATO alliance,” she said.
However, the transcript of the speech released by the White House suggested that Harris misspoke with “and” being added before “in defense of the NATO alliance.”
“The United States stands firmly with the Ukrainian people and in defense of the NATO Alliance,” the transcript reads.
That did not stop the VP’s critics on social media from accusing her of a foreign policy blunder. Some Republicans questioned whether Harris mistakenly believed Ukraine was a member of the alliance.
While Kiev was initially passionate about joining NATO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky indicated this week that he had become less interested in the idea, accusing the US-led military bloc of not doing enough to support Ukraine. NATO has previously rejected Zelensky’s appeal for the establishment of a no-fly zone over the country, arguing it would drag the whole alliance into the conflict with Russia.
“I’ve become less passionate about this issue after we understood that NATO isn’t ready to accept Ukraine,” said Zelensky on Monday, accusing NATO of being “afraid of controversial things and a confrontation with Russia.”
“I’ve never wanted Ukraine to be a country that is on its knees, begging for something. And we’re not going to be that country,” he added.
March 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Kamala Harris, United States |
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Data is the foundation of scientific analysis. Without data, researchers are left unable to draw conclusions, which leaves public health experts unable to accurately make recommendations. But that appears to be exactly what the CDC1 and Health and Human Services (HHS)2 are doing. The CDC is hiding data and the HHS is no longer collecting data, which one U.S. official has called “incomprehensible.”3
Since the World Health Organization announced a pandemic, multiple organizations began tracking data, including the number of people who were sick with COVID-19, in the hospital with or had died from it. As I have written, later the number of “cases” was reported. These were people who had a positive PCR test and did not necessarily have symptoms.
Whistleblowers working with attorney Thomas Renz, who is investigating hospital abuses,4 have reported that hospitals are incentivized to admit PCR positive patients, prescribe remdesivir,5 place patients on ventilators and include COVID on death certificates. All told, some believe hospitals could receive up to $100,000 for each patient who meets all the incentivized criteria.6
Of course, “fact” checkers immediately jumped on that claim in an effort to “debunk” what they call “false” information.7,8 But they simply contradicted themselves in the “fact” checking by changing the semantics of how COVID deaths are counted and rewording of how hospitals are compensated for COVID patients from “paid more” to receiving a “bump” in payment. So what’s the difference? They’re still getting paid more for COVID patients.
In analyzing this, it’s important to look at how data of all sorts are collected on you and everyone else in the world. For example:
Nearly everything people do is digitally recorded, analyzed and extrapolated for decision making. You leave a digital footprint each time you use your smartphone or computer. One study showed digital cookies may have lifetimes up to 8,000 years.9 In 2010, it was estimated there were 2 zettabytes (ZB) of data created.10
To put this into perspective, it would take 184 million football fields of 1 GB thumb drives laid end to end to contain the information. Data is so important that the organization that appears to be leading The Great Reset — the World Economic Forum — is also interested in data and estimates there would be 44 ZB of data collected in 2020.11
So, with all that in mind, in a world where data is king12,13,14 the HHS decision to hide COVID-19 data begs the question: What do they want to hide? Are they stopping the flow of data, as opposed to hiding data like the CDC, to reach the same end, where the data are not available for examination and analysis?
HHS Ends Hospital COVID Death Reports
January 6, 2022, the HHS announced15 changes to the reporting requirements for hospitals and acute care facilities. The new guidelines note “The retirement of fields which are no longer required to be reported,” which include the “previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.”
However, according to one news report, the guideline did not receive public attention until January 14, 2022, when it was tweeted by Dr. Jorge Caballero,16 who asked why the government no longer wanted these daily reports beginning February 2, 2022. By January 28, 2022, just like they did with the report on COVID-19 hospital reimbursements, fact-checkers were busy posting viral social media posts claiming Caballero’s conclusions were not correct.
Yet, as I mentioned, the announcement was published on the HHS website — so how could it be false? You can go to the website17 and read it for yourself. Under the section, “The retirement of fields which are no longer required to be reported,” it says: “previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.” So how could fact-checkers “debunk” that?
To create a fact check that claimed this was “false,” the fact-checkers simply changed the headline. So, while the HHS publicly announced they would no longer require hospitals to report deaths from COVID-19, fact-checkers reported the U.S. government was not ending daily COVID death reporting.
MSN18 fact-checkers reported that Nancy Foster from the American Hospital Association had suggested the change could “streamline data collection.” Yet, the HHS system used direct reporting from ICD medical diagnosis codes entered into the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system.
In an emailed statement, Foster reported that she believes the HHS was no longer collecting data because they were receiving comprehensive data from public health agencies, including death certificates reported to the National Center for Health Statistics and used by the CDC in its death data reporting. Despite supporting the HHS decision, the agency did not respond to a request by MSN on the reason for the change.
HHS had worked with major electronic medical records (EMR) manufacturers, so 85% of hospital reporting was programmed into their computer, and you can’t get more streamlined than that. January 2021, Alex C. Madrigal, co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project,19 wrote:20
“In a series of analyses that we ran over the past several months, we came to nearly the opposite conclusion of other media outlets. The hospitalization data coming out of HHS are now the best and most granular publicly available data on the pandemic. This information has changed the response to the pandemic for the better.”
An unnamed federal health official spoke with a reporter from WSWS,21 calling the move to stop reporting COVID-29 hospital deaths “incomprehensible.” The official added, “It is the only consistent, reliable and actionable dataset at the federal level. Ninety-nine percent of hospitals report 100% of the data every day. I don’t know any scientists who want to have less data.”
CDC Is Hiding Data on Booster Shots
February 20, 2022, The New York Times 22 reported that the CDC has not published large parts of the data they collected during the COVID pandemic. In fact, most of the information they collected in the past year on hospitalizations has not been made public.
The CDC published data on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 boosters in people younger than 65 in early February 2022. However, as The New York Times points out, the data did not cover individuals from 18 to 49 years old.23 This also is the group least likely to benefit from the genetic therapy shot, since CDC data24 demonstrate they have some of the lowest rates of severe disease and death.
The New York Post 25 notes that the FDA overruled an expert advisory committee and the CDC overruled their own experts to promote the boosters for all age groups. After ensuring the boosters would be open to all people, the CDC then did not release much of the data despite pleas from scientists.
A look at the published data for those 50 to 65 years shows the booster reduces the risk of death from 4 in 1 million to 1 in 1 million. Further analysis shows that 75% of the additional three people out of 1 million who are helped by the booster shot have at least four comorbidities.26
Unfortunately, since the CDC has not released the raw data, U.S. scientists have had to rely on Israeli data. One study27 published in The New England Journal of Medicine gathered information from 4.6 million people 16 years and older who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. They then compared severe illness and death between those who had had a booster dose and those who had not.
The data showed the group of individuals from 16 to 29 years had zero deaths whether they were boosted or not boosted. Likewise, the group from 30 to 39 years had one death whether they were boosted or not boosted. In fact, the difference in death rate did not rise until the participants were 60 to 69 years, at which point the non-boosted group had 44 deaths and the boosted group had 32 deaths.
In addition to the number of deaths rising in the boosted and non-boosted groups, the percentage of people in those age categories also declined, much like you would find in the general population where the death rate rises as people age.
CDC Claims Data May Be Misinterpreted
Kristen Nordlund is a spokeswoman for the CDC. In her comments to The New York Times,28 she said the data are being slowly released since, “basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” Another reason she cited was the information may be misinterpreted to mean the vaccines are ineffective.
Nordlund gave a third reason for not releasing the data, saying that the data they have is based on 10% of the U.S. population, which the Times reporter points out is the same sample size used to track influenza each year. Jessica Malaty Rivera is an epidemiologist. She spoke with the Times, saying,29 “We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years.”
She went on to say, “We are at a much greater risk of misinterpreting the data with data vacuums, than sharing the data with proper science, communication and caveats.” In an opinion piece, Staten Island Advance’s Tom Wrobleski characterizes the CDC’s decision, writing about what has happened to most people who have been willing to speak out:30
“We’re told to have faith in the CDC, in Dr. Anthony Fauci, in all the experts who are trained to handle public health crises. But we can’t have trust if vital information is withheld from us.
Because then it becomes a case of, “Shut up and do what we say. We’re the experts. You don’t need to know how we come to our decisions. We know what’s best.” And if you question the received wisdom, you’re suddenly a dangerous person. You’re likened to a terrorist. You’re told you want people to die. You get banned from social media.
If you dare protest, you can have your bank account frozen and your vehicle insurance suspended, as we saw during the Freedom Convoy protest in Canada. You can get trampled by police on horseback.
Withholding information only makes people more skeptical. It breeds suspicion. Or mere doubt. The CDC needs to do better if it wants our trust.”
The Jab Is Deadlier Than COVID if You’re Under 80
With the end of the HHS COVID death reporting system, the only means of tracking COVID deaths will now rely on the collection of data from death certificates at the state level. However, as the unnamed official told the WSWS reporter:31
“… deaths are reported by the counties/states but the process is very slow and many coroners are actually not wanting to cite COVID as the reason, while hospitals rely on diagnoses.”
This last part of the sentence may refer to the hospital incentives for a COVID diagnosis, which increases the potential it would be listed in the ICD codes that were communicated to the HHS. Although the CDC and HHS would like the data to remain hidden, a cost-benefit analysis32 by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and independent researcher Kathy Dopp revealed the jab is deadlier than the infection in anyone under the age of 80.
The analysis looked at publicly available official data from the U.S. and U.K. for all age groups and compared all-cause mortality to the risk of dying from COVID-19. Seneff and Dopp wrote:33
“As of 6 February 2022, based on publicly available official UK and US data, all age groups under 50 years old are at greater risk of fatality after receiving a COVID-19 inoculation than an unvaccinated person is at risk of a COVID-19 death.
All age groups under 80 years old have virtually no benefit from receiving a COVID-19 inoculation, and the younger ages incur significant risk. This analysis is conservative because it ignores the fact that inoculation-induced adverse events such as thrombosis, myocarditis, Bell’s palsy, and other vaccine-induced injuries can lead to shortened life span.”
Their analysis is upheld by OneAmerica’s announcement34 that the death rate in working-age Americans from 18 to 64 years in the third quarter of 2021 was 40% higher than prepandemic levels. This finding is stunning since one of the most reliable data points we have is all-cause mortality.
It is a very hard statistic to massage since people are either dead or they’re not. Their inclusion in the national death index database is based on one primary criterion — they’ve died — regardless of the cause. As noted in a (not peer-reviewed) study led by scientist Denis Rancourt, who looked at U.S. mortality between March 2020 and October 2021:35
“All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting true catastrophic events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge in deaths from any cause.”
Other Insurance Companies Recording Similar Results
Other insurance companies that are citing higher mortality rates36 include Hartford Insurance Group, which announced mortality increased 32% from 2019 and 20% from 2020 before the shots. Lincoln National also reported death claims have increased 13.7% year over year and 54% in quarter 4 compared to 2019. Funeral homes are posting an increase in burials and cremations in 2021 over 2020.37
Similar numbers are also being reported in other countries. A large German health insurance company reported38,39 company data were nearly 14 times greater than the number of deaths reported by the German government. The insurance data are gathered directly from doctors applying for payment from a sample of 10.9 million people.
Despite mass injection campaigns, Silicon Valley software engineer Ben M. (@USMortality) revealed that in the 13 weeks before November 28, 2021, about 107,700 seniors died above the normal rate, despite a 98.7% vaccination rate.40
He also used data from the CDC, census.gov and his own calculations to show excess deaths rising in Vermont, even as the majority of adults have been injected. “Vermont had 71% of their entire population vaccinated by June 1, 2021,” he tweeted. “That’s 83% of their adult population, yet they are seeing the most excess deaths now since the pandemic!”41
It is easy to see why the HHS and CDC would like to hide these numbers from scrutiny. It is becoming more difficult to ignore with each passing day that the infection didn’t kill the number of people health experts claimed and the vaccine is killing far more than the virus.
Sources and References
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | CDC, Covid-19, United States |
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The huge $1.5 trillion US federal spending bill, that’s expected to be signed into law by President Joe Biden today, allocates over $2.6 billion to “Democracy Programs” and requires these programs to combat “the misuse of social media to spread disinformation or incite hate.”
This requirement is buried deep into the 2,741 page bill on page 1,408 and is part of the “Title VII General Provisions” of the “Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022.”
The bill states: “Democracy programs supported with funds appropriated by this Act… should, as appropriate… include… efforts to combat weaponized technology, including the misuse of social media to spread disinformation or incite hate.”
While this is the main requirement in the bill related to disinformation, there’s also another reference to disinformation on page 1,848 that states:
“Funds appropriated by this title under the heading “Economic Support Fund” may be transferred to, and merged with, funds available under the heading “Diplomatic Programs” for activities related to public engagement, messaging, and countering disinformation.”
The “Economic Support Fund” heading makes $6.47 million available until September 30, 2024 while the “Diplomatic Programs” heading makes $125 million available until September 30, 2024 with the provisions that up to $15 million “may be transferred to, and merged with, funds available under the heading “‘Capital Investment Fund”’ for cybersecurity and related information technology investments” and that the funds “shall be made available, as appropriate, to enhance the capacity of the Department of State to identify the assets of Russian and other oligarchs related to the situation in Ukraine, and to coordinate with the Department of the Treasury in seizing or freezing such assets.”
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
The way the final text of this massive spending bill was released in the middle of the night, hours before a final vote, has been criticized by numerous US politicians.
The final text of the bill was published just before 3 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday morning and the final vote for the bill in the US House of Representatives was set for 1:30 pm EST on Wednesday, giving representatives less than 11 hours to read the final text before voting.
A day later, the final vote for the bill in the US Senate was held, giving Senators around 24 hours to read the nearly 3,000 pages in the bill.
“Literally in the DARK OF NIGHT, the Democrat controlled Rules Committee met at 1:30 am – 2:30 am and passed the HORRENDOUS $1.5 TRILLION Omnibus bill,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted. “They did NOT tell anyone or announce this debate on the bill until after midnight! We woke up to 2,741 pages and we vote today!”
Senator Rand Paul added: “Do you think there is a single person in the U.S. who believes that Congress is filled with speed readers capable of digesting thousands of pages in a matter of hours? The 2741-page omnibus with a $1.5 trillion price tag that was released in the middle of the night is a perfect example of why Congress needs time to read the bills.”
This isn’t the first time a huge spending bill has been used to push new online rules. In December 2020, a controversial copyright reform that proposed up to 10 years in prison for “unauthorized streaming” was buried 2,540 pages deep in the 5,593 page “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.” Despite its huge length, this bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump within six days.
The addition of requirements to fight online disinformation in this federal spending bill is the latest of many examples of the federal government targeting online speech. The Biden White House has admitted that it flags content for Facebook to censor and proposed that If you’re banned for “misinformation” on one platform, you should be banned from ALL platforms. Members of Congress have also threatened to hold Big Tech companies “accountable” if they don’t censor misinformation.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | United States |
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The United States government is busy banning and sanctioning virtually all things Russian. Meanwhile, big money media and social media are nearly uniformly proclaiming anti-Russia sentiment and working hard to limit Americans’ exposure of contrary information.
In this context, it is little surprise that last week RT America, with its connection to the government of Russia, ceased broadcasting. The silencing of the news organization arises from a Russia scare relentlessly fueled in America and several other countries in recent years that reached its highest manic level in the last few weeks.
The departure of RT America from television is a loss for free speech and diversity of information. And that loss comes within a larger scary progression in America — continual increasing of the muting of voices challenging narratives, such as the coronavirus scare of the last two years and the ascendant Russia scare, that are used to expand government power.
RT America has been a go-to place for news and commentary different from what is found at cable television stations such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Flipping the channel to RT, one would likely find a different topic being discussed than at those other stations, or the same topic being discussed but with the inclusion of different perspectives or additional important information. RT America thus helped Americans become more knowledgeable about what was happening in the world and helped them overcome tunnel vision approaches often presented elsewhere.
A big step in the suppression of RT America came in 2017 when the United States government required it to register as a foreign agent with the US Department of Justice. Writing then at Consortium News, investigative reporter Robert Parry explained the apparent chilling motive of silencing alternative views and controlling information that was behind imposing this requirement:
The U.S. government’s real beef with RT seems to be that it allows on air some Americans who have been blacklisted from the mainstream media – including highly credentialed former U.S. intelligence analysts and well-informed American journalists – because they have challenged various Official Narratives.
In other words, Americans are not supposed to hear the other side of the story on important international conflicts, such as the proxy war in Syria or the civil war in Ukraine or Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians. Only the State Department’s versions of those events are permitted even when those versions are themselves propagandistic if not outright false.
Five years later, the hammer came down with full force on RT America.
Goodbye, RT America. Americans will be worse off without you.
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | United States |
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Russia’s ambassador to Washington accused the Americans on Saturday of trying to “demonize” Moscow, rejecting a US State Department allegation that his country may deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“The US official, as always, did not bother to provide any evidence. This is another attempt to demonize our country,” Anatoly Antonov said, adding that such claims were “not worth a penny.”
Citing a paper from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the official then suggested that Ukrainian “radical groups” – allegedly “[trained] under the control of the representatives of American special services” – could have themselves “prepared several potential scenarios of the use of toxic chemicals in order to carry out various types of provocations.”
“Our country, unlike the United States, eliminated all available stocks of chemical warfare agents in 2017. This fact has been documented by the OPCW. It is pointless to argue with this fact,” Antonov concluded, in reference to the fact that US chemical warfare stockpiles have yet to be completely decommissioned.
The Russian government has claimed that Ukrainian groups backed by the US could be preparing a false-flag chemical attack in order to “accuse Russia of the use of chemical weapons against the civil population and violating its obligations.” The US and Ukraine have denied such claims.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price suggested on Wednesday that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very crimes that Russia itself is perpetrating,” he said, calling Moscow’s warnings “an obvious ploy.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed this week that Russia could “use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine” or “create a false-flag operation” with such weapons. Psaki added that the world should “be on the lookout.”
Psaki dismissed Moscow’s suggestions that the US and Ukraine could conduct a similar false-flag attack, calling them “false claims” and “conspiracy theories.”
The press secretary argued that Moscow’s claims were an “obvious ploy” to justify further military action in Ukraine.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed on March 6 that Russian forces had discovered evidence of Ukraine erasing traces of an alleged US-backed military biological program in the country. Washington has claimed it is working to prevent Russian forces from capturing biological research material.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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The collective post-West has been running amok for the last two weeks. The powers that be make believe that they did not expect that events would unfold the way they are unfolding now (though they did their best to make things happen as they are happening) and they make a show imposing sanctions on the aggressor and assuring the populace that the aggressor sooner or later will cave in. There is yet a third aspect to the phenomenon: the same powers that be want the people to forget that merely twenty years back they themselves assaulted Yugoslavia/Serbia, used missiles with depleted uranium, bombed cities and shot at civilians. Of course, that earlier event was a humanitarian action while the current one is a brutal act of aggression, but we digress.
Now there is a big misconception on the part of the post-West about Russia. If the Western media claim the Russian people are against the war or that the Russian people are about to rebel and overthrow President Putin, then they are either delusional or lying through their teeth. Reality is something that refuses to obey our wishes. The Russian people have rallied around their president and their authorities; the Russian people – unlike citizens of the post-Western countries – are patriotic and ready to sacrifice themselves in defence of their fatherland. Western sanctions? The post-West may withdraw businesses and impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs, which is music to the ears of the Russian people. They resented Western dominance anyway and they will be more than happy to see the oligarchs mopped up from their society. Russians view the hostilities as a repeat of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Contrary to what has been done to the Western collective mentality, the Russian authorities under Vladimir Putin took great efforts to raise Russia’s citizens in patriotic values. Russians are going to win because they do not care about money so much as the West does. That’s one big misconception that Western people have about their opponents from the East.
It is the West that cannot imagine a life without money and the resultant luxuries. Sanctions or no sanctions, Western companies will sooner or later (I bet: sooner) resume business with Russia because – as everybody in the West knows – “money makes the world go round”. No less a person than Comrade Lenin famously said: capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will make a noose to hang them. And so they will, make no bones about it.
Yes, the West is ready to go to war with Russia so long as it has… Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian soldiers at its disposal. The moment the West runs out of those soldiers, its leaders will go back to the negotiating table with the Kremlin. Do you want any evidence? Here you are.
A few days ago Americans tried to set Poland against Russia in that they suggested to Warsaw that it send Soviet-made MiG aircraft to Ukraine. Though the Polish authorities usually oblige the West’s wishes, this time they had second thoughts about the proposal and replied that they were ready to send the said aircraft to the American air base in Rammstein so that Americans could pass them over to Kiev. And you know what? Washington was beside itself with annoyance! You see? The dog was expected to bite the bear, with the dog’s owner watching from the sidelines and biding his time.
Just picture it to yourself. Warsaw sends the MiG aircraft to Ukraine, Moscow regards it (and rightly so!) as a hostile act and fires a couple of missiles against selected targets in Polish territory. What do you think the West would do? Yes, you guessed it right. The West would express its great indignation and impose a set of new sanctions… for a time.
Talking about President Putin, who – according to the Western analysts is about to be toppled either by the people closest to him or by the nation – his Christian name is Vladimir, and Vladimir was the name of the grand prince of Rus’ who united the many Slavic tribes and christened them. He went down in history as Vladimir the Great. The chances are – whether you like it or not – that Putin is going to be another Vladimir the Great.
The current war means the end of the world that we have been accustomed to. We are entering a new cold war period and a new division of the globe with the United States, Great Britain, and the European Union on the one side, and Russia and China on the other. This new world throws a monkey wrench into the plans forged by globalists of the Klaus Schwab ilk. Or, globalism will be reduced to the Western world. The international rules that all the countries have up to now tried to abide by are no more valid for Russia, and consequently sooner or later for others because of the domino effect. Being beleaguered by the West, Moscow will have no intention to play by the rules created in this West. Why should it?
Sanctions work both ways. Russia has a lot to offer, be it crude oil, natural gas, rare metals or what not. Look back into the past! The Bolsheviks that took reins of power after 1917 were hated by the West. Lo and behold, it did not take many years for the capitalists to resume business with the hated communists; similarly, after the Second World War the Soviet Union was regarded as a hostile empire and yet, and despite that, business between the West and the Soviets went as usual. How about China? It was Taiwan that was first supported by the West, yet slowly but surely Washington reversed course, left Taiwan to its own devices and resumed contacts with Beijing. Since – as said above – money makes the world go round, the greedy capitalists helped China develop in that they outsourced almost all production to the Middle Kingdom. Do you think it is going to be different now with regard to Russia?
When Ukraine is eventually conquered by Russia, what will the elites in such small countries like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – all bordering on Russia – think about their security and the ability of the collective West to help them? I want to see that man or that woman who really thinks that NATO will go to war with Russia over Estonia or Latvia.
Ukraine has been exploited by Western companies for thirty long years. All those contacts with democracies and capitalism did not benefit the country at all. It only benefited a handful of people, who fled Ukraine before the hostilities, leaving the rank and file behind. Rumour has it that President Zelensky is kept in the American embassy in Warsaw though we are all made to believe that he remains in Kiev. How much would you bet on President Zelensky residing in Kiev, a city that is about to be soon encircled?
The West could have further exploited Ukraine and teased Russia but it simply overplayed its hand. Precisely as it is described in this fable by Aesop where a goose laying golden eggs is killed by the greedy owners. The moral? Much wants more and loses all. Now that Moscow is taking retaliatory steps like shutting down media outlets that propagated Western ideas and Western lifestyle the West has lost its ideological bridgehead inside Russia that it has held for thirty years. The West really thought it was ready to make a killing. A big killing. Western elites really thought Russia would be withdrawing from its positions further and further; they really believed the Navalny kind of Russian dissenters that the Russian people were all against the authorities. Worse, the West still thinks that Russians will force their president to surrender because otherwise common people will be stripped of the opportunity to eat hamburgers and cheeseburgers in McDonald’s restaurants in Moscow and Petersburg! Sure, there are some such people who are ready to trade their country for ham- and cheeseburgers, but then it is a splinter from the large whole. The majority accustomed to Russia’s greatness are not willing to sell this greatness off. Plus, they are not attracted by the Western values of married homosexuals or the many sexes that are invented by the month. That’s also something that the post-West is not aware of. Remember also that millions of Russians have bitter recollections of the Yeltsin era during which western-style capitalism promised them well-being and brought poverty, unrest and humiliation instead. That’s one big reason why President Putin is appreciated by the vast majority of the population: he put an end to chaos and brought in stability. If you think Russians dream about homosexual parades in their cities or pregnant soldiers in their army or the many gender pronouns, you cannot be more delusional.
There is one more explanation to all what is occurring. The West went to great lengths to have Russia and Ukraine clash for the sheer purpose of weakening both countries. This is one sure way of preserving world preponderance, is it not? Lead nations to war the moment you see they have developed too much and too fast. The United States achieved its global dominance because the Second World War wreaked havoc with the economies of Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan – the world’s powerhouses. After the cessation of the hostilities all those countries needed American aid and American dollars and were compelled to accept almost all the dictates from Washington.
Look at the present political map of the world. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the countries of former Yugoslavia, the states that went through an array of all those colour revolutions: they are reeling under the blows of all manner of war, civil war, social upheaval and the attendant economic collapse. Which country emerges victorious? Yes, sure, the one that has not been directly engaged in the conflict. A classic case of two dogs fighting for a bone with a third running away with it.
Russia and Ukraine will lose a number of people (killed, wounded, displaced); Ukraine will have its economy ruined; Poland is already accommodating a million (and rising!) Ukrainians who somehow do not want to defend their country and prove their rights to it (If you say that women and children do not or should not take part in hostilities, then think again); Warsaw will have a lot of trouble with them. Who emerges victorious? You know who. Vice-President Kamala Harris visited Poland to reassuringly pat the Polish nation on the shoulder in recognition of Poland’s hospitality towards Ukrainians. She knows that such gestures work with Poles. The supranational elites hating ethnically monolithic countries are rubbing their hands in glee. At last Poland, this ethnically and religiously monolithic nation, is changing to a mix of Poles and Ukrainians, of Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to be later skilfully set off against each other like Croats and Serbs if Warsaw should fail to toe the Western party line.
GEFIRA – Global Analysis from the European Perspective. Preparing for the world of tomorrow.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Poland, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States, Vladimir Putin |
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White House officials have held a special briefing on the conflict in Ukraine for some 30 social media creators, the US media have reported, adding that the Biden administration is increasingly exploring new means of communication to get its message across to younger audiences.
The briefing was held on Thursday by the White House National Security Council special adviser for communications, Matt Miller, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. The officials explained the US “strategic goals in the region” and answered questions about US aid to Ukraine, about NATO and Washington’s potential reaction to a Russian nuclear strike, addressing the social media creators on a zoom call, The Washington Post has reported on Friday.
The list of those invited to the briefing included people creating “explanatory” content on the conflict on TikTok, YouTube and Twitter. According to the Post, the first to break the story, the Biden administration has cooperated with Gen Z For Change – a nonprofit group – to identify content creators for the briefing.
One of those invited was Aaron Parnas, the 22-year-old son of Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born American businessman and a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York mayor and lawyer of then-President Donald Trump. Lev Parnas was convicted in October on campaign finance charges and pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
“We recognize this is a critically important avenue in the way the American public is finding out about the latest,” the White House director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty, explained, adding that Washington wanted to “make sure” the social media influencers get “the latest information from an authoritative source.”
According to the Washington Post, some influencers said following the briefing they “felt more empowered to debunk misinformation and communicate effectively about the crisis.” “I’m here to relay the information in a more digestible manner to my followers,” 18-year-old Ellie Zeiler, who has 10.5 million followers, told the Washington Post after the briefing. “I would consider myself a White House correspondent for Gen Z,” the TikTok influencer added.
Others, however, appeared unimpressed by the event. “The energy of the call felt like a press briefing for kindergartners,” said Jules Suzdaltsev, a Ukrainian-born journalist who also operates a popular TikTok channel. The officials had dodged hard questions, he added.
The development comes amid an ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. Moscow has accused Kiev of failing to implement the Minsk Agreements – a set of accords regulating its relations with the then-rebel regions of the Donbass. The Kremlin also maintains it has launched the operation to protect the people of the Donbass republics, and to “demilitarize” Ukraine.
Kiev has blasted the operation as a completely unprovoked invasion and argues that, in the first instance, it had never planned to attack the two secessionist regions.
The US media have also claimed that a lot of misinformation has surfaced on TikTok and other social media amid the conflict, and that Moscow had reportedly paid Russian influencers to share videos promoting the Kremlin’s narrative.
TikTok blocked all new content and livestreaming from Russia altogether from March 6, citing Russia’s own ‘fake news law’ that prohibits the spreading of false information about the Russian military. The company insisted at that time it was putting the “the safety of our employees and our users” first.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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During 24 harsh months of lockdowns, masking, mandates and segregation, the establishment media are trying to spin as “unintended” the serious and often life-threatening fallout from those policies — whether vaccine injuries, economic devastation, spiking child suicidality or the increase in babies and toddlers in need of speech therapy.
The most strenuous form of critique the media seem able to muster is to tell policymakers to apologize for “getting COVID wrong.”
Early on, Children’s Health Defense and other independent voices forcefully called out the government’s sub-rosa agenda as a deliberate, multisectoral effort spearheaded by central bankers and billionaire technocrats to ensnare the world in a global control grid — in other words, modern-day digital slavery.
Viewed from this angle, the “separate mind-boggling events” of the past two years “line up as sequential moves on a worldwide chessboard.”
Restrictive COVID policies and strange central bank maneuvers were no accident but rather the tools of a planned economic takedown of the most vibrant and independent segments of the economy, notably the small “retail, arts and entertainment, personal services, food services and hospitality businesses” that, together with other small business sectors, have “pretty much driven most economic activity throughout our known history.”
The takedown, amounting to what organizations such as Oxfam called “economic violence,” permitted the “biggest asset transfer ever.”
Even before this purposeful economic havoc, the developed world’s richest denizens were living at least 10 to 15 years longer than the world’s poorest.
When experimental injections were added in December 2020 to the mix of COVID interventions, the takedown began taking on even more gruesome dimensions.
Discussing far-reaching vaccine fraud allegedly perpetrated by Pfizer, acting in cahoots with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, former BlackRock investor Edward Dowd has said:
“I think this is the greatest crime ever committed because most of the frauds I’ve been involved with are financial frauds where money’s lost; This has killed and maimed people.”
On March 1, shortly after a board member of German insurance company BKK ProVita expressed public alarm at the widespread killing and maiming — noting that Germany’s federal health agency was underreporting COVID vaccine injuries by a factor of 10 — the executive was summarily fired.
Prominent physician Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who blazed a hopeful trail with his inexpensive and successful COVID treatment protocol, bluntly characterized the toxic jabs as instruments of “premeditated first-degree murder and genocide.”
Empty words and gestures
Of late, policymakers seem to have decided it’s time for some crocodile tears — and also time to make a show of putting a few COVID restrictions on hold.
For example, consider the recent remarks by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Walensky said health officials “had perhaps too little caution and too much optimism” about the COVID shots.
For those paying attention, there can be little doubt these words and gestures are less about a policy one-eighty than about window dressing and distraction — as well as perhaps a clever move to “undercut” the momentum of the People’s Convoy currently demanding an end to all emergency measures.
As Jon Rappoport warned, “Although some governments … are lifting COVID restrictions and mandates, we should remember they still hold the power to re-impose those measures at the drop of a hat — for any reason they cook up.”
The key takeaway of the last two years, Rappoport clarified, is that governments’ COVID actions were expedient political decisions — designed to “advance tyranny” — and had “nothing to do with science or morality.”
New York City’s recent actions exemplify the duplicity of the policy rollbacks and the steady behind-the-scenes march of the control agenda. Remember — officials there willingly spent two years gutting the city’s famed restaurants, other small businesses and cultural institutions.
Now, while announcing an easing up of restrictions out of one side of his mouth, the new mayor fired almost 1,500 unvaccinated municipal workers, is insisting on continuing to mask 3- and 4-year-olds (defying widespread parental objections) and is advising businesses they “can still choose to require proof of vaccination.”
Maryland is another jurisdiction that has been indifferent to the distress caused by its policies, ignoring, for example, a leading trade group’s warning that politicians’ capricious on-again, off-again restrictions — promoted as protecting “well-being” — would permanently close four in 10 of the state’s restaurants.
In the state’s largest city, the Baltimore government is suddenly reopening some government services and lifting masking edicts. Yet at the same time, the prominent Baltimore Sun is beating the drum for joint COVID and influenza vaccine mandates.
In thinly veiled praise for coercion and segregation, the Sun argued, “employers and municipalities can certainly require flu vaccinations in order to engage in certain activities.”
Policy hypocrisy is also alive and well internationally. While the World Health Organization (WHO) issues parameters for “carefully relaxing the rules” — parameters so narrow as to be meaningless — Italy and China (the two countries that set the global precedent for lockdowns) are fining individuals who decline mandated interventions or denying them entry to workplaces, restaurants, stores, banks and post offices.
Vaccine passports and digital identities — full speed ahead
As Off-Guardian’s Kit Knightly noted on March 1, “Covid might be dying, but vaccine passports are still very much alive.”
In late February, Knightly also pointed out that the WHO, ominously, is working on an “international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness” that would invest the global health organization with the authority to preempt national sovereignty in the management of future pandemics and health challenges.
In a five-part series, Corey Lynn of Corey’s Digs outlined many disturbing implications of the push for vaccine passports. Falsely marketed as a “convenience,” the “passports” eventually will encompass far more than just vaccination records:
“From education to health records, finances, accounts, travel, contact info, and more, will all be linked to your QR code, along with biometrics and fingerprints, then stored on the Blockchain.”
The longer-term aim, said Lynn, is to achieve “full power and control,” down to the individual level, of spending, taxation, education, transportation, food, communications and healthcare, among other domains.
As writer Cherie Zaslawsky sees it, globalists “seek to enslave humanity worldwide in their long-dreamed-of totalitarian utopia. That’s utopia for them — as the ruling class that owns the world and everything in it — and dystopia for We the People.”
Knightly’s March 1 commentary drew readers’ attention to SMART Health Cards — “a covert federal vaccine passport” — rolled out in roughly half the country thus far, including in red states that previously had paid lip service to banning vaccine passports.
Overseen by the Vaccine Credential Initiative (VCI), SMART Health Cards are intended to “issue, share, and validate vaccination records bound to an individual identity” as well as store “other vital medical data.”
A late February article in Forbes boasted that more than 200 million Americans can already “download, print or store their vaccination records as a QR code.”
VCI was created by the federally funded MITRE Corporation (an MIT spin-off), which receives an estimated $2 billion a year from U.S. taxpayers to develop advanced surveillance technology, among other dubious national security pursuits.
MITRE received a $16.3 million CDC contract “to help construct an efficient game plan for the country during the health crisis,” and also spearheaded U.S. Department of Homeland Security efforts to “coordinate” responses among the nation’s mayors and governors.
Members of VCI’s public-private coalition include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, the Mayo Clinic, and the California and New York state governments, as well as “other health and tech heavyweights.” Additional organizations are contributing to the initiative as “data aggregators” and “health IT vendors.”
As an inner-circle member of VCI, New York State has been in the vanguard in building out a digital identity infrastructure intended to be interoperable (able to exchange or assemble data) “throughout the United States and abroad.”
New York’s “Digital Identity” policy, conveniently updated in July 2020, stipulates that citizens, businesses and government employees who conduct online business with the state must go through an “identity vetting” process that could involve authentication via “smart card” or “biometrics.”
Refuse totalitarian tyranny
Almost immediately after the COVID shots began being rolled out, Dr. Mike Yeadon, at one time a chief scientist and vice president at Pfizer, began protesting the push to inject children.
Yeadon also denounced vaccine passports, describing the apps as a sly vehicle for implementing “illegal, medical apartheid” and totalitarian tyranny.
In a more recent talk, Yeadon emphasized that the QR codes’ global interoperability will translate into 24/7 tracking of every person “in that moment, in that spot, down to the individual level.”
To impress upon the public the dangers of allowing a vaccine passport system to take hold, Yeadon described what it would mean to become an “out-person:”
“One example: Your VaxPass pings, instructing you to attend for your 3rd or 4th or 5th booster or variant vaccine. If you don’t, your VaxPass will expire & you’ll become an out-person, unable to access your own life.”
Fortunately, the globalists’ stark vision is becoming increasingly apparent to many members of the public, who are coming to understand, as Ron Paul said, that “authoritarian politicians will always lie to the people to protect and increase their own power.”
Mainstream media outlets also have begun openly worrying that “parents have a long memory when it comes to how their children have been treated.”
And, although it may not seem like it, governmental decisions “ARE affected by what citizens do or don’t do,” said Rappoport, arguing that it’s no time to “let up on pressure.”
The bottom line at this critical juncture is simple — rather than be lulled into complacency (or distraction) by the latest propaganda, just say no and don’t comply.
Don’t wear a mask. Don’t get tested. Don’t accept toxic jabs. And don’t download any QR codes or any other tools (no matter how “convenient”) that allow the build-out of digital tyranny.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
March 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States, WHO |
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Mexico City, Mexico – A high-level United States (US) government delegation that visited Venezuela on Saturday failed to produce an agreement with the government of Nicolás Maduro.
News of the delegation was first broken by the New York Times, which described the trip as the highest-level visit by US officials in years. Outlets subsequently reported that no agreement was reached. Caracas had not publicly commented on the meeting at the time of writing.
According to Reuters, the US team was led by White House Latin America adviser Juan González and made “maximalist” demands concerning electoral guarantees. Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the US was seeking new presidential elections, a larger participation of foreign private capital in Venezuela’s oil industry and a public condemnation of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. The Biden administration representatives reportedly offered Venezuela a temporary return to the SWIFT financial transaction system.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who directly participated in the meeting, instead demanded broader sanctions relief and the return of foreign assets such as oil subsidiary CITGO. US officials reportedly brought up the cases of US citizens jailed in Venezuela, including six oil executives imprisoned for corruption and two former Green Berets who took part in a failed coup effort.
The meeting in Caracas was the latest US effort to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin from his allies in the region. US officials told the Times that Washington views Russia’s Latin American allies as a potential “security threat” should the tensions continue to escalate in light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has ratcheted up conflict between the US and Russia.
Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with the US in 2019 after the latter recognized opposition figure Juan Guaidó as “interim president.” The US and its allies refused to recognize the results of the 2018 election that saw Maduro reelected to a six-year term. Washington then proceeded to engage in and support a series of unsuccessful coup plots, ultimately failing to oust Maduro from power.
US strategy toward Venezuela has more recently been focused on isolating Maduro, imposing crippling sanctions on the country’s energy sector and seizing, together with its allies, the country’s assets abroad. In public statements, the Biden administration has expressed its unwillingness to seriously negotiate with Caracas absent new elections.
Nonetheless, due to the failure of the US to successfully install Guaidó as an authority with any real power inside Venezuela, Caracas and Washington have maintained back-channel communications despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations. Guaidó, despite being recognized by the US as the country’s president, was only informed of the high-level delegation the morning of the meeting.
Venezuelan geopolitical analyst Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein told Venezuelanalysis that the leak of the news of the visit of senior US officials was motivated by an effort to drive a wedge between Caracas and Moscow and leave the impression that there was a “chill” in relations between the two countries.
Rodríguez maintained that Washington and Caracas would nonetheless leave the door open to dialogue.
“I believe that there will be continued attempts at rapprochement, especially because the Mexican [dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition] was exhausted,” he said. “The Mexico talks were totally absurd since the opposition was being directed from within the United States, any step they took had to be consulted with Washington. In that sense it is much more feasible for the United States to negotiate directly with Venezuela.”
President Maduro has repeatedly expressed a willingness to negotiate an end to US-led sanctions on the country. The lack of a deal stemming from the visit by the senior-level delegation suggests Venezuela did not find it to be a workable proposal. Reuters reported that US officials agreed to a follow-up meeting.
It would take a considerable reversal of US policy toward the Caribbean nation to get the country to walk away from its Russian ally. Relations between the two countries have only grown in light of US efforts to isolate Caracas. Russian assistance has played an important role in Venezuela’s efforts to attend to the economic crisis in the country, providing support and expertise to the country’s key industries as well as steady investment in Venezuela’s energy sector.
Venezuela likewise recently strengthened its ties with Russia following a visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov in February.
Caracas has called for a “peaceful resolution” to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine but has stopped short of condemning the Russian military operation. Venezuela did not vote in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s resolution concerning the Russian offensive in Ukraine. The country’s voting rights have been suspended as a result of unpaid UN membership dues due the impact of sanctions.
In light of coercive measures applied on Russia by the US and the European Union, Maduro has insisted that Venezuela will maintain its commercial relations with the Eurasian nation.
The Venezuelan leader also spoke directly by phone with Putin last week, with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reporting that the Venezuelan president expressed his “firm support” for Russia and condemned destabilization efforts by the US and NATO. Maduro has publicly called NATO’s handling of the Minsk Agreements a “mockery” and argued that their “derailment” constituted a violation of international law.
The Russian ambassador in Caracas Sergey Melik was invited to greet the opening 5th Congress of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, held this Saturday, and was met with strong applause from the delegates.
Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.
March 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Russia, United States, Venezuela |
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The Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks at his meeting with government ministers on Thursday constituted his first comments on the West’s “sanctions from hell.” They were focused almost entirely on “a set of measures to minimise the consequences of sanctions on the Russian economy and the people of our country.”
Putin’s number one priority is to hold himself accountable to his people. Unlike his American counterpart, Joe Biden, Putin feels no need of grandstanding, given his high approval rating above 70%.
The paradox is, while the western countries who imposed the sanctions are going through paroxysms of angst, gnawing worries and anxiety syndromes, the “victim”, Russia, seems nonchalant and is calmly adjusting to the “new normal.” The contrast couldn’t be sharper.
Without doubt, the Kremlin prepared thoroughly for the western sanctions. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told Putin that a “special headquarters” has swung into action to coordinate the activities of all departments, including at the regional level. He said, “Steps to protect the most vulnerable areas are being worked through sector by sector.” The “core goals” are:
- “protecting the domestic market”;
- ensuring uninterrupted functioning of enterprises by eliminating disruptions in logistics and production chains;
- helping the people and businesses to quickly adapt to the changing circumstances; and,
- maintaining employment.
Over 20 major legislations are in the pipeline, which include specific proposals for stabilising financial markets, support industries, especially for the private sector, as well as for the “return of capital.”
One draft law aims to prevent shutdown of factories by foreign owners through “external management.” There is a vague hint of nationalisation, if push comes to shove. Interestingly, most western owners are announcing “temporary suspension of operations” while paying salaries to employees.
The IT sector, construction industry, transport companies and travel and tourism sector will receive special attention — as also agriculture, which is not only about jobs but also food security. There is an overall relaxation of regulatory measures, debt repayment schedules, bureaucratic procedure, etc.
Mishustin noted: “Maximum freedom of economic activity in the country, minimal regulation and control and, of course, support for the labour market will remain the basis for our economic response. The Government will expand import substitution and help domestic producers replace foreign products in supply chains.”
The highlight of yesterday’s event was the presentation by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on measures to stabilise the domestic financial market, underscoring how accurately the Kremlin anticipated the West’s agenda to isolate Russia.
Siluanov said, “the Western countries have basically launched a financial and economic war” combining a default on their financial liabilities to Russia with a freeze on Russia’s gold and currency reserves. “They are doing all they can to stop foreign trade and the export,” he added, “trying to create a shortage of imported everyday essentials… (and) compel successful businesses with foreign capital to shut down.”
In these circumstances, the government’s “priority is to stabilise the situation in the financial system and ensure uninterrupted operations.” Siluanov explained that the measures taken in this direction include “precautions to control the outflow of capital abroad” and a special procedure for servicing external debt, including national debt, whereby Russia will pay off its external liabilities in rubles and “carry out the conversion by de-freezing our gold and currency reserves.”
Other measures include mandatory surrender of foreign exchange proceeds by companies, higher ruble interest rates, suspension of taxes on individual interest income for two years, suspended VAT on the purchase of gold and “a large project on capital amnesty.”
The central bank will fully guarantee the liquidity and uninterrupted operations of financial institutions. Siluanov claimed, “These measures have already produced results. The situation on the outflow of deposits is being stabilised and the amount of cash withdrawals has been reduced to almost zero… balance of payments is also improving. Current account receipts are balancing out capital flow.”
To be sure, the big increase in oil and gas revenue will offset any decline in revenue in other sectors, thereby reduce borrowing and public debt, and will provide funds for priority spending.
Most important, Siluanov stressed that the government regards the social commitments as the “top budget priority.” He said, “We will ensure the payment of pensions, benefits, salaries and other payments in a timely manner and in full. Medicines are provided as planned as well, including for children with complex diseases..
“In May, low-income families with children will start receiving new payments. We will earmark additional spending for these purposes in the budget system. The Government has begun to implement anti-crisis measures. Our top priority is to maintain employment and jobs, and to support people who need help under the current circumstances.”
All in all, the prognosis here rubbishes the western predictions of “apocalypse now”. The EU’s rejection of Washington’s proposal for sanctions on Russia’s oil exports virtually ensures that there isn’t going to be any income deficit in Moscow. In 2021, the Kremlin balanced its budget with an oil price expectation of $45 per barrel. The prices currently exceed $130 per barrel!
This conservative fiscal approach by the government largely insulates the economy from the effects of Western economic sanctions. Ironically, the pressure is going to be on European leaders who are concerned about major energy supply disruptions from Russia and have to keep their economies supplied with fuel, while also punishing Russia!
On the contrary, if Putin responds with gas cutoffs, that could spike energy prices further, drive inflation, and undermine Europe’s economic recovery. Simply put, Russia is much larger than the contiguous United States, and has an educated population and far more natural wealth than the West’s Russophobes might expect!
Take Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT. The fact of the matter is that while seven Russian banks were removed from SWIFT, those targeted did not include Sberbank or Gazprombank, two of Russia’s largest banks by assets. Why? Primarily due to Europe’s continued reliance on Russia for energy!
The point is, Russia is intricately connected to the global economy, holds large quantities of critical resources, and has been strategically preparing since 2014 to weather the long-term impacts of sanctions and a removal from SWIFT.
Furthermore, it needs to be understood that while several Russian banks are now cut off from SWIFT, they can still execute international transactions with other banks — except that they must use slower and less-secure methods of interbank communication, such as the outdated telex telegram network or phone calls and email.
By the way, Russia has also developed its own internal financial transaction messaging system, the System for Transfer of Financial Messages that could at a pinch serve as a functional alternative to SWIFT.
Equally, the western sanctions against Russia are bound to cause ripple effects across global markets, including supply chain disruptions and higher prices on energy and agricultural goods. Apart from being a key exporter of oil and gas, Russia is the world’s largest producer of palladium and the second-largest producer of platinum—key commodities used in semiconductor manufacturing—and a major exporter of other critical minerals, mining commodities, and agricultural goods.
Clearly, Russia has no dearth of willing trade partners across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as it comes under compulsion to rely primarily on non-Western-aligned nations for trade markets for the foreseeable future.
This has larger implications. Western sanctions could potentially accelerate a global economic divide between the West and Russian-aligned economies that are open to break away from the current US-dominated financial system, thereby accelerating a broad global economic reorientation.
Surely, sanctions will isolate Russia from the US and EU markets, but its large reserve of natural resources and strong ties to China decrease the likelihood that it will become economically isolated.
On the contrary, if Western sanctions persist, economic relations with Russia could help accelerate the growth of a non-Western bloc in the global economy, which would have deleterious impact on the status of the American dollar as the world currency.
Quite obviously, there are already incipient signs that thoughtful minds in Europe, especially France and Germany, feel troubled and are conscious of the need to rebuild bridges with Russia. How they pan out remains to be seen.
The likelihood is that once the dust settles down in Ukraine and Russia has had its way as regards its security guarantees, a process of rapprochement will commence between the major European countries and Russia sooner rather than later.
In fact, at yesterday’s meeting, Putin expressed confidence that he expects a volte face by the US too, just as the Biden administration has done vis-a-vis Venezuela and Iran recently. Putin also signalled that Russia may not resort to tit-for-tat sanctions against Europe, especially in regard of energy exports.
March 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics | China, European Union, Russia, United States |
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Overview
On March 5, “A Midwestern Doctor” (who I will abbreviate as “AMD”) published a long Substack article that meticulously chronicled his/her observations of adverse events (AEs) associated with the COVID vaccine. This is very rare as most doctors are too busy to do such an analysis. Based on the observation of this one doctor alone, the critical event rates are high enough to justify that the vaccines should be immediately halted based on safety concerns.
Background
AMD has to hide his/her identity or he/she will be fired. That’s how the medical system is designed: if you speak against the system, you lose your job. Period.
So to make things easier, I’ll assume AMD is a man.
The AEs documented by AMD were partly from his own patients, but mostly related by people who AMD directly knows. So no more than one step removed: a direct friend of a direct friend.
The results of his analysis (from the Conclusion section of the article):
- Critical Injuries: 41
- Severe Injuries: 39
- Significant Reactions: 32
In AMD’s history, there were no critical injuries for all other vaccines combined. Zero.
But the important part was this statement:
Typically when a drug has between 10-100 critical injuries reported to the FDA, they strongly look at pulling it from the market or giving it a blackbox warning. I thus feel these vaccines are not being held to the adverse reporting standard we expect.
In other words, based on just the data AMD directly collected, the vaccine exceeds the stopping condition.
The numerator and denominator
AMD used more than his own patients: he also used friends of his friends.
AMD’s cases were split: 60% reached out to him with stories and 40% was due to his outreach.
How confident is he that every single case was vaccine related? For half of these cases, there was an extremely strong time correlation or other factors, so he’s extremely confident of a causality link. For the other half of the cases, the causality is extremely likely.
Because his sample includes only the direct friends of his friends, he estimates that the “denominator” in his case is less than 100,000 to be conservative (the average person has around 150 to 250 friends so this is quite conservative). There will be fewer than this due to overlap, but again, we aren’t trying to get to an exact number, just a rough engineering estimate.
AMD’s extended friend pool consists of a mix of vaxxed and unvaxxed people in our calculation. Since he’s a doctor, his mix of vaxxed patients will be higher than others so this may skew our extrapolation to be on the high side, but we are just trying to do a ballpark estimate of what the national rates might look like.
Let’s extrapolate that out to a population of 200M people who are over 18 years old and vax eligible. We’d have to multiply his numbers by 2,000 to get a lower bound on the number of events expected. This isn’t strictly accurate since AMD’s friend base is older and the AEs in the older group would not occur at the same rate as the younger group. So again, not trying to get a a super precise estimate since it isn’t needed as we’ll soon see.
So we have 41*2000 = a minimum of 82,000 estimated critical events caused by the vaccine in our crude estimate.
This is within a factor of 2 of the minimum of 150,000 deaths I’ve previously estimated for the vaccine (using over a dozen different methods). So it appears we were right in that our estimate was conservative. And our crude extrapolation also is well within numbers previously determined so it serves as a crude sanity check that the numbers reported by AMD were “reasonable.”
Comparing with our 10 to 100 critical event stopping condition, we find:
82,000 >> 10 to 100
The stopping condition for the vaccine is met not only from AMD’s direct observations alone (even adjusting a factor of 2 for causality doubts), but also for our conservative (and very crude) estimate of the total number of critical events in the US. QED.
Finally, let’s be clear: I am not claiming that we can extrapolate a single anecdote to an entire population to get an accurate rate estimate. I am only claiming that AMD’s observations alone justify halting the vaccines and that any extrapolation of that number to the entire population based on any reasonable assumptions shows that the stopping condition is exceeded by a large margin.
What other doctors are seeing
AMD polled his colleagues to see if they were seeing the same thing.
- 30% confirmed they were
- 70% said they either saw nothing at all and/or didn’t want to talk about it
He attributes the 70% seeing nothing as them not being aware of the possibility that the vaccines could be unsafe so any adverse reactions are immediately discounted and discarded; they don’t register.
Therefore, even if we further discount our calculation of 82,000 by 70% in the belief that these rates seen by AMD are inflated, the number critically harmed (24,600) is still way over our stopping threshold and that’s really the only thing I wanted to show.
The Pfizer Phase 3 clinical trial
AMD noted that when the shots were administered, people quickly discovered a high rate of anaphylaxis.
He asked, “How could the clinical trial not have found that?”
Indeed. Anaphylaxis wasn’t mentioned at all in the Phase 3 trial report despite the fact that it is life threatening.
It wasn’t mentioned in the 6 month follow up study either. That study would have included reactions of the placebo cohort who got the vaccine.
Anaphylaxis occurs at 2.47 events per 10,000 doses so there should have been around 10 events observed for the full-vaccinated treatment group (44,000 doses) and a similar number of events when the placebo group was vaccinated.
So we should have seen 21 anaphylaxis events on average yet there were none reported. This is extremely unlikely to happen by chance.
How does Pfizer explain that? This is, of course, a rhetorical question as nobody is going to ask them that question and they don’t have to answer it. That’s just the way it works in medicine. You are not allowed to ask questions like this. It’s “science.” We are teaching our kids to believe whatever the drug companies tell them and not ask questions.
One other “highlight”
This comment at the very end of AMD’s article deserves special mention:
Or as another commenter here wrote: I was a Midwestern nurse last year after the gene therapy roll out. Was a case mgr did discharge planning. Saw 10-12 side effects Daily. Everything you shared and more. 2 cases of amnesia ( one was a healthy anesthesiologist). 1 girl in her twenties with blood in her tears. Had to leave that job.
A girl with blood in her tears?!?! When was the last time you saw that?
Notes
In his writeup, AMD made the case write ups deliberately vague in order to protect patient confidentiality.
Reader feedback
Check out this comment on what is happening in Melbourne, Australia mirrors what was described in this article. She explains “doctors are very worried about what they’re seeing from the jabs but keeping quiet to save their jobs.” Makes perfect sense. A doctor’s first duty is to his/her family. I see this all the time. This is why the doctors I talk to stay quiet. I don’t blame them.
Another reader wrote this:
Steve,
I love your work. The physician in the Midwest is right. I am a practicing ophthalmologist in the southeast and have come across multiple catastrophic side effects from the shots. I have been sounding the alarm to my friends and colleagues for over a year. Most of these think I am crazy.
It started last year in roughly March when I walked into a patient’s preposition room to have a mom sign a consent. She apologises to me that she had trouble writing for she had just recently had a stroke. I told her I was glad she was here then asked if she knew what the cause was. “It was that shot” she said. She was in the hospital that night. I then went to the OR and told my CRNA the story. She proceeded to tell me her friends daughter died (39) died with a pulmonary embolus 1 month after getting one. I told this to one of my partners who said his friend was in the hospital with myocarditis after having a shot.
I also know of a physician in a nearby practice dropping dead at 52 with a heart attack. He had recently been vaccinated according to his front desk.
I also know of 3 breast cancer diagnosis after vaccinations as well as a transverse myelitis and a brain stem glioma. All of these had been vaccinated but I cannot say that these were caused by the shots.
One of my parent’s good friend’s son in law died suddenly from a heart attack at 39. He was also recently vaccinated.
In my own practice, I have 3 patients with side effects. 1 with increased intracranial pressure . Almost immediately after the second Pfizer dose the patient started experiencing headaches. I saw the child about a week after and she had swollen optic nerves.
A second had uveitis roughly 2 weeks after the first dose.
A third patient had a “spontaneous “ vitreous hemorrhage within 2 weeks of a dose.
There are some others I know of too…
If I mention these to most doctors, they just look at me with blank stares. I have been ridiculed, reprimanded and threatened for just telling physicians my observations.
These need to be stopped yesterday.
Summary
Based on the number of just this one physician’s observations, the vaccines should be immediately halted.
AMD is not an isolated data point. He discovered that 30% of his colleagues are seeing similar things.
I can also personally confirm that speaking confidentially with other physicians (who fear retribution such as loss of medical licenses if they speak out), that AMD is hardly alone. The doctors I know have never before needed to report an event to VAERS in the past and this year have had 20 and 1,000 case reports to make. They won’t talk to the FDA about what they see because they don’t want to have their licenses revoked.
As AMD’s case shows, the medical community makes it impossible for these doctors to speak freely and tell what they know. Doctors are forced to hide in the shadows to tell their story or simply remain silent.
The days of colleagues having open friendly discussions to resolve conflicts are gone. The medical community now uses fear and intimidation techniques to silence any scientific dissent. For example, in Canada, an entire university ganged up on Dr. Byram Bridle to discredit him for speaking out. Would any of the University of Guelph faculty debate him? Of course not! No chance. Some faculty members even signed the joint faculty letter denigrating him without even reading the document he wrote. In their mind, Professor Bridle was wrong and they didn’t even have to bother to take the time to understand his position.
In California today, the legislature is seeking to further empower the medical boards to remove the license of any physician who speaks out against the vaccines. It is a top down dictatorship with the Medical Boards holding all the cards. They are not accountable to anyone. They will not be questioned. In many cases, the doctors who are having their license revoked don’t even know who is examining them and are not allowed to question the authorities on the record. So the boards cannot be held accountable for their actions.
Even though the evidence is clear that these vaccines are harmful and should be stopped, we, as a society, are doing the opposite today with vaccine mandates requiring people to be boosted or be fired. We are requiring doctors like AMD to keep their mouths shut.
There is even a US government form now so you can turn in any doctor who challenges the official narrative. Basically, the government is asking us to be spies to help them eliminate people who disagree with the narrative.
Someone isn’t telling you the truth here, and it isn’t A Midwestern Doctor.
You should be upset. Very upset. This is unconscionable.
Unfortunately, no public health official in America wants to talk about it, and the mainstream press isn’t going to cover it either.
March 11, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Canada, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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The collective post-West has been running amok for the last two weeks. The powers that be make believe that they did not expect that events would unfold the way they are unfolding now (though they did their best to make things happen as they are happening) and they make a show imposing sanctions on the aggressor and assuring the populace that the aggressor sooner or later will cave in. There is yet a third aspect to the phenomenon: the same powers that be want the people to forget that merely twenty years back they themselves assaulted Yugoslavia/Serbia, used missiles with depleted uranium, bombed cities and shot at civilians. Of course, that earlier event was a humanitarian action while the current one is a brutal act of aggression, but we digress.
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