Wind Power Suffers More Setbacks
By Jack Dini | Principia Scientific | October 4, 2021
The Wall Street Journal reports that wind turbine makers are facing a quadrupling of transportation costs and increases in steel, copper, aluminum and carbon fiber prices, making wind turbines ever more expensive.
Top wind turbine makers are struggling with lower earnings as rising raw material costs, problems shipping the hulking machines, and uncertainty over the future of US subsidies pressure their businesses.
In sharp contrast to claims by the renewables lobby, the costs of wind energy is not falling, empirical data shows. Despite industry claims, the building of wind farms in deeper water is costing more rather than less. (2)
Added to this, a number of locations across the US have had problems with existing wind farms.
South Dakota
A South Dakota manufacturer of wind turbine blades plant, Molded Fiber Glass (MFG) shut its doors permanently in August, sending shock waves through the local community. More than 300 workers lost their jobs, forcing locals to take a hard look at green energy proponents’ promises to provide good paying jobs for American workers. (3)
South Dakota’s prospects for becoming a bigger player in the energy sector have suffered another setback in recent months. In addition to the MFG plant closure, the Biden administration’s decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline means South Dakota and many other states will not benefit from having the now-canceled infrastructure project transport 800,000 barrels of oil a day through their states.
Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania
A maker of components for wind turbine blades is closing its manufacturing plant in the Lehigh Valley. The work done in the Lehigh Valley plant will be transferred to a plant the company opened two years ago in Matamoros, a city in northeastern Mexico. A memo to the employees said;
“During the past year, we have experienced challenging market conditions as the near-term market in North America has been influenced by consolidation, leading to a reduction of the blade manufacturing footprint in North America as well as reduced production at the continuing locations.” (4)
Little Rock, Arkansas
GE owned LM Wind Power closed its turbine blade plant in Little Rock, Arkansas in April 2020 in a move affecting about 460 workers. The closure of the plant was due to commercial factors, not the coronavirus pandemic. This closure is a reversal for the plant, which was the subject of an expansion program as recently as 2017. (5)
Rhode Island
Block Island wind farm off the state of Rhode Island was the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States, located 3.8 miles from Block Island in the Atlantic Ocean. Recently, four of the five Block Island’s wind turbines stopped running this summer. Islanders say the turbine blades stopped turning several weeks ago, even on windy days. David Collins suggests that there is more trouble with the turbines than anyone wants folks to know. (6)
Missouri
Ratepayers should not be on the hook to pay a return for an asset that can’t fully operate. Every night for months, turbines at Missouri’s largest wind farm sit idle to avoid killing endangered and threatened bats. And now, as the wind farm’s owner, Ameren Missouri, seeks permission to increase customers’ rates, consumer advocates are sounding the alarm. They argue customers shouldn’t have to pay the full cost of the wind farm on their bills if it’s not fully functional. And at least one fears the company won’t meet state standards for renewable energy. (7)
Ameren is currently seeking a rate increase from customers worth nearly $300 million, including costs that it hopes to recover from ratepayers. But consumer and business advocates filed testimony estimating that the wind farm is only operational about 75 percent of the year.
References
1. “Wind turbine makers struggle to profit from renewable energy boom,” wsj.com, August 24, 2021
2. “Offshore wind costs rising, not falling, data shows,” energyvoice.com, September 11, 2017
3. Bonner R. Cohen, “South Dakota wind turbine manufacturer closing its doors,” Environment & Climate News, August 2021
4. Jon Harris, “Wind energy company closing Lehigh Valley manufacturing plants, shifting work to Mexico,” June 4, 2021
5. Andrew Lee, “GE’s LM wind power to close US turbine blade factory,” rechargenews.com, April 14, 2021
6. David Collins, “The Block Island wind farm has largely shut down,” the day.com, August 7, 2021
7. Allison Kite, “Missouri’s largest wind farm isn’t running at night for fear of killing endangered animals,” missouriindependent.com, September 9, 2021
Twitter backtracks after censoring a mother’s obituary
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 4, 2021
Twitter’s fact-checkers appended a “misleading” alert to an obituary about a young woman who allegedly died after contracting a rare blood-clotting condition provoked by the COVID-19 vaccine.
After being accused of going so far with its censorship that it would resort to censoring an obituary, Twitter relented to the backlash and reversed the censorship.
The woman in question, Jessica Berg Wilson, a 37-year-old mother of two, died in the first week of September from Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia, a rare blood disorder in which small clots grow throughout the body, damaging platelets and preventing blood from reaching key organs. According to her obituary, Wilson’s greatest life ambition was to “be the best mother possible” to her daughters Bridget and Clara.
“She had been vehemently opposed to taking the vaccine, knowing she was in good health and of a young age and thus not at risk for serious illness. In her mind, the known and unknown risks of the unproven vaccine were more of a threat,” it read.
Kelly Bee, a Twitter user, posted Jessica Berg Wilson’s obituary with the statement, “an ‘exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions,’ passed away from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia. She did not want to get vaccinated.”
However, Twitter flagged the post as “misleading” and blocked it from being replied to, shared, or liked.
The majority of critics were outraged that Twitter was censoring an obituary and they responded by urging their followers to help the tweet go viral in violation of the company’s warning. Twitter has since removed the “misleading” designation and revoked the shadowban.
Additionally, several bloggers, including Ben Domenech of The Federalist, retweeted the obituary. Ben’s tweet reads: Who @Twitter decided it was okay to say an OBITUARY is ‘misleading’ ?”
Another tweet said “Twitter is now censoring obituaries,” – posted by Sean Davis.
Furthermore, Sebastian Gorka, who worked in the Trump administration’s Department of Defense, tagged Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a tweet asking what aspect of the obituary was incorrect or “misleading.”
“Hey @jack, Jessica was healthy and died. Why are you censoring that fact as ‘misleading??” he said.
“Natural Immunity” Is a Political Problem for the Regime
By Ryan McMaken – Mises Wire – 09/21/2021
Since 2020, public health technocrats and their allies among elected officials have clung to the position that absolutely every person who can possibly get a covid vaccine should get one.
Both the Mayo Clinic website and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, for example, insist that “research has not yet shown” that people who have recovered from covid have any sort of reliable protection. Moreover, the CDC page points to a single study from Kentucky claiming that people with natural immunity are more than twice as likely to contract covid again, compared to people who have been vaccinated.
This narrative is reflected in the fact that the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates are a one-size-fits-all policy insisting that virtually all adults, regardless of whether or not they’ve already had the disease, receive a covid vaccine. The official position is apparently this: nothing except the vaccine can provide any sort of resistance or immunity. So get a vaccine. No exceptions!
Health technocrats have repeatedly insisted that “the science” points unambiguously toward everyone receiving a vaccine, even to the point of pushing vaccines for children. All this in spite of the fact the risk to children from covid is far less than a dozen common daily risks, such as riding in an automobile.
The regime has attached itself closely to a vaccinate-everybody-no-matter-what policy, and a sudden u-turn would be politically problematic. So it’s no wonder there’s so little interest in the topic.
Indeed, in a September 10 interview, senior covid technocrat Anthony Fauci claimed that the matter of natural immunity was not even being discussed at government health agencies. Fauci’s response suggested that the facts of natural immunity warranted discussion at some point in the future. But the comment certainly fit the dominant regime narrative nonetheless: the facts of natural immunity don’t matter for now. Everyone should just get vaccinated:
CNN’s Sanjay Gupta asked if people who have already recovered from COVID-19 should still be required to get the vaccine.
“I don’t have a really firm answer for you on that,” [Fauci] said Thursday on CNN. “I think that is something that we need to sit down and discuss seriously.”
Maybe someday they’ll get to talking about it.
But some physicians aren’t as obsessed with pushing vaccine mandates as Anthony Fauci, and the evidence in favor of natural immunity is becoming so undeniable that even mainstream publications are starting to admit it.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post last week, Marty Makary of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine argues that the medical profession has hurt its credibility in pretending that natural immunity is virtually irrelevant to the covid equation. Moreover, the dogmatic “get vaccinated” position constitutes a lack of honesty about the data. Rather, Makary concludes:
[W]e can encourage all Americans to get vaccinated while still being honest about the data. In my clinical experience, I have found patients to be extremely forgiving with evolving data if you are honest and transparent with them. Yet, when asked the common question, “I’ve recovered from covid, is it absolutely essential that I get vaccinated?” many public health officials have put aside the data and responded with a synchronized “yes,” even as studies have shown that reinfections are rare and often asymptomatic or mild when they do occur.
And what are these studies? Makary continues:
More than 15 studies have demonstrated the power of immunity acquired by previously having the virus. A 700,000-person study from Israel two weeks ago found that those who had experienced prior infections were 27 times less likely to get a second symptomatic covid infection than those who were vaccinated. This affirmed a June Cleveland Clinic study of health-care workers (who are often exposed to the virus), in which none who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus got reinfected. The study authors concluded that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from covid-19 vaccination.” And in May, a Washington University study found that even a mild covid infection resulted in long-lasting immunity.
The policy bias in favor of vaccines ignores many other facts as well, such as the relative risks of vaccines, especially for the young:
The current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention position about vaccinating children also dismisses the benefits of natural immunity. The Los Angeles County School District recently mandated vaccines for students ages 12 and up who want to learn in person. But young people are less likely to suffer severe or long-lasting symptoms from covid-19 than adults, and have experienced rare heart complications from the vaccines. In Israel, heart inflammation has been observed in between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 6,000 males age 16 to 24; the CDC has confirmed 854 reports nationally in people age 30 and younger who got the vaccine.
A second dose of the two-shot mRNA vaccine like that produced by Pfizer and Moderna may not even be necessary in children who had covid. Since February, Israel’s Health Ministry has been recommending that anyone, adult or adolescent, who has recovered from covid-19 receive a only single mRNA vaccine dose, instead of two. Even though the risk of severe illness during a reinfection is exceedingly low, some data has demonstrated a slight benefit to one dose in this situation. Other countries use a similar approach. The United States could adopt this strategy now as a reasonable next step in transitioning from an overly rigid to a more flexible vaccine requirement policy. For comparison, the CDC has long recommended that kids do not get the chickenpox vaccine if they had chickenpox infection in the past.
The nonscientific, ideology-induced blind spot for natural immunity also prompted The BMJ (the journal of the British Medical Association) to note that “[w]hen the vaccine rollout began in mid-December 2020, more than one quarter of Americans—91 million—had been infected with SARS-CoV-2…. As of this May, that proportion had risen to more than a third of the population, including 44% of adults aged 18–59.”
And yet, the authors note this fact doesn’t appear to be a part of any policy discussion at all:
The substantial number of infections, coupled with the increasing scientific evidence that natural immunity was durable, led some medical observers to ask why natural immunity didn’t seem to be factored into decisions about prioritising vaccination.
This problem is reflected in the Biden administration’s drive for booster shots—announced in mid-August—even before there was any clinical research on booster shots at all. Even by mid-September, as one hospital’s chief medical officer put it, “the data is not compelling one way or another.”
But those sorts of details don’t trouble federal “public health” officials, and the Biden administration quickly moved toward pushing booster shots for everyone.
This Is Why There Should Be No Mandatory Medical Treatment
Of course, mandating vaccines—like mandating any medical treatment—would still be immoral even if we could list a dozen studies suggesting boosters are a boon and that natural immunity is no good.
What if there were twenty-five studies “proving” vaccines are better than natural immunity, but only twenty studies “proving” natural immunity is better? Would coercive vaccine mandates then suddenly be justified? Unfortunately, that’s exactly how many advocates for repressive covid policies think the world should work. For these people, policy is just a matter of adding up the number of studies “proving” their side is right, and then claiming this justifies forcing mandatory medications on millions of human beings.
(It never works in reverse, of course. The fact that there’s a lot of evidence—as Makary points out—against vaccines for those who have natural immunity, the dominant narrative is nonetheless that vaccines are “necessary” and “worth it” for everybody, always and everywhere.)
In the real world, however, many medications—including these new vaccines—come with risks that must be weighed against potential benefits. These decisions can only be made at the individual level, where patients must make their own decisions about what substances to put into their own bodies. In other words, blanket policies proclaiming “everyone must receive this medical treatment immediately, or else” contradicts the realities of the uncertainties and varying risk levels that affect individuals. The facts of uncertainty and informed consent were once considered a mainstay of medical ethics—and of any political ideology that actually respects self-determination and basic human rights. Unfortunately, the philosophy of “public health” appears to be uninterested in such trivialities.
At this point, it would be embarrassing for the regime to admit what actual scientific inquiry has shown: that natural immunity is generally superior to receiving the vaccine. The regime doesn’t like to be embarrassed, and neither do the countless doctors and nurses who have long toed the regime’s political line. So expect more of the same.
This Week in the New Normal #7
OffGuardian | October 3, 2021
This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1.THE WORST ARTICLE I’VE EVER READ.
The demonisation campaign against those who decline to partake in the untested gene therapy is pervasive and seemingly limitless. Article’s pop up claiming unvaxxed people should be banned from flying, banned from healthcare, banned from state benefits, and even fired from their jobs.
But this article in The Mirror is the worst of the worst. Quite honestly the worst, most hate-filled and insidious article I have ever read, and it is literally my job to search out and read hate-filled and insidious articles.
It’s titled:
Anti-vaxxers want to kill your babies, stage a coup and cause another lockdown!”
… and you don’t really need any more information than that. Read at your own risk.
2. THE RETURN OF LAB-GROWN MEAT
… well, not “the return” exactly, because it never went away. I guess “resurgence” is the better word. There’s certainly a sudden bump in the coverage.
The Guardian “asks the expert” if lab-grown meat will replace the real thing. The “expert” in question makes and sells lab-grown meat and, rather unsurprisingly, they say “yes!”.
And then the Times, with a tone of reluctant surrender, tells us we “must embrace lab-grown meat” whether “we like it or not”.
At the same time, Sky hosts a “climate debate” on lab-grown meat. One of those fake “debates” which serves a pre-determined agenda by basing a staged disagreement on fundamental assumptions which neither side questions.
In this case, it’s just assumed that LGM is good for the planet, and that actual meat is bad for it. Neither of those things are proven to be true.
But good news everyone! Your genetically synthesised meat-like protein paste is one step closer…whether you like it not.
3. “TREAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS SERIOUSLY AS TERRORISM”
The result of the Sarah Everard trial in the UK has kicked off a wave of fear-based propaganda concerning just how much violence against women goes on, and what we need to do about it. Over and over again a list of very predictable names in very predictable publications talk up the idea that women are “still not safe”, or never “feel safe” (which is not the same thing).
Clearly, any murder is a tragedy for the victim and their family, but to present our country, or society, as inherently violent or dangerous is completely disengenuous.
Let’s just check the stats, for the sake of reality.
In the UK, and most of the Western world, violent crime has been generally on the decline for decades. In 2019, EU statistics found a 32% drop in homicides since 2008. In 2020, the UK suffered ~750 murders in a population of 68 million people, meaning a crude murder rate of 0.001% (or 1 per 100,000). Less than one-third of those killed were women, and only 20% of them were attacked on the street.
Our society is not perfect, but violent crime (against either gender) has literally never been less of a danger in the history of the country. In terms of violent crime, the streets are as safe for women as they have ever been. If they don’t feel safe, well that’s probably because the media keep telling them how much “danger” they’re in.
But why? Why the massive exaggeration of the danger? And why the clarion calls for “action” on violence against women?
Well, the same exact reasons behind the “pandemic” narrative. Because hysteria is always useful. Because the people in charge need us to be afraid all the time. Because they want to make sure different genders, races and orientations are constantly mistrustful of one another. And, obviously, because it can be manipulated into increased powers for the state.
Social media companies are already being pressured to “do more to protect women”. After Everard’s murder first in the news in March, people were suggesting male-only curfews so women feel safe on the streets. If Covid has taught us anything, it’s that well-stoked public panic can be parlayed into exactly that kind of insane policy.
The title of this section is taken from a tweet by British Labour MP David Lammy:
It’s not clear what (if anything) David means by this. It’s entirely possible he’s just an idiot playing to the gallery, but anyone familiar with the real purpose, and disastrous societal fallout, of the “War on Terror” should probably be concerned about just how far those in charge could go to (allegedly) “make women feel safe.”
BONUS: THE TOTALLY-NOT-A-CULT OF THE WEEK
Just want to point out that the vaccine-pushers of the New Normal are totally not in a cult.
Whether it’s dressing up dancers like syringes to prance around with glassy-eyed soul-dead TV hosts:
Or literally citing God as the source of the vaccine:
This is all very normal behaviour, and if you perceive it as creepy or cultlike, it’s only because you are a heretic…sorry, I mean a science denier.
BONUS II: PROJECTION OF THE WEEK
For those of you who don’t know who Keith Olbermann is, well I envy you..and apologise for introducing you to his existence. He’s a petty, ill-informed, opinionated loudmouth who takes up irrational and bigoted positions on pretty much everything, and trumpets those views loudly to anyone who’ll listen.
And yesterday, he tweeted this…
It takes a serious lack of self-awareness to get your third untested vaccination against a disease you have a 99.5% chance of surviving, and then lambast everyone not worried about the disease for being scaredy cats.
IT’S NOT ALL BAD…
The world of sport, especially American sports, is somewhat of a hotbed of “vaccine hesitancy”. This is down to several factors, most probably to do with many US athletes coming from working-class demographics with longstanding (and entirely justified) suspicions of both the media and big pharma.
By way of contrast with Olbermann’s spittle-spraying diatribe, we present the calm and rational position of NBA star Jonathan Isaac, speaking at a press conference on September 27th:
The NBA has already said they will dock the pay of unvaxxed players who refuse to comply with local mandates. And both the NBA and NFL have put in place massive restrictions on unvaccinated players to pressure them into getting the shot. The media, likewise, is piling on the pressure to conform.
All the players resisting in the face of such a powerful campaign deserve respect. And they serve as a reminder that Covid sceptics, or even just those people who want nothing to do with the vaccine, are not anything like the tiny minority the media tries to pretend we are. And our arguments are rational and informed, not based on the insults and mindless frothing outrage of those trying to pressure us into conforming.
All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention the “mysterious rise in heart attacks” or the UK’s entirely manufactured “fuel crisis”.
Journal Rebuked for Publishing Biased Letter Signed by EcoHealth President
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | October 2, 2021
In July 2021 and February 2021 the medical journal The Lancet printed letters signed by 24 scientists, physicians, epidemiologists and virologists that denied the possibility that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, originated in a lab.
One of those signers was Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, which received grant funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for gain-of-function research. The information on Daszak’s, EcoHealth Alliance’s and the NIAID’s involvement in research that possibly could have led to a lab origin was revealed in late-summer, 2021.
Previously, any suggestion that a lab leak could have occurred was resoundly proclaimed a conspiracy theory.
But now, in a rebuke of The Lancet for allowing the letters to be published when there “is so far no scientifically validated evidence that directly supports a natural origin,” 16 other scientists are calling for The Lancet to “open their columns to in-depth analyses of all hypotheses.”
“As scientists, we need to evaluate all hypotheses on a rational basis, and to weigh their likelihood based on facts and evidence, devoid of speculation concerning possible political impacts” they add. “More importantly, science embraces alternative hypotheses, contradictory arguments, verification, refutability, and controversy. Departing from this principle risks establishing dogmas, abandoning the essence of science, and, even worse, paving the way for conspiracy theories.”
SOURCES:
Hospitals Should Hire, Not Fire, Nurses with Natural Immunity
BY MARTIN KULLDORFF | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | OCTOBER 1, 2021
Among many surprising developments during this pandemic, the most stunning has been the questioning of naturally acquired immunity after a person has had the Covid disease.
We have understood natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Here is Thucydides:
‘Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience and had no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally.’ – Thucydides
We have lived with endemic coronaviruses for at least a hundred years, for which we have long-lasting natural immunity. As expected, we also have natural immunity after Covid-19 disease, as there have been exceedingly few reinfections with serious illness or death, despite a widely circulating virus.
For most viruses, natural immunity is better than vaccine-induced immunity, and that is also true for Covid. In the best study to date, the vaccinated were around 27 times more likely to have symptomatic disease than those with natural immunity, with an estimated range between 13 and 57. With no Covid deaths in either group, both natural and vaccine immunity protect well against death.
During the last decade, I have worked closely with hospital epidemiologists. While the role of physicians is to treat patients and make them well, the task of the hospital epidemiologist is to ensure that patients do not get sick while in the hospital, such as catching a deadly virus from another patient or a caretaker.
For that purpose, hospitals employ a variety of measures, from frequent hand washing to full infection control regalia when caring for an Ebola patient. Vaccinations are a key component of these control efforts. For example, two weeks before spleen surgery, patients are given the pneumococcal vaccine to minimize postoperative infections, and most clinical staff are immunized against influenza every year.
Infection control measures are especially critical for older frail hospital patients with a weakened immune system. They can become infected and die from a virus that most people would easily survive. A key rationale for immunizing nurses and physicians against influenza is to ensure that they do not infect such patients.
How can hospitals best protect their patients from Covid disease? It is an enormously important question, also relevant for nursing homes. There are some obvious standard solutions, such as separating Covid patients from other patients, minimizing staff rotation, and providing generous sick leave for staff with Covid-like symptoms.
Another goal should be to employ staff with the strongest possible immunity against Covid, as they are less likely to catch it and spread it to their patients. This means that hospitals and nursing homes should actively seek to hire staff that have natural immunity from prior Covid disease and use such staff for their most vulnerable patients.
Hence, we are now seeing a fierce competition where hospitals and nursing homes are desperately trying to hire people with natural immunity. Well, actually, not.
Instead, hospitals are firing nurses and other staff with superior natural immunity while retaining those with weaker vaccine-induced immunity. By doing so, they are betraying their patients, increasing their risk for hospital-acquired infections.
By pushing vaccine mandates, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci is questioning the existence of natural immunity after Covid disease. In doing so, he is following the lead of CDC director Rochelle Walensky, who questioned natural immunity in a 2020 Memorandum published by The Lancet. By instituting vaccine mandates, university hospitals are now also questioning the existence of natural immunity after Covid disease.
This is astonishing.
I work at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, which has announced that all nurses, doctors and other health care providers will be fired if they do not get a Covid vaccine. Last week I spoke with one of our nurses. She worked hard caring for Covid patients, even as some of her colleagues left in fear at the beginning of the pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, she got infected, but then recovered. Now she has stronger and longer-lasting immunity than the vaccinated work-from-home hospital administrators who are firing her for not being vaccinated.
If university hospitals cannot get the medical evidence right on the basic science of immunity, how can we trust them with any other aspects of our health?
What’s next? Universities questioning whether the earth is round or flat? That, at least, would do less harm.
Martin Kulldorff, Senior Scholar of Brownstone Institute, is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. kulldorff@brownstone.org
Rep. Adam Schiff says YouTube’s ban of vaccine skepticism doesn’t go far enough
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 2, 2021
Rep. Adam Schiff praised YouTube’s decision to ban all vaccine skepticism but said it was not the “end of our fight against misinformation.”
On Wednesday afternoon, YouTube announced that it will ban all vaccine skepticism to stop the spread of what it says is misinformation. The ban not only applies to COVID vaccines but also any other vaccines that pharmaceutical companies produce.
While making the announcement, YouTube said: “Today’s policy update is an important step to address vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we’ll continue to invest across the board.”
YouTube’s decision was applauded by many, including Rep. Adam Schiff.
“YouTube’s curbing of anti-vaccine content is a strong first step,” the Democrat congressman wrote on Twitter. But this doesn’t mark the end of our fight against deadly misinformation. These policies must be enforced. And we must keep pushing for other companies to follow suit. What do you say, @Amazon and @Facebook?” hinting at his demands for more censorship.
Israel officials intervene to have US academic removed
MEMO | October 1, 2021
Israeli diplomats reportedly put pressure on the dean of a US university to have a teacher critical of the occupation state removed using allegations of anti-Semitism. Details of the intervention by Israeli consular officials, in what has been slammed as another example of the gross interference by a foreign state, were reported by the Intercept.
Israeli consular officials in the southeast US arranged meetings with a dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remove graduate student, Kylie Broderick, from teaching the history department course called ‘The Conflict over Israel/Palestine’. Details of the visit by Israeli officials are said to have been exposed by two UNC professors who had knowledge of the meeting.
The intervention by the Israeli officials followed a pressure campaign by right-wing pro-Israel websites and an advocacy group who pointed to postings Broderick had made on Twitter that criticised Israel and Zionism and, without evidence, cited the postings as evidence of anti-Semitism.
Over the past few years there has been a concerted campaign to conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel using the adoption of a highly controversial definition of racism known as the International Holocaust Definition of anti-Semitism. Seven of the 11 examples of anti-Semitism cited in the IHRA conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Critics have argued that its adoption has had a chilling effect on all levels of society especially in universities and campuses.
The two UNC professors revealed that in addition to the intervention by the Israeli government, the university faced pressure from a member of the US House of Representatives.
“It is not a new phenomenon where outside parties have tried to stifle academic freedom on this subject,” Broderick is reported saying. “But these people have never seen me teach, never seen my past evaluations which have said that I treat students fairly, and thus have no right to dictate what I say inside the classroom.”
“I think that a representative of a foreign government attempting to police an academic class is, in the first place, ridiculous, and an obvious overreaction to what is essentially an issue that started on Twitter,” Broderick added. “I also think it is strange that the Israeli consulate general was granted an audience. If this was a class on Hungary or Australia, would the university have permitted the attempted interference of a foreign government? The fact that this meeting happened at all is clearly a threat to academic freedom.”
Crickets and psychosis account for ‘Havana Syndrome,’ says newly-declassified report by US scientists
RT | September 30, 2021
An elite team of scientists advising the State Department concluded in 2018 that the ‘Havana Syndrome’ afflicting spies and diplomats could not have been due to a microwave weapon, but their report has just now been declassified.
The report compiled by the JASON advisory group in November 2018 said that the sounds reported in eight of the original 21 incidents of the ‘Havana Syndrome’ were “most likely” caused by crickets, and that it was “highly unlikely” the reported symptoms were caused by microwaves or ultrasound beams.
While “the suffering reported by the affected individuals is real,” the group concluded “psychogenic effects may serve to explain important components of the reported injuries.”
The redacted and declassified version of the JASON report was published on Thursday by BuzzFeed. It was originally classified as “Secret,” and was not shared with the National Academies of Sciences panel whose report on the ‘Havana Syndrome’ was commissioned by Foggy Bottom last year.
The NAS panel concluded microwaves were the “most plausible” cause of the symptoms, which purportedly include headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, hearing and vision impairment, nosebleeds, vertigo and memory loss, among others.
According to JASON, however, “No plausible single source of energy (neither radio/microwaves nor sonic) can produce both the recorded audio/video signals and the reported medical effects.” The recorded noise was either mechanical or biological in origin, rather than electronic, and the “most likely” source was Anurogryllis celerinictus, the “Indies short-tailed cricket.”
This exact species was identified by University of California Berkeley researchers in January 2019 as the source of the mysterious noise, based on a recording released by AP.
JASON experts ruled out pulsed microwaves and ultrasound, in part because electronics and Wi-Fi networks in the house where the noises were first recorded suffered no disruptions during the incident. They concluded the noises did not correspond to microwave or ultrasound frequencies by calculating the power that would be required.
The Trump administration used the ‘Havana syndrome’ as a pretext to scale back the recently re-established diplomatic presence in Cuba. It gained a life of its own in the CIA and the US media later on, with over 200 spies now reportedly claiming they had been affected – and rampant speculation that China or Russia may be using some kind of science-fiction superweapon to do this.
Just last week, the US House of Representatives voted 427-0 to pass the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, giving the CIA millions of dollars to compensate the personnel affected.
In mid-September, a team of Cuban scientists announced that claims of secret sonic weapons were not “scientifically acceptable,” and there was “no scientific evidence of attacks.” Unaware of the JASON report, they attributed the symptoms to some kind of mass psychosis on part of the US spies.
Named after a hero from Greek mythology,JASON is an independent group of scientists that has advised the US government since the heyday of the Cold War.
“This is a high powered group of expert scientists,” former Los Alamos National Laboratory chemist Cheryl Rofer told BuzzFeed, adding that the declassified report “appears to be a very thorough scientific analysis, the kind which wasn’t done in the National Academies of Sciences report.”
“What is available in the report is pretty dubious about directed energy weapons, and pretty positive about crickets,” Rofer added.
General Milley Strikes Out Demonstrating What Is Wrong with the US Military
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 30, 2021
Most Americans do not know that in the United States currently there are approximately 900 Active-duty generals and flag officers to lead 1.3 million troops in the combined armed forces. This is a ratio of one senior officer per every 1,400 men and women. During World War II, an admittedly different era, there were roughly twice as many flag and general officers for a little more than 12 million active duty troops a ratio of one to 6,000. In the Navy there are 32 flag officers for each ship currently in commission. In 1944, there was one flag officer for every 24 ships.
This development is referred to as “rank creep” which does not improve performance and instead clutters the chain of command by adding multiple bureaucratic layers to decision-making while also costing more due to funding the higher paygrades. And lest one be confused about why there continue to be so many flag officers, possibly concluding that they are needed to provide the leadership to fight wars, it could be pointed out that most of them will never get anywhere near combat even if the U.S. continues its belligerency on a global scale in an effort to establish and enforce its leadership of a fictional “rules based international order.”
It turns out that current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley was, during the latter days of the Donald Trump Administration, talking to his counterparts in China as well as to some folks in Congress who had no love for Trump. Some of the conversations were routine, but others were apparently driven by the notion that Donald Trump just might do something stupid like starting a war unless some restraints were placed on his ability to do mischief. Inevitably, there have emerged major differences of opinion regarding the propriety of what Milley was engaged in, with Democrats in general and Trump haters in particular finding no problem with the intrusion into policy-making while many Republicans have been calling for a thorough investigation to include possible consequences up to and including court-martial.
The various conversations were reported in a just released book “Peril” written by Bob Woodward and, Robert Costa and, based on a claimed 200 interviews, are generally conceded to be accurate by both sides to include the Milley camp plus the journalists involved. Some of the calls at least were made with other officials in the room and on separate phone lines, though there were also conversations with politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, that were clearly considered off-the-record as they dealt with keeping nuclear weapons out of the president’s hands.
Milley, according to the book, reportedly told the Chinese General Li Zuocheng in a back-channel phone call that had as a subject the possibility that the president might order an attack directed against China, something in the nature of a “surprise attack.” He reportedly said “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.” Milley apparently justified the action by stating that he disapproves of surprise attacks in principal and his defenders cite the example of “Pearl Harbor,” which was viewed so repugnantly by the American public that something like a war of extermination became inevitable. Unstated by the Milley supporters, though implicit in their argument, is the assumption that Donald Trump was both ignorant and a loose cannon on deck who would do something stupid like initiating a conflict with China.
Milley also shared his view that Trump had experienced a “mental decline” after the election with Nancy Pelosi in a phone call to her on January 8th, two days after the alleged insurrection at the Capitol. Pelosi reportedly demanded that Milley take the nuclear launch codes away from Trump, which admittedly he did not seek to do. On the same day Milley also reviewed procedures with the senior officers at the National Military Command Center for launching nuclear weapons, insisting that he also had to be involved. To be completely clear, Milley had no legal authority or power to insert himself into the chain of command, though “Peril” reports that he did just that and at a minimum he was acting “extra-constitutionally” in his interpretation of his government role.
But it is the outreach to China that is most disturbing. It is indeed possible to regard Donald Trump negatively while at the same time responding rationally with one’s international nuclear armed adversaries. One does not know what Milley intended to do by his phone call, but “Peril” makes the case, without providing any evidence, that “American intelligence showed that the Chinese believed that Mr. Trump planned to launch a military strike to create an international crisis that he could claim to solve as a last-ditch effort to beat Joseph R. Biden Jr.” In any event, it is unlikely that the Milley phone call reassured Li of anything. Indeed, Li and the Chinese government would have only two possible responses to the threat. First would be to shut up shop, batten down the hatches, and sit still for punishment. The other option would be to preemptively strike U.S. forces in and around China which presumably would be used for the attack. Either option could easily lead to a nuclear exchange once things cease to go according to plan, presuming that the surprise attack itself was not intended to include nuclear weapons in the first place.
Colonel Richard Black observes sagely that “If the report of Milley’s intentions is accurate, he should be relieved for cause, for though he did not consummate a criminal act by making that promise, the promise was so fraught with impropriety that an officer who betrayed his government in such fashion should never be trusted to serve. Indeed, it is likely that had his Chinese counterpart made such a promise to General Milley, he’d have been executed for doing so.”
Beyond the disruption of the chain of command and ignoring the Constitution, there are, of course, some other problems with Milley’s line of thinking. Trump has, to be sure, demonstrated enough irrational behavior to make one suspect that he is not in full possession of all his marbles, but that is not the point. He was elected president of the United States and the U.S. Constitution was set up to ensure civilian control of the military, not vice versa.
And there is no solid evidence, only innuendo, that Trump ever seriously contemplated war with China. Indeed, he ran for office pledging to end the pointless wars that Washington was engaged in in Asia and towards the end of his administration he negotiated an exit from Afghanistan, which Joe Biden then postponed before bungling the evacuation. Trump did indeed assassinate a senior Iranian General and also launched cruise missiles against Syria based on bad intelligence, but otherwise his record is significantly better than that of his predecessor Barack Obama who both initiated and broadened the policy of assassinating American and Afghan citizens overseas by drone and also was party to the overthrow of the Libyan government while also conniving to replace the government of Ukraine.
In any event, in America war is clearly playing politics by other means. President Joe Biden has already declared that he has full confidence in Milley. Several Republican Senators, including Marco Rubio, have instead demanded that he be fired. Given the fact that at least one of the general’s phone calls to his Chinese counterpart could have started a war that might have gone nuclear, he should at least have the integrity to resign and take up his expected board appointment with a defense contractor.
Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest.
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