Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms
By Edward Curtin | February 13, 2021
“The CIA and the media are part of the same criminal conspiracy,” wrote Douglas Valentine in his important book, The CIA As Organized Crime.
This is true. The corporate mainstream media are stenographers for the national security state’s ongoing psychological operations aimed at the American people, just as they have done the same for an international audience. We have long been subjected to this “information warfare,” whose purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the American people and pacify them into victims of their own complicity, just as it was practiced long ago by the CIA in Vietnam and by The New York Times, CBS, etc. on the American people then and over the years as the American warfare state waged endless wars, coups, false flag operations, and assassinations at home and abroad.
Another way of putting this is to say for all practical purposes when it comes to matters that bear on important foreign and domestic matters, the CIA and the corporate mainstream media cannot be distinguished.
For those who read and study history, it has long been known that the CIA has placed their operatives throughout every agency of the U.S. government, as explained by Fletcher Prouty in The Secret Team; that CIA officers Cord Myer and Frank Wisner operated secret programs to get some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom among intellectuals, journalists, and writers to be their voices for unfreedom and censorship, as explained by Frances Stonor Saunders in The Cultural Cold War and Joel Whitney in Finks, among others; that Cord Myer was especially focused on and successful in “courting the Compatible Left” since right wingers were already in the Agency’s pocket. All this is documented and not disputed. It is shocking only to those who don’t do their homework and see what is happening today outside a broad historical context.
With the rise of alternate media and a wide array of dissenting voices on the internet, the establishment felt threatened and went on the defensive. It therefore should come as no surprise that those same elite corporate media are now leading the charge for increased censorship and the denial of free speech to those they deem dangerous, whether that involves wars, rigged elections, foreign coups, COVID-19, vaccinations, or the lies of the corporate media themselves. Having already banned critics from writing in their pages and or talking on their screens, these media giants want to make the quieting of dissenting voices complete.
Just today The New York Times had this headline: Robert Kennedy Jr. Barred From Instagram Over False Virus Claims. Notice the lack of the word alleged before “false virus claims.” This is guilt by headline. It is a perfect piece of propaganda posing as reporting, since it accuses Kennedy, a brilliant and honorable man, of falsity and stupidity, thus justifying Instagram’s ban, and it is an inducement to further censorship of Mr. Kennedy by Facebook that owns Instagram. That ban should follow soon, as the Times’ reporter Jennifer Jett hopes, since she accusingly writes that RFK, Jr. “makes many of the same baseless claims to more than 300,000 followers” at Facebook. Jett made sure her report also went to msn.com and The Boston Globe.
This is one example of the censorship underway with much, much more to follow. What was once done under the cover of omission is now done openly and brazenly, cheered on by those who, in an act of bad faith, claim to be upholders of the First Amendment and the importance of free debate in a democracy. We are quickly slipping into an unreal totalitarian social order.
Which brings me to the recent work of Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, both of whom have strongly and rightly decried this censorship. As I understand their arguments, they go like this.
First, the corporate media have today divided up the territory and speak only to their own audiences in echo chambers: liberal to liberals (read: the “allegedly” liberal Democratic Party), such as The New York Times, NBC, etc., and conservative to conservatives (read” the “allegedly” conservative Donald Trump), such as Fox News, Breitbart, etc. They have abandoned old school journalism that, despite its shortcomings, involved objectivity and the reporting of disparate facts and perspectives, but within limits. Since the digitization of news, their new business models are geared to these separate audiences since they are highly lucrative choices. It’s business driven since electronic media have replaced paper as advertising revenues have shifted and people’s ability to focus on complicated issues has diminished drastically. Old school journalism is suffering as a result and thus writers such as Greenwald and Taibbi and Chris Hedges (who interviewed Taibbi and concurs: part one here) have taken their work to the internet to escape such restrictive categories and the accompanying censorship.
Secondly, the great call for censorship is not something the Silicon Valley companies want because they want more people using their media since it means more money for them, but they are being pressured to do it by the traditional old school media, such as The New York Times, who now employ “tattletales and censors,” people who are power hungry jerks, to sniff out dissenting voices that they can recommend should be banned. Greenwald says, ‘’They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous ‘disinformation.’” Thus, the old school print and television media are not on the same page as Facebook, Twitter, etc. but have opposing agendas.
In short, these shifts and the censorship are about money and power within the media world as the business has been transformed by the digital revolution.
I think this is a half-truth that conceals a larger issue. The censorship is not being driven by power hungry reporters at the Times or CNN or any media outlet. All these media and their employees are but the outer layer of the onion, the means by which messages are sent and people controlled. These companies and their employees do what they are told, whether explicitly or implicitly, for they know it is in their financial interest to do so. If they do not play their part in this twisted and intricate propaganda game, they will suffer. They will be eliminated, as are pesky individuals who dare peel the onion to its core. For each media company is one part of a large interconnected intelligence apparatus – a system, a complex – whose purpose is power, wealth, and domination for the very few at the expense of the many. The CIA and media as parts of the same criminal conspiracy.
To argue that the Silicon valley companies do not want to censor but are being pressured by the legacy corporate media does not make sense. These companies are deeply connected to U.S. intelligence agencies, as are the NY Times, CNN, NBC, etc. They too are part of what was once called Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s program to control, use, and infiltrate the media. Only the most naïve would think that such a program does not exist today.
In Surveillance Valley, investigative reporter Yasha Levine documents how Silicon valley tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are tied to the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex in surveillance and censorship; how the Internet was created by the Pentagon; and even how these shadowy players are deeply involved in the so-called privacy movement that developed after Edward Snowden’s revelations. Like Valentine, and in very detailed ways, Levine shows how the military-industrial-intelligence-digital-media complex is part of the same criminal conspiracy as is the traditional media with their CIA overlords. It is one club.
Many people, however, might find this hard to believe because it bursts so many bubbles, including the one that claims that these tech companies are pressured into censorship by the likes of The New York Times, etc. The truth is the Internet was a military and intelligence tool from the very beginning and it is not the traditional corporate media that gives it its marching orders.
That being so, it is not the owners of the corporate media or their employees who are the ultimate controllers behind the current vast crackdown on dissent, but the intelligence agencies who control the mainstream media and the Silicon valley monopolies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. All these media companies are but the outer layer of the onion, the means by which messages are sent and people controlled.
But for whom do these intelligence agencies work? Not for themselves.
They work for their overlords, the super wealthy people, the banks, financial institutions, and corporations that own the United States and always have. In a simple twist of fate, such super wealthy naturally own the media corporations that are essential to their control of the majority of the world’s wealth through the stories they tell. It is a symbiotic relationship. As FDR put it bluntly in 1933, this coterie of wealthy forces is the “financial element in the larger centers [that] has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” Their wealth and power has increased exponentially since then, and their connected tentacles have further spread to create what is an international deep state that involves such entities as the IMF, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, those who meet yearly at Davos, etc. They are the international overlords who are pushing hard to move the world toward a global dictatorship.
As is well known, or should be, the CIA was the creation of Wall St. and serves the interests of the wealthy owners. Peter Dale Scott, in “The State, the Deep State, and the Wall Street Overworld,” says of Allen Dulles, the nefarious longest running Director of the CIA and Wall St. lawyer for Sullivan and Cromwell, “There seems to be little difference in Allen Dulles’s influence whether he was a Wall Street lawyer or a CIA director.” It was Dulles, long connected to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, international corporations, and a friend of Nazi agents and scientists, who was tasked with drawing up proposals for the CIA. He was ably assisted by five Wall St. bankers or investors, including the aforementioned Frank Wisner who later, as a CIA officer, said his “Mighty Wurlitzer” was “capable of playing any propaganda tune he desired.” This he did by recruiting intellectuals, writers, reporters, labor organizations, and the mainstream corporate media, etc. to propagate the CIA’s messages.
Greenwald, Taibbi, and Hedges are correct up to a point, but they stop short. Their critique of old school journalism à la Edward Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing of Consent model, while true as far as it goes, fails to pin the tail on the real donkey. Like old school journalists who knew implicitly how far they could go, these guys know it too, as if there is an invisible electronic gate that keeps them from wandering into dangerous territory.
The censorship of Robert Kennedy, Jr. is an exemplary case. His banishment from Instagram and the ridicule the mainstream media have heaped upon him for years is not simply because he raises deeply informed questions about vaccines, Bill Gates, the pharmaceutical companies, etc. His critiques suggest something far more dangerous is afoot: the demise of democracy and the rise of a totalitarian order that involves total surveillance, control, eugenics, etc. by the wealthy led by their intelligence propagandists.
To call him a super spreader of hoaxes and a conspiracy theorist is aimed at not only silencing him on specific medical issues, but to silence his powerful and articulate voice on all issues. To give thoughtful consideration to his deeply informed scientific thinking concerning vaccines, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc., is to open a can of worms that the powerful want shut tight.
This is because RFK, Jr. is also a severe critic of the enormous power of the CIA and its propaganda that goes back so many decades and was used to cover up the national security state’s assassinations of his father and uncle, JFK. It is why his wonderful recent book, American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family, that contains not one word about vaccines, was shunned by mainstream book reviewers; for the picture he paints fiercely indicts the CIA in multiple ways while also indicting the mass media that have been its mouthpieces. These worms must be kept in the can, just as the power of the international overlords represented by the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum with its Great Reset must be. They must be dismissed as crackpot conspiracy theories not worthy of debate or exposure.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., by name and dedication to truth seeking, conjures up his father’s ghost, the last politician who, because of his vast support across racial and class divides, could have united the country and tamed the power of the CIA to control the narrative that has allowed for the plundering of the world and the country for the wealthy overlords.
There is a reason Noam Chomsky is an exemplar for Hedges, Greenwald, and Taibbi. He controls the can opener for so many. He has set the parameters for what is considered acceptable to be considered a serious journalist or intellectual. The assassinations of the Kennedys, 9/11, or a questioning of the official Covid-19 story are not among them, and so they are eschewed.
To denounce censorship, as they have done, is admirable. But now they need go up to the forbidden gate with the sign that says – “This far and no further” – and jump over it. That’s where the true stories lie. That’s when they’ll see the worms squirm.
“Swift and Meaningful Response” on Human Rights of LGBTQ, and Intersex Persons Around the World
An end to staged chemical attacks?
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
This memorandum reaffirms and supplements the principles established in the Presidential Memorandum of December 6, 2011 (International Initiatives to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Persons). That memorandum, for the first time, directed executive departments and agencies (agencies) engaged abroad to ensure that United States diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons everywhere. This memorandum builds upon that historic legacy and updates the 2011 memorandum.
All human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear no matter who they are or whom they love. Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights. The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values. It shall be the policy of the United States to pursue an end to violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics, and to lead by the power of our example in the cause of advancing the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world.
Through this memorandum, I am directing all agencies engaged abroad to ensure that United States diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons. Specifically, I direct the following actions, consistent with applicable law:
Section 1. Combating Criminalization of LGBTQI+ Status or Conduct Abroad. Agencies engaged abroad are directed to strengthen existing efforts to combat the criminalization by foreign governments of LGBTQI+ status or conduct and expand efforts to combat discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and intolerance on the basis of LGBTQI+ status or conduct. The Department of State shall, on an annual basis and as part of the annual report submitted to the Congress pursuant to sections 116(d) and 502B(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151n(d) and 2304(b)), report on human rights abuses experienced by LGBTQI+ persons globally. This reporting shall include anti-LGBTQI+ laws as well as violence and discrimination committed by both state and nonstate actors against LGBTQI+ persons.
Sec. 2. Protecting Vulnerable LGBTQI+ Refugees and Asylum Seekers. LGBTQI+ persons who seek refuge from violence and persecution face daunting challenges. In order to improve protection for LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers at all stages of displacement, the Departments of State and Homeland Security shall enhance their ongoing efforts to ensure that LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers have equal access to protection and assistance, particularly in countries of first asylum. In addition, the Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security shall ensure appropriate training is in place so that relevant Federal Government personnel and key partners can effectively identify and respond to the particular needs of LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers, including by providing to them adequate assistance and ensuring that the Federal Government takes all appropriate steps, such as potential increased use of Embassy Priority-1 referrals, to identify and expedite resettlement of highly vulnerable persons with urgent protection needs.
Sec. 3. Foreign Assistance to Protect Human Rights and Advance Nondiscrimination. Agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development programs shall expand their ongoing efforts to ensure regular Federal Government engagement with governments, citizens, civil society, and the private sector to promote respect for the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons and combat discrimination. Agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development programs should consider the impact of programs funded by the Federal Government on human rights, including the rights of LGBTQI+ persons, when making funding decisions, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
Sec. 4. Swift and Meaningful United States Responses to Human Rights Abuses of LGBTQI+ Persons Abroad. The Department of State shall lead a standing group, with appropriate interagency representation, to help ensure the Federal Government’s swift and meaningful response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons abroad. When foreign governments move to restrict the rights of LGBTQI+ persons or fail to enforce legal protections in place, thereby contributing to a climate of intolerance, agencies engaged abroad shall consider appropriate responses, including using the full range of diplomatic and assistance tools and, as appropriate, financial sanctions, visa restrictions, and other actions.
Sec. 5. Building Coalitions of Like-Minded Nations and Engaging International Organizations in the Fight Against LGBTQI+ Discrimination. Bilateral relationships with allies and partners, as well as multilateral fora and international organizations, are key vehicles to promote respect for and protection of the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons and to bring global attention to these goals. Agencies engaged abroad should strengthen the work they have done and initiate additional efforts with other nations, bilaterally and within multilateral fora and international organizations, to: counter discrimination on the basis of LGBTQI+ status or conduct; broaden the number of countries willing to support and defend the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons; strengthen the role, including in multilateral fora, of civil society advocates on behalf of the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons; and strengthen the policies and programming of multilateral institutions, including with respect to protecting vulnerable LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers.
Sec. 6. Rescinding Inconsistent Policies and Reporting on Progress. Within 100 days of the date of this memorandum or as soon as possible thereafter, all agencies engaged abroad shall review and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, take steps to rescind any directives, orders, regulations, policies, or guidance inconsistent with this memorandum, including those issued from January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021, to the extent that they are inconsistent with this memorandum. The heads of such agencies shall also, within 100 days of the date of this memorandum, report to the President on their progress in implementing this memorandum and recommend additional opportunities and actions to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world. Agencies engaged abroad shall each prepare a report within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter, on their progress toward advancing these initiatives. All such agencies shall submit these reports to the Department of State, which will compile a report on the Federal Government’s progress in advancing these initiatives for transmittal to the President. The Department of State shall make a version of the compiled annual report available to the Congress and the public.
Sec. 7. Definitions. (a) For the purposes of this memorandum, agencies engaged abroad include the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and such other agencies as the President may designate.
(b) For the purposes of this memorandum, agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development programs include the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, USAID, DFC, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and such other agencies as the President may designate.
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(d) The Secretary of State is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
The American establishment has lost its mind in its obsession with trying to discredit Trumpism

Protest against U.S. President Donald Trump on Veterans Day on November 11, 2019 in New York City. © Getty Images / Stephanie Keith
By Michael Rectenwald | RT | February 12, 2021
An appallingly biased new article on Trumpism in Foreign Affairs shows that if the American establishment was an individual, it would be diagnosed as clinically insane, likely suffering from delusions of persecution and paranoia.
Yet this same establishment calls half the population of the US conspiratorial, delusional, and terroristic, even as it parades a lunatic’s version of events during a second unfounded, evidence-free impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump, and as it continues lamentations over the supposed malignancy of his presidency, weeks after it has ended.
At this point, it would be a misdiagnosis to call this illness Trump Derangement Syndrome. The idée fixe persists unabated, even in the absence of its favorite bogey, and extends well beyond any reasonable obsession with Trump himself. This syndrome, whatever it is, appears to be resistant to treatment. The ministrations of political outsiders have only left the patient with a firmer ideational conviction. Electoral engineering and repeated political exorcisms have apparently been to no avail.
This illness has affected every element of the broad political left, the political and corporate establishment, and the mainstream media. Unsurprisingly, the nation’s foreign policy “experts” remain in its thrall. Like Jonathan Kirshner, political science and international professor at Boston College, they display its symptomology without remission.
In an article titled Gone But Not Forgotten: Trump’s Long Shadow and the End of American Credibility, Kirshner exhibits the signs of the recalcitrant derangement with a fact-free, hyperbolic prognosis of US foreign policy in the wake of the Trump presidency. Like others bewitched by him, Kirshner repeats the tired shibboleths associated with hallucinatory Trump repudiation: he cozied up with dictators, scorned long-term allies, and represents “a deeply regrettable, and in many ways embarrassing, interlude” in American international relations.
The patient refers to Trump’s management of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and alludes to Trump’s most unreasonable demand that NATO partners pay their fair share of dues to the European peace-keeping organization that’s waning in importance. Yet evidence of the widespread “anarchy” caused by Trump is never given–no doubt because it doesn’t exist.
Kirshner exhibits the typical apriorism expected from the afflicted. Trump is guilty–of something, anything–in advance. The point of the exercise is to look for crimes committed by the presumed villain, even as the language for conviction must remain forever nebulous and abstract, as it does in this piece of feigned objectivity.
Somewhat off-topic for a commentator on foreign policy, Kirshner immediately excoriates Trump’s handling of “a pandemic that killed well more than a quarter of a million of the people under his charge.” Kirshner’s guilty verdict is meted out without evidence, and despite the fact that the death rate in the US is broadly on par with that of Europe and elsewhere.
It’s not as if Italy has fared any better, or that Sweden, which eschewed draconian lockdown laws, did any worse than Italy or France. But carrying on about Trump’s supposedly disastrous pandemic response measures is a requisite symptom of the establishment’s disorder, and Kirshner must display it like all the others. Never mind that, soon after taking office, Biden stated that there was nothing he could do to stem the spread of the virus.
As Kirshner sees it, one of Trump’s most egregious transgressions was the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the first week of his presidency. No mention is made of the fact that no one really knew what was in the deal. Never mind that, like NAFTA, it would likely cost more Americans their jobs, jobs probably shipped to China, where wage slaves work under penal colony conditions. And never mind that it would likely gut environmental regulations to please China.
Kirshner levies the usual charges against Trump’s foreign policy: “isolationism,” “nationalism,” and “knuckle-dragging Americafirstism.”
“America first” has been the most maligned and misrepresented element of the Trump doctrine, and Kirshner’s declamation is no exception. Like other detractors, he refuses to acknowledge what Trump meant by the phrase: the interests of the majority of Americans should come before all else when making any political decision, not that America should become a selfish, dominating player on the world stage. From the standpoint of the economic and political oligarchy, who stood to lose the most by it, “America first” was unconscionable, and remains impossible to excise from national and international consciousness.
Kirshner barely acknowledges the fact that the Trump doctrine follows from a particular brand of populist American nationalism, including a foreign policy stemming from 19th-century Republican politics. Those who have subscribed to this political position have been traditionally non-interventionist, while demanding that a premium be laid on national self-determination, the protection of national sovereignty via strong borders, and the promotion of national self-interest over international or “globalist” entanglements. Instead, Kirshner misrepresents “America first” by surreptitiously associating it with fascism and Nazism.
No mention is made of the fact that, of the past five presidents, Trump was the only one not to begin a new war, and the only one not to extend the American military presence throughout the world. Instead, Kirshner gives away his hand by mourning that the US may “soon simply be out of the great-power game altogether.” This admission signals Kirshner’s allegiance to the neocon military establishment, and practically disqualifies him as an interlocutor supposedly concerned with international order and stability. It’s as if George W. Bush’s unprovoked and disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have been entirely forgotten and forgiven, while Trump’s partially flouted attempts to withdraw troops from the Middle East and Afghanistan are the real international crimes.
Yet the biggest specter haunting Kirshner’s storyline is “the significant possibility of a large role for Trumpism” in the future, regardless of whether or not Trump himself continues to play a role in national politics. This is the crux of the matter, and the real problem Kirshner sees. How can the US be a reliable international partner while Trumpism persists? Kirshner’s real concern is that Trump’s policies were actually popular, and that Trumpism thus cannot instantly be extirpated from the national identity.
This fear of Trumpism haunts the entire political establishment. It explains the second impeachment trial, the calls for re-education, and the characterization of Trump supporters as “terrorists” and “the enemy within.” It is this new leftist McCarthyism, and not Trumpism, that really afflicts the country. And it is this which makes the US an unreliable player on the international stage. For how can the US act as a single nation when the entire establishment suffers from schizophrenia?
Michael Rectenwald is an author of 11 books, including the most recent, Thought Criminal. He was Professor of Liberal Arts at NYU from 2008 through 2019. Follow him on Twitter @TheAntiPCProf
Media Consider Trump Guilty by Accusation, Case Closed
By Stephen Lendman | February 12, 2021
Establishment fourth estate practitioners in the US and West transformed the term media into a four-letter word.
They find new ways to disgrace themselves daily, probing for new lows and finding them.
Trump’s sham Senate trial is a current example among many others, a travesty of justice.
There’s nothing remotely legitimate about impeaching and trying him for inciting insurrection.
The January 6 Capitol Hill false flag was staged by US dark forces in cahoots with undemocratic Dems to further vilify and frame him for what he had nothing to do with.
No respectable publisher would touch Big Media hate-mongering rubbish masquerading as news, information, and analysis.
The self-styled newspaper of record NYT is the worst offender.
On all things Trump, truth and full disclosure was banned in favor endless mass deception hateful enough to make some despots blush.
It doesn’t rise to the level of poor fiction. Yet it’s featured daily in multiple propaganda pieces.
Mindless of facts, it wants Trump vilified and convicted for invented reasons that took center stage on the Senate floor.
WaPo editors demanded Trump’s conviction, saying:
“The House impeachment managers’ presentation before the Senate has crystallized in graphic and compelling detail the horror of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — and Mr. Trump’s deep responsibility for it (sic).”
No credible evidence supports the above mass deception. Yet much of the nation is riveted on a stream of orchestrated fake news.
Remarks from Trump like “stop the steal” had nothing to do with inciting insurrection.
His legal team’s legitimate efforts to expose and reverse election rigging was mocked.
Perhaps the most brazen election fraud in US history was supported by Big Media, all the while pretending the illegitimate process was the other way around, knowing otherwise.
Trump was right saying “(i)f you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Passivity in the face of state-sponsored law-breaking assures worse to come.
WaPo long ago abandoned truth-telling journalism for deep state approved propaganda.
On all issues mattering most, including Trump’s politicized show trial, everything WaPo publishes is unfit to print.
Virtually across the board, Big Media want Trump hung out to dry for invented reasons while ignoring legitimate ones. Some examples:
WSJ : “(Dems) Argue Trump ‘Inflamed and Incited’ Capitol Riot (sic)”
Dems and supportive media lied.
Reuters : “Graphic riot videos not enough to convict Trump, some Republican senators say”
Instead of reporting that Trump had nothing to do with storming Capitol Hill, Reuters and other Big Media pretend otherwise — to their shame.
AP News : “Trump trial video shows vast scope, danger of Capitol riot”
No “riot” occurred. Trump and supporters were uninvolved with what happened on January 6 — an orchestrated false flag rally.
Fox News quoted unindicted war criminal, perjurer, serial liar Hillary, saying if Trump is acquitted, it’s “because the jury includes his co-conspirators (sic).”
Anti-Trump CNN expressed fury over Trump’s likely acquittal.
ABC News: “Majority of Americans say Trump should be convicted, barred from holding federal office”
Most Americans are brainwashed by Big Media, their minds filled with mass deception mush.
CBS News rubbish: “Trump’s tweets” show guilt.
Love, hate or otherwise reject them, Trump’s tweets exercise his constitutional right of free expression — eroding en route to disappearing altogether.
Chicago Tribune : “(Dem) impeachment of Trump puts his 74 million voters on trial (sic)”
LA Times : “Senate Republicans are as much on trial as Trump (sic).”
USA Today : “Trump Senate impeachment trial forces hard choices on Republicans and (Dems) alike (sic)”
National Pentagon Radio (NPR): “Impeachment Managers To Focus On Insurrection Damage”
Undemocratic Dems and complicit dark forces bear full responsibility for lawless actions ahead of and following events on Capitol Hill.
What’s going on in the Senate chamber is an attempted political lynching with no legitimacy.
Instead of exposing and denouncing it, Big Media share guilt for supporting what no one should tolerate.
What REALLY Got Gina Carano Cancelled
Don’t believe the lies about “racism”, the actress and former athlete has been found guilty of wrongthink. Nothing more.

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | February 11, 2021
We don’t comment on pop-culture much, but as the incredibly fine line between politics and entertainment begins to fade totally out of existence the overlap becomes harder and harder to ignore.
Plus, sometimes something is just so unfair you have to take a moment to correct the record.
Actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano has lost her role in Disney’s hit Star Wars spin-off “The Mandalorian”, lost out on her own spin-off series and been dropped by her agent.
All this is the result of a series of social media posts described as “abhorrent” in a press release from LucasFilm:
Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
But what did Carano actually say?
Well, the post is deleted but there are screencaps available. Here’s the “abhorrent” text:
Because history is edited, most people today don’t realise that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbours hate them simply for being Jews.
How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
Is this “abhorrent”? Is this “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities”?
Obviously not. It’s an entirely historically accurate statement, making a broader point about the dangers of dehumanising large groups of people.
It’s not racist. It’s not racist to compare modern society to Nazi Germany. It’s not racist to warn against what you perceive as burgeoning fascism.
It’s. Not. Racist.
More than that, it’s actually anti-racist.
But if “go home in peace and love” can become “inciting violence”, or spending Passover with the “wrong kind of Jews” can be “Antisemitism”, than I guess “hey you shouldn’t hate people for being different” can be racist.
As I wrote yesterday, reality itself is under a prolonged assault, and we have to struggle to stick up for what words mean. For what is real.
But, if Carano didn’t say anything racist, why has she actually been fired?
Well, this is not the first time she has courted controversy on social media. She has made many posts critical of enforced mask-wearing, questioning the Covid vaccine, suggesting the 2020 election may have been rigged, and just generally not buying into pandemic hysteria. (Just yesterday, she was posting that Epstein didn’t kill himself. Which he obviously didn’t).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, LucasFilm have been “looking for a reason to get rid of her for months”. Which is even stronger evidence that this has nothing to do with any supposed “racism”, and everything to do with rigidly enforcing a consensus.
Gina Carano didn’t say anything racist and she was not fired for saying anything racist. She was fired for being just a bit of an outsider. For thinking for herself, a little, and expressing those thoughts.
It’s another example of the real purpose of identity politics, and its weaponisation as “cancel culture”. It’s all about stifling actual honest discussion. Slamming the Overton window shut. Branding everything even passingly controversial “offensive”, no matter how illogical, nonsensical or backwards it may seem. About making people afraid to honestly express themselves, for fear of the mob.
To finish, let’s pay one last visit to Gina Carano’s “abhorrent” social media, and quote something she shared on Instagram several months ago. Another example of the type of thinking that is the true target of “cancellation”:
If you go to the southwest desert and catch 100 red fire ants, as well as 100 large black ants, t can catch about 100 red fire ants that live in the southwestern desert and also about 100 of those large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen.
However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other.
The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa when, in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar.
This is exactly what’s happening in society today:
Liberal vs Conservative
Black vs White
Mask vs Anti Mask
The real question we should be asking ourselves is who is shaking the jar and why?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Responds to being Kicked off Instagram

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | February 11, 2021
Earlier, I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the founder and chairman of Children’s Health Defense being kicked off Facebook-owned social media website Instagram on Thursday, purportedly because he posted misinformation related to coronavirus vaccines.
Here is an update: Kennedy has written a strong response to the removal, discussing the nature of his posts at Instagram, relating the debate stifling effect of Instagram’s action, and pointing to the fact that both he and Informed Consent Action Network founder Del Bigtree were removed from Instagram just 15 minutes before they were to air a webinar featuring doctors and other individuals discussing matters related to coronavirus vaccines.
In his statement Kennedy writes:
Every statement I put on Instagram was sourced from a government database, from peer-reviewed publications and from carefully confirmed news stories. None of my posts were false. Facebook, the pharmaceutical industry and its captive regulators use the term ‘vaccine misinformation’ as a euphemism for any factual assertion that departs from official pronouncements about vaccine health and safety, whether true or not.
Further, states Kennedy, “the mainstream media and social media giants are imposing a totalitarian censorship to prevent public health advocates, like myself, from voicing concerns and from engaging in civil informed debate in the public square.” That assessment is in line with my take in my earlier article.
Regarding the timing of Kennedy and Bigtree’s removal from Instagram, Kennedy writes:
Instagram deplatformed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and HighWire host, Del Bigtree, just 15 minutes before they were to air the webinar, ‘COVID Vaccine on Trial, If You Only Knew’ highlighting COVID concerns, injuries, mechanisms and other facts from four MDs, several Ph.D.s and leaders from the vaccine-injured community. COVID-19 vaccines use novel technology never before used in a human population. With that comes great unknown risks. The people of the world deserve to have this crucial information to protect their health and that of their children.
Read Kennedy’s complete statement here.
Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute.
Arranging The Middle East Narrative To Push The Agenda Forward
South Front | February 11, 2021
The United States is returning to a level of activity in the Middle East unseen in nearly 4 years. This development has become obvious over the weeks since Joe Biden became US President, firstly with a large deployment into Syria, and subsequently with smaller ones.
On February 9th, the Pentagon said that it was no longer in Syria to protect and exploit oil fields.
It is now back to hunting ISIS. Back to the square one of 2014 and the Obama era. ISIS somehow obliged by ramping up their activities throughout Syria.
It is a mystery that they were able to make such a sharp and sudden resurgence. It should also be noted that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces allegedly have about 10,000 ISIS terrorists imprisoned.
This statement of intent denotes a massive shift in posture for the US. When defending the oil fields the US troops were mostly static, when hunting ISIS they can, once again, roam around and carry out various operations.
It appears likely that Idlib is now also in focus – US combat drones were observed surveying Greater Idlib. Idlib is a mixed bag – it has Turkish troops, Russians, the Syrian Arab Army along with terrorists and the moderate opposition, although confusing these two groups can be forgiven. The newest, future, US ally is there – the soon-to-be-rebranded Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.
An indication of expected escalations and attacks are the Russian and Syrian military drills being carried out near Aleppo during effective wartime. Russia, separately, carried out a naval drill near Tartus.
And, as if by design, long-range missiles attempted to strike Russia’s forces at the Hmeimim Air Base. Drones occasionally attempt to infiltrate its airspace, but missiles are a rare sight.
Meanwhile in Western Daraa, the rebel leaders submitted to Damascus, likely fearing the upcoming chaos and wanting to choose a side.
Finally, the Biden administration is also working to secure Israeli support. The State Department said it doesn’t endorse Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, but doesn’t oppose it. It also provided a $9bn weapon sale as consolation. Tel Aviv is likely to use these weapons to counter its nemesis – Iran. It does so by targeting alleged Iranian interests in Syria.
Syria remains the lynchpin of US Middle East policy but the US posture in Iraq and Afghanistan has also changed. Withdrawing from the region is now out of the question – ISIS is making a resurgence, and there are other groups targeting American forces and convoys.
In Afghanistan, specifically, if the withdrawal does not move forward, the Taliban are also likely to begin targeting the US again.
The democrats are back in control and back to spreading democracy in the Middle East.
Why Victoria Nuland Is Dangerous and Should Not be Confirmed

By Rick Sterling | Global Research | February 11, 2021
Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. It is a bad sign that [proclaimed] President Joe Biden has nominated Victoria Nuland for the third highest position at the State Department, Under Secretary for Political Affairs.
As a top-level appointee, Victoria Nuland must be confirmed by the US Senate. There is a campaign to Stop her confirmation. The following review of her work shows why Victoria Nuland is incompetent, highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.
Afghanistan and Iraq
From 2000 to 2003, Nuland was US permanent representative to NATO as the Bush administration attacked then invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan government offered to work with the US remove Al Qaeda, but this was rejected. After Al Qaeda was defeated, the US could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, split the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.
From 2003 to 2005 Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney who “helped plan and manage the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, including making Bush administration’s case for preemptive military actions based on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.” The foreign policy establishment, with Nuland on the far right, believed that removing Saddam Hussein and installing a US “ally” would be simple.
The invasion and continuing occupation have resulted in over a million dead Iraqis, many thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at a cost of 2 to 6 TRILLION dollars.
From 2005 to 2008 Victoria Nuland was US Ambassador to NATO where her role was to “strengthen Allied support” for the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
On the 10th anniversary of the invasion, when asked about the lessons learned Nuland responded “Compared to where we were in the Saddam era, we now have a bilateral security agreement … We have deep economic interests and ties. We have a security relationship. We have a political relationship.” Nuland is oblivious to the costs. Nuland’s loyalties are to the elite who have benefitted from the tragedy. According to online google, “One of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton. Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in ‘federal contracts related to the Iraq war.’ Nuland’s boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, was the former the CEO of Halliburton.
In January 2020, seventeen years after the US invasion, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution demanding the US troops and contractors leave. Now, over one year later, they still have not left.
Libya
In spring 2011, Victoria Nuland became State Department spokesperson under Hillary Clinton as she ramped up the “regime change” assault on Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya. UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorized a “No Fly Zone” for the protection of civilians but NOT an air assault on Libyan government forces.
That summer, as US and others bombed and attacked Libyan forces, she dismissed the option of a peaceful transition in Libya and falsely suggested the UN Security Council required the removal of Ghaddafi.
The campaign led to the toppling of the Libyan government and killing of Ghadaffy. Commenting on the murder and bayonet sodomizing of Ghaddafi, Nuland’s boss Hillary Clinton chortled “We came, we saw, he died.”
Before the overthrow, Libya had the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Since the US led assault, Libya has become a failed state with competing warlords, huge inflation, huge unemployment, and exploding extremism and violence that has spread to neighboring countries. Most of the migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, or drowned trying to, are coming from Libya. By any measure, the goal of “protecting” Libyan civilians has failed spectacularly.
Syria
One reason that Clinton and hawks such as Nuland wanted to overthrow Ghaddafi was to get access to the Libyan military arsenal. That way they could funnel arms to insurgents seeking to overthrow the Syrian government. This was confirmed in secret DOD documents which state: “During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria”
In January 2012, Nuland claimed the US is “on the side of those wanting peaceful change in Syria.” While saying this, the US was supplying sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and 125 mm and 155 mm howitzer missiles to the “peaceful” protestors.
The US “regime change” strategy for Syria followed the pattern of Libya. First, claim that the protestors are peaceful. Then claim the government response is disproportionate. Put pressure on the target government to paralyze it, while increasing support to proxy protesters and terrorists. As documented, there were violent Syrian protesters from the start. During the first days of protest in Deraa in mid-March 2011, seven police were killed. As spokesperson for the State Department, Nuland was a major figure promoting the false narrative to justify the “regime change” campaign.
Ukraine
In September 2013 Victoria Nuland was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. The uprising in the central plaza known as the Maidan began soon after her arrival. To underscore the US support for the protests, Nuland and Senator John McCain passed out bread and cookies to the crowd.
Protests continued into January 2014. The immediate issue was whether to accept a loan from the International Monetary Fund which was going to require a 40% increase in natural gas bills or to accept a loan from Russia with the inclusion of cheap oil and gas. The opposition wanted the Yanukovych government to take the EU/IMF loan. The opposition was comprised of different factions, including the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Right Sector.
In early February 2014, an audio recording of Victoria Nuland talking the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked to the public. The 4-minute conversation was a media sensation because it included Victoria Nuland saying, “Fuck the EU.”.
But Nuland’s cursing was a distraction from what was truly significant. The recording showed that Nuland was meddling in domestic Ukraine affairs, had direct contacts with key opposition leaders, and was managing the protests to the extent she was deciding who would and would not be in the post-coup government! She says, “I don’t think Klitsch [Vitaly Klitschko] should go into government…… I think Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk] is the guy… “
The reason she wanted to “Fuck the EU” was because she did not approve the EU negotiations and compromise. Nuland and Pyatt wanted to “midwife” and “glue” the toppling of the Yanukovych government despite it being in power after an election that was observed and substantially approved by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).
Over the next few weeks, the protests escalated. The President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kiev, Bernard Casey, described what happened next. “On February 18-20, snipers massacred about 100 people [both protestors and police] on the Maidan …. Although the US Ambassador and the opposition blamed the Yanukovych Administration, the evidence points to the shots coming from a hotel controlled by the ultranationalists, and the ballistics revealed that the protestors and the police were all shot with the same weapons.”
The Estonian Foreign Minister later said the same thing: “behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new (opposition) coalition”.
President of the American Chamber of Commerce President for Ukraine, Bernard Casey, continues: “On February 20, 2014 an EU delegation moderated negotiations between President Yanukovych and the protestors, agreeing to early elections – in May 2014 instead of February 2015…. Despite the signing of an agreement … the ultranationalist protestors, and their American sponsors, rejected it, and stepped up their campaign of violence.”
The coup was finalized over the coming days. Yanukovych fled to for his life and Yatsenyuk became President after the coup as planned.
One of the first acts of the coup leadership was to remove Russian as an official state language, even though it is the first language of millions of Ukrainians, especially in the south and east. Over the coming period, the “birth” of the coup government, violence by ultranationalists and neo-Nazis was prevalent. In Odessa, they attacked people peacefully protesting the coup. This video shows the sequence of events with the initial attack followed by fire-bombing the building where protestors had retreated. Fire trucks were prevented from reaching the building to put out the fire and rescue citizens inside. Forty-two people died and a 100 were injured.
A bus convoy heading back to Crimea was attacked with the anti-coup passengers beaten and some killed.
In the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, protests against the coup were met by deadly force.
Victoria Nuland claims to be a “victim” because her conversation was leaked publicly. The real victims are the many thousands of Ukrainians who have died and hundreds of thousands who have become refugees because of Nuland’s crusade to bring Ukraine into NATO.
The audio recording confirms that Nuland was managing the protests at a top level and the results (Yats is the guy) was as planned. Thus, it is probable that Nuland approved the decision to 1) deploy snipers to escalate the crisis and 2) overturn the EU mediated agreement which would have led to elections in just 3 months.
Why were snipers deployed on February 18? Probably because time was running out. The Russian leadership was distracted with the Sochi Olympic Games ending on February 23. Perhaps the coup managers were in a hurry to “glue” it in advance.
Russia
During the 1990’s, Nuland worked for the State Department on Russia related issues including a stint as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs. The US meddled in Russian internal affairs in myriad ways. Time magazine proudly proclaimed “Yanks to the rescue: the secret story of how American advisors helped Yeltsin win.” The Yeltsin leadership and policies pushed by the US had disastrous consequences. Between 1991 and 1999, Russian Gross Domestic Product decreased by nearly 50% as the social safety net was removed. The Russian economy collapsed, oligarchs and lawlessness arose. Nuland was part of the US group meddling in Russia, deploying economic “shock therapy” and causing widespread social despair.
Meanwhile, the U.S. reneged on promises to Soviet leader Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch” eastward. Instead, NATO became an offensive pact, bombing Yugoslavia in violation of international law and then absorbing Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Albania, Croatia and more.
Coming into power in 2000, Putin clamped down on the oligarchs, restored order and started rebuilding the economy. Oligarchs were forced to pay taxes and start investing in productive enterprises. The economy and confidence were restored. Over seven years, GDP went from $1300 billion (US dollars) to $2300 billion. That is why Putin’s public approval rating has been consistently high, ranging between 85% and a “low” approval rating of 60%.
Most Americans are unaware of these facts. Instead, Putin and Russia are persistently demonized. This has been convenient for the Democratic Party establishment which needed a distraction for their dirty tricks against Bernie Sanders and subsequent loss to Donald Trump. The demonization of Russia is also especially useful and profitable for the military industrial media complex.
Victoria Nuland boosted the “Steele Dossier” which alleged collaboration between Russia and Trump and other salacious claims. The allegations filled the media and poisoned attitudes to Russia. Belatedly, the truth about the “Steele Dossier” is coming out. Last summer the Wall Street Journal reported “the bureau (FBI) knew the Russia info was phony in 2017” and that “There was no factual basis to the dossier’s claims”.
While promoting disinformation, Victoria Nuland is pushing for a more aggressive US foreign policy. In an article titled “Pinning Down Putin”, she says “Russia’s threat to the liberal world has grown”, that Washington should “deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin” and “rebuff Russian encroachments in hot spots around the world.”
The major “hot spots” are the conflicts which Victoria Nuland and other Washington neocons promoted, especially Syria and Ukraine. In Syria, the US and allies have spent hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars promoting the overthrow of the Assad government. So far, they have failed but have not given up. The facts are clear: US troops and military bases in Syria do not have the authorization of the Syrian government. They are actively stealing the precious oil resources of the Syrian state. It is the US not Russia that is “encroaching”. The dangerous behavior is by Washington not Moscow.
Conclusion
Victoria Nuland has promoted a foreign policy of intervention through coups, proxy wars, aggression, and ongoing occupations. The policy has been implemented with bloody and disastrous results in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
With consummate hypocrisy she accuses Russia of spreading misinformation in the US, while she openly seeks to put “stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens.” She wants to “establish permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border and increase the pace and visibility of joint training exercises.”
Victoria Nuland is the queen of chicken hawks, the Lady Macbeth of perpetual war. There are hundreds of thousands of victims from the policies she has promoted. Yet she has not received a scratch. On the contrary, Victoria Nuland probably has profited from a stock portfolio filled with military contractors.
Now Victoria Nuland wants to provoke, threaten and “rollback” Russia. A quick look at a map of US military bases shows who is threatening whom.
Victoria Nuland is dangerous and should not be confirmed.
*
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@protonmail.com.
Hundreds of Scientists Write To Biden To Stop Dirty Biomass Industry

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | February 11, 2021
I have been covering the scandal of burning forests for power, only made possible by obscene subsidies and EU rules that class it as “zero carbon”.
I am pleased to see that several hundred scientists have now written to Biden, von der Leyen and others, objecting to the practice on scientific rather than environmental grounds.
Their basic argument is that the new biomass industry is not sustained by offcuttings, as claimed, but by wholly new harvesting. As I have been arguing, it could take decades for the carbon dioxide released from burning to be offset by regrowth. And that assumes that these forests will be replaced, an unlikely scenario.
In the meantime of course, more trees will be chopped down for burning, leaving a permanent “carbon debt”. As they point out, burning wood for power is far more carbon intensive than coal or gas, as it has a lower energy content.
Worse still, more than half of the wood is lost in harvesting and processing, long before it reaches the power station, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere without even replacing fossil fuels. (They might also have mentioned the emissions resulting from processing and shipping).
And if that’s not bad enough, there are concerns that palm oil will be used in biomass plants. As we know, carbon dense tropical forests have been cleared already for palm oil plantations. Demand for more palm oil will be a catastrophic consequence of biomass policy.
Unfortunately biomass is now big business, not only in Europe but also in the US and Japan. Companies like Drax will fight tooth and nail to protect their generous subsidies.
Meanwhile governments will continue to turn a blind eye to this dirty industry, as without it they would find it impossible to achieve their climate targets.
