With unilateral censorship of a sitting US president, Big Tech has proven it’s more powerful than any government
By Helen Buyniski | RT | January 8, 2021
Big Tech’s moves to muscle President Donald Trump off social media have been heralded by some as victory. But a corporate-run state with politicians serving as mere figureheads amounts to the very fascism they claim to oppose.
The smug, palpable air of ‘mission accomplished’ emanating from Facebook, Twitter and Google in the weeks after the media called November’s election for Democrat Joe Biden has been hard to ignore. Thanks to an iron grip on the political narrative and the heavy-handed suppression of any influential dissenting voices, these insanely wealthy companies and their partners in the media establishment have managed to successfully upend what was left of the US’ democratic process.
In short, they have reason to celebrate, having pulled off the first successful national-level coup-by-media in US history. And better yet — for them at least — having helped the ‘right’ guy win, they won’t have to answer to any bogus charges of Russian collusion this time around. Indeed, no less than the Department of Homeland Security came forward to declare the vote the most secure in US history — a baffling claim at best, given the same officials have spent months insisting foreign infiltration supposedly had democracy hanging by a thread.
The epic pearl-clutching that followed Wednesday’s march on the Capitol is almost guaranteed to result in further restrictions on online speech — and as many observers noted, that’s just how Big Tech and Big Brother want it. No explanations have been forthcoming as to why the Capitol was largely unguarded during the protests, even though Trump had for weeks been calling on his followers to stage “wild” demonstrations on that day. Nor was it clear why Mayor Muriel Bowser waited so long before sending in police and the military to rein in the chaos.
The stage seemed to have been deliberately set for disaster, just the sort of spectacle a clever Big Business-Big Tech axis needs to terrify the masses into believing a full-on insurrection is afoot. The only real surprise in Wednesday’s events is that more people weren’t killed — but that’s where the media came in, wielding luridly detailed descriptions and photographing the most bizarrely-attired figures in the group.
By distracting the public, attributing the violence that claimed five lives to the ubiquitous Radicalized Domestic Extremists™ and banning an ever-growing number of discussion topics, Facebook, Twitter, and Google can dodge a total repeal of Section 230 liability protections and live to blanket the nation in propaganda another day. Never mind the absence of visible ‘white supremacists,’ Nazis, and other undesirables supposedly leading the pro-Trump contingent — it’s always possible to Photoshop in a Nazi insignia or 12 in post.
Ultimately, the narrative diverges from reality just enough to make its point, fingering social media as the culprit, and duping the average American into supporting further incursions on their First Amendment freedoms. The moral of the story becomes “Stop thinking, before someone gets hurt.”
And should the relationship sour, and politicians want their power back? Big Tech can easily scuttle any legislative attempts to break up its monopoly merely by threatening to expose the secrets of the dozens of government agencies that have their data stored in the cloud. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, Amazon and Google have what’s left of American ‘democracy’ by the proverbial balls, and should some crusading politician attempt to disrupt their cozy relationship, they’d almost certainly live to regret it.
It would take just one inconvenient ‘leak’ to turn the public against any Luddite savior attempting to pry Big Tech’s boot off American necks. These firms’ control of the media is so airtight that a manufactured ‘scandal’ could be cooked up and launched into cyberspace in a matter of hours. Such retaliation would serve the dual purpose of destroying the political crusader’s career and reminding other would-be do-gooders not to do anything foolish — like fighting to defend one’s own country against the megacorporations holding it hostage.
By blocking Trump from even posting on Facebook and live-streaming platform Twitch – and only recently allowed back into his Twitter account with a “final warning” after a 12-hour lockout – Big Tech has made it clear they’re no longer satisfied with a mere monopoly over one of the few profitable industries left in the US. They won’t stop accumulating power until they run politics, from the presidency to the smallest local election. With Wednesday’s riots, the carefully-choreographed dance between tech execs and the politicians who do their bidding has been given the green light to ascend to the next level. Deplatforming Trump is only the beginning of a megalomaniacal crusade against all those who would question a government by the algorithms, of the algorithms, and for the algorithms.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
U.S. Experienced Below-Average 2020 Tornado Year, Continuing Long-Term Trend
By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | January 8, 2021
The United States in 2020 experienced fewer tornadoes than average, continuing a long-term trend of fewer of the deadly, extreme-weather events.
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center (NWSSPC) reports 1,247 U.S. tornadoes in 2020, as shown in the graph below from the NWSSPC website.
But there is even more good news: The official data show trends in observed U.S. tornadoes have been declining down over the past 15 years. Note the small table inserted in the upper left of the graph.
That 2020 count of 1247 tornadoes for 2020 comes in below the mean, with the mean being 1,392 tornadoes over years 2005-2020, as shown at the bottom of the table.
But here is the really good news that you won’t see reported in the mainstream media.
According to the data table on that graph, 7 of past 9 years have been below the mean for U.S. Tornadoes, which is reflecting a long-term downward trend. Because the vast majority of tornadoes globally occur in the United States, this means that global tornadoes are becoming less frequent, also.
If you look at the data table from the graph above where I have highlighted in yellow, 11 of the past 15 years have been below the mean for U.S. Tornado counts as well.
Of course, virtually every time there is a tornado on the news, climate alarmists try to claim that “climate change” is the root cause of more tornadoes, when in fact, the official data simply don’t support that narrative. We are actually experiencing fewer tornadoes as the Earth modestly warms.
Climate alarmists won’t tell you good news like this, because the real-world data spoils their narrative. We at Climate Realism will tell you the truth, regardless of political agendas.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Analyzing The MAGA Movement’s Democratic Security Failure
By Andrew Korybko | One World | January 7, 2021
“Democratic Security” In DC
What happened in Washington DC on Wednesday was an exercise in “Democratic Security” which employed classic Color Revolution tactics for the purpose of regime reinforcement, the opposite of the regime change goal that these methods are oftentimes used to further across the world. I explained the conceptual differences and other nuances related to these terms in my two recent analyses about “The Color Revolution In DC: Anti-Constitutional Coup Or Democratic Security Movement?” and “The Moral Dilemma Of Every Color Revolution Coup & Democratic Security Movement”. The gist is that members of the Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement ended up doing almost the exact same thing as their Antifa and “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) ideological enemies have done for over the past half year already, but the difference between these two developments is each person’s individual views about the legitimacy of the political causes that these groups wanted to advance.
Liberal-Globalists vs. Conservative-Nationalists
The contextual backdrop of this week’s dramatic events was the power struggle taking place behind the scenes between different factions of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”). The liberal-globalists are represented by the Democrat Party and its extensive network of media and “NGO” proxies, and they stand in stark opposition to the conservative-nationalists represented by Trump’s MAGA. The 45th President’s election was a watershed event in global history because it marked the first time that a genuinely grassroots populist movement stood at chance at revolutionizing the political establishment in the heart of the world’s last remaining superpower. I explained the domestic appeal and implications of this in the analysis that I wrote shortly after the 2016 vote titled “Dear Foreign Friends, Here’s Why Trump Won (From A Clevelander)”. Nevertheless, Trump ultimately failed to succeed in his historic quest for a variety of reasons, but mostly stemming from the fact that most of the establishment remained dead-set against him.
RINO Rampage
The liberal-globalist faction of the “deep state” had nearly completed its silent seizure of power prior to his election, as Hillary’s wrongly predicted victory was supposed to have been the crowning achievement heralding the onset of a new era. Trump was never supposed to have won, yet he did anyhow, so his opponents united in order to fiercely oppose him tooth and nail. This importantly included the so-called “Republicans In Name Only” (RINOs), who are basically liberal-globalists just like their Democrat partners are except they sometimes support (or make a pretense of supporting) conservative socio-political issues such as the Second Amendment and anti-abortion. It was they who led the “deep state’s” sabotage against Trump by foiling most of his agenda despite their party controlling all levels of government from 2016 until the 2018 midterm elections. This practically eviscerated the political implementation of Trump’s agenda. It also bought the Democrats enough time to win back the House, partly due to the Republican base’s disgust at their party’s disloyalty to their chief.
Information War Meets Hybrid War
It also bears mentioning that the Mainstream Media and Big Tech collaborated to wage an historically unprecedented information war against the democratically elected President of the United States. This failed to dent the MAGA movement’s zeal since Trump scored millions of more votes in 2020 than he did four years prior, but it nevertheless succeeded in radicalizing opposition to him to the point where Antifa-BLM violence against his supporters became “normalized” in society over the past half year. I elaborated on their role in events and how extensively their cadre were cultivated over the years in my analysis last summer about how “The Hybrid War Of Terror On America Was Decades In The Making”. Further insight into that process was shared in one of my follow-up pieces about how “The Syncretism Of Economic Leftism & Social Fascism Is The World’s Newest Danger”. Importantly, those destabilizations unfolded in the midst of the full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes catalyzed by the world’s uncoordinated efforts to contain COVID-19.
The Strategic Context Of World War C
I described this historic development as World War C, and the reader can click on the hyperlink in the prior sentence, the three in this one, and/or here to learn more about my views on this globally significance series of trends which are beyond the scope of the present analysis. Their relevance is only important insofar as how this period of unprecedented uncertainty was exploited by the Democrats to push their agenda of mail-in voting, which the MAGA movement claimed ahead of time was highly susceptible to fraud and purportedly proved it in the two months after the election. The simultaneous unrest driven by Antifa-BLM during that time created an atmosphere of fear and tension that was intended to demoralize Trump supporters while energizing their opponents, though the first-mentioned goal failed as evidenced by the record-high number of votes for Trump while the second is debatable considering the President’s accusations of fraud. Even so, Trump promised never to give up the fight as recently as Wednesday’s Save America rally, yet he capitulated the day after the unrest.
Trump’s Suspicious Surrender
The circumstances behind his surrender are extremely suspicious. It wasn’t even he who announced as much, but White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media Dan Scavino on Twitter after Trump was temporarily blocked by Big Tech despite having publicly called on his supporters to follow the law, protest peacefully, then go home once everything got out of control. Trump had actually “gone dark” for almost an entire day prior to that happening, with nobody able to credibly account for his whereabouts after Big Tech censored his two latest de-escalation statements. One can only speculate what happened during those fateful hours, but it might very well have been the case that the President was pressured to comply with his “deep state” opponents’ demands or face ominous consequences for his refusal to do so. After all, the language in Scavino’s tweet which reportedly came from Trump himself is uncharacteristic of him and represents an unexpected about-face from his previously uncompromising position of never giving up.
Wild Wednesday
Extrapolating further, it’s worthwhile to recall what transpired on Wednesday. The massive Save America March descended on the US Capitol, after which some of its most radical participants clashed with police before the latter passively facilitated their takeover of that symbolic government building. It was only after they had seized control of the premises to the shock of everyone else and began broadcasting footage of their Antifa-BLM-like “occupation” that the decision was made by Pence — not Trump, according to reports — to dispatch the National Guard to quell the unrest. This very strongly suggests that the presidential chain of command was broken by the Vice President, who seems to have conspired with Trump’s “deep state” foes to wrest control of the armed forces from the Commander-in-Chief, perhaps because the latter might have even been temporarily detained during the prolonged period of time that he was forced to “go dark” like I speculated above. 6 January 2021, after all, was a significant day not just because of what ultimately unfolded, but because it represented the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win and the point of no return for the MAGA movement.
Trump’s “Master Plan”
It can’t be known for sure, but Trump might have had something resembling the mythological “master plan” that his most passionate supporters have long speculated that he was plotting. His congressional allies promised to object to the certification of votes from some states in order to provoke an extended debate about them during which time they could publicly present their evidence of fraud to the American people on live TV. Trump wanted his supporters to peacefully rally in their support during that time in order to create a powerful impression on the American people, perhaps to even serve as the pretext for whatever dramatic action some people rumored that he might have been plotting. Unfortunately, some radical participants of the Save America March — be they “uncontrollably zealous” supporters of the MAGA movement, “false-flag” Antifa-BLM provocateurs, or a combination thereof — broke ranks with the vast majority of peaceful protesters to violently attempt the seizure of the US Capitol building, which was curiously facilitated by local security forces.
The Sequence Of Events
That event served as the trigger for the “deep state” to spring into action by having their Big Tech allies censor Trump from social media, during which time Pence unconstitutionally broke the presidential chain of command by successfully ordering the National Guard to deploy to Washington DC. This might have even occurred while Trump was speculatively detained and possibly even threatened to indirectly release his statement of surrender through Scavino under what could very likely have been duress (hence why there’s no video footage of him recording the message). All that’s known for certain is that Trump, for whatever reason, mysteriously gave up the cause that he had just promised tens of millions of his supporters the day before that he’d never stop fighting for. He might not even have written the statement that’s attributed to him since the language isn’t anything like his own. It also strangely ended with the claim that “it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!” despite him already claiming credit many times for having successfully done this.
Concluding Thoughts
6 January 2021 will go down as a dark day in American history, but for different reasons depending on whether one supports Trump’s conservative-nationalists or his “deep state” opponents’ liberal-globalists. The first-mentioned staged an unsuccessful “Democratic Security” exercise — the most dramatic manifestation of which, the storming of the US Capitol, might have even involved “false-flag” elements — intended for regime reinforcement purposes, most immediately in terms of his MAGA congressional allies’ plan to broadcast their electoral fraud indictments live from Congress and which could have speculatively been followed up by Trump executing his rumored “master plan”. The second ones either “saved American democracy” from the MAGA movement’s “defilement” thereof or, as their ideological enemies see it, carried out an anti-constitutional coup by certifying fraudulent Electoral College votes, having Pence break the presidential chain of command, and possibly even temporarily detaining Trump until he agreed to surrender. Regardless, that day will live in infamy.
How the White House COVID Task Force Sank the Trump Presidency
By Jordan Schachtel | The American Institute for Economic Research | January 8, 2021
President Trump took in the early days of 2020 from a position of incredible strength. At the beginning of the year, no serious analyst would have told you that he was in major jeopardy of losing the 2020 election. The American economy was booming, we had solid employment numbers, no major international crises, and the president was setting up a bold agenda for his second term to further “drain the swamp” and bolster his domestic policy priorities. Election fraud was always a potential factor to be monitored, but there was no massive, unprecedented mail-in voting scheme to worry about.
But news reports coming out of Wuhan, China indicated that a potentially threatening situation was afoot. On January 29, President Trump acted with haste in authorizing the creation of a White House Coronavirus Task Force. A month later, the small task force expanded to include Vice President Mike Pence as its chairman. In what will be looked back on as a catastrophic delegation mistake, the VP decided to appoint Dr. Deborah Birx as the response coordinator for the task force. Prior to the COVID crisis, Birx was best known for her work on an HIV/AIDS vaccine, which does not exist. She had never been anywhere near having access to the levers of power in America.
The COVID task force would soon grow to 27 members, but several of the individuals appointed to the task force are cabinet level officials, and could not devote their entire portfolio to the coronavirus. That led to an opening that allowed for Dr Anthony Fauci, Dr Deborah Birx, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and a few others to monopolize the policy shop set up by the task force for the coronavirus crisis.
With much of the world succumbing to total fear, panic, and hysteria, and a wave of new lockdowns hitting Europe and elsewhere, President Trump remained incredibly level-headed. In discussing COVID-19, the president reminded his colleagues that the “cure could not be worse than the disease.” There was a chance that America would join Sweden and a handful of other nations balking at the trend to hit the self-destruct button.
Fauci and Birx had other plans, and they eventually found a diabolical method to ratchet up the pressure to such an incredible extent that the president would finally agree to their demands.
In mid March, with the “European wave” in full swing, the two government bureaucrats presented junk epidemiological models to the president that seemed more like a hostage-like situation than policy advice. Birx and Fauci vouched for the supposed science of a mere model devised by a handful of academics in England, which claimed that millions of Ameicans would die if President Trump did not lock down the nation immediately. The coronavirus was presented as a ticking time bomb that would wipe out a significant percentage of the nation if the president did not act right away. Under enormous pressure to “do something” to react to the crisis, the president made the fatal mistake of agreeing to what was advertised as a very temporary two week lockdown policy initiative. At the flip of a switch, the president authorized the federal response plan, and state governors were now instituting what was marketed as a 15 day reset in order to retain hospital capacity for the supposedly deadly wave that was coming to America. We were told that after the two weeks, things could then return to normal and that the 30 million small businesses across America would be able to open back up relatively unscathed.
15 Days to Slow The Spread then became 30 Days To Slow The Spread. The so-called crisis kept growing to the point that the task force members were soon not even addressing the end point to their draconian policy demands. The president, who already had severe doubts about the policies pushed by Fauci, Birx, Redfield, and crew, eventually acceded so much territory to the public health bureaucrats that it seemed at times he had handed over the keys to his presidency to the task force.
The Fauci-Birx policy goal posts continued to shift dramatically over the course of the Spring. The goals were no longer about retaining hospital capacity, but permanently transforming the nation into a COVID safety regime, despite the data rolling in showing a disease that was not nearly as threatening as once perceived. The U.S. economy was no longer booming. Instead, it was in a self-inflicted freefall. Tens of millions of Americans were in crisis, and right in the middle of what was now a heated election cycle. The health bureaucrats’ coronavirus policies were tearing apart the fabric of the nation, and the presidency was now very much up for grabs. The president could no longer point to his economic record, his peacetime regime, or his steady hand, because all of these talking points were being compromised by bad coronavirus policies.
All of a sudden, the president was now on defense, having completely lost the narrative to the panic mongers in government and media. The 2020 campaign was very much within the margins of a contested election.
President Trump, having privately evolved to “Team Reason” on COVID policy, and having witnessed the reality that the coronavirus was not living up to its destructive hype once promised by Fauci and Birx, wanted to take action to correct the record.
He tried to reset the narrative and bring back a reasonable, rational policy, but it was too late. America had already decided to buy the pseudoscience that Fauci and Birx, among others, were selling to them. It was no longer politically suitable to simply dismiss his prior capitulation to the public health bureaucrats on his task force. Fauci had become a worshipped celebrity figure with solid approval ratings, and sadly, much of the nation was now propagandized into supporting the disastrous lockdowns that were destroying the nation.
Many on the “Team Reason” side of the debate celebrated the appointment of Dr. Scott Atlas, — at the personal request of President Trump — as a desperately needed breath of fresh air for a task force that was peddling failed ideas and junk science. But Atlas, to no fault of his own, failed to make an impact on the task force. That’s because the fix was in from the beginning. The team assembled by VP Pence, which at this point was unapologetically, publicly recommending an extreme COVID policy agenda of economic and societal destruction, went to work immediately to distance themselves from Atlas, and waged a full fledged information warfare campaign against him.
Sources in the Trump Administration, who had first-hand access to Coronavirus Task Force meetings and conversations, made it clear to me that the health bureaucrats made it their mission to destroy and delegitimize Scott Atlas, who quietly resigned from his role in late November. Sources familiar with Atlas’s thought process told me that he was incredibly frustrated by the government bureaucrats’ devotion to their select non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and other forms of societal and economic devastation. Atlas also remained frustrated by what could be described as a lack of overall intellect on the task force.
Emails surfaced showing that White House Task Force members such as Birx, Fauci, Redfield, and others were enraged that Dr Atlas came to the table with a different set of ideas, and they rightly perceived him as a threat to their monopoly on their pro-lockdown COVID messaging campaigns. Birx, for her part, routinely sent out emails through private channels to media reporters and her colleagues seeking to undermine the ideas presented by Atlas, while simultaneously refusing to defend her ideas or debate his solutions in person.
By the time President Trump decided to rebuke the task force in calling for an expedited return to normalcy, the political damage had already been done. The president’s campaign messaging was stuck in a strange place between attempting to have their COVID cake and eat it too, in recognizing that polling shifted in the direction of the restrictionist camp.
By agreeing to Fauci and Birx’s initial COVID ransom situation demands, the president set in motion a wave of momentum against him that he could never get back.
We are now just days away from President Trump being replaced by Joe Biden, and the White House COVID Task Force, led by career bureaucrats and incompetent politicians, continues its broken mission. For reasons that remain unclear, Fauci, Birx, and the gang remain on the COVID Task Force, and to this day, the White House is still delivering corona panic to states across the nation. The Task Force will live on, and to the not-so-hidden delight of its members, President Trump is president no more.
More War by Other Means: Sanctioning the Wife of Syria’s President Makes No Sense to Anyone
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 7, 2021
More sanctions, by all means. More grief and suffering and more people around the world wondering what exactly the United States is doing.
I am a recipient of regular, usual weekly, emails from the Department of the Treasury providing an “Update to OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) and Blocked Persons.” OFAC is the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is tasked with both identifying and managing the financial punishments meted out to those individuals and groups that have been sanctioned by the United States government. A recent update, on November 10th, included “Non-Proliferation Designations; Iran-related Designations.” There were ten items on the list, names of Chinese and Iranian individuals and companies. Those who are “Specially Designated” on the list are subject to having their assets blocked if located in the United States and are also not allowed to engage in any financial transactions that go through U.S. banking channels. As many international banks respect U.S. Treasury “designations” lest they themselves be subjected to secondary sanctions that often means in effect that the individual or group cannot move money in a large part of the global financial marketplace.
The complete SDN list is hundreds of pages long. The Treasury Department defines and justifies OFAC’s mission “As part of its enforcement efforts, OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. It also lists individuals, groups, and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under programs that are not country-specific. Collectively, such individuals and companies are called ‘Specially Designated Nationals’ or ‘SDNs.’ Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.”
In reality, of course, OFAC’s sanctions are highly political. They are clearly a form of economic warfare, particularly when entire sectors of a nation’s economy are blocked or a part of a government itself is listed as has been the case with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force. Wave after wave of “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran have made it difficult for the country to sell its only major marketable resource, oil, and it has been locked out of most normal financial networks, making it difficult or even impossible to buy food and medicines.
In many cases sanctions have no practical effect but are rather intended to send a message. There have been new sanctions directed against Moscow and Russian government officials have been sanctioned due to their alleged involvement in activities that the United States does not approve of. The sanctions are imposed even though those “specially designated” have no assets in the U.S. and do not engage in any international financial transactions that could be blocked or disrupted. In those cases, the federal government is sending a message to whomever has been sanctioned to warn them that they are being watched and their behavior has become a matter of record. It is basically a form of intimidation.
Whether sanctions actually work is debatable. The example of Cuba, which was sanctioned by the U.S. for nearly sixty years, would suggest not. Some would argue that on the contrary countries with totalitarian regimes would actually improve their behavior if their citizens could travel freely and welcome visitors, providing evidence that foreigners do not pose a threat justifying a police state.
Within the United States government, it is largely accepted that the most powerful advocate of the sanctions regime is Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, who has been the driving force behind recent sanctions directed against both China and Iran. If that is so he might well be challenged on one of the most bizarre and basically pointless applications of sanctions in recent years, targeting Asma the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as her family that lives in London and are British citizens. Per Pompeo’s statement on the new sanctions “The Department of State today is imposing sanctions on Asma al-Assad, the wife of Bashar al-Assad, for impeding efforts to promote a political resolution of the Syrian conflict pursuant to Section 2(a)(i)(D) of Executive Order 13894… Asma al-Assad has spearheaded efforts on behalf of the regime to consolidate economic and political power, including by using her so-called charities and civil society organizations.”
But the real kicker is Pompeo’s condemnation of Asma, of Syrian origin but English born and raised, is how he involves her family. Her father-in-law Fawaz is a renowned cardiologist at Cromwell Hospital in South Kensington who was educated in England and has lived there for decades. “In addition, we are sanctioning several members of Asma al-Assad’s immediate family, including Fawaz Akhras, Sahar Otri Akhras, Firas al Akhras, and Eyad Akhras as per Section 2(a)(ii) of EO 13894. The Assad and Akhras families have accumulated their ill-gotten riches at the expense of the Syrian people through their control over an extensive, illicit network with links in Europe, the Gulf, and elsewhere.”
Inevitably, no evidence is provided to support any of the allegations about Asma al-Assad and her English family. Asma’s charities are for real in her war-torn country and she is highly respected and admired by those who know her and are not influenced by U.S. and Israeli propaganda.
In reality, the United States has been trying hard to overthrow the Syrian government since 2004 when the Syria Accountability Act was passed. Much of the heat in Congress behind the passage of the act was generated by the Israel Lobby, which wanted to weaken the regime and reduce its ability to represent a viable military force possibly capable of regaining the occupied Golan Heights. Be that as it may, the United States has been hostile to the country’s government and has frequently called for regime change. To bring that about, the U.S. supported al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups operating against Damascus and American soldiers continue to occupy Syrian oil fields in the southeast portion of the country. The Syrians have also been subjected to waves of sanctions that have done grave damage to their economy. American and Israeli concerns have sometimes been linked to the presence of Damascus’ allies Hezbollah and Iran, both of whom have military units based inside Syria, but the simple fact is that neither Iranians nor Lebanese in any way threaten the vastly superior American and Israeli forces present in the region.
One has to ask why, given the realpolitik playing out in the Middle East, Washington and Pompeo feel compelled to go after Asma al-Assad and her family, apparently to include absurdly blaming relatives living for many years outside of Syria for fueling the war. More sanctions, by all means. More grief and suffering and more people around the world wondering what exactly the United States is doing.
Omaha World-Herald Gets Facts Wrong Blaming Mild Nebraska Drought on Climate Change
By H. Sterling Burnett | ClimateRealism | January 6, 2021
A story in the Omaha World-Herald, titled “Drought, wildfires are Nebraska’s top weather stories of 2020,” asserts climate change caused unusual drought in Nebraska last year. In reality, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data show Nebraska is benefiting from a long-term increase in precipitation, even if occasional drought still exists. Global warming may not completely end drought in Nebraska, but drought is becoming less frequent and less severe as the Earth modestly warms.
The World-Herald article states, “At the start of 2020, not an acre of Nebraska was in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Now, more than 99% of Nebraska is in drought, with half in severe to extreme drought. The state hasn’t seen a drought this extensive since the flash drought of 2012 lingered into 2013, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.”
“Through November, Nebraska was in the midst of its 15th driest year out of 126,” the World-Herald article added.
As the World-Herald admits, Nebraska had not experienced substantial drought during the previous seven years, and 2020 was not even in the top 10 percent of historic droughts. That is hardly the sign of unusual drought, let alone drought caused by climate change.
Indeed, NOAA precipitation data (see the two NOAA charts, below) show Nebraska is enjoying both a long-term increase in precipitation and a medium-term increase in precipitation. If all trends show more precipitation and less drought, how can one blame the few remaining droughts that occur on climate change?
Also, NOAA data (see the NOAA chart below) show no increase in hot summer temperatures. Indeed, hot summer days were much more prevalent throughout the first half of the 20th century than has been the case in recent years and decades. This also contradicts any assertion of more Nebraska drought.
The World-Herald cites a single source, Nebraska state climatologist Martha Shulksi, for the claim that climate change is causing more weather extremes, including drought. But even Shulksi noted, “weather extremes are normal in Nebraska because the state sits at the crossroads of continental climate patterns.” And, of course, 2020 wasn’t even that extreme – it was a fairly typical dry year.
Had the World-Herald examined Nebraska’s drought history for context, it would have found that research published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR) states, “It is important to remember that droughts, including multiple-year droughts, are a normal part of Nebraska’s climate.”
The data graphically displayed in Figure 1 in IANR’s paper, “Multiple-Year Droughts In Nebraska,” show no increasing trend in the frequency or intensity of droughts in Nebraska over the past century, nor does it display an increased tendency for Nebraska to swing from weather extremes, wet to dry, year to year.
Data in the paper do show, by contrast, that since 1220 A.D., Nebraska has experienced 11 droughts of more than 10 years in length, but only one since 1900, and that one, ending in 1931, was 90 years of global warming ago. Indeed, Nebraska’s lengthiest droughts occurred before 1700, in the midst of the Little Ice Age, with six droughts surpassing 18 years in length during a 400-year period of cooler temperatures. Nebraska’s lengthiest droughts spanned 38 years (1275 to 1313) and 26 years (1539 to 1564), while the Earth was cooling in the Little Ice Age. Nebraska’s last drought of greater than 10 years in length ended in 1895, which was near the end of the Little Ice Age.
Data from NOAA and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), discussed in Climate at a Glance: Drought, also demonstrate drought has not become more frequent or severe in recent decades in either the United States or across the Northern Hemisphere as a whole.
Indeed, the IPCC reports with “high confidence” that precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere (including the United States) during the past 70 years, while IPCC has “low confidence” about any negative trends globally. Also, NOAA reports that the United States is undergoing its longest period in recorded history without at least 40 percent of the country experiencing “very dry” conditions. In 2017 and 2019, the United States registered its smallest percentage of land area experiencing drought in recorded history.
The Omaha World-Herald may be looking to sell newspapers, but it should act responsibly and not attempt to do so by publishing false and sensationalist claims about extreme drought conditions – assertedly caused by human-caused climate change – that simply do not exist.
I am so Happy for America
By Gilad Atzmon | January 07, 2021
Finally it has achieved what its elite has pushed for.
America is a united country: its senate, congress and future president are guided by the same ‘progressive’ ideology that is also shared by its financial elite, cultural industry, academia and of course, the mainstream media.
America is institutionally united but Americans couldn’t be more divided.
The United States has been a social testing ground for a while. But from now on until further notice, there is no established or institutional opposition to this groundbreaking experiment.
But I am optimistic, I would give it the necessary time. We may find out soon that all these so-called rebellious ‘reactionaries,’ ‘cowboys,’ ‘rednecks,’ and ‘deplorables’ actually like the new cultural and spiritual offering. They may be quick to adopt the revolutionary spirit. They might, for instance, agree to dump their delusional beliefs in gender being a binary matter. Give it four years or even eight, not one American will be able to recall what man or woman meant.
Following the rapid dismantling of police forces, American thieves and burglars will also be quick to morph. Peacefully they will knock on your door. They will introduce themselves and explain the rationale behind their will to obtain some of your belongings. You, on your privileged part, may save them the energy, by then you will also gather that whatever is precious to you better belong to the people. The shift will be so immense that reactionary 2nd amendment enthusiasts will voluntarily develop repulsion towards their own guns. They will find themselves delivering their lethal toys to their local scrapyard, they may even ask to witness their Colt 45 being melted.
It’s likely that sooner rather than later, we’ll be so used to being locked in our homes that we stop seeking any meaningful social engagement, let alone intimacy of a libidinal nature that may expose us to other people’s disgusting germs.
From the very first day of his presidency, I gathered that by the time Trump finishes his historical role, the United States will be reduced to a very small and insignificant country. This is not a bad thing. America is, by now, far less of a danger to world peace, let alone itself.
I am not going to be nostalgic for Trump, Kushner or Adelson. I never thought that Trump would clean the swamp and I didn’t understand why he believed he wasn’t part of it himself. Trump was and still is a very peculiar character. He was loved and admired by many. He was also hated by at least as many. People who love Trump (and there are many of them) know exactly what they like about him. People who are repulsed by the man and for understandable reasons, also know what they can’t tolerate about him. Trump is certainly an authentic ‘character,’ not something that can be said about any of his rivals. Trump was brilliant in drawing the lines of the battle that is inflicted on all of us. He clearly wasn’t very skillful or subtle in fighting or leading this battle, let alone winning it.
Maybe no one is skillful, brave or sophisticated enough to lead such an impossible battle. It could be much simpler to identify the cultural and ideological elements that impose this war on us all of us. We should then uproot this culture and expose its envoys.
Democrats Move To Ban Trump From Running In 2024 As Articles Of Impeachment Circulate
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 7, 2021
New articles of impeachment against President Trump introduced by Rep. David Cicilline seek not only to remove him from office for the very short remainder of his term – they would block him from ever running for office again.
According to the articles, President Trump’s insistence that he won the election by a “landslide” and other statements “encouraged – and foreseeably resulted in – imminent lawless action at the Capitol” on Wednesday.
Trump’s behavior “warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.”
* * *
Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, and incoming Senate majority leader after the Dems victory in the Georgia runoffs, called for Donald Trump to be immediately removed from office, saying that the outgoing president was directly responsible for Wednesday’s riot in the Capitol.
In a statement, Schumer said Vice President Mike Pence should invoke the Constitution’s 25th amendment, using support of the cabinet to take over in the Oval Office until Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
“What happened at the US Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president,” said Schumer. “This president should not hold office one day longer.”
“If the vice president and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president,” Schumer added.
And indicating that this is not just a frivolous tweet by Schumer, and that Democrats plan on pushing for this until completion, Nancy Pelosi is holding a 1pm presser in which we expect the topic of Trump’s prompt removal to be the main topic of discussion.
Anti-Trump NYT Wants Him Removed from Office and Prosecuted
By Stephen Lendman | January 7, 2021
The self-styled newspaper of record has been hostile toward Trump since he announced his candidacy for president in 2015.
The broadsheet’s rage greatly intensified after he defeated media darling Hillary.
It continued virtually daily throughout his time in office — largely for invented reasons, ignoring most important ones.
It wants him tarred and feathered by impeachment and prosecution. See below.
Pre-dawn January 7, the race for the White House officially ended — after what may have been orchestrated Wednesday violence on Capitol Hill.
It shifted over half of congressional Republicans to join with Dems in formally ending Trump’s tenure by elevating Biden/Harris to power in days.
It’s all over but the postmortems that may include an attempt by undemocratic Dems and perhaps GOP collaborators to remove Trump from office despite only days remaining in his tenure.
No US president was ever removed by impeachment. Will Trump break precedent a scant two weeks before Biden/Harris replace him?
What’s inconceivable at this late stage is possible though unlikely.
The Times is leading the 11th hour jihad against him.
In its latest edition, it carpet-bombed him with a virtual blitzkrieg of calls for his head.
Its pro-war, pro-business, anti-governance of, by, and for everyone equitably according to the rule of law editors led the charge — to their disgrace.
“Trump is to blame for Capitol (Hill) attack (sic),” they falsely raged, adding:
He “incited his followers to violence (sic). There must be consequences (sic).”
Claiming he “sparked” Wednesday Capitol Hill violence was a bald-faced Big Lie — typical of how the Times operates while suppressing what’s vital for everyone to know.
Times editors want Trump held “accountable” for what he had nothing to do with, and more.
They want him “criminal(ly) prosecut(ed) (sic).”
They want congressional Republicans “bear(ing) a measure of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol (sic).”
They continue to pretend that Biden/Harris won the November 3 election they lost.
Notably they pretend that fantasy US democracy is the real thing.
They, Times correspondents and columnists consistently lie, deceive and betray the public trust.
Election 2020 and its aftermath are glaring examples of breaching journalism the way it should be, what Times management and editors long ago banned on its pages.
A same day article explained what may have been a Wednesday Capitol Hill false flag to elevate Biden/Harris to power by falsely blaming Trump for what happened.
No evidence suggests it because there is none.
The latest Times edition included the following anti-Trump hit pieces:
“Congress Confirms Biden’s Win (sic), Defying Mob Attack”
“Daily Distortions: There is no evidence that antifa activists stormed the Capitol (sic)”
“A West Virginia lawmaker was a part of the mob of Trump supporters who breached the building (sic).”
“Biden Denounces Storming of Capitol as a ‘Dark Moment’ in Nation’s History (sic)”
“Trump Told Crowd ‘You Will Never Take Back Our Country With Weakness’ ”
None of Trump’s remarks Wednesday or earlier called for inciting violence on Capitol Hill — just the opposite.
“A Mob and the Breach of Democracy (sic): The Violent End of the Trump Era (sic)”
“ ‘Be There. Will Be Wild!’: Trump All but Circled the Date (sic)”— his remark expressing no support for violence.
“Jeff Flake: My Fellow Republicans, Trump Is Destroying Us (sic)”
“Trump’s Real Claim to Fame… He’s going to be remembered by history as the Biggest Loser (sic).”
“Trump Incites Rioters (sic)” — Repeating the Times’ bald-faced Big Lie
The hit piece called him a “Benedict Arnold (sic).”
“The Pro-Trump Movement Was Always Headed Here” — falsely blaming him for Capitol Hill violence.
“Have Trump’s Lies Wrecked Free Speech?”
Indeed he’s a serial liar, but claiming he incited Capitol Hill violence by the Times is a whopper of a Big Lie.
“America’s Friends and Foes Express Horror as Capitol Attack ‘Shakes the World’ ”
How will they react if and when it’s known that Wednesday’s violence was orchestrated against Trump to assure he’s replaced on January 20?
“Impeach and Convict. Right Now (sic).”
The hit piece defied reality by calling Trump “too dangerous to leave in office for even another minute” — typical of Times contempt for truth-telling, along with insulting its readers by feeding them this rubbish.
The piece urged House and Senate members to reconvene straightaway, “remove” him from office, and “bar him from ever holding office again.”
“To allow Trump to serve out his term, however brief it may be, puts the nation’s safety at risk (sic).”
No responsible editors would permit publication of this rubbish.
Like many times before on other issues, the Times featured it.
Thursday’s anti-Trump blitzkrieg by the Times and other Big Media will likely be followed by much more as long as he remains in office, perhaps continuing after his tenure ends.
Instead of truth and full disclosure, continued managed news misinformation and disinformation ahead is certain.
A Final Comment
ABC News reported that unnamed members of Trump’s cabinet are “discussing invoking the 25th Amendment.”
Referring to presidential disability and succession, it states:
“In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”
The amendment largely deals with presidential succession in case an incumbent dies in office or is too ill or unable to serve.
A number of former presidents died in office, including Lincoln and JFK by assassination and FDR from natural causes.
Others suffered debilitating illnesses and injuries and were unable to perform their duties.
The 25th amendment became US law to assure a smooth transition of power under the above circumstances — not for impeachment by other means.
At this time, it’s unclear what’s ahead during Trump’s remaining days in office.
What’s very clear is that an open, free, and fair US society, according to the rule of law, suffered a major body blow, perhaps a fatal one.
That’s what 1/6/21 will be most remembered for long after the dust clears.
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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