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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Idaho Health Board First in U.S. to Defy CDC and FDA by Removing COVID Vaccines From Clinics

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covid vaccines and word "removed"
by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.
 

Idaho’s Southwest District Health will no longer offer COVID-19 vaccines after its board voted 4-3 last week to pull the shots from the 30 locations where it provides healthcare services.

 Idaho’s Southwest District Health will no longer offer COVID-19 vaccines after its board voted 4-3 last week to pull the shots from the 30 locations where it provides healthcare services.

“It’s the first health agency in America to do that,” Laura Demaray, a Southwest Idaho resident and nurse who attended the Oct. 22 vote, told The Defender.

Miste Karlfeldt, executive director of Health Freedom Idaho, agreed that the board’s vote is historic. “It’s thrilling,” she told The Defender.

The board’s vote came after it received about 300 public comments urging the district, which encompasses six counties, to stop promoting the shots.

Just before the board voted, members heard presentations from cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, pediatrician Dr. Renata Moon and obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. James Thorp on safety concerns related to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr. John Tribble, the board’s only physician, invited them to speak.

“Dr. Tribble was a very brave board member who is very aware of the harms of the COVID injection,” said Demaray. “He asked me to help gather the presenters.”

Demaray, who said she knows many people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, and others reached out to experts who could present data related to COVID-19 vaccine harms to the board. “It was total teamwork.”

Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense CEO, applauded the board’s action:

“After hearing from 300 constituents, listening to well-informed physicians and assessing the public record, the Southwest Idaho Health District Board made an informed decision not to stock its own clinics with COVID shots.”

Demaray and Holland pointed out that the board didn’t take away anyone’s freedom to get a COVID-19 vaccine. “If residents want, they can obtain the shots from other pharmacies and doctors’ offices,” Holland said.

Demaray said the board’s decision showed “there’s some distrust in this shot.” She added:

“If a health district is giving a shot in their own clinics, then it means they believe in the shot and they don’t think somebody will get hurt. It means they support it tacitly.”

Holland said, “The Health District Board was conveying its values to the public — ‘these products are unsafe and we do not promote them’ — and the board was within its authority to do this.”

A precedent for other health agencies?

Tribble told The Defender some of the backstory leading up to the historic vote. “The people of this district were demanding answers,” he said. “Many came forward with heartbreaking stories of vaccine injury.”

After listening to its residents, the board members felt it was important to allow “the free and open discussion and evaluation of the evidence for and against the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

In addition to hearing presentations from McCullough, Moon, Cole and Thorp, the board also heard from district staff physician Dr. Perry Jansen who recommended keeping the vaccine on the district’s clinic shelves.

“In the end,” Tribble said, “the evidence clearly showed a lack of safety and efficacy as it compares to the risk from COVID-19 and their [the board members’] decision reflected that.”

The board members who voted to remove the shot “exhibited courage” because they did so “based on the evidence, in direct opposition to the federal health agencies’ recommendations.” Tribble said:

“I believe our actions here stand as an example and precedent for other health agencies to take back control of their health and freedoms from a corrupted federal system. I hope this will inspire other health agencies to openly discuss this issue and evaluate the evidence for themselves.”

‘That is how you open up a can of truth’

Karlfeldt said she’s confident the board’s landmark decision will embolden other health administrators across Idaho and the rest of the U.S. to make similar moves.

Demaray agreed. She said she already heard from two other Idaho health districts that are now considering pulling the COVID-19 shots from their clinics after learning of the Southwest District’s vote.

Demaray encouraged other U.S. citizens to reach out to their local health board members, asking them to review the safety information on the COVID-19 vaccines.

Many federal health agency leaders are captured by industry, but that’s not the case with most local-level health officials, Demaray said. “They aren’t all bought out yet.”

“If you bring your local doctors like Dr. Tribble — or Dr. Cole, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Moon and Dr. Thorp — if you bring them and they make presentations, it is public record and your community gets to see that,” she said.

“That is how you open up a can of truth,” Demaray added.

There’s a lot of power at the local level because while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends COVID-19 vaccines and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves them, it’s typically the local agencies that adopt policies to promote them.

Holland said, “Sadly, people need to accept that they cannot trust the federal government anymore when it comes to their health.”

VAERS: 1.6 million reports of injury or death after COVID vaccination

Nicolas Hulscher, an epidemiologist at the McCullough Foundation, commended the board for its action.

“Southwest Idaho Health District has made the correct and brave choice to remove COVID-19 injections from their clinics,” Hulscher said. “The updated boosters were never tested in humans, while previous iterations have demonstrated that they’re not safe for human use.”

Hulscher noted that Boise State Public Radio’s coverage of the vote labeled the presentations by McCullough and others as “anti-vaccine.”

The Boise State Public Radio article — which referred to McCullough and the other presenters as “doctors widely accused of spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation” — appeared to “blindly favor COVID-19 vaccines,” he said, “while ignoring deeply worrisome safety data.”

For instance, the number of injuries and deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID-19 vaccination continues to climb.

VAERS is the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before confirming the reported adverse event was caused by the vaccine. VAERS has historically been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

As of Sept. 27, there were 1,604,710 VAERS reports of injury or death following a COVID-19 vaccination.

The board’s vote has helped create greater public awareness that the COVID-19 shots “are massively injurious gene therapy products,” Holland said.

Tribble agreed:

“People need to understand that these shots are not vaccines by the traditional definition. That is to say, they do not impart immunity or prevent transmission.

“They were rushed to market, given legal immunity and coercively pushed upon the world’s population backed by unfounded fears spread by governments and media.”

Moreover, the safety and efficacy data we have is limited and primarily released by the same vaccine companies that stood to make hundreds of billions of dollars off of these injections, Tribble added.

“This experiment with mRNA gene therapy during COVID-19 will be shown to be one of the most egregious examples of democide in world history,” he said.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/idaho-health-board-defy-cdc-fda-covid-vaccines-clinics/

Australian DGA Hides from Questions About Sudden Infant Deaths After Vaccination

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Credit: Shutterstock

Maryanne Demasi, PhD

Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are names for the sudden and unexpected death of a baby when there is no apparent cause of death.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has gone to ground after being confronted with questions about a series of sudden deaths in infants who received the Infanrix-Hexa® vaccine.

The “hexavalent” vaccine protects against six diseases (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, hepatitis B and Hib) and is administered to infants at 2, 4 and 6 months of age.

Approved by the TGA in 2006, the vaccine lies at the heart of the National Immunisation Program, and has been administered to millions of babies across the country.

FOI request

A freedom of information (FOI) request for the number of deaths reported after use of the Infanrix-Hexa® vaccine has revealed some worrying data.

The Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN) shows 17 reported deaths in infants.

A further 26 reported deaths exist in the TGA’s ‘internal’ database, the Adverse Event Management System (AEMS), according to a recent FOI report.

Overall, 43 sudden unexpected deaths have been reported in babies mostly under 12 months of age, which have occurred within a day or two of vaccination.

Now, after many weeks of enquiries, the TGA has gone into hiding and refuses to confirm whether it has made any attempt to investigate the deaths.

Warnings from Europe

Infanrix-Hexa® was first authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2000, and the public has never been alerted to any safety issues.

EMA says it monitors pharmacovigilance data in the form of Periodic Safety Update Reports (PSURs), which are submitted by the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Essentially, PSURs describe the worldwide safety experience of the vaccine over a defined period, and are not usually available to the public for independent scrutiny.

However, a major lawsuit in Italy involving GSK, resulted in the Judge ordering the drug company to publicly release its PSURs for the Infanrix Hexa® vaccine.

Those documents were sent to Jacob Puliyel, a paediatrician and Head of the Department of Paediatrics, St Stephen’s Hospital, Delhi, who carried out an independent review.

The analysis revealed a cluster of sudden deaths among infants less than 12 months of age — 54 deaths (93%) occurred within the first 10 days of vaccination, and 4 deaths (7%) occurred within the next 10 days of vaccination.

Further, when he compared the rate of ‘expected’ sudden deaths, to the ‘actual’ rate of sudden deaths post-vaccination, there was a statistically significant increased risk of death in the first four days after vaccination, compared to the expected deaths.

The report concluded, “The clustering of deaths soon after immunisation suggests that the deaths were caused by the vaccine.”

Puliyel published the findings in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics in 2018.

A newspaper with text on it Description automatically generated

The report also showed that infant deaths, which were reported in the safety report (PSUR 16) were deleted in the PSUR 19, effectively underreporting the number of observed deaths in the final report seen by EMA.

I contacted Puliyel to ask why EMA had not raised the alarm regarding the PSUR data, and he said he thought the data were misleadingly presented to EMA.

“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that EMA colluded with GSK in the subterfuge, but I think EMA was negligent and accepted the manufacturers’ deceptive data and interpretations unquestioningly,” he said.

Puliyel criticised EMA for its lax monitoring of post-marketing adverse events and has been urging all regulators to do better.

After the publication of his findings, Puliyel said there was no excuse for EMA to ignore the data discrepancies.

“The silence suggests EMA has no defence,” he remarked.

“I think nowadays, surveillance methods are designed to protect vaccine company profits rather than the public,” he added.

When I contacted EMA, the agency denied that deaths were “deleted” from the report as Puliyel claims.

Instead, EMA said the deaths were “reclassified” after it was determined the babies died of underlying diseases, such as “viral meningitis, an inborn error of metabolism congenital hydrocephalus and congenital heart disease.”

Puliyel rejected EMA’s explanation, calling it “singularly unconvincing.”

“Viral meningitis, congenital hydrocephalus and congenital heart disease would have been obvious at the time of vaccination when the children died – not discovered many years later,” explained Puliyel.

“EMA has to explain why these obvious underlying causes were not considered causes of death when the 16thPSUR report was published and why it had to be ‘reclassified’ years later,” remarked Puliyel.

‘When the number of sudden deaths exceeded deaths expected as per the calculations in the 19th PSUR – there was this urge to ‘reclassify’ three sudden unexplained deaths as ‘deaths due to underlying causes,’” he said.

TGA enquiries continue

Efforts to compel a response from the TGA will continue, but the latest data on Infanrix-Hexa® have raised broader questions about the safety of the newer generation of vaccines designed to protect against multiple diseases within a single shot.

[…]

Via https://blog.maryannedemasi.com/p/tga-hides-from-questions-about-sudden

Media Changes Narrative as the Ukrainian Proxy War is Coming to an End

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For The Global Proxy War In Ukraine To End, The US Must First Want It To End

Glenn Diesen

The Economist reports that “Russia is slicing through Ukrainian defences” and Ukraine is subsequently “struggling to survive”.[1] Across the Western media, the public is prepared for defeat and painful concessions in future negotiations. The media is changing the narrative as reality can no longer be ignored. Russia’s coming victory has been obvious since at least the summer of 2023, yet this was ignored to keep the proxy war going.

We are witnessing an impressive demonstration of narrative control: For more than two years, the political-media elites have been chanting “Ukraine is winning” and denounced any dissent to their narrative as “Kremlin talking points” that aim to reduce support for the war. What was “Russian propaganda” yesterday is now suddenly the consensus of the collective media. Critical self-reflection is as absent as it was after the Russiagate reporting.

Similar narrative control was displayed when the media reassured the public for two decades that NATO was winning, before fleeing in a great rush with dramatic images of people falling off an airplane.

The media deceived the public by presenting the stagnant frontlines as evidence that Russia was not winning. However, in a war of attrition, the direction of the war is measured by attrition rates – the losses on each side. Territorial control comes after the adversary has been exhausted as territorial expansion is very costly in such high-intensity warfare with powerful defensive lines. The attrition rates have throughout the war been extremely unfavourable to Ukraine, and they continuously get worse. The current collapse of the Ukrainian frontlines was very predictable as the manpower and weaponry have been exhausted.

Why has the former narrative expired? The public could be misled by fake attrition rates, yet it is not possible to cover up territorial changes after the eventual breaking point. Furthermore, the proxy war was beneficial to NATO when the Russians and Ukrainians were bleeding each other without any significant territorial changes. Once the Ukrainians are exhausted and begin to lose strategic territory, it is no longer in the interest of NATO to continue the war.

Narrative Control: Weaponising Empathy

The political-media elites weaponised empathy to get public support for war and disdain for diplomacy. The Western public was convinced to support the proxy war against Russia by appealing to their empathy for the suffering of Ukrainians and the injustice of their loss of sovereignty. Yet, all appeals to empathy are always translated into support for continued warfare and dismissing diplomatic solutions.

Those who disagreed with the NATO’s mantra that “weapons are the way to peace” and instead suggested negotiations, were quickly dismissed as puppets of the Kremlin who did not care about Ukrainians. Support for continued fighting in a war that cannot be won has been the only acceptable expression of empathy.

For the postmodernists seeking to socially construct their own reality, great power rivalry is largely a battle of narratives. The weaponisation of empathy enabled the war narrative to become impervious to criticism. War is virtuous and diplomacy is treasonous as Ukraine was allegedly fighting Russia’s unprovoked war with the objective to subjugate the entire country. A strong moral framing a convinced people to deceive and self-censor in support of the noble cause.

Even criticism of how Ukrainian civilians were dragged into cars by their government and sent to their deaths on the frontlines was portrayed as supporting “Kremlin talking points” as it undermined the NATO war narrative.

Reporting on high Ukrainian casualty rates threatened to undermine support for the war. Reporting on the failure of sanctions threatened to reduce public support for the sanctions. Reporting on the likely US destruction of Nord Stream threatened to create divisions within the miliary bloc. Reporting on the US and UK sabotage of the Minsk agreement and the Istanbul negotiations threatens the narrative of NATO merely attempting to “help” Ukraine. The public is offered the binary option of adhering either to the pro-Ukraine/NATO narrative or the pro-Russia narrative. Anyone challenging the narrative with inconvenient facts could thus be accused of supporting Moscow’s narrative. Reporting that Russia was winning was uncritically interpreted as taking Russia’s side.

There are ample of facts and statements that demonstrate NATO has been fighting to the last Ukrainian to weaken a strategic rival. Yet, the strict narrative control entails that such evidence have not been permitted to be discussed.

The Objectives of a Proxy War: Bleeding the Adversary

The strict demand for loyalty to the narrative conceals unreported facts that US foreign policy is about restoring global primacy and not an altruistic commitment to liberal democratic values. The US considers Ukraine to be an important instrument to weaken Russia as a strategic rival.

RAND Corporation, a think tank funded by the US government and renowned for its close ties with the intelligence community, published a report in 2019 on how the US could bleed Russia by pulling it further into Ukraine. RAND recognised that the US could send more military equipment to Ukraine and threaten NATO expansion to provoke Russia to increase its involvement in Ukraine:

“Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it… While NATO’s requirement for unanimity makes it unlikely that Ukraine could gain membership in the foreseeable future, Washington pushing this possibility could boost Ukrainian resolve while leading Russia to redouble its efforts to forestall such a development”.[2]

However, the same RAND report recognised that the strategy of bleeding Russia had to be carefully “calibrated” as a full-scale war could result in Russia acquiring strategic territories, which is not in the interest of the US. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the strategy was similarly to keep the war going as long as there were not significant territorial changes.

In March 2022, Leon Panetta (former White House Chief of Staff, US Secretary of Defence, and CIA Director) acknowledged: “We are engaged in a conflict here, it’s a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not…. The way you get leverage is by, frankly, going in and killing Russians”.[3] Even Zelensky recognised in March 2022 that some Western states wanted to use Ukraine as a proxy against Russia: “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[4]

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin outlined the objectives in the Ukraine proxy war to as weakening its strategic adversary:

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine…. So it [Russia] has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability”.[5]

There have also been indications of regime change that destruction of Russia as wider goals of the war. Sources in the US and UK governments confirmed in March 2022 that the objective was for “the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin” as “the only end game now is the end of Putin regime”.[6] President Biden suggested that regime change was necessary in Russia: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”. However, the White House later walked back Biden’s these dangerous remarks.

The spokesperson of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, also made an explicit reference to regime change by arguing “the measures we’re introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime”. James Heappey, the UK Minister for the Armed Forces, similarly wrote in the Daily Telegraph:

“His failure must be complete; Ukrainian sovereignty must be restored, and the Russian people empowered to see how little he cares for them. In showing them that, Putin’s days as President will surely be numbered and so too will those of the kleptocratic elite that surround him. He’ll lose power and he won’t get to choose his successor”.[7]

Fighting to the Last Ukrainian

Chas Freeman, the former US Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs and Director for Chinese Affairs at the US State Department, criticised Washington’s decision to “fight to the last Ukrainian”.[8]

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham outlined the favourable arrangements the US had established with Ukraine: “I like the structural path we’re on here. As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person”.[9] The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, cautioned against conflating idealism the hard reality of US objectives in the proxy war:

“President Zelenskyy is an inspiring leader. But the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests. Helping equip our friends in Eastern Europe to win this war is also a direct investment in reducing Vladimir Putin’s future capabilities to menace America, threaten our allies, and contest our core interests.… Finally, we all know that Ukraine’s fight to retake its territory is neither the beginning nor end of the West’s broader strategic competition with Putin’s Russia”.[10]

Senator Mitt Romney argued that arming Ukraine was “We’re diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money… a weakened Russia is a good thing”, and it comes at a relatively low cost as “we’re losing no lives in Ukraine”. Senator Richard Blumenthal similarly asserted: “we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment” because “for less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half… All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost”.[11] Congressman Dan Crenshaw agrees that “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea”.[12]

Retired US General Keith Kellogg similarly argued in March 2023 that “if you can defeat a strategic adversary not using any US troops, you are at the acme of professionalism”. Kellogg further explained that using Ukrainians to fight Russia “takes a strategic adversary off the table” and thus enables the US to focus on its “primary adversary which is China”. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg also argued that defeating Russia and using Ukraine as a bulwark against Russia “will make it easier” for the US “to focus also on China… if Ukraine wins, then you will have the second biggest army in Europe, the Ukrainian army, battle-hardened, on our side, and we’ll have a weakened Russian army, and we have also now Europe really stepping up for defense spending”.[13]

In Search of a New Narrative

A new victory narrative is required as a NATO-backed Ukraine cannot realistically defeat Russia on the battlefield. The strongest narrative is obviously to claim that Russia has failed in its objective to annex all of Ukraine to recreate the Soviet Empire and thereafter conquer Europe. This narrative enables NATO to claim victory. After Ukraine’s disastrous counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, such a new narrative was indicated by Ignatius in the Washington Post, where he argued the measurement of success is the weakening of Russia:

“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance”.[14]

Sean Bell, a former Royal Air Force Air Vice-Marshal and Ministry of Defence staffer, argued in September 2023 that the war had significantly degraded the Russian military to the point it ‘no longer poses a credible threat to Europe’. Bell therefore concluded that “the Western objective of this conflict has been achieved” and “The harsh reality is that Ukraine’s objectives are no longer aligned with their backers”.[15]

[…]

Via https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/media-changes-narrative-as-the-ukrainian

 

FBI Ran “Honeypot” Operation on Trump in 2016

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FBI ran ‘honeypot’ operation on 2016 Trump campaign – whistleblower

James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, June 8, 2017 ©  Getty Images / Drew Angerer<

The previously unknown infiltration scheme was reportedly ordered by James Comey immediately after Trump announced his candidacy

Former FBI Director James Comey personally ordered “honeypot” spies to infiltrate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to an agency whistleblower. The off-the-books operation was described by the agency insider as a “fishing expedition” to find wrongdoing among Trump’s team.

The operation was “personally directed” by Comey and launched in June 2015 without any case file being created in the FBI’s database, according to a whistleblower report handed to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and seen by the Washington Times.

At the time, Trump had just announced his first presidential campaign and neither he nor anyone on his campaign team was suspected of any crimes. Nevertheless, Comey ordered two “honeypot” agents to infiltrate Trump’s team on the campaign trail with the aim of extracting damning information from adviser George Papadopoulos, the report claimed.

A “honeypot” agent refers to an attractive woman who uses a sexual or romantic relationship to gather intelligence from a target.

Comey’s operation took place a year before the FBI’s ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia, which later morphed into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year ‘Russiagate’ probe. According to the whistleblower, the honeypot operation was kept “off the books” to conceal it from the US Justice Department’s inspector general, who later determined that Comey knowingly lied when submitting evidence to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump’s campaign.
Papadopoulos was eventually questioned by the FBI and in 2017 pled guilty to making false statements to agents regarding his alleged contacts with Russia the year before. He served 12 days in federal prison in 2018, and has claimed ever since that he was entrapped by FBI agents posing as Russians with damaging information on Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

He complained about sloppy FBI agents “dropping information in my lap that I did not want regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails in the hands of the Russians” during the Crossfire Hurricane probe, and claimed to have been targeted by at least one “honeypot” beforehand. However, Papadopoulos thought that the woman was working for the CIA and “affiliated with Turkish intelligence,” he said in 2019.

The operation was canceled when a newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the agents and was about to publish it, the whistleblower claimed. The FBI allegedly contacted the newspaper claiming that the woman in question was an informant, and not an agent, and would be killed if the photo was released, successfully preventing its publication. One of the agents was then allegedly transferred to the CIA so she would not be available as a potential witness.

“The FBI employee personally observed one or more employees in the FBI being directed to never discuss the operation with anyone ever again, which included talking with other people involved in the operation,” the report states.

The Judiciary Committee told the Washington Times that it “plans to look into” the report. Trump fired Comey in 2017, describing him as a “liar” and a “slimeball.”

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/606745-comey-honeypot-spy-trump/

North Carolina Child Protection Services Threatening to Seize Children from Parents in Red Cross Shelters that are Shutting Down

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by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Earlier this month (October, 2024), we published a report from Hannah Stutts, the owner of JAKS Stables in Western North Carolina, where she serves as the dispatch of relief efforts in isolated towns that still need help after the devastation following Hurricane Helene, where they had distributed over 10,000 body bags, and still needed more. See:

10,000 Body Bags Were Not Enough – Updates from on the Ground in North Carolina Disaster Relief

Hannah just published an update where she states that Red Cross shelters are now closing down and forcing homeless families out, and that North Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) is threatening to take their children away from them if they have nowhere to go.

If you’re wondering why the State of North Carolina wants to take these children into custody and place them into the Foster Care system, while doing NOTHING for the parents, the answer is that there is MASSIVE state and federal funding that creates a huge motive to seize these children, while very little to no funding is available to help their parents, especially with housing issues like this.

The Foster Care and Adoption business in the U.S. creates huge financial incentives to local governments to take children into custody, and if they do not meet their quota of children taken into custody, they lose out on that funding.

And when a disaster strikes, such as this hurricane, even MORE federal funding is allocated.

Much of the funding available to child welfare services is through “mental health”, where “free” mental health services are often made available to families in distress, and once you are attached to a “mental health” label, you can basically kiss your life goodbye, because now you are in the government’s database with a legal mental health diagnosis, which they can use to either take your children away, or even put YOU away because now you have a “mental illness” diagnosis.

That funding for “mental health” increases in times of disasters.

In North Carolina, it was just announced that the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services received $2.9 million in federal funding to help increase “crisis counseling services for people impacted by Hurricane Helene.”

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services today announced $2.9 million in federal funding to help increase crisis counseling services for people impacted by Hurricane Helene.

The funding is part of the Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program administered by the U. S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which is available to states to address behavioral health care needs and support relief for people in disaster-impacted communities. (Source.)

So even if homeless hurricane survivors are not in a shelter that is now closing down, if a “mental health” worker comes to interview them, and the homeless disaster survivor pours out their heart to a “mental health” professional including how hard it is to take care of their children, they will have a solution for you, but it is probably one you are not going to like, as you could lose your children forever to the U.S. child trafficking system known as “foster care and adoption.”But if you are a biological parent you do!

If, however, you are already on the Government payroll in this system already raising other people’s children through Foster Care or Adoption, then there is plenty of help available to you to keep on fostering or parenting other people’s children.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says 2,773 foster kids are accounted for in the 25 Western North Carolina counties included in the disaster declaration.

The nonprofit Foster Family Alliance (which also receives government funding from child welfare services) is on the ground now supporting 90 foster families.

Trucks and helicopters full of formula, diapers, medical supplies and toys are making their way to children. (Source.)

The State of North Carolina is making a special effort to make it easier for foster homes to get by during this disaster, by basically waiving all the licensing fees and requirements that are necessary to be a State-approved foster home, as long as the disaster lasts, which as we learned during COVID, could last for many years.

10A N.C. Admin. Code 70E .0703, .0704, requires medical examinations for all members of the foster family to be dated  within 12 months of submitting a new foster home application or foster home re-licensure. During the state of emergency,  this requirement will be waived until the state of emergency has expired.

10A N.C. Admin. Code 70E .1108 regulates fire and building safety of licensed foster homes. During the state of emergency,  the fire and building safety inspection prior to relicensure will be waived…

10A N.C. Admin. Code 70E .1109 and .1110 provide the health and environmental regulations for licensed foster homes.  During the state of emergency, the requirements that the home and yard shall be maintained and repaired, windows and  doors used for ventilation shall be screened, household equipment and furniture shall be in good repair, and running water  will be waived until 30 days after the expiration of the state of emergency.

10A N.C. Admin. Code 70E .1111 states the requirement for foster home room arrangements. During the state of emergency,  the following requirements will be waived until 30 days after the state of emergency expires: bedrooms shall not serve dual  function, no daybed, convertible sofa, or other bedding of temporary nature shall be used for the exclusive sleeping area of  the child, and separate and accessible drawer space and closet space for personal belongings and clothing shall be available for each child. (Source.)

So if you do not have adequate housing for your foster children, and are forced to make do with temporary shelter, like living in a tent in your front yard, no problem. You’re covered.

And if you were under investigation for your state-approved foster home and you were facing the loss of your license to be able foster children because you were sexually abusing and/or sexually trafficking your foster children, no problem. You’re covered, and you don’t need to renew your license as long as this emergency lasts.

If, however, you are the biological parents of your children and are raising and taking care of your children WITHOUT any help from the government, and now find yourself homeless with no means to find another home yet, too bad.

You’re NOT covered, and the government is now going to come in and put your children into the child trafficking system known as “foster care and adoption,” so a good Christian family can now take your children and give them a “forever home.”

And if your children are not up-to-date on all their vaccines, don’t worry, because the child welfare department will take care of that too, and for free!

Via https://vaccineimpact.com/2024/north-carolina-child-protection-services-threatening-to-seize-children-from-parents-in-red-cross-shelters-that-are-shutting-down/

The Biden-Harris Administration Wasted Nearly One Billion on Misinformation

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They Wasted Nearly One Billion on Misinformation

By  Ian Miler

The party of “Science” apparently misled hundreds of millions of people on the actual science surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. Stop the presses.

Starting in early 2020, the combined efforts of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services, and their partners in the media caused an untold amount of damage to society and public health and might have even created conditions for increased Covid spread. How? By repeatedly, profoundly, and often purposefully communicating inaccurate information while spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get their preferred messages across.

Now, a new, massive 113-page report from the US House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Committee has detailed the remarkable abuses from the Biden-Harris administration and the manner in which they communicated during Covid.

Biden, CDC Partners Literally Wasted a Fortune to Lie to the American People

The report details a number of unbelievable inaccuracies in 2021 coming from the Biden administration’s communications team and the CDC’s messaging apparatus. Fauci and Francis Collins’ National Institutes of Health were also responsible, creating guidance using taxpayer money, nearly $1 billion per the report, that misled millions of people and caused unimaginable harm in the process.

While the Biden-Harris administration’s public health guidance led to prolonged closures of schools and businesses, the NIH was spending nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money trying to manipulate Americans with advertisements—sometimes containing erroneous or unproven information. By overpromising what the Covid-19 vaccines could do—in direct contradiction of the FDA’s authorizations—and over emphasizing the virus’s risk to children and young adults, the Biden-Harris administration caused Americans to lose trust in the public health system,” Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) said after the report’s release. “Our investigation also uncovered the extent to which public funding went to Big Tech companies to track and monitor Americans, underscoring the need for stronger online data privacy protections.”

One of the most damaging, and woefully incorrect messaging campaigns centered on vaccine efficacy against infection. As the report details, Biden’s “Stop the Spread” campaign was a pervasive marketing effort in conjunction with the CDC that claimed vaccines would end the pandemic by reducing infections. That had enormous knock-on effects, including decreasing trust in all vaccinations and ultimately harming public health.

“The entire premise of the Biden-Harris ‘Stop the Spread’ campaign was that if you got vaccinated for COVID-19, you could resume daily activities because they said vaccinated people would not spread the disease,” said Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA). “Despite lacking scientific basis, the administration bought into this CDC claim and misled the American public. As a result, vaccination coverage with other vaccines appears to have declined, I believe because of a growing distrust of information coming from our public health institutions.”

This campaign was even more disingenuous and purposefully misleading than previously realized. The “Stop the Spread” publicity blitz hid in plain sight a message from the CDC that even they didn’t know whether the vaccines actually stopped infection or transmission. The report shared a screenshot of a page from the Biden administration’s marketing that specifically said “science” wasn’t sure how well the vaccines worked against infection.

Yet the Biden administration made life-altering policy decisions such as vaccine mandates, discriminatory entry processes, and military vaccination requirements regardless. And that was in addition to the less quantifiable impacts like nudging millions of people to follow their preferred course of action.

CDC Guidance Exacerbated Existing Problems

The report also explains how the Biden administration relied heavily on guidance from the CDC, an organization that thoroughly disgraced itself during the pandemic. There were several examples highlighted, chief among them that CDC “experts” went far beyond what even the FDA claimed Covid vaccines could do.

Without evidence, the report says Biden’s marketing claimed that “COVID vaccines were highly effective against transmission.” Within just a few months, it was clear that all the available evidence pointed towards the exact opposite direction. Per the report, this had a “negative impact on vaccine confidence and the CDC’s credibility when proven untrue.”

The CDC also had “inconsistent and flawed messaging about the effectiveness of masks,” which created seemingly endless mandates and, again, overconfidence in an ineffective policy. Some of those mandates even continue to this day.

That’s just the tip of their misinformation. A wealth of data and public embarrassments for the CDC confirmed that the organization “consistently overstated the risk of COVID-19 to children,” the report states. That fear-mongering had disastrous consequences, from unnecessarily terrifying parents to prolonged school closures and lack of socialization—setting an entire generation of children back in the process.

Still, after being repeatedly and profoundly proven wrong, the CDC has demonstrated they’ve yet to learn their lesson. In late 2024, the CDC continues to recommend Covid-19 vaccines for babies starting at six months old. That makes the US a global outlier compared to European nations that have maintained at least some level of intellectual honesty.

How Do We Fix CDC Abuses?

The report detailed several recommendations to fix these organizations after their disastrous work during the pandemic. Even implementing just a select few, listed below, would do wonders for fixing the institutional rot that influenced these mistakes.

  • Congress should consider clarifying responsibility for evaluating the safety of vaccines and streamlining existing reporting systems for capturing vaccine injuries and adverse reactions.
  • HHS and its agencies should embrace a culture of transparency and accountability.
  • The CDC and federal public health officials should not attempt to silence dissenting scientific opinions.

Also highlighted in the report is how the CDC and NIH used their weight in their attempts to censor scientists who dissented from their preferred narratives. Beyond their mistakes, profound inaccuracies, and nearly unlimited spending, their censorship efforts are equally concerning.

As we learned during Covid, if there’s one thing “experts” hate, it’s being told that they were proven wrong. Instead of learning, adjusting, and apologizing, they move to censor, criticize and mislead. This new report is the latest confirmation of these unacceptable “mistakes.” And reaffirms the importance of ensuring they never happen again.

[…]

Via https://brownstone.org/articles/the-biden-harris-administration-wasted-nearly-one-billion-on-misinformation/

Volkswagen Plans Closure of 3 Plants in Germany, Cutting Tens of Thousands of Jobs

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Ulrich Rippert

With Volkswagen management planning a radical cost-cutting program, Central Works Council Chairwoman Daniela Cavallo, of the IG Metall trade union, announced yesterday that at least three German plants are to be closed and tens of thousands of jobs cut.

On Monday morning, the works council invited workers to information meetings at all German plants. Some 25,000 employees gathered at the main plant in Wolfsburg alone. A works council leaflet, which was distributed en masse on Monday, begins with the words: “It is a declaration of war of historic proportions on its own workforce and entire home regions at the heart of the Group.” It continued:

In connection with job losses for tens of thousands of us, the Board of Management intends to enforce the following: close at least three VW factories in Germany, shrink virtually all plants still existing in Germany, also separate from previous core areas and, on top of that, enforce massive pay losses for the remaining employees.

All this is “not sabre rattling” as a tactic in the current round of collective bargaining, the VW works council explained, as the board really wants all this and considers that the cost-cutting plan has “no alternative and no room for concessions.” The Central Works Council was informed in advance, but the Board of Directors refused to come clean to its own employees. “That is why your works councils are now forced to inform you about this.”

The financial daily Handelsblatt quoted from an internal strategy paper, which is referred to as a “poison list” in management circles. According to the paper, further massive social attacks are planned. They include, among other things, major wage cuts, the outsourcing of individual administrative areas and pay freezes for the years 2025 and 2026.

Chief Human Resources Officer Gunnar Kilian said in a media release that the Board of Management had decided not to disclose any further details about the planned measures in the cost-cutting programme: “We adhere to the principle agreed in codetermination to first conduct the discussion about the future of Volkswagen AG internally with our negotiating partners.”

On Wednesday, negotiations between management and IG Metall on a new company collective bargaining agreement will enter the second round. During the first round in September VW rejected IG Metall’s demands for a 7 percent wage increase and instead pushed for savings. According to Cavallo, VW is now demanding a 10 percent wage cut and pay freezes in the next two years.

Many VW workers are shocked. The largest European carmaker already announced a “cost-cutting policy” in the summer and terminated the employment guarantee that had been in place for decades. But Monday’s announcements exceeded all fears. The VW Group has long been known in Germany for relatively high wages and social benefits with jobs considered crisis-proof, from apprenticeship to retirement.

The works council chief’s apparent indignation on Monday was, however, all for show. In truth, the works council is involved in all management discussions and is directly involved in the preparation of the plans to shut plants. The works council and IG Metall are responsible within management for designing the social attacks in such a way that resistance to them can be suppressed. The confidentiality up to now was also agreed upon and the announcement now made by the works council two days before the next round of negotiations was deliberately calculated.

Cavallo and her IG Metall colleagues speak of an attack “on us” and try to present themselves as representatives of workers’ interests. The reality is the opposite. The fact that the works council speaks of “historic” attacks, but has so far not initiated any combat measures against them, shows this. In no other German company is the cooperation between the owners, management and trade unions as close and sophisticated as at Volkswagen.

Head of Human Resources Gunnar Kilian, who is responsible for the plan to shutter plants and for layoffs, was General Secretary of the works council before moving to the Board of Directors. He was considered the “closest confidant” of Cavallo’s predecessor Bernd Osterloh and his “mastermind.”

The VW Group has in the past been described as the epitome of social partnership and as a “German codetermination model.” IG Metall and the works council, together with an army of full-time officials, ensure that the decisions of the Executive Board and Supervisory Board are implemented smoothly.

The head of IG Metall traditionally serves as Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Group, assisted by the works council, which, due to statutory codetermination, together with IGM, occupies half of the Supervisory Board. The other half is accounted for by Porsche Holding, which is controlled by the Porsche and Piech families and owns 53 percent of the ordinary shares, the Emirate of Qatar (17 percent) and the Social Democratic Party-governed state of Lower Saxony (20 percent).

The VW Group is thus practically dominated by a triumvirate of trade unions, works councils and the SPD. Ex-IGM head Jörg Hofmann, General Works Council Chairman Daniela Cavallo and Lower Saxony Minister President Stephan Weil (SPD) sit on the eight-member Supervisory Board, where all important decisions are discussed.

In order to repel the planned attacks and to defend all plants and jobs, it is necessary to break the conspiracy of the trade union apparatus, works council and SPD and to initiate a genuine struggle. This requires the establishment of independent rank-and-file committees in which all VW workers who seriously want to fight join forces. The first initiative has already been taken last month with the founding of the VW Rank-and-File Committee.

Rank-and-file committees already exist in several car plants and have joined forces to form a network. It is part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), which coordinates the growing struggles of the working class worldwide. The development of rank-and-file committees at VW must be geared towards making the fight against the savage cost-cutting at VW part of a systematic, international counter-offensive by workers throughout the automotive and parts industries.

The cost-cutting at VW is part of a global offensive by the car companies, which—supported by national governments and trade union bureaucracies—are fighting a bitter battle for market share and higher returns, and are using the switch to electric mobility to lay off hundreds of thousands.

Ford is shutting down its plant in Saarlouis and is now attacking the workers in Cologne and Valencia. With Stellantis, “hardly a stone remains on top of another,” as the daily FAZ writes. The CEO Carlos Tavares, who is notorious as a “cost killer,” is destroying thousands of jobs in the US and Italy. The Opel plant in Eisenach is not spared either, and of the 15,000 jobs that once existed at the Opel main plant in Rüsselsheim, only 8,300 remain.

A veritable massacre is taking place in the supplier industry. ZF Friedrichshafen is destroying 14,000 jobs and Continental 7,000. Almost daily, smaller companies with several hundred employees close. The software group SAP is also cutting 10,000 jobs, ThyssenKrupp is cutting its steel division, the chemical group Bayer is destroying 5,000 jobs and BASF is closing two sites in Cologne and Frankfurt-Höchst.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/volkswagen-closure-3-plants-germany/5871347

 

 

Class of 2018 CIA/Pentagon Democrats Continue to Advance Hawkish Policies in Congress

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Source: republicbroadcasting.org

Jeremy Kuzmarov

In March 2018, Patrick Martin of the World Socialist Web Site published a political pamphlet entitled “The CIA Democrats.”

In it, he wrote that “an extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department” were “seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.”[1]

Some of these candidates, like Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA operative with three tours in Iraq,[2] were recruited as part of a “red-to-blue” program targeting vulnerable Republican-held seats.

In the 2018 race, there were far more former spies and soldiers seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party than for the Republicans. Martin wrote that there were so many “spooks” that with a “nod to Mad Magazine,” one might call the primaries “spy vs. spy.”[3]

CovertAction Magazine has kept tabs on the “spook-soldiers” who were elected as part of the Class of 2018 and followed their careers in Congress. (according to Martin, 30 spook-soldiers won primaries and 11 were elected to Congress).

[…]

Below is a summary of the five key members of the 2018 class we have tracked:

1. Elissa Slotkin

A conservative Democrat endorsed by Liz Cheney (R-WY) who is now running for the U.S. Senate, Slotkin is the wealthy heiress of the Hygrade Foods fortune and has supported a bill to boost funding to local police.

Prior to her election to Congress, Slotkin put her stamp on the U.S.’s disastrous Ukraine policy as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs following the U.S.-backed Maidan coup in 2014.

In February 2021, Slotkin was appointed Chairwoman of the Intelligence & Counterterrorism Subcommittee within the House Committee on Homeland Security. In that capacity, she pleased her former employer by hyping threats to public safety from domestic extremists and alleged foreign terrorists, while pushing for ever more draconian anti-terrorism legislation than what was already on the books.

Slotkin’s category of domestic extremists included people who oppose pandemic restrictions, despite their harmful effects on mental health and violation of constitutional liberties, along with those whom she brands as “conspiracy theorists”—a term that was made pejorative by the CIA in the 1960s in order to try to validate the corrupt Warren Commission and its false conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone JFK assassin.

A super-hawk on Ukraine, Slotkin was part of a congressional delegation that met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom she characterized as a “man who has risen to the occasion in war.” Slotkin subsequently told an NPR reporter: “I think we got to give them [Ukraine] what they need….This is a black and white issue. Our weapons have made a huge difference.”

When the war with Ukraine broke out, Slotkin supported a bill that aimed to expedite security assistance to Ukraine, and another designed to eliminate Europe’s energy dependence on Russia.

Inserting a clause into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would direct the Pentagon to better capitalize on commercial innovation in Michigan’s auto industry, Slotkin has sponsored the “Dictator Act” which would investigate whether the Chinese government is helping Vladimir Putin evade Western sanctions.

Described as a “moderate” or “conservative” Democrat of the kind the CIA and plutocratic elite that it serves likes, Slotkin is one of only five Democratic House members who voted against an amendment to prohibit support to and participation in the Saudi-led coalition’s military operations against the Houthis in Yemen—a genocidal operation.

Endorsed by the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) because of her strong pro-Israel stance, Slotkin further voted against H.Con.Res. 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.

When asked by a reporter about her favorite CIA movie, Slotkin tellingly responded: “Zero Dark Thirty” which glorified the use of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

In the same interview, Slotkin praised the CIA’s Hollywood liaison office, which she said helps Hollywood to “really understand what is going on”—comments that are in line with the CIA’s official cover story for their PR operations in Hollywood, and make it seem like the Agency is merely concerned with greater accuracy, not covering up its crimes or trying to rehabilitate its public image.

2. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA)

Spanberger grew up in Richmond, Virginia, holds an MBA from Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management (now Business), and taught English literature at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia. She worked as a CIA case officer from 2006 to 2014 in the Middle East after previously working on money-laundering and narcotics cases for the U.S. Postal Service.[4]

Today, Spanberger serves on the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which is supposed to provide oversight of the CIA and other intelligence agencies!

When the Democratic Party nominated her to the party’s leadership table, the World Socialist Network concluded that the Democrats had “made what amounts to a pledge of allegiance to [a] program of imperialist aggression.”

Promoting a hard line on China and advancing strong support for NATO, Israel and greater military surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico border, Spanberger is conservative on economic and criminal justice issues but liberal on social issues like abortion.

The World Socialist Website described Spanberger as “one of the more notorious right-wing figures among House Democrats when she denounced the political impact of the mass protests against the police murder of George Floyd.”

On a conference call of House Democrats after the 2020 election, Spanberger declared, “We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again,” adding that the party would get “fucking torn apart in 2022” if it did not suppress policies such as Medicare for All.[5]

Stating her firm belief that “the United States of America is the world’s superpower, and we have a responsibility to be a stabilizing force,” Spanberger had the backing of Foreign Policy for America, a political action committee promoting the anti-Russian campaign being waged by the Democrats and the military-intelligence apparatus.

Spanberger used her bully pulpit to defend the intelligence agencies for allegedly “providing good information that allowed presidential administrations to make good decisions on policy initiatives and engagement with foreign countries.”

She also led the charge about Russian election meddling, stating: “The fact that Donald Trump would at times seemingly take the side of foreign adversaries over the well-sourced intelligence of the intelligence community [in denying Russian election meddling on his behalf] is troubling as an American—not just as a former intelligence officer.” [6]

Echoing Kamala Harris, Spanberger criticized Trump for meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, stating that “I think any time we see the president of the United States warmly greeting an authoritarian leader and later professing to have fallen in love with him, no matter how tongue-in-cheek those comments are, is deeply concerning.”

But Spanberger was later silent when Joe Biden met with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman and many other autocratic foreign leaders allied with the United States.

And as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Spanberger voted to provide billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine—whose president banned 12 opposition parties and sanctioned terrorist attacks on political rivals and journalists.

As a reflection of her hawkish views, Spanberger has led the attempt to get the State Department to designate Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. Spanberger told MSNBC that she believed the U.S. should be as “absolutely supportive of Ukraine as we possibly can” and to “give them enough weapons to win this war.”

[…]

3. Jason Crow (D-CO)

Crow is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Foreign Affairs Committee, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq and as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2006.

Crow is a gung-ho supporter of the war in Ukraine, advocating for providing more long-range missiles and rockets to Ukraine and more advanced fighter jets capable of striking inside Russia.

Holding close friendships with Ukraine military and political leaders, Crow claims against all evidence that Putin engaged in an “unprovoked war” in Ukraine—the CIA’s line—and that Putin is intent on reforging the Russian empire.

Crow supports the New Cold War and the Pentagon’s arms build-up targeting Russia and China, calling Xi and Putin dictators who “would love to see the democratic free nations of this world fail.” Crow claims that “Taiwan would eventually fall if we’re not able to help Ukraine win.”

He calls for turning Ukraine into a heavily armed “porcupine” over the long term so the country could never be swallowed by Russia. Crow is part of the NATO parliamentary assembly, which is NATO’s Congress. Endorsed by AIPAC, he is also an Israel hawk.

One of Crow’s biggest donors, revealingly, is Palantir Technologies, a data-analytics company founded with CIA seed money, which has played a key role in the Ukraine War by tracking Russian military movements and helping Ukraine to coordinate battlefield maneuvers along with bomb targeting.[7]

Palantir additionally signed a major cooperative agreement with the Israeli Defense Ministry and has provided Artificial Intelligence (AI) software used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for bomb targeting and for accumulating data on Palestinians in the occupied territory. There is concern that the company’s AI software platform also is being weaponized against ordinary Americans.

4. Jared Golden, (D-ME)

Jared Golden is a Marine Corps veteran who served combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and was elected with the class of 2018 to Congress in Maine.

A conservativre Blue Dog Democrat who was named Vice Chairman of the  of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommitte of House Armed Services Committee, Golden supported gargantuan military budgets under the National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA).

The latter have significantly increased funding for the Portsmouth naval shipyard in Kittery, Maine and provided funds for developing new naval destroyers and F-35 jets and CH-53k helicopters, which will benefit Pratt & Whitney’s factory in North Berwick, Maine, and the Hunting Dearborn factory in Fryeburg, Maine.

Rejecting calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza War, Golden voted in favor of a bill that would provide an additional $14.3 billion to support Israeli military operations in the Gaza strip, and organized a letter signed by himself and other members of Congress advocating for President Biden to give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. [8]

[…]

5. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ)

Equally reprehensible is the record of Mikie Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who flew missions in Europe and the Middle East, and served as a Russian policy officer, working at the Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Navy, Europe.

A conservative Democrat who has voted with Joe Biden 100% of the time, Sherrill received over $300,000 from the financial industry in 2023-2024.

Sherrill has served on the House Armed Services Committee and Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and Chinese Communist Party, a relic of the Cold War which promotes Sinophobia and confrontation with China.

On her website, Sherrill wrote that, serving on the House Armed Services Committee, she was able to “significantly increase funding for Picatinny Arsenal—a major military research and manufacturing institute in her district—which remains the Army’s leading research institution for armaments and ammunition.”

Sherrill continues: “Beyond supporting the critical research and development programs at Picatinny, I am also proud to support the many defense technology companies that call NJ-11 home and are on the cutting edge of modernizing our Armed Forces. Many of my provisions in the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act support funding for our local defense industrial base and businesses.”

Sherrill is an anti-Russia and anti-China national security hawk.

[…]

She favors continued military support to Israel and a growing police state at home. She boasts on her website about supporting the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, which she claims would “better equip our law enforcement with information related to possible attacks and their relationship with hate crimes.”

In May 2022, Sherrill and then-Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Chairman of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and Chinese Communist Party, participated in a strategic-operational war game, “Dangerous Straits: Battle for Taiwan 2027,” with the Center for a New American Security and NBC’s Meet the Press.

[…]

Via https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/10/21/class-of-2018-cia-pentagon-democrats-continue-to-advance-hawkish-policies-in-congress/

Cuba Becomes Associate Member of BRICS

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[Source: automagazine.pt]

Jeremy Kuzmarov

Cuba was accepted with 12 other countries as an associate member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in late October.

The other new associate members, which bring the BRICS grouping to over 4.6 billion people, or 57% of global population, are Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

The expansion of BRICS grants the new associate member countries the status of “partners,” a position that could open the door to full BRICS membership in the future.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel was absent from the Kazan summit because he was dealing with Cuba’s recent nationwide blackout, a product of an outdated infrastructure system and Hurricane Oscar’s destruction. Both challenges are amplified crises due to the draconian U.S. blockade on Cuba, which restricts the import of key infrastructural needs by financial, economic, and diplomatic coercion.

Díaz-canel wrote on X that: “#Cuba is honored to enter as a partner country in the #BRICS, five letters and a great hope for the countries of the South, on the arduous path towards a more just, democratic, equitable, and sustainable international order.”

Díaz-canel’s remarks were echoed by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, who attended the Kazan summit.

He spotlighted the potential of the New Development Bank—headed by former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff—as a “favorable financial alternative for countries in the Global South” that could help “reduce the influence of the U.S. dollar,” which Rodríguez Parrilla said is “frequently used as an instrument of pressure that has a very negative impact on the quality of life of many of our people.”

Rodríguez Parrilla noted that Cuba was happy to join BRICS since it had “emerged as a key player of growing relevance, authority and leadership on the global geopolitical stage and a real hope for the countries of the South in their complex path towards” a better future.

Cuba stands to benefit in particular from alternative economic arrangements and trading alliances that could help offset the crippling effects of the U.S. economic blockade, a cruel form of punishment that costs Cuba an estimated $455 million per month.

Kazan Summit

Attended by representatives of 36 countries (20 were heads of state), the Kazan summit took place amidst the backdrop of impending global war caused by the relentless aggressiveness of the United States and allies like Israel.

A summit communiqué called for ending the Ukraine war “through dialogue and diplomacy,” expressed “grave concern” at the “mass killing and injury of civilians, forced displacement and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure” in Gaza, and criticized the Israeli assault and bombardment of southern Lebanon. The communiqué additionally cited “the disruptive effect of unlawful unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions” on economic life.”

As a remedy for the latter, delegates proposed creation of an independent payment infrastructure, called “BRICS Clear,” which aims to reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar and will render obsolete sanctions applied by the U.S. that restrict bank transfers under the current SWIFT international messaging system.[1]

Delegates to the Kazan summit further endorsed the use of local currencies in financial transactions between BRICS countries and their trading partners.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the establishment of a BRICS “investment platform” to foster physical economic growth, and the creation of a BRICS Grain Exchange to ensure fairer pricing and help ensure food security in developing countries while taking food supplies out of the hands of international speculators.

Over time Putin said that the exchange could grow into a broader commodity exchange including for oil, which would help ensure fair pricing and energy security across the Global South.

Chinese Premier Xi Jinping opened the Kazan summit by calling on BRICS to “help guide the world along the overarching trend of peace and development.”

Xi asked the other leaders: “Should we allow the world to descend into the abyss of disorder and chaos, or should we strive to steer it back on the path of peace and development?”

He answered that the BRICS shared an “unwavering determination” and “willpower” to build “a shared future for mankind,” while voicing support for expanding the BRICS “in light of the rise of the Global South” and need to “enhance the representation and voice of developing nations in global governance.”

Speaking before President Xi, Putin emphasized in his speech the need for tightened cooperation between the BRICS countries and its new members in the realm of technology, education, efficient resource development, trade and logistics, finance and insurance, stating that “we have assumed responsibility for the future of the world, not only in word, but also in deed.”

Putin later told the BRICS Plus/Outreach session: “All our countries share similar aspirations, values and a vision of a new democratic world order that reflects cultural and civilizational diversity. We are confident that such a system should be guided by the universal principles of respect for the legitimate interests and sovereign choice of nations, respect for international law and a spirit of mutually beneficial, honest co-operation.”

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov elaborated on the BRICS’s purpose and principles, in order to explain why the BRICS is not closed to any nation, even members of NATO or the EU (the admission of NATO-member Turkey as a new BRICS “partner state” served to prove his point):

“There is a political will that unites countries that share the same vision of development prospects. Be it political development, economic development, cultural development and so on. It is an atmosphere in which each other’s interests are taken into account. It is an atmosphere where there are no hegemonic aspirations,” he said.

These latter comments offered a jibe at the U.S. whose hegemonic aspirations have led the world to the brink of World War III.

The BRICS summit makes clear, however, the growth of a huge resistance bloc of nations that is intent on stopping the drive to war while establishing a more egalitarian global economic order.

Barriers to Success and Need for a New Socialist Internationale

One potential barrier to success of the BRICS is divisions among the member states, which is what crippled the non-aligned movement during the first Cold War.

The World Socialist Website (WSWS) pointed out in an article on the Kazan summit that “BRICS member or candidate states, including India and Pakistan or Iran and Saudi Arabia, have repeatedly fought or threatened to fight wars with each other.”

Brazil has also made a point of excluding Venezuela from BRICS because of criticism it has of its government, though Venezuela has been a crucial country in trying to lead Latin American countries towards a path of resource nationalism and away from dependence on the U.S.

[…]

Via https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/10/28/cuba-becomes-associate-member-of-brics/

 

Indo-European Languages Spoken in Europe

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Episode 3 Indo-European Languages in Europe

Language Families of the World

Dr John McWhorter

Film Review

The Germanic subfamily of Indo-European languages includes, German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Yiddish and Afrikaans. All are descended from Gothic, which only survives as a written language.

Goths (and their language) seem to have originated in Denmark and migrated north to Scandinavia and South as far as Italy. The Goths used words like blood, bone, hand, run, stone, drink and good, all words that have no known Proto-Indo-European roots. It’s believed the Goths borrow these words from indigenous peoples who inhabited Europe prior to their arrival.

McWhorter also makes the point that there are three dozen Romance languages in addition to French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. These include French Provencal and Occitan (spoke in southern France); Romansh (spoken in Switzerland), Sardinian, Sicilian and Piedmontese (spoken in Italy); and Aromanian (spoken in Romania).

The Balto-Slavic sub-family includes the Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian.

Greek is its own sub-family.

The Celtic sub-family includes Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and Breton (spoken in Brittany France). The Celts originated in the area around Austria and migrated both east and west. Celtic cloth patterns are found on Chinese mummies and plaid and twill patterns linked to Scotland have been traced back to the Caucasus mountains.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/6120000/6120006