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.
Driving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris by an undetected bomb. Refusing extra resources for a presidential candidate. Admitting an agent on a White House detail assaulted her supervisor.
Long before the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday night such focused a harsh light on the Secret Service, the presidential security agency was already facing difficult questions about its capability, training, recruitment and emphasis on diversity.
Secret Service agents reportedly were even circulating a petition raising questions about their management a few weeks ago.
Those questions are now certain to receive intense new attention after video footage showed a gunman on was able to scale a building less than 200 yards from Trump, get to a shooting perch with a rifle and fire several rounds before being neutralized by a Secret Service sniper team at the event Saturday night in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Several witnesses said they started to yell the man had a gun before he started shooting. And several lawmakers say they are now investigating reports that the Trump campaign had requested additional security resources recently, and was turned down.
“How could you have somebody on the rooftop?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, himself a victim of political violence when he was seriously wounded at a congressional baseball practice. “There are reports that people watched him climb up the roof and even alerted authorities, and we’re going to be looking into that.”
How could that happen with all the authorities around that they miss something so clear that the shooter was able to get that kind of line of sight just 150 yards away from the stage?”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Saturday night demanded the Secret Service provide Congress immediate answers as to how it failed to stop the assassination attempt.
Comer announced just hours after Trump survived the attack that he would be demanding testimony from the head of the Secret Service as well as documents and other evidence.
”I have already contacted the Secret Service for a briefing and am also calling on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to appear for a hearing,” he said on X. “The Oversight Committee will send a formal invitation soon. There are many questions and Americans demand answers.”
Criticism of the Secret Service spread quickly on social media – from X owner Elon Musk to members of Congress. Several urged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mallorca to reconsider his denial of Secret Service resources for third-party presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.
“Extreme incompetence or it was deliberate. Either way, the SS leadership must resign,” Musk wrote.
Democrats also are likely to face new questions after Rep. Benny Thompson sought to end Trump‘s Secret Service protection recently and President Joe Biden reportedly told donors in recent days it was time to put a “bullseye” over his Republican rival.
Back in May, Congress requested a briefing with the Secret Service, after several incidents allegedly raised internal concerns over the quality of its trainings.
A petition within the Secret Service has reportedly been circulating because of the incidents and called for a congressional investigation into the agency, according to Comer.
One incident saw a Secret Service agent assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris allegedly attack her superior and other agents. The unnamed agent also exhibited other “concerning” behavior, according to her colleagues.
Comer mentioned the incident in a letter to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and asked for a briefing on how the Secret Service is responding to the allegations of “inadequate training.”
“This incident raised concerns within the agency about the hiring and screening process for this agent,” Comer wrote in his letter. “Specifically [concerns] whether previous incidents in her work history were overlooked during the hiring process as years of staff shortages had led the agency to lower once stricter standards as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion effort.”
Comer also flagged concerns from the petition related to a “double standard in disciplinary actions, and a vulnerability ‘to potential insider threats’ that could pose a risk to U.S. national security.”
The letter requests the briefing by June 13, and cites “potential vulnerabilities” that could keep the Secret Service from “fulfilling its mission to ensure the safety and security of its protectees,” including the president, vice president, and their families.
Before he was shot at a campaign rally, former US President Donald Trump faced a barrage of threats from the Left
While the attempted assassination of Donald Trump has been roundly condemned by his political opponents, liberal politicians and pundits have – implicitly and explicitly – called for his death before.
Trump narrowly avoided death at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, when an assassin’s bullet apparently clipped his ear as it whizzed past his head. The shooter – named by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks – killed one spectator at the rally and wounded two others before he was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
US President Joe Biden decried the attempt on Trump’s life, declaring that “there’s no place for this kind of violence in America.” Ever since Trump won the 2016 election, however, he has faced a steady stream of threats from members of Biden’s party and their allies in the media.
Off with his head
Hollywood celebrities reacted with outrage to Trump’s shock defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Eighties pop icon Madonna spoke of wanting to “blow up the White House;” actor and activist Peter Fonda called for the president’s youngest son, Barron, to be “put in a cage with pedophiles;” and comedienne Kathy Griffin grabbed headlines when she posed for a photoshoot holding a mockup of Trump’s bloodied and severed head.
Addressing the audience at Britain’s Glastonbury Festival in 2018, Johnny Depp wondered “when was the last time an actor assassinated a president?,” adding “maybe it’s time.” This reference to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was echoed by Broadway star Carole Cook several months later, when she asked a photographer “where’s John Wilkes Booth when you need him?”
Take him out
Speaking to MSNBC after Trump formally announced his presidential campaign last year, Representative Dan Goldman declared that his fellow New Yorker cannot be allowed to “see public office again.”
“He is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy, and he has to be, he has to be eliminated,” Goldman proclaimed.
While Goldman later apologized for his choice of words, he is not the only Democrat lawmaker to apparently threaten Trump’s life. Michigan State Representative Cynthia Johnson was stripped of her committee assignments in 2020 when she warned Trump and his “trumpers” to “walk lightly,” or else her “soldiers” would “make them pay.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used similar rhetoric last week when she declared that the upcoming presidential election “is not a normal election,” and that Trump “must be stopped. He cannot be president.”
Two weeks before the shooting, BBC reporter David Aaronovitch wrote on X that if he were President “Biden, I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.” On Sunday morning, Aaronovitch said that he had deleted the tweet, claiming that his words were “clearly satirical.”
A threat to democracy
Biden’s response to Saturday’s shooting was one of unequivocal condemnation. The US president, who will face off against Trump in this November’s election, said that he was “praying for” his political opponent, and that “we must unite as one nation to condemn” political violence.
In a post on social media less than a month earlier, however, Biden’s team described Trump as “a genuine threat to this nation.”“He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for,” they posted on the president’s social media accounts.
While Biden has never explicitly wished physical harm on his opponent, at least one would-be assassin has used similar words to justify his plans to kill Trump. 77-year-old Thomas Welnicki was arrested for phoning US Capitol Police in 2020 threatening to “take down” then-President Trump. His lawyer later told prosecutors in New York that Welnicki was distraught at “the threats to our democracy posed by former President Trump.”
Stripped of protection
Had Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson got his way, Trump would have had no Secret Service protection at Saturday’s rally. Earlier this year, Thompson proposed legislation that would strip this protection from former presidents convicted of felonies, as Trump was in May. The act was explicitly tailored to target Trump, Thompson’s office said, explaining that the former president’s criminal charges “have created a new exigency that Congress must address.”Immediately following Saturday’s shooting, one of Thompson’s staffers wrote on Facebook that the shooter should “get some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time.” She deleted the post – which Mississippi Republicans called “despicable” – shortly afterwards.
The Vikings and Their Origins: Scandinavia in the First Millennium
By David Wilson
Thames and Hudson (1970)
Book Review
Archeological evidence indicates the Roman empire enjoyed a brisk trade with Scandinavia. Remains of many Roman luxury goods – bronze and silver vessels, glass blows, bronze figurines of Roman gods, silks, textiles, spices and wine – have been found in Sweden an Norway.. The Scandinavians, in turn, provided Rome with furs, seal skins, rope, daily produce, cattle, slaves and amber.
In Roman historical literature, Pythias, Ptolemy, Tacitus and Pliny the Elder refer to Thule (Norway’s island of Smøla) and the Siuones (Swedes), the Goutoi* and the Chaideinoi (Norwegians).
The earliest Scandinavian runic alphabet dates from the late fourth or early fifth century AD. It’s believed to be derived from either Greco/Roman or North Italic/Celtic alphabet.
The Scandinavians worshiped a pantheon of Indo-European gods including Thor (equated to Zeus/Jupiter), Odin (god of thunder, war and magic), Njord (god of wealth and fertility), and Freyja (goddess of love).
Era of Great Migrations
The collapse of Rome in 476 Ad created a power vacuum enabling a wave migrations across the European continent:
Beginning in the sixth century AD, Angles and Jutes from Denmark conquered much of of the British Isles.
Hun, Goths and Vandals swept across continental Europe
Sweden raided Frisia**
Northward expansion (into a region populated since the Stone Age by a culture using bone and stone tools for hunting and fishing) by Norwegians and Swedes in pursuit of fur, iron, horn and ivory.
Viking attacks leading to an empire stretching from Iceland to eastern Russia.
After multiple raids on Ireland and Scotland, the Vikings first attacked England in 789 AD and captured York in 867 AD. Full time Viking settlement in England began in 865 AD. In 886 The Treaty of Alfred with Guthrun gave Scandinavians the right to settle in Nottingham, Lincoln, Stanford, Derby and Leicester – regions controlled by Viking rulers until the mid-10th century. The English briefly resumed control of these areas, though by the 11th century they were again under Viking control. Archeologists haves found many Anglo-Saxon coins in Sweden, used to pay tax to their conquerors.
Founding Dublin in 830AD. the Vikings also controlled Ireland, the Faroe Isles, Northern Scotland, the Scottish Isles and the Isle of Man, Iceland and Greenland. Under the Viking, Iceland became the first modern republic, forming a consultative assembly in 930 AD. Viking also briefly settled Newfoundland in the 11th century.
Between 841-844 AD, they also sacked Quentovic, Rowen and Nantes in Franc. In 911 AD, they settled Normandy
It was also common for European rulers to hire Vikings as mercenaries. Between 806-862 AD, the people of European Russia invited the Viking Rurik the Rus to develop trading centers in Novgorod and Kiev. Their new Viking rulers and the settlers accompanying them adopted the culture of their Slav subjects.
*The Geatas are referred to in Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. The Anglo-Saxons who eventually occupied Britain are believed to have originated in Scandinavia.
The Confidential report is a bombshell. The vaccine was launched in mid-December 2020. By the end of February 2021, “Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events, including 23 cases of spontaneous abortions out of 270 pregnancies and more than 2,000 reports of cardiac disorders.”
This Confidential Pfizer Report provides data on deaths and adverse events recorded by Pfizer from the outset of the vaccine project in December 2020 to the end of February 2021, namely a very short period (at most two and a half months).
The data from mid-December 2020 to the end of February 2021 unequivocally confirms “Manslaughter”. Based on the evidence, Pfizer had the responsibility to immediately cancel and withdraw the “vaccine”.
Pfizer’s Worldwide marketing of the Covid-19 Vaccine beyond February 28th, 2021, is no longer an “Act of Manslaughter”.
Murder as opposed to Manslaughter implies “Criminal Intent”.
Pfizer’s Covid 19 Vaccine constitutes a Criminal Act. From a legal standpoint it is an “Act of Murder” applied Worldwide to a target population of 8 billion people. So far more than 60 percent of the World’s population have been Covid-19 vaccinated.
“This document provides an integrated analysis of the cumulative post-authorization safety data, including U.S. and foreign post-authorization adverse event reports received through 28 February 2021.
(…)
“Pfizer is responsible for the management post-authorization safety data on behalf of the MAH BioNTech according to the Pharmacovigilance Agreement in place. Data from BioNTech are included in the report when applicable.
“Reports are submitted voluntarily, and the magnitude of underreporting is unknown.
(…)
“Cumulatively, through 28 February 2021 [in less than three months], there was a total of 42,086 case reports (25,379 medically confirmed and 16,707 non-medically confirmed) containing 158,893 events. Most cases (34,762) were received from United States (13,739), United Kingdom (13,404) Italy (2,578), Germany (1913), France (1506), Portugal (866) and Spain (756); the remaining 7,324 were distributed among 56 other countries.
(…)
“As shown in Figure 1 [see below], the System Organ Classes (SOCs) that contained the greatest number (≥2%) of events, in the overall dataset, were General disorders and administration site conditions (51,335 AEs), Nervous system disorders (25,957), Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders (17,283), Gastrointestinal disorders (14,096), Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders (8,476), Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders (8,848), Infections and infestations (4,610), Injury, poisoning and procedural complications (5,590), and Investigations (3,693)”
The following video interview with Prof. Michel Chossudovsky pertains to the Confidential Pfizer Report released as part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) procedure.
What is contained in Pfizer’s “confidential” report is detailed evidence on the impacts of the “vaccine” on mortality and morbidity. This data which emanates from the “Horse’s Mouth” can now be used to confront as well formulate legal procedures against Big Pharma, the governments, the WHO and the media.
Video: Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky on the “Secret” Pfizer Report Puts Forth a Strategy and Legal Procedure to Confront Big Pharma with a view to Withdrawing the Covid-19 Vaccine Worldwide
Odysee version
[Click upper title and right corner to enter fullscreen]
A new study in Nature Communications adds to concerns that the growing clean energy sector could harm the environment even as it strives to combat climate change, but proponents of electric vehicles said there are alternatives.
A type of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and other electronics is polluting air, soil and water in the U.S. and Europe, adding to concerns that the growing clean energy sector could harm the environment even as it strives to combat climate change, according to a new study.
Researchers said they analyzed samples of soil, sediment and surface water collected in 2022 near manufacturing plants in Minnesota, Kentucky, Belgium and France, finding they were commonly contaminated with a subtype of PFAS called bis-perfluoroalkyl sulfonimides (bis-FASIs) at concentrations in the parts per billion.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, also found that bis-FASI emitted into the air at these sites may travel long distances, potentially polluting areas far from the facilities where they are made and used.
“If we are not careful about the choices of materials and chemicals used in renewable energy technologies, then it is a concern that this may become a new source of PFAS pollution,” said Ariana Spentzos, Ph.D., a science and policy associate at the Green Science Policy Institute. Spentzos was not involved in the study.
“However, it is a false choice to choose between renewable energy and less PFAS pollution,” she added, noting that there are viable alternatives for many uses of PFAS in renewable energy.
Bis-FASIs, particularly the chemical bistriflimide, are manufactured by major chemical companies, including 3M and Solvay, and marketed as electrolytes that extend battery cycle life and maintain battery performance over time.
Many types of PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment, are used in the coatings on windmill turbines and are incorporated into solar cells, as well as being used in lithium-ion batteries.
A 2023 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviewed the small handful of existing studies on bis-FASIs, noting that studies have reported liver effects in rats after they were exposed to the chemicals.
Although the toxicity of bis-FASI in humans has not been studied, other types of PFAS have been linked to cancers, infertility and immune system damage.
The EPA in April set a limit of four parts per trillion for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS, in drinking water and 10 parts per trillion for several others.
Bis-FASIs are toxic to two types of small aquatic animals, a crustacean and zebrafish, altering their behavior and metabolic processes, the study found.
Similar to better-studied types of PFAS that have been phased out, bis-FASIs do not appear to break down naturally in the environment, said Lee Ferguson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University and an author of the study.
The researchers also analyzed samples from untreated landfill leachate in North Carolina, finding bistriflimide at levels close to 1 part per billion — a concentration that Ferguson said he considered surprisingly high.
“Some of the data we showed in the paper indicates that measurements of bistriflimide in landfill leachates may be coming from disposal of these lithium-ion batteries,” said Ferguson. “We really need to pay attention, if we are going to use materials that are very persistent, to what happens to them at end of life.”
As clean energy production gains traction, now is society’s chance to evaluate environmental risks and avoid a “regrettable substitution” on the path toward more sustainable infrastructure, said Jennifer Guelfo, Ph.D., an assistant professor of environmental engineering at Texas Tech University and an author of the study.
Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are secretly plotting to replace Joe Biden with Michelle Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, according to Democrat party insiders.
According to reports, Obama never thought Biden had the ability to be President. In recent months, his support for Biden behind the scenes has become non existent.
Townhall.com reports: Nancy Pelosi also poked the bear this week, coming right to the edge of calling on Biden to drop out. Reportedly, both Democrats are in contact with one another, colluding to find a way to get Biden to exit the race. The problem is that they don’t know how to make that happen, which is the predicament facing everyone in the ‘dump Biden’ camp.
PSAKI: The entire Biden White House is in complete and total disarray — and literally nobody knows what to expect moving forward.
"The question is: what is the plan moving forward? 99% of them don't know the answer to that question." pic.twitter.com/ahUjJTTwLu
In a lengthy CNN piece by Jeff Zeleny and Edward Isaac-Dovere, the article delves into the Obama factor behind the scenes, where the two men have spoken less since the Biden presidency and where public displays of affection belie a cooler relationship. Obama is also aware that any further involvement besides his reported hands-off approach in sifting through this mess engulfing the Democratic Party will likely find its way into a Trump rally. The last thing Obama wants is for Trump, whom he despises, to say something along the lines of ‘even Biden’s former boss, Obama, wants him out.’ He’s also aware that he could be viewed as being the proverbial Brutus in pushing out his former VP (via CNN):
BREAKING: CNN’s @jeffzeleny reports that @SpeakerPelosi has had a “private conversation” with former President @BarackObama about Joe Biden’s mental fitness for office:
“The new information we are learning is that [Pelosi] has had a conversation — perhaps more than one of them —… pic.twitter.com/DlcnyYxUOY
— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) July 12, 2024
Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have spoken privately about Joe Biden and the future of his 2024 campaign. Both the former president and ex-speaker expressed concerns about how much harder they think it’s become for the president to beat Donald Trump. Neither is quite sure what to do.
Democrats are desperate for the dispiriting infighting to end so they can get back to trying to beat the former president. And they’re begging either Obama or Pelosi to help them get there, aware that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the trust of Biden and that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries doesn’t have the depth of relationship to deliver the message.
CNN spoke with more than a dozen members of Congress, operatives and multiple people in touch with both Obama and Pelosi, many of whom say that the end for Biden’s candidacy feels clear and at this point it’s just a matter of how it plays out, even after Thursday night’s news conference.
[…]
Many of Pelosi’s colleagues are hoping that she can bring an end to the turmoil that has engulfed Democrats for the last two weeks. And to a good chunk of them, that end can come if and when she tells Biden that he has to drop out.
Pelosi has spoken to Biden since the debate, but in the time since, the California Democrat has made clear that she does not see Biden’s decision to stay in the race as final. But she, through an aide, declined to comment further.
[…]
But Obama’s deepening skepticism about his friend’s ability to win reelection is one of the worst kept secrets in Washington.
[…]
In conversations with some Democrats over the past two weeks, Obama has swatted away the notion that he could push Biden one direction or the other even if he wanted to, which underscores their long-running complicated, yet loyal, relationship. And it’s been complicated even further during their time apart: since leaving office behind – and their weekly lunches at the White House for eight years – the two have spoken far less than some of their advisers have often intimated.
If the former president did try to steer Biden to get out, people who know Obama say, he is aware the prism through which it could be seen. Biden has written that he felt Obama was not encouraging of his jumping in late to the Democratic primaries in the months after his son Beau died in 2015. Though Obama believes that he was trying to help his then-vice president focus on his grief and not wade into what would have been an incredibly hard primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, that may not be how another conversation would go.
“Biden would say, ‘Well, Mr. President, you already used that chip in 2015 and it got us Donald Trump,’” speculated a longtime 2020 campaign aide. “I think it would harden him more.”
One point of contention is the damning New York Times op-ed by George Clooney, who called on Biden to drop out, saying that the Biden we all saw on debate night was the president the nation witnessed getting demolished by Trump. Clooney was in contact with Obama before the op-ed was published. While the former president didn’t explicitly order the essay, he didn’t try to dissuade him from writing it—a pure Tony Soprano move.
Yet, the lack of action on this topic is a throwback to one of Obama’s biggest flaws, which was to become afflicted by paralysis by analysis. If Biden can’t win, and there are scores of Democrats who think it’s over, then how do they prevent going off the cliff?
“Fluoride causes more human cancer, and causes it faster, than any other chemical . . . more people have died in the last 30 years from cancer connected with fluoridation than all the military deaths in the entire history of the United States.”
—Dr. Dean Burk, Congressional Record, 21 July 1976.
Fluoridated Cities have higher rates of cancer.
In 1975 Dr Dean Burk, former head of the cytochemistry laboratory at the US National Cancer Institute, and John Yiamouyiannis, a biochemist, did an analysis of the cancer rates in the the ten largest fluoridated cities compared to the ten largest nonfluoridated cities in the USA from 1950 to 1970.
They selected cities that had similar cancer death rates for the preceding ten years i.e. 1940 to 1950. They found that while cancer rates had gone up slightly in the nonfluoridated cities, they had gone up a lot in the fluoridated cities. Watch this interview on a TV show in the Netherlands where Dr Dean Burk was able to explain their findings. Actual study can be found in Fluoride Journal.
These findings created a lot of controversy and two subsequent studies were published which showed no correlation and then further research found those studies to be flawed.
National Toxicology Program 1990
In 1990, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released a report on fluoride’s carcinogenicity, which led to controversy and concerns over the “systematic downgrading” of cancers in the study. The report found a dose-dependent increase of a rare liver cancer (hepatocholangiocarcinoma) in male and female mice and a small but statistically significant dose-related increase in osteosarcomas in male rats but not in female rats.
Key Findings
The 1990 study included the finding of a dose-dependent increase of a rare liver cancer (hepatocholangiocarcinoma) in male and female mice.
A small but statistically significant dose-related increase in osteosarcomas was found in male rats but not in female rats.
Dr William Marcus, chief toxicologist at the EPA was fired for blowing the whistle.
“Fluoride is a carcinogen by any standard we use. I believe the EPA should act immediately to protect the public, not just on the cancer data, but on the evidence of bone fractures, arthritis, mutagenicity, and other effects.”
In 2006 a study was published in Cancer Causes and Controls. “Boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidelines are five times more likely to have a rare bone cancer than boys who drink unfluoridated water, according to a study by Harvard University scientists published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Kiev has been tightening restrictions on the use of the Russian language, despite it being the native tongue of many Ukrainians
Ukrainian children don’t know their official state language well enough because they’re still using Russian in their daily lives, Kiev’s Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language Taras Kremin has complained, urging citizens to report violations of language restrictions.
The commissioner said there are also many violations being recorded in the sphere of education, as well as on the internet and in the service industry. He cited a recent study that suggested one-third of children in some Ukrainian regions prefer to speak Russian.
“A child outside of school uses services, visits shopping and catering establishments, sees external advertising and signboards in non-state language, hears non-state at home,” Kremin wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
He suggested that many schoolchildren were therefore prone to bilingualism and do not have sufficient knowledge of the Ukrainian language.
Kremin said Kiev should strengthen control over compliance with the law on state language, which defines Ukrainian as the only language approved for education, and called on citizens to be more involved in recording and reporting violations of the law.
Since gaining its independence in 1991, Ukraine has largely been a bilingual nation, with most citizens able to speak or understand both Russian and Ukrainian, particularly in the eastern half of the country. After the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev, however, Ukraine’s new authorities abolished Russian as an official regional language and have adopted policies aimed at suppressing and outlawing it, arguing that it represents a threat to national unity and security.
In 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law requiring Ukrainian to be used exclusively in nearly all aspects of public life, including education, entertainment, politics, business and the service industry, obliging all Ukrainian citizens to know the language. It also requires that 90% of TV and film content produced in the country be made in Ukrainian. From July 17, the use of the Russian language in Ukrainian media will be virtually outlawed, Kremen has said.
This forced Ukrainization was one of the reasons why Russian-speaking residents living in the east of the country rejected the post-coup authorities in Kiev in 2014. Many of these regions, namely the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, have since joined Russia after overwhelmingly voting to do so in public referendums in 2022.
Kremin, however, has denied that the term ‘Russian-speaking’ could be applied to any Ukrainian citizens, stating in an interview last year that the word is a “marker introduced by Russian ideology,” and declaring that “everyone in the country must have command of the Ukrainian language.”
Support from President Joe Biden’s administration for the Israeli government’s war on Gaza has resulted in an unprecedented surge of dissent within United States agencies.Several officials and military officers have resigned in opposition since the Israeli military launched a massive bombardment after Hamas fighters stormed Israel on October 7, 2023.
During the week of July 4, 2024, 12 individuals who resigned released a unified statement of opposition.
“America’s diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to, Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza,” the dissenters declared. “This is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and U.S. laws, but it has also put a target on America’s back.”
While outlining the “current crisis” and what they believe should be done, the dissenters appealed to their former colleagues to “amplify calls for peace” and hold their respective institutions accountable for the violence unfolding in Palestine.
“We recognize the systemic obstacles you face, both as you perform your work, and as you consider leaving it. We particularly embrace those of you representing America’s diversity who feel that your voices have been disempowered, ignored, and tokenized. We are with you, and we know that a better way is possible, but only when we are all brave enough to challenge institutions and outdated forces that attempt to silence us.”
The dissenters further declared, “We encourage you to keep pushing. In our experience, no decision point is too minor to challenge, so while you are in government service, use your voice, write letters to leaders in your agencies, and bring up your disagreements with your team. Speaking out has a snowball effect, inspiring others to use their voice.”
“There is strength in numbers, and we urge you to not be complicit. We encourage you to consult with your Inspectors General, with your legal advisors, with appropriate Members of Congress, and via other protected channels, to question the veracity and/or legality of specific actions or policies. There are resources, and you have advocates, including all of us, who can support you in speaking your truth,” they concluded.
Several of the dissenters are whistleblowers with firsthand knowledge of how Biden administration officials have enabled the Israeli government’s atrocities. All of them are courageous individuals, who have sacrificed their careers for peace, justice, and human rights.
Until the war ends, The Dissenter will keep this page updated and track U.S. officials and military officers who resign in protest. (If anyone is missing, please email newsletter@thedissenter.org)
Below is a list of all the people who have resigned from the U.S. government or military during the war on Gaza as of July 5 and in reverse chronological order.
Maryam Hassanein was a special assistant in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management in the United States Interior Department. “As a Muslim American,” she stated in her resignation letter that she could not “continue working for an administration that ignores the voices of its diverse staff by continuing to fund and enable Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.”
“After months of Israel’s brutal violence, including the murders of over 37,000 Palestinians and the intentional starvation of millions of Palestinians, the only way I know how to make my voice heard and meaningfully represent my community is to leave,” Hassanein added.
She accused President Biden of “fueling hate crimes against Palestinian Americans by repeating anti-Arab tropes and outright lies.”
Hassanein connected the war on Gaza to her work at the Interior Department, which is an agency that is supposed to “right the wrongs the United States has committed against Indigenous peoples.”
“But we should not wait decades to act in the best interest of Palestinians whose struggles mirror those of Indigenous peoples native to the US. We can and should act now to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
Larry Hebert Jr.
Publicly seeking conscientious objector status as of June 4, 2024
Larry Hebert Jr. was an airman for the U.S. Air Force for six years before he sought “conscientious objector” status so that he could be honorably or generally discharged. He told NBC News that he worked on a U.S. operation that provided weapons sales to Israel.
He accelerated his efforts to part ways with the military after six year-old Hind Rajab died. An Israeli tank shelled her family’s car and then attacked the ambulance that tried to rescue Rajab.
“She looks almost just like my daughter, and that was something that was extremely hard to grasp, is that all these children that have aspirations and dreams and lives that many of us are living and want, and it’s wholly unjustified to support what’s happening,” Hebert shared.
Hebert was also moved to act by Aaron Bushnell, a fellow airmen who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on February 25. “It touched me deeply. I knew I had to speak out in opposition to our government sending Israel the bombs and rockets to commit genocide.”
In April, while he was on leave, Hebert stood outside the White House and announced that he was on hunger strike. He confronted General David W. Allvin, the chief of staff for the Air Force, after he testified before Congress. His superiors immediately canceled his leave and ordered him to return to his post in Rota, Spain.
Juan Bettancourt
Juan Bettancourt, United States Air Force service member (Credit: Veterans For Peace/Fair use)
Publicly seeking conscientious objector status as of June 5, 2024
Juan Bettancourt sought “separation” from the U.S. military as a conscientious objector on June 5. In a posting from Veterans For Peace, Bettancourt declared, “My vehement stance against war and strong moral objection to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by the Israeli government under the aegis of the United States, have brought me to this critical juncture where I must speak out against these atrocities despite the potential reprisal it may bring.”
“My proudest act of service so far has been championing the Appeal For Redress, a campaign that empowers fellow service members to securely voice their moral outrage about our government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes and genocidal onslaught in Gaza.”
“Military members are frequently used as pawns in the game of American politics, with our beliefs and personal experiences manipulated for agendas that bear little connection to our lived reality,” Bettancourt continued. “Although our rights are limited by our oath, this appeal allows service members to carve out a modicum of agency and break through this pernicious cycle by dispelling any apprehensions that may impede us from denouncing this unspeakable carnage.”
“Our voice is a powerful instrument, and it is our responsibility to humanity and the principles we hold dear to speak up against these heinous acts and make it known to our elected officials that we will not stand by silently while genocide unfolds,” Bettancourt stated. “We refuse to be complicit. Rest in Power Aaron Bushnell!”
Bettancourt expressed horror during an NBC interview in San Antonio, Texas: “I see the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians,” and “all while the world watches through their smartphones.”
Stacy Gilbert
Resigned on May 28, 2024
Stacy Gilbert worked for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Although there was no published resignation letter, news reports indicated that Gilbert emailed colleagues to announce that she was “leaving because of an official finding by the department that Israel was not deliberately obstructing the flow of food or other aid into Gaza.”
The finding was part of the NSM-20 report submitted to Congress on May 10, which was supposed to update lawmakers on countries that received arms shipments from the U.S. and their compliance with international humanitarian law.
According to Gilbert, the report was “edited at a higher level” during the final weeks so that it did not reflect the consensus of experts at the State Department. Lead officials at the department did not want it to say that Israel was obstructing food and medical supply deliveries to Gaza.
The State Department knew the Israeli government was blocking aid because, as she described on “PBS News Hour,” there are databases that track “how many trucks are backed up at the border, how many tons of flour have not been allowed in.” Humanitarian aid organizations regularly send reports that detail obstacles that stem from the Israeli government.
Alexander Smith worked for four years at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He was a senior advisor on gender, maternal health, child health, and nutrition at USAID’s Bureau of Global Health when he resigned.
In his resignation letter to USAID administrator Samantha Power, Smith recounted how he was scheduled to present a session at a USAID conference on May 22, 2024. The session was vetted in February 2024 and was titled, “An Intersectional Gender Lens in Gaza: Ethnicity, Religion, Legal Status, and Maternal/Child Health Outcomes.” It was to focus particular attention on “indigenous women and women from racial and ethnic minorities,” who “often experience higher maternal mortality rates and other negative maternal health outcomes.”
Smith’s presentation dealt with “maternal and child health outcomes in Gaza and the long-term implications of starving and bombarding pregnant women in this and previous conflicts.” But a day before he was scheduled to give his presentation, leadership at USAID apparently told Smith that he was “forbidden” to use the terms “Israel-Gaza border,” “Palestinian state,” and “Palestinians” when referring to Palestinian or Arab citizens of Israel. Leadership also objected to the inclusion of a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) map that accurately described the 2022 borders.
Before the day ended, Smith said his entire session was canceled. “I cannot do my job in an. Environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race.”
“I can no longer in good conscience continue to be silent amidst USAID’s de facto policy of ignoring human suffering when that suffering is perpetrated by an ally,” Smith concluded.
Lily Greenberg Call was the first Jewish American political appointee, who resigned from the Interior Department over President Joe Biden’s support for the Israeli government’s assault on Gaza. She announced her resignation on Nakba Day, “which recognizes the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 and the displacement of the majority of the Palestinian people for the formation of today’s modern Israel.”
Throughout Greenberg Call’s resignation letter, she consistently raised her Jewish identity. “My whole life has been spent in [the] Jewish community in the US and Israel,” she recalled. She described learning Hebrew and Arabic in school in the the community. While acknowledging the horror of what occurred with the October 7 attack, she asserted that collectively punishing “millions of Palestinians through displacement, famine, and ethnic cleansing” was not the answer.
“The United States has used nearly no leverage throughout the last eight months to hold Israel accountable; quite the opposite, we have enabled and legitimized Israel’s action with vetoes of UN resolutions designed to hold Israel accountable. President Biden has the blood of innocent people on his hands,” declared Greenberg Call.
Greenberg Call further stated, “I reject the premise that one people’s salvation must come at another’s destruction. I am committed to creating a world where this does not happen—and this cannot be done from within the Biden Administration.”
Hala Rharrit worked for nearly two years as a spokesperson for the State Department’s regional media hub for the Middle East and Africa, which is based in Dubai. She appeared on Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, BBC Arabic, Asharq Al Awsat, and Independent Arabia to discuss numerous global issues. She was a foreign service officer for the State Department for 18 years.
There is ample evidence to show that routine childhood vaccines cause sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, and have done so for decades. Yet that evidence is ignored or suppressed.
In 2011, Dr. Raymond Obomsawin gave a lecture during which he provided several scientific studies to show the harm, including sudden death, that childhood vaccines are causing.
Dr. Obomsawin believed that most cases of shaken baby syndrome are also caused by childhood vaccines. “We see this epidemic of accusations against parents, and there are large numbers of people now in prison, in which they’re claiming they shook their babies and killed them. Most of these parents loved their children and I believe didn’t do it,” he said.
Raymond Obomsawin (1950-2021) was a dedicated researcher who held an MSc and a PhD with a focus on health science and human ecology. He unearthed many of the harms from the widespread vaccination programs such as Canada’s vaccine program in Thailand increasing death and disability for those vaccinated, which was of course never published. You can read more about Dr. Obomsawin’s work HERE.
In a presentation titled ‘Historical & Scientific Perspectives: Immunity, Infectious Disease & Vaccination’ given to the Life Science Seminars International in August 2011, Dr. Obomsawin gave a historical overview of human attempts to create immunity artificially via vaccination; explored the issues surrounding these artificial attempts to protect human health; showed the real causes of some of the more recent health issues; and, how vaccines, among other artificial chemicals and pharmaceutics, cause harmful and, oftentimes, lifelong health damage. He showed, using statistical and historical facts, that vaccines have no positive impact on the decline of disease.
“We will have quite a bit of interesting history to look at. And the history you’re going to be exposed to is very different from what you’ll read in a mainstream textbook because it‘s not talked about. It’s ignored or it’s suppressed,” he said.
Dr. Obomsawin began by speaking about the work carried out by Australian doctor Archie Kalokerinos who authored the book ‘Every Second Child’. Dr. Kalokerinos titled his book ‘Every Second Child’ because when he first became the Director of the Collarenebri Health Centre in the Northern Territory, Australia, the death rate among infants and small children was at about 50%; every second child was dying.
“Over a period of months, he began to investigate why this was happening,” Dr. Obomsawin said. “Finally, after several months of inquiry, he was shocked to discover that the reason behind these deaths was the fact that these malnourished, immune system-deficient children were receiving these mass vaccine campaign programmes sponsored by the government. And if the parents didn’t want to do it, they would force the parents to [make their child] take it.”
Toward the end of his presentation, Dr. Obomsawin spoke more about vaccine harm to babies and children. He began with sudden infant death syndrome (“SIDS”). We have embedded the video below to begin at this point.
In October 2009, autopsy reports of infants in the Austin, Texas, morgue listed as SIDS were examined by two researchers. They wanted to know if there was a correlation between the timing of deaths and prior vaccination.
They found a “highly, disproportionate amount of sudden deaths were occurring at 2, 4 and 6 months [old], the very same time when infants were being routinely vaccinated,” Dr. Obomsawin said.
The researchers concluded that if the vaccines were not causing the infant deaths, then the deaths should have been occurring randomly, spread out throughout the first six months of life. But because the deaths were clustered around the specific ages when vaccinations were given then the vaccines should be considered as the cause of death.
Next, Dr. Obomsawin spoke about a study published in December 2004 authored by Australian Dr. Viera Scheibner.. Using an instrument developed by her husband that monitors stress in an infant’s breathing patterns, she observed that for as long as 21 days after receiving a vaccine, infants would go through periodic stress episodes.
“[She] showed that when they go through these stress breathing episodes, it’s very dangerous because they can actually stop breathing and die,” Dr. Obomsawin said. “[Dr. Scheibner] concluded that these, they call it the non-specific stress syndrome, can be a critical factor in infant deaths. And it was all, they believe, related to the previous administration of the vaccines.”
Dr. Obomsawin then spoke about a paper Dr. Scheibner published in 2001 titled ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome Diagnosis On Shaky Ground’. Dr. Scheibner, in addition to several other doctors such as Dr. Kalokerinos, found that the symptoms of shaken baby syndrome are identical to what happens with vaccines in these infants’ bodies, Dr. Obomsawin said.
“We see this epidemic of accusations against parents, and there are large numbers of people now in prison, in which they’re claiming they shook their babies and killed them. Most of these parents loved their children and I believe didn’t do it,” he added.
“It’s in particular infants who have been delivered with forceps. Because what happens after, a lot of these babies who are delivered with forceps, there is brain damage, slight brain damage and bleeding on the top of their brain as a result of that. And when they receive the vaccine, it causes a much greater release of blood in the brain area which can precipitate death,” Dr. Obomsawin explained.
Roberts met with regulatory scientists in the US National Institute of Health in 1999 to look at the safety of vaccine manufacturing methods, Dr. Obomsawin said and briefly described what Chapter 7 detailed:
“She was shocked at what they found: that there was the chicken leukosis virus in the MMR vaccine when it shouldn’t have been there; that the polio vaccine sometimes contained more monkey viruses than polioviruses; and, there were grave concerns also about foreign residual DNA and RNA [contaminating] these vaccines.
“There was a fear that could be causing autoimmune disorders and cancers … Also, DNA contamination could possibly be linked to the incidence of autism and other serious disorders.”
For the section on SIDS, he ended with a study that was published in 2011 which examined data for 30 countries on infant mortality and vaccine doses. The researchers found that infant mortality rates reduced, or regressed, with fewer vaccine doses that were routinely given.
Amazing Discoveries: Immunity, Infectious Disease and Vaccination | Raymond Obomsawin (2010), uploaded 21 August 2023 (90 mins)
You can find the slides for Dr. Obomsawin’s presentation HERE. If the video above is removed from YouTube, you can watch it on Amazing Discoveries HERE. It is the first episode in a series of seven titled ‘Science of Life’. You can find all 7 episodes HERE.
Sharing the video above, the Vaccination Information Network provided links to information in support of Dr. Obomsawin’s presentation. The links are no longer available. However, we were able to find archived copies which we have also shown below:
Supplemental material (graphs) HERE, archived on Wayback Machine HERE. We were also able to find a copy of the supplemental material on SlideShare HERE.
Last year, Canadian emergency room doctor Daniel Nagase wrote about his personal experience regarding the link between vaccination and SIDS in a Substack article. We’ve reproduced Dr. Nagase’s article below as it compliments Dr. Obomsawin’s presentation.
The Most Revolutionary Act 