The Most Revolutionary Act

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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.

Bill Gates Funding Scheme to Cut Down 70 Million Acres of Forests in North America

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By Rhoda Wilson

[…]

At the end of July, Forbes was given the task of promoting Gates’ latest plan to destroy and capitalise on the natural world in the name of “climate change” in an article titled: ‘Chop Down Forests to Save the Planet? Maybe Not as Crazy as it Sounds’.  Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds.

At least Forbes was honest enough to highlight why the article was being published in its drop head: “Bill Gates and other investors are betting Kodama Systems can reduce carbon dioxide in the air by chopping down and burying trees. Now if only Uncle Sam would get on board with tax credits, too.”

The final sentence gives a clue to what this latest scam is all about – money.  Let’s see what the article has to say and how Forbes manipulates and outright lies to try to sell the idea that Gates and other investors are doing this for the good of the planet.

It’s not long into the article that Forbes links carbon to trading of carbon credits and carbon offsets:

Yes, the conventional idea is to plant trees to soak up carbon dioxide from the air and to then sell credits to corporations, private jet owners and others who need or want to offset their emissions. But scientists say burying trees can reduce global warming as well – particularly if those trees would otherwise end up burning or decaying, spewing their stored carbon into the air.

Chop Down Forests to Save the Planet? Maybe Not as Crazy as it Sounds, Forbes, 28 July 2023

Trees are “spewing” carbon into the air. Really?  It’s shameless propaganda.

Related: They’re using indoctrination tools on you right now, today. And it’s only going to get worse

Forbes may benefit from reading National Geographic’s encyclopaedia for children.  And then, if the author feels he can cope with more grown-up content, perhaps he can listen to Patrick Moore explain that the idea of CO2 being a pollutant is dangerous propaganda.  Or perhaps he can examine satellite imagery that demonstrates how CO2 as nature’s fertilizer has steadily been enriching Earth’s atmosphere.

And, should Forbes feel it necessary to fall back on the default “human-caused climate crisis” narrative, a study conducted on data from 1750 to 2018 will clarify things for him.  The study estimated that the value of the atmospheric concentration of anthropogenic fossil-derived CO2 in 2018 was 46.84 ppm out of a total of 405.40 ppm.

Forbes then turned to wildfires to argue the case for Bill Gates and other investors:

California’s enormous 2020 wildfires drove home the risks to air, property and life posed by overgrown forests … To help address the problem, the U.S. Forest Service aims to thin out 70 million acres of western forests, mostly in California, over the next decade, extracting more than 1 billion tonnes of bone-dry biomass.

Chop Down Forests to Save the Planet? Maybe Not as Crazy as it Sounds, Forbes, 28 July 2023

According to Roger Pielke, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado, Canada’s wildfire trends show no increase in recent decades, wildfires used to be much more extensive in past centuries and wildfires are a part of the natural ecosystem.

Wildfires across the world that corporately funded media have enthusiastically publicised have been the result of man’s intervention – but not the human-caused climate change that corporate media supports.

The fires in Greece, Spain, Italy and the Amazon rainforest are most likely due to arson.  And regarding the recent fires in Hawaii – there are so many questions without honest answers concerning the destruction of Lahaina in Maui, that even people who normally trust the government are starting to wonder what has really happened there.

Forbes then attempts to justify burying wood in man-made vaults, which should be a nice little earner.  In fact, Yale Carbon Containment Lab (“CC Lab”), Kodama’s partner, is hoping to make a business out of “earthen vaults” or “biomass vaults.”

It is customary, after such forest thinning, for logs of marketable size to go to sawmills, with most of the rest piled up and later burned under controlled conditions. Kodama wants to bury the leftovers instead – in earthen vaults designed to maintain dry and anoxic (oxygen-free) conditions and protect the wood from rotting or burning.

Chop Down Forests to Save the Planet? Maybe Not as Crazy as it Sounds, Forbes, 28 July 2023

CC Lab admits biomass vaults are not viable: “The greatest risk for this project is the high cost to transport wood from dispersed sources to a single storage site. Transporting wet wood is significantly more time and energy-intensive than leaving it in the forest. Logistics greatly impact project viability, even if the price of carbon is high.” And, “the carbon containment value of burying large volumes of wood may be offset partially or totally by the carbon released from the soils when excavating a storage pit.”

Despite this, as MIT Technology Review noted, Merritt Jenkins, Kodama’s co-founder and chief executive, says they plan to earn revenue from their forest thinning work, as well as by selling usable timber and carbon credits from its burial projects. 

Forbes summed up the potential benefits for Kodama and its investors:

Along with the [venture capital] seed money, Kodama has already received $1.1 million in grants from California’s forest fire agency and others, as well as purchase commitments for the carbon credits tied to the first 400 tonnes of trees it buries. On the open market, those credits should fetch $200 a tonne. Eventually, Kodama wants to cut down and bury more than 5,000 tonnes of trees a year.

If you want to cut down trees and pelletise them to burn in place of coal, there are tax credits for that too. But not, as of now, for burying them.

Chop Down Forests to Save the Planet? Maybe Not as Crazy as it Sounds, Forbes, 28 July 2023

So, we can conclude the idea is don’t use the wood, don’t recycle it and don’t allow it to enrich the environment, simply cut trees down and bury them.  Does it sound crazy to you?

We have a crisis but it’s not a climate crisis.  Green policies are killing people, economies and, increasingly, the planet.  The goal to reduce carbon emissions is a scam to enable the rich to become richer off the backs of the poor.

The Investors

Kodama Systems, based in the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Sonora, has been operating in stealth mode since it was founded in the summer of 2021, MIT Technology Review wrote. “Stealth mode”? Is that another way of saying Kodama has been illegally logging and then burying the evidence?  If so, the illegal loggers have since raised millions.

In December 2022, Kodama announced that it had raised $6.6 million in a Series Seed funding round co-led by leading climate-technology investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Congruent Ventures. Kodama has additionally received a business development grant from California’s forestry and fire protection services CAL FIRE to develop site connectivity and automation for forest thinning, and a carbon removal research and development grant from Frontier Climate for a biomass storage pilot project in partnership with the Yale Carbon Containment Lab.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures (“BEV”) was founded by Bill Gates and is backed by many of the world’s top business leaders, BEV has raised more than $2 billion in committed capital to support cutting-edge companies that are leading the world to net-zero emissions. BEV is a purpose-built investment firm that is seeking to invest, launch and scale global companies that will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions throughout the economy as soon as possible.

Congruent Ventures is a leading early-stage venture firm focused on partnering with entrepreneurs to build companies addressing climate and sustainability challenges. Congruent is one of the most active US investors in climate. Its portfolio represents companies that will “help to decarbonise” every sector of the economy – energy, fleet electrification, farming, new food products, sustainable aviation fuels, manufacturing, and more.  In April 2023, it had more than $700 million in assets under management.

Frontier Climate was founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, McKinsey and tens of thousands of businesses using Stripe Climate.  Frontier aims to act as the middleman between buyers and sellers of carbon removal.  What this means in simple terms is buyers decide how much they want to spend on carbon removal each year, Frontier aggregates the buyers’ budgets and then pays suppliers to remove the carbon.

MIT Technology Review reported that on 15 December Stripe revealed it would provide a $250,000 research grant to Kodama and Yale Carbon Containment Lab as part of a broader carbon removal announcement. That grant will support a pilot effort to bury waste biomass harvested from California forests in the Nevada desert and study “how well it prevents the release of greenhouse gases that drive climate change.”

Stripe also agreed to purchase about 415 tonnes of carbon dioxide eventually sequestered by Kodama for another $250,000, if that proof-of-concept project achieves certain benchmarks.

For the last several years, Stripe has pre-purchased tonnes of carbon dioxide that start-ups aim to eventually draw out of the air and permanently sequester, in an effort to help build up a carbon removal industry.

Let’s Keep the Trees and Get Rid of the Billionaires

Even scientists who have been bought off or indoctrinated with the “climate crisis” ideology have had enough of the billionaires’ antics.  Some have called for a shareholder-based carbon tax. The wealthiest 10 per cent in the USA are the source of 40 per cent of US national greenhouse gas emissions, they say.  And, the wealthiest 1 per cent of households are responsible for between 15 per cent and 17 per cent of emissions.

And increasingly, climate activists are setting their sights on the 1 per cent.  Billionaires’ lifestyles are unsustainable, billionaires are bad for the planet they say.  We may agree for different reasons but we do agree that billionaires are bad for the planet.

[…]

Via https://expose-news.com/2023/09/02/bill-gates-cutting-down-70m-acres-forests/

Etruscan Gods and Goddesses: Similarities and Differences with Greece and Rome

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Etruscan God Tinia

Episode 7 Etruscan Gods and Goddesses

The Mysterious Etruscans

Dr Steven L Tuck (2016)

Film Review

The personalities of Etruscan gods were less confrontational and more collaborative than those of the Greeks and Romans. It was typical of Etruscan gods to

  • act collectively for the overall benefit of humanity.
  • possess complex identities involving multiple responsibilities.
  • appear as amorphous beings prior to to the 6th century BC (when trade between Etruscan cities and Greek colonies intensified), after which most assumed a human appearance like the Greek gods. Some never took on a fully human shape.

In contrast to the 12 Indo-European gods in the the Greek and Roman pantheon, there were nine Etruscan gods.

    • Tinia (derrived from “tini,” meaning Etruscan) – chief Etruscan god. Like the Greco-Roman Zeus/Jupiter he controlled the sky and weather. Depicted as a massive bearded man dispatching thunderbolts (to symbolize decision making), Tini was also the god of boundaries and the underworld. According to Tuck he is most similar to the Odin, the king of the Norse gods, as well as the god of weather and victory in war. Unlike the impulsively violent Zeus/Jupiter, Tinia always sought consultation from the other gods in council, before using force.**
    • Uni – Tinia’s consort and queen of the gods. More like Ishtar than Hera/Juno, Uni was the god of love, fertility and nurturing the young. Her marriage to Tinia was stable, peaceful and mutually supportive (totally unlike the tumultuous marriage between Zeus/Jupiter and Hera/Juno).
    • Menvra (comparable to Greek/Roman god Minerva/Athena) – third most powerful god, a virgin who carried a spear and could also shoot thunderbolts. Goddess of war and wisdom. Menvra also nurtures children.
    • Ablu – Etruscan equivalent of the Greek/Roman god Apollo.
    • Turan (means “female ruler”) – the oldest Etruscan god (still had wings). Also involved in nurturing infants and small children. Possibly equivalent of Aphrodite/Venus but less flighty.

      Etruscan god Turan

    • Usul – god of the sun, female when sun rising and male when sun setting.
    • Apulu – Etruscan god modeled on the Greek god Apollo after 600 BC
    • Veltha – male/female god of vegetation, seas and crops.
    • Terms – messenger god like Hermes/Mercury.

* It was also Odin’s role to welcome newly deceased warriors to the underworld. According to Tuck, some elements of Etruscan culture were transmitted to the Vikings via Celts who colonized northern Italy.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/239710/239621

Plastics Pose Cancer Risk for Babies and Young Kids

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plastics cancer risk babies kids feature

Everyday plastics may affect many major organs in babies and young children, posing a wide variety of serious health risks as they develop, according to a new report that reviewed 120 recent studies.

Evidence shows potential links between babies’ exposure to plastics and their risk for developing cancer, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other conditions that may arise when the endocrine system is disrupted, according to the report, which was published in November by the environmental group EARTHDAY.ORG.

Microplastics — bits of plastics smaller than 5 millimeters (microplastics) — have also been found in the human placenta, disrupting communication between a fetus and the mother’s body.

“This isn’t just a simple issue,” said Tom Cosgrove, Chief Creative and Content Officer at EARTHDAY.ORG. “It’s big, the impacts are really broad, and it’s going to take a serious global commitment to get us through this and figure out how we can get to the other side.”

The report was published ahead of a meeting of delegates from 150 countries in Nairobi, Kenya, which discussed details of a Global Plastics Treaty to curb plastic waste.

The deliberations, which concluded on Nov. 19, reportedly made little progress toward finalizing the treaty. While the oil and gas industry advocated for recycling and waste management to control plastic pollution, critics say the treaty must curtail the amount of plastic produced in the first place.

“We’re advocating for a 60% reduction in plastic production by 2040,” said Cosgrove. “There’s just too much there and it doesn’t go away. Every piece of plastic that’s ever been created is still here on the Earth in one form or another.”

Half of the 300 million tons of plastics the world produces each year are single-use. Since alternatives already abound for items such as disposable plastic bags, bottles and straws, cracking down on single-use plastics could make “a huge dent in the whole problem” added Cosgrove.

‘There’s something really troubling here’

While there is already a lot of awareness about plastic pollution, many people don’t realize just how many aspects of human health plastic exposure can impact, said Cosgrove.

To paint a “10,000-foot view” picture of the problem, the researchers combed through recent research, identifying studies on how plastic impacts a wide range of body systems.

“We literally drew a picture of the body and said, ‘let’s start discovering all the different areas where there’s an impact — let’s research the blood-brain barrier, the womb, lungs, heart,’” he said. “Unfortunately, we found something pretty much everywhere.”

The researchers identified studies — some in humans and some in animals — suggesting microplastics accumulate in the urinary system, digestive system, blood, heart, lungs, brain and other major organs.

Babies are particularly vulnerable to ingesting microplastics since they explore the world by putting objects in their mouths.

One study found that babies had 10 times higher levels of some microplastics in their feces than adults, the report revealed. Infants can ingest up to 4.5 million plastic particles per day when fed from polypropylene bottles, which account for the majority of baby bottles used worldwide, according to a 2020 study.

Babies may also ingest microplastics through breast milk, with a 2022 study finding them in 75% of breast milk samples taken from 34 healthy mothers. Toys, clothes, cribs and playgrounds were also identified as major sources of microplastic exposure.

Young children’s overwhelming exposure to common everyday plastics can have debilitating consequences.

Exposure to phthalates, a chemical used to make many plastics, was associated with a 20% higher rate of childhood cancer overall in a study of more than 2,000 childhood cancer cases. Contact with the chemicals was linked to a nearly three-fold higher rate of bone cancer and a two-fold higher rate of lymphoma, a cancer of the blood.

Other research has found higher levels of phthalate and bisphenol A (BPA), another chemical often used in plastics, in children with ADHD compared to children without the condition. Research also points to a potential link between exposure to plastics and traits resembling autism spectrum disorder in mice.

“Some of the research is really extensive and some are preliminary studies, but I think when you put it all together you can’t walk away from it without saying ‘there’s something really troubling here,’” said Cosgrove.

Most of the studies EARTHDAY.ORG reviewed were conducted in the U.S. and Europe, Cosgrove noted, adding that more research is needed to investigate how plastics are affecting babies in the Global South.

“We really need a lot more research done in the rest of the world, where I suspect the impacts are as bad or worse,” he said.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/plastics-cancer-risk-babies-kids/

Last Year’s Flu Shot Less than 50% Effective

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(Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock)

During the 2022–2023 flu season, the influenza vaccine was less than 50 percent effective at preventing emergency department/urgent care visits and hospitalizations among children and adolescents, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The analysis, published Nov. 16, 2023, in Clinical Infectious Diseases, found the seasonal influenza vaccine was only 48 percent effective overall at reducing the risk of influenza-A-associated emergency department (ED) or urgent care (UC) visits, and only 40 percent effective at preventing hospitalizations.

Researchers analyzed acute respiratory illness-associated ED and UC visits or hospitalizations at 55 hospitals and 107 ED or UC sites within the VISION vaccine effectiveness network—a multistate collaboration with the CDC. Children and adolescents 6 months to 17 years were tested for influenza between October 2022 and March 2023.

Researchers estimated influenza A vaccine effectiveness using a test-negative design—a popular method for determining vaccine efficacy that uses the same clinical case definition for both cases and controls and distinguishes which patients are in each group with subsequent laboratory testing. In other words, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine was estimated by comparing influenza vaccination status in patients testing positive for influenza with those testing negative for influenza.

According to the study, 13,547 of 44,787 qualified ED/UC visits and 263 of 1,862 hospitalizations were positive for influenza A. Among ED/UC patients, 15.2 percent of influenza-positive cases and 27.1 percent of influenza-negative cases were vaccinated.

The vaccine was 44 to 52 percent effective—or 48 percent effective “overall,” 47 to 58 percent effective among children aged 6 months to 4 years, and 30 to 45 percent effective among those aged 9 to 17 years old.

Among hospitalizations, 17.5 percent of influenza-positive cases were vaccinated compared with 33.4 percent of influenza-negative patients. Vaccine efficacy was 6 to 61 percent—or 40 percent “overall,” 23 to 75 percent among children ages 6 months to 4 years, and 2 to 70 percent among those 5 to 17 years old. Despite vaccine efficacy numbers, researchers said the influenza vaccine is a “critical tool to prevent moderate-to-severe influenza illness in children and adolescents.”

Findings Identify Associations, Not Causal or Inferred Effectiveness

Linda Wastila, professor and Parke-Davis chair of geriatric pharmacotherapy with a doctorate in health policy, told The Epoch Times in an email that she found the study a bit confusing and the authors’ claims of effectiveness against preventing emergency room and hospital admissions a “bit of a stretch.”

“The authors look at subjects who enter the hospital, although the primary (and secondary) reasons for admission are not provided or controlled for, with subjects possibly [admitted] for other conditions (e.g., pneumonia, RSV, broken limbs) and, in testing, found to be positive WITH influenza rather than admitted FOR influenza. The authors didn’t control for many factors using multivariable approaches, so there is no control in their VE [vaccine efficacy] calculations for variability by site or in the subjects themselves,” Ms. Wastila said.

“Although the authors present tabular findings (Table 2) on subjects’ health status, these are essentially descriptive or, at best, cross-tabular, NOT causal, associations between vaccine status and influenza negativity,” she added.

Ms. Wastila said another serious shortcoming the authors noted themselves is the considerable variation across and within the three healthcare systems used for enrollment.

“I dislike using the term ‘cherry pick,’ but without randomization and/or matching of cases with controls, we cannot rule out explicit and/or implicit biases made at the site, principal investigator, and provider levels in identifying subjects,” she said. “In sum, based on the lack of matched cases/controls and lack of statistical control for covariates and confounders, at best, this study’s findings reflect descriptive findings demonstrating associations, not causal or inferred effectiveness.”

CDC Redefines Vaccine Efficacy for Influenza Vaccine

According to the CDC, the agency conducts yearly studies during flu season to help determine how well the vaccine works. Vaccine effectiveness studies help assess the “value of flu vaccination as a public health intervention.” Although the test-negative design is a common method of determining vaccine efficacy, a 2021 Department of Health and Human Services study said “particular care” must be taken when using this method to determine whether a vaccination reduces disease severity in breakthrough infections.

As reported by The Epoch Times, the CDC rolled out a digital ad campaign in September to rebrand the influenza vaccine and redefine expectations about what a yearly flu shot could and couldn’t do amid breakthrough cases. The agency’s new messaging is that the flu shot wouldn’t prevent a person from getting sick but would prevent severe illness should one still get sick.
This is similar to the shift in messaging adopted by U.S. regulatory agencies with COVID-19 vaccines when breakthrough COVID-19 cases started piling up among the vaccinated. U.S. health officials then admitted the shots did not prevent COVID-19 or transmission of the virus to others, and vaccine efficacy was redefined by whether the vaccine prevented hospitalizations and death.

According to CDC data, the influenza vaccine was 54 percent effective during the 2022–2023 influenza season and 36 percent effective during the 2021–2022 season. During the previous ten years, vaccine efficacy for the influenza vaccine has ranged from 19 to 52 percent effective….

[…]

Via https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/cdc-last-years-flu-shot-was-less-than-50-percent-effective-for-children-and-adolescents-5533379

Military Could Owe Billions to Service Members Involuntarily Discharged for Refusing COVID Shots

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military billions lawsuits covid shots feature

By  Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

The U.S. military could owe billions in back pay and legal fees depending on the outcome of three class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of service members who allege they were wrongfully discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

The U.S. military could owe billions in back pay and legal fees depending on the outcome of three class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of service members who allege they were wrongfully discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Among the claims made by the plaintiffs are that the military could not legally mandate vaccines issued under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), as was the case with the COVID-19 vaccines, and that it was nearly impossible for service members requesting a religious exemption to have those requests approved

Florida lawyer Dale Saran, who represents the plaintiffs, told Fox Business his legal team represents “basically everybody who got kicked out, discharged or dropped to the IRR [individual ready reserve] as a result of not taking the vaccine.”

This could include more than 100,000 former service members, according to the plaintiffs’ legal team, led by Saran and two other attorneys: Brandon Johnson and J. Andrew Meyer.

It’s unclear how many service members were involuntarily discharged for refusing the vaccine, but estimates range from more than 8,000 to just under 2,000.

Fox News last week reported, “thousands of troops unsuccessfully sought religious exemptions from the inoculation, including 8,945 soldiers, 10,800 airmen and guardians, 4,172 sailors, and 3,717 Marines.”

Regardless of the actual number, the U.S. Army is trying to get members who were involuntarily discharged to reenlist, according to an undated letter that surfaced last week.

[…]

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Aug. 24, 2021, mandated members of the U.S. military get the COVID-19 vaccine.

However, in late 2022, Congress passed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which required Austin to rescind the mandate, which he did on Jan. 10, 2023.

The three lawsuits — Bassen v. The United States of America, Botello v. The United States of America and Harkins v. The United States of America — were filed Aug. 4 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, “seeking back pay and other compensation, as well as reinstatement and other non-monetary relief, for all current or former members of the U.S. Armed Forces harmed by the illegal COVID-19 vaccine mandate.”

The U.S. government has filed motions to dismiss each of the three lawsuits.

Three separate lawsuits cover all military branches, National Guard, Coast Guard

According to the lawsuits, the U.S. government “has systematically violated service members’ religious liberties” via a “sham religious accommodation process,” and violated informed consent laws, the Military Pay Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Saran told Fox Business there are three separate lawsuits, largely because of the way the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is set up.

According to the plaintiffs’ legal team, Bassen v. United States “is a class action filed on behalf of the approximately 8,500 active-duty service members who were involuntarily discharged … as well as any other active-duty service members who were forced into early retirement or were constructively discharged due to their vaccination status.”

This includes “all former service members (except Coast Guard) who were on Title 10 active-duty orders when discharged.”

Botello v. United States is a class action seeking back pay and “other remedies for 70,000-100,000 members of the Air and Army National Guard, and for reserve members of all services, who were dropped from active-duty orders or active status, denied pay or benefits or prohibited from participating in drills, training, and other duties.”

This includes “all service members (except Coast Guard) on Title 32 Orders in the National Guard or Reserve.”

In turn, Harkins v. United States is a “class action filed on behalf of the active-duty and reserve Coast Guard members who were involuntarily discharged due to their unvaccinated status, as well as any other Coast Guard members who were forced into early retirement or were constructively discharged due to their vaccination status.”

‘You start talking about $6 billion or more’

The lawsuits seek financial restitution, including back pay and legal fees for the named plaintiffs, the establishment of a common fund that would provide compensation for plaintiffs who later join any of the class action suits, reinstatement of the service members and correction of their records.

The lawsuits also allege the U.S. government committed “illegal exactions” by “indebting” some of the affected service members when it demanded that enlistment bonuses, post-9/11 G.I. Bill benefits, training and tuition costs and “other allowances or special pays, such as separation pay or travel allowances,” be returned.

According to the plaintiffs’ legal team, when Congress ordered the DOD to rescind the mandate, it did not explicitly order the military to provide back pay and financial compensation for all the service members and veterans harmed by the mandate.

The lawsuits note, however, that in the NDAA, Congress “expressly chose the term ‘rescind,’ rather than more customary language such as ‘repeal,’ ‘amend,’ or ‘clarify,’ to direct the DoD and the courts that ‘the rescission should be applied retroactively to render the Mandate null and void ab initio.’”

Saran told The Defender that “‘rescind’ is a legal term of art” which “means something distinct from ‘repeal.’”

“In our view, by rescinding, Congress intended that members should be treated as if the mandates were never issued — i.e., in legal parlance, that the orders to take the shots were void ab initio [from inception]. This means people should be put back into the position — as best the government is able — as they were before this happened,” he said.

Saran told Fox Business the total back pay owed to service members who qualify for any of the three lawsuits might total “billions.” Citing an armed forces personnel budget of approximately $158 billion and disciplinary actions that impacted approximately 4% of military service members, “you start talking about $6 billion or more.”

In addition to back pay, Saran told The Defender service members who faced disciplinary actions as a result of their unvaccinated status may be able to seek restoration of “some” back benefits, which “largely depends upon whether those benefits are classified as ‘direct’ damages (yes) or ‘consequential’ damages (no).”

Military had no legal authority to mandate EUA vaccines

The lawsuits claim the plaintiffs can claim back pay because the DOD “unlawfully mandated Emergency Use Authorization (‘EUA’) only products in violation of Congress’ explicit statutory prohibition in 10 U.S.C. §1107a.”

Compliance with the mandate “was impossible because the DoD did not have any products licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (‘FDA’) … while the Mandate was in effect,” the lawsuits state, referring to the Pfizer Comirnaty and Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccines.

“The DoD has admitted in related litigation that the DoD did not have any FDA-licensed COVID-19 vaccines” when the mandate was issued in 2021, the lawsuits state. Instead, the DOD “began using and mandating the unlicensed, EUA Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine based on the DoD’s determination” that the two were “interchangeable.”

Notably, in November 2021, a federal judge rejected the DOD’s claim that the fully licensed Comirnaty and the EUA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were “interchangeable.”

[…]

“Service members were forced to take experimental products — and we now know unequivocally just how deadly they have been,” Saran said.

Religious accommodation a ‘sham process’

The lawsuit also called into question the process for religious accommodations set forth by the DOD for service members, calling it a “sham process” and citing other legal cases where it was described as “a ‘quixotic quest’ that amounts to little more than ‘theater.’”

This process resulted in “nearly uniform denials of service members’ requests for religious accommodations, using nearly identical form letters with only names, dates, and titles or duties changed.”

According to the lawsuits, the Armed Services denied at least 99% of religious accommodation requests that were adjudicated, but the “true number” likely approaches 100% because “the small number” of approved claims “appear to have been disguised administrated exemptions granted to service members on terminal leave in their final months of service.”

“A lot of people had religious qualms about taking these and the military had lots of injunctions against it. It just did not handle this well at all,” Saran told Fox Business.

“It wasn’t a religious ‘accommodation’ process. It was a religious ‘targeting’ process where people who filed an accommodation were immediately removed from leadership billets, forced to retire, had promotions suspended, etc.,” Saran told The Defender, adding that federal law requires the military to “conduct individualized determinations.”

“It is criminal, and people should be in jail for intentional violation of the civil rights of service members,” he said.

Former service members can still join one of the class action lawsuits

One of the notable characteristics of the three lawsuits is that they have been filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, a special court with jurisdiction over claims seeking monetary claims against the federal government.

According to the plaintiffs’ legal team, the court also has the authority to hear their non-monetary claims, stating that “it may address violations of other statutes to the extent necessary to resolve the underlying contractual dispute.”

Saran described the U.S. Court of Federal Claims as a specialized court with nearly exclusive jurisdiction over military back pay claims and other specialized areas like vaccine injuries, government contract disputes, and patent and trademark claims.

Any former service member that falls into any of the categories covered by the lawsuits “may have a claim for back pay, financial compensation or other remedies such as reinstatement or correction of military records,” the legal team said.

Army invitation to unvaccinated service members to reenlist ‘disingenuous’

While the U.S. government is attempting to have the three lawsuits dismissed, it has nevertheless admitted that the armed forces are facing a recruitment crisis.

According to Fox News, “The Army expects to have ended fiscal year 2023 with nearly 55,000 recruiting contracts, including roughly 4,600 for the Army’s Delayed Entry Program — recruits who will ship in the 2024 fiscal year. As a result, the Army said it will meet its end-strength goal of 452,000 for active-duty soldiers.”

Yet, the same report states that on Oct. 3, “the U.S. Army announced a transformation of its recruiting enterprise, stressing how ‘the armed forces facing the most challenging recruiting environment in a generation.’”

According to Task & Purpose, the Army “missed its recruiting goals for this past year by nearly 15,000 soldiers.” It cites “A lack of interest from Gen Z to join the military” as well as factors “as broad as the economy and job market to … the service’s struggles with sexual assault and suicide in the ranks” as factors contributing to low recruitment.

Yet, according to the three lawsuits, Congress, in passing the NDAA 2023, identified the vaccine mandate as the “primary cause of the [DoD]’s recruiting difficulties,” disqualifying more than 40% “of the Army’s target demographic from service nationwide,” leading to “the loss of at least 75,000 from the Army alone.”

Saran told Fox Business that Austin “let go of some 70,000 to 100,000 National Guardsmen … almost 10% of the National Guard,” adding that the armed forces combined “sacked somewhere north of 85,000,” noting that “We don’t have exact numbers. The DOD hasn’t been entirely forthcoming.”

The plaintiffs’ legal team calls this “the greatest reduction in force since the end of the Cold War and likely the self-inflicted threat to national security and military readiness in our Nation’s history,” while the lawsuits call this a “self-imposed readiness crisis.”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/military-billions-back-pay-lawsuits-covid-vaccine-mandate/

Venezuela Condemns Israeli Attack on Damascus Airport

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Smoke plumes caused by Israeli bombing in Damascus, Syria, Nov. 27, 2023Smoke plumes caused by Israeli bombing in Damascus, Syria, Nov. 27, 2023 | Photo: X/ @XJMejid

teleSUR Newsletter

This new aggression constitutes “an obvious flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”

On Monday, Venezuela condemned the attack on the Damascus airport in Syria, which was out of service after this Israeli missile launch on Sunday.

The Venezuelan government accused Israel of generating political and military tension in the Middle East with this new aggression, which constitutes “an obvious flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”

Furthermore, Venezuela held Israel responsible for the hostilities and war crimes unleashed against the Palestinian people, which have left over 13,000 dead and tens of thousands of civilians injured since October 7.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s administration accused Israel of launching an “air aggression” against this airport, an unnamed military source told news agency SANA.

Although the Syrian anti-aircraft defenses managed to shoot down most of the projectiles, those that did reach their target caused material damage and forced the suspension of air traffic at the capital’s airfield.

On Wednesday, the Syrian authorities reported a launch of two Israeli missiles also against the outskirts of the capital, hours after another action that was only reported by local organizations.

Israel has intensified its operations against Syria since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, launching more than twenty actions in a matter of weeks and leaving the airports in Damascus and Aleppo out of service on several occasions.

[…]

Via https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Condemns-Israeli-Attack-Against-Damascus-Airport-20231127-0007.html

 

Russia warns mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt would be ‘catastrophic’

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Elena Teslova

 Russian Foreign Ministry’s Zakharova tells Anadolu if plan goes forward, ‘there will be disastrous consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis, and for the region as a whole’

 Reported Israeli plans to relocate Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula would have “catastrophic” consequences, said the spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday.

Provocative statements about possible relocation fuel radical sentiments and mutual bitterness, threatening to further prolong the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Maria Zakharova said at a news conference in Moscow, responding to Anadolu.

“If such plans are implemented, the consequences of mass displacement of people will be catastrophic and will only worsen the situation in the region. And there will be disastrous consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis, and for the region as a whole,” she warned.

This week an Israeli ministry draft proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people to Sinai surfaced, drawing immediate denunciation. Israeli authorities called the document a hypothetical “concept paper” rather than a concrete plan.

Zakharova added: “It is strange to hear that the proposal to forcibly deport the Palestinian people from their ancestral lands is put forward by those who consider themselves heirs to the idea of reviving the Jewish state on its historical territory.”

“I would like to emphasize once again that we see the entirety of the reasons that led to the aggravation of the problem. And we are saying that it is necessary not to aggravate it, but to take those concrete steps that will lead to a resolution of the situation,” she stressed.

She also said Russian officials “will not tire of repeating” that a lasting Palestinian-Israeli settlement is only possible on the condition of the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.

[…]

Via https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/russia-warns-mass-displacement-of-palestinians-from-gaza-to-egypt-would-be-catastrophic-/3041349#

Israel’s Proposal to Deport Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Desert

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Manlio Dinucci

The Israeli Intelligence Ministry-which oversees the operation of the Mossad and Shin Bet (the external and internal intelligence services) under the direction of the prime minister-recommends the forced and permanent relocation of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai desert peninsula. Tent camps and later permanent settlements should be established there. An inaccessible strip several kilometers wide should be established in Egyptian territory to prevent Palestinians from approaching the border with Israel.

The plan, which the Netanyahu government is working on through negotiations with Egypt, also involves the Palestinian population of the West Bank. Emblematic is the image of an Israeli bulldozer in the West Bank Palestinian Territory knocking down the monument to Palestine’s historic leader Yasser Arafat.

The Netanyahu government’s goal is clear: to erase the Palestinian Territories. This is confirmed by the fact that the Israeli attack is not only exterminating the Palestinian population, but is making the Gaza territory uninhabitable, so that the deportation of Palestinians to the Sinai or elsewhere, disguised as an “international humanitarian operation,” is inevitable.

From this situation emerges the need to focus action against the war on precise political objectives.

In Italy there can be basically three:

1) The repeal of Law 94/2005, which institutionalizes full-scale military cooperation between Italy and Israel.

2) The demand that the United Nations immediately send an international peacekeeping force to Gaza, the territory of the State of Palestine, which since 2012 has been part of the United Nations with all rights except voting rights.

3) The indictment of Israel’s leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-ministry-intelligence-lets-deport-palestinians-sinai-desert/5841239

US-German ‘Peace Talks Plot’ Shows West on Brink of Losing Ukraine

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Rally to support Ukraine's integration with Europe on Independence Square, Kiev. (File photo) - Sputnik International, 1920, 25.11.2023

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik

The two Western powers are reportedly trying to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into entering into talks with Russia, per German newspaper Bild. What’s behind the report and its timing?

Washington and Berlin have reportedly kicked off a plot to push Ukraine for negotiations with Russia by slashing military supplies to Kiev and leaving Volodymyr Zelensky with little if any options, according to the German publication.

According to Bild, there is also a plan B envisaging a frozen conflict that would solidify a new quasi-border between Ukraine and Russia along the contact line.

“First, [this report] should be seen in a specific temporal context,” Dmitry Evstafiev, a political scientist and High School of Economics (HSE) University professor, told Sputnik.

“This is not a statement, of course, this is a publicity stunt. It appeared in the media almost immediately after the end of the meeting of the notorious Ramstein group that has made an essential decision to create the [Ground Based] Air Defense coalition to strengthen air defense. Moreover, it is quite obvious that they will strengthen not so much the air defense of Ukraine, but the air defense of the countries bordering Ukraine. Therefore, this is a kind of first proposal that it is necessary to take certain political steps that would indicate that Ukraine is ready for negotiations.”

The second aspect is an interview given by the leader of the Servant of the People faction, Davyd Arakhamia, which is “clearly synchronized with the West.” According to Evstafiev, it is “even more indicative against the backdrop of problems at the front.”

Speaking to Western journalists, Arakhamia noted that Russia’s main condition during the March 2022 peace talks with Kiev was Ukraine’s neutrality and guarantees that the Eastern European country wouldn’t join NATO. (It was Arakhamia who headed the Ukrainian delegation during the negotiations with Russians in Belarus and Türkiye in 2022.) In addition, he debunked the Western media narrative that Russia does not want to negotiate peace with Ukraine by saying that Moscow is open to talks and it may start them when Kiev is ready.

“At the moment, [Western] support to Kiev is becoming more and more politically expensive/costly, or whatever you want to call it, for the key countries that provide assistance, these are, first of all: Germany and the United States,” said Evstafiev. “The United States has already almost halted aid [to Ukraine]. Of course, there will still be a revaluation through the Pentagon, but one can no longer expect large packages.”

“Assistance from the European Union will be largely aimed at maintaining the functionality of the public administration system and some kind of social support, but not so much for military support. Therefore, the first point is that support for Kiev has become toxic in terms of politics.

“The second point, which is absolutely clearly visible from the statements of Western sources, is that Kiev now faces the last moment when it can lay claim to more or less acceptable terms of a truce with Moscow. (…) The third point – which Westerners do not conceal – is that Russia will agree to any starting conditions for these negotiations. Arakhamia speaks about this directly, openly and without hesitation.”

West Gives Nothing Short of Ultimatum to Zelensky

Per the German newspaper, the US and Germany are going to supply Ukraine with limited amounts of weapons that would be enough to hold the line but not enough to launch a new offensive. This, the publication claims, would force Zelensky to consider a peace deal.

“This proposed manipulation appears to be quite effective,” said the academic. “Where else could Zelensky get weapons? [Weapons] that had remained on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, in the warehouses of the Soviet army, had already clearly been exhausted. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are increasingly fighting with Western weapons. That is, the number of Soviet and Ukrainian weapons is decreasing, and at a very rapid pace, especially in the last four to five months. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to fight only with Western weapons, and (…) without logistical support from NATO, the armored forces of the Ukrainian Army would stop operations in about four to five weeks.”

Still, Evstafiev believes that the West wouldn’t waste time on convincing Zelensky to start talks. It’s more likely that they would give him an ultimatum: either he joins Russia at the negotiating table or his successor will. Zelensky is by no means indispensable in the eyes of the West, according to the professor.

The West “needs a person who is willing to buy time in exchange for territory,” said Evstafiev. Someone would stabilize the state system in Ukraine, carry out some reforms, ease the pressure on Ukrainians, “because the Zelensky regime has tightened the screws in terms of political and religious freedoms much deeper than is acceptable for the Americans and Germans,” per the expert.

When it comes to Zelensky, it would be very hard for him to reverse his months-long position on peace talks with Russia, according to Evstafiev. One should keep in mind that previously, the Ukrainian president issued a decree making bargaining with Moscow illegitimate. “This is absolutely unacceptable for Zelensky and his entourage,” the professor remarked.

The West is well aware of that and considering changing horses in midstream: “They have already indicated – it has already been openly written – that a new [Charles] de Gaulle is needed. Ukraine needs its own de Gaulle, who will abandon Ukrainian Algeria, which means the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Crimea.” (During a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (1954-1962) then-French President Charles de Gaulle came to the conclusion that continuing to hold on to Algeria, then a French colony, would exhaust France’s resources and weaken its position in Europe. On July 5, 1962, Algeria won independence.)

Why Has West Started Pushing Ukrainian Peace Talks Narrative?

While some Western policy-makers apparently view Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny as Ukraine’s de Gaulle, the problem is that he is unlikely to give up ambitions of taking back the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, according to Evstafiev. Both regions voted in local referendums to join Russia and officially became Russia’s new territories starting from September 2022.

Given that hardliners within the Ukrainian civil and military leadership are still strong, the West has a limited number of options. Hence plan B – a “frozen conflict” – cited by the German newspaper.

“All these negotiations are just an attempt to gain time to stabilize the internal situation in the territory now controlled by the Kiev regime. In my opinion, this needs to be paid attention to,” Evstafiev pointed out.

What’s behind the West’s attempts to stabilize the situation at all costs? The answer is clear, per the academic:

“What scares Westerners the most is not even the defeat at the front. Most of all Westerners – and I think they have an adequate idea of what is happening in [Ukraine’s] rear – are frightened by the possibility of a quick and catastrophic collapse of the public administration system [in Ukraine]. That’s why they are putting so much pressure, I might say, somewhat hysterically, to freeze the situation and try to somewhat restore the stability inside, in the rear,” Evstafiev concluded.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20231125/us-german-peace-talks-plot-shows-west-on-brink-of-losing-ukraine–professor–1115207552.html

Ukrainians Fleeing Ukraine: Kiev Regime Trying to “Prevent Escapes” on Western Transcarpathian Border

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Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Ukraine is having difficulty in convincing its citizens to stay in the country.

According to a recent report, the regime’s soldiers are focusing their efforts on preventing citizens from leaving Ukrainian territory on the Transcarpathian border. The case clearly shows how Ukrainian citizens are dissatisfied with the situation in the country and do not support the war with Russia, trying to evade military obligations.

Ukrainian border service officials are located at the region of Transcarpathia trying to control the large flow of Ukrainian citizens who try to cross every day in order to avoid conscription. Many Ukrainian citizens want to enter neighboring nations, such as Hungary, Poland and Romania, as they believe this is the only way to save their lives from the devastating consequences of the conflict.

Unable to convince their compatriots to fight in the war, Ukrainian soldiers are using illegal and anti-humanitarian methods to prevent escapes. Real military operations are being conducted in the region and there is even the use of landmines on the border, showing the intention to injure or kill those who try to enter neighboring countries. Kidnappings of local citizens for forced recruitment have also become commonplace.

It is also important to remember that the Transcarpathian region is a repeated target of Kiev’s ethnic cleansing practices. Being a region of majority of Hungarian ethnicity, Transcarpathia has become a kind of “Western Donbass” in Ukraine. A process of genocide against the local people has been implemented in an increasingly open and public manner in recent years.

This genocide happens on both a cultural and physical level. Hungarian schools have been closed and the native language banned from official documents. In parallel, ethnic Hungarians are recruited en masse and taken without adequate training and poorly equipped to the front lines, where they become easy targets for Russian artillery and die in large numbers. Kiev is taking advantage of its martial law to use non-Ukrainian ethnic citizens as cannon fodder in NATO’s war of aggression against Russia, and there currently clearly appears to be a focus on using the situation to accelerate ethnic cleansing in Transcarpathia.

It is possible to understand the practices of the neo-Nazi regime by remembering its main political inspiration, which is Hitler’s Germany. During the war, Nazi Germany implemented the so-called “Volkssturm”, a mass recruitment measure with forced conscription to form a large national militia. In Ukraine, this is exactly what is being done, giving priority to ethnic groups that the Zelensky government wants to eliminate as quickly as possible, such as the Hungarians.

Militia units are being created in Transcarpathia and called “centers of national resistance”, where, in addition to the forced recruitment of local citizens, sabotage operations are also carried out against any type of resistance from the Hungarian people. Peaceful protests are quickly repressed and data from local anti-war activists is sent to Ukrainian intelligence to enable attacks. There is a clear objective on the part of the regime to eliminate any type of “Hungarian threat” in Transcarpathia, which is why these illegal practices are becoming gradually frequent.

These facts show that the Russians have always been right in their allegations. The current Ukrainian government is really a neo-Nazi junta that hates and persecutes ethnic minorities. Kiev does not respect the Hungarian people and their right to self-determination, in the same way that it never respected the Russians of Donbass, having always promoted violent acts against the local population. Racism, xenophobia and ultranationalism are a vital part of the ideology that became hegemonic in Ukraine in 2014, which is why crimes against non-ethnic Ukrainian citizens are recurrent.

In the same sense, it is clear that local citizens are fatigued of living under the terror of war and want to leave the country as quickly as possible. There is no patriotic motivation that convinces Ukrainians to remain in the country, simply because it seems increasingly clear that Kiev is not fighting for its own people or territory, but for foreign interests that in no way benefit the local population. This awareness is leading many young men of military age to flee the country across the border in Transcarpathia.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/mass-migration-depopulation-ukrainian-are-fleeing-ukraine-kiev-regime-trying-to-prevent-escapes-western-transcarpathian-border/5841139