The Most Revolutionary Act

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The Most Revolutionary Act

Author Archives: stuartbramhall

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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.

Windows 11: Microsoft May Be Sharing Your Outlook Emails Without Your Knowledge

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A shocked girl sitting on sofa at home looking on laptop screen

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Muxaan Saxena

Techradar

Over 700 third parties, including Microsoft, could be reading parts of your emails

It looks like Microsoft’s penchant for collecting its users’ data may get it in more trouble, with a worrying new report suggesting that it’s sharing more information from emails sent by the new Outlook for Windows app than people may know.

This is particularly concerning as most people check their emails daily, to keep up with friends and family, or send important documents and information at work, and with the Outlook for Windows app now being the default program for emails in Windows 11, this discovery could impact a lot of people

MSPoweruser reports that the team behind ProtonMail, an end-to-end encrypted email service and competitor to Microsoft Outlook, has discovered the worrying scale of user data being collected by Outlook for Windows, which reportedly includes your emails, contacts, browsing history, and possibly even location data.

ProtonMail’s blog post goes so far as to call Outlook for Windows  “a surveillance tool for targeted advertising”, a harsh comment, certainly, but people who downloaded the new Outlook for Windows app have encountered a disclaimer that explains how Microsoft and hundreds of third parties will be helping themselves to your data.

It seems like the majority of the data is being used primarily for advertising purposes, with users having to opt out of sharing their data for each of the 772 companies manually. This means that by default you may be sharing a heck of a lot of information, and if you wish to opt out, the process is time-consuming and annoying.

Here we go again …

Microsoft has a rather dubious past of being quite greedy with user data. This time last year you might remember our report detailing serious privacy concerns users had with Windows 11, with the PC Security Channel uploading a YouTube video that demonstrated that before you even connect to the internet or open an app, Windows 11 was collecting and sending data to Microsoft – and possibly third-party servers.

That being said, we should remember that ProtonMail is a direct competitor of Microsoft’s email apps and services, and the team behind it would be very keen to direct criticism at Outlook for Windows. ProtonMail is a service dedicated to user privacy and keeping users’ email (as well as calendar, file storage, and VPN) encrypted, so we do have to keep in mind the team’s motives for highlighting this, as the company would want to make its privacy and security look much better than Outlook.

We also have to consider the fact that Outlook for Windows is a free app, so you could argue that Microsoft can support the app and continue adding features by providing user data to paying third parties.  Regardless, while you can technically opt out of the data sharing, it’s still cheeky of Microsoft to have the opt-out option be a per-advertiser toggle click rather than a simple ‘reject all’ button. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Opt out as fast as you can!

If all of this has you concerned and itching to opt out entirely, we’ve got you covered. Head over to the General section of your Outlook for Windows settings and you should see an option called ‘Advertising Preferences’. When you click that you’ll see a large list of company names and toggles near their name set to ‘enable’.

Unless you create a brand new Outlook email, from what we can tell there’s no single button that will deselect all of them, so you may have to set some time aside to sit down and deselect them all. Each advertiser has an option for you to read more about their privacy policies, and once you open that you’ll see another option to opt out.

 

I created a new Outlook email account just to test it out, and the option to reject all did pop up when Outlook for Windows first opened, and I also have the option to deselect all the advertising preferences at once in the Settings page as well, though that might not appear for people who have already set up the app with an existing Outlook account.

If sharing our data by default is the price we have to pay for free apps like Outlook for Windows, at least Microsoft seems to have made turning off that sharing easier than ProtonMail’s team have made out. Still, this shows that it’s well worth paying attention to user agreements and disclaimers for free apps, especially from Microsoft, so you know exactly how much of your data you’re sharing – and who has access to it.

[…]

Via https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/watch-out-windows-11-users-microsoft-may-be-sharing-your-outlook-emails-without-you-knowing-heres-how-to-stop-it

Bill Gates Boasts AI Will Eradicate Independent Media from Society

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The Blogging Hounds

Bill Gates has boasted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help the global elites eradicate independent media from the Internet.

In a recent episode of “Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and tech billionaire Bill Gates controversially delved into the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for maintaining democracy and promoting world peace.

Infowars.com reports: The conversation explored the idea of using artificial intelligence as an instrument to foster unity in society, enhance global amity, and help overcome geopolitical polarization.

Microsoft, founded by Gates, and OpenAI, whose CEO Altman is currently working closely with Microsoft, are promoters of using AI to solve global issues.

Gates spoke excitedly on the topic: “I do think AI, in the best case, can help us with some hard problems…Including ‘polarization’ because potentially that breaks democracy and that would be a super bad thing.”

In addition to resolving polarization, the two heavyweights also discussed the notion of AI potentially acting as a peacemaking tool.

Gates said, “Whether AI can help us go to war less, be less polarized; you’d think as you drive intelligence…I’d love to have people working on the hardest human problems, like whether we get along with each other. I think that would be extremely positive if we thought the AI could contribute to humans getting along with each other.”

Sam Altman responded positively to Gates’s vision, stating: “We’ve got to find out and see, but I’m very optimistic. I agree with you, what a contribution that would be.”

“If the key is to stop the entire world from doing something dangerous, you’d almost want global government, which today for many issues, like climate, terrorism, we see that it’s hard for us to cooperate,” Gates said, when the topic came to global issues like nuclear.

On the topic of polarization, Altman and Gates lamented that the government, they allege, didn’t act on social media “polarization,” but hoped that there would be potential with AI.

“I don’t understand why the government was not able to be more effective around social media, but it seems worth trying to understand as a case study for what they’re going to go through now with AI,” Altman added.

The discussion notably omits a critical aspect: the influence of the programmers’ own beliefs and principles on the AI’s functioning. The designers and developers of AI systems inherently embed their own ideas about democracy, free speech, and governance into the AI’s algorithms. This raises significant concerns about the impact of these personal biases on the AI’s neutrality and its ability to make fair, unbiased decisions.

The prospect of AI systems being programmed with particular ideologies could have profound implications for free speech. If an AI is designed to favor certain political or social viewpoints, (excluding those it decides are “polarizing”) it could potentially suppress opposing perspectives, leading to a form of digital censorship.

This becomes especially concerning in the context of AI platforms that manage large-scale public discourse, such as social media algorithms or news aggregation tools. The power to subtly shape public opinion and control the narrative on critical issues could be an unintended consequence of AI programmed with specific democratic ideals. Or perhaps that’s the intention all along.

[…]

Via https://theblogginghounds.com/2024/01/19/bill-gates-boasts-ai-will-eradicate-independent-media-from-society/

Government Cans Research on Cellphones and Human Health

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cellphone radiation health kids feature

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has no plans to further study the effects of cellphone radiofrequency radiation (RFR) on human health — even though the program’s own $30 million study that took about 10 years to complete in 2018 reported evidence of cancer and DNA damage.

The NTP said in an updated January 2024 fact sheet that it was abandoning further investigation because “the research was technically challenging and more resource-intensive than expected.”

For decades, the NTP has been the premier governmental testing program for pharmaceuticals, chemicals and radiation, according to Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH, a toxicologist and epidemiologist who served on the board of scientific counselors for the NTP when it was launched in the 1980s.

Commenting on the news, Davis said, “It is the ultimate arrogance and folly to stop doing research on this major growing environmental pollutant, precisely when we have ample evidence of harm.”

Davis has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in books and journals, ranging from The Lancet to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In February 2023, she and her colleagues published a review of more than 200 studies that linked wireless radiation to negative biological effects including oxidative stress and DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, carcinogenicity, sperm damage, memory damage and other neurological effects.

They will soon publish a “major new article” in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development journal about “new science” on RFR and call for precaution, she said.

Davis — who also is the founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the U.S. National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences and the founder and president of Environmental Health Trust — called out the U.S. government for failing to ensure that wireless radiation is safe:

“The government’s decision to stop funding research on cellphone radiation is consistent with the Chinese proverb ‘If you don’t want to know, don’t ask.’

“The US government has a variation of that in the policy of, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ If you don’t want to know whether cell tower radiation is having a biological impact, stop doing the research!”

Miriam Eckenfels-Garcia, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) and Wireless program, told The Defender:

“Discontinuing government-funded research because it is ‘technically challenging’ and ‘resource-intensive’ is not what we expect from government agencies that are supposed to protect people from the harms of big industry.

“This research is important so that people can make informed decisions when it comes to the use of technology.”

W. Scott McCollough, lead litigator for CHD’s EMR cases, agreed. “I am concerned that the absence of evidence will be contorted into a claim of evidence of absence.”

As of early last year, the NTP was still conducting RFR research. A February 2023 fact sheet said scientists had “overcome several technical issues” and developed a better system for exposing animals to RFR for their studies.

NTP said researchers were “now making progress” on four research goals:

  • Determining the impact of RFR exposure on behavior and stress.
  • Conducting physiological monitoring, including evaluation of heart rate.
  • Investigating whether RFR induces heating.
  • Further evaluating whether RFR exposure causes DNA damage.

In its January 2024 fact sheet, the NTP reported the researchers had “tested the new exposure system using in vivo rodent studies” and that their research was “complete.”

The NTP did not say whether the researchers had achieved those four research goals and, if so, what the results were. It did, however, make clear that its previous studies — which used 2G and 3G cellphones — “do not apply” to 4G or 5G technologies.

The Defender reached out to NTP’s press office for clarification about why the new fact sheet appears to contradict the NTP website (updated Jan. 8, 2024) on cellphone radiation research which says NTP still has “current research efforts,” however NTP did not respond by our publication deadline.

The NTP’s discontinuation of its RFR research suggests the U.S. government has no intention of studying the possible biological effects of 5G.

Meanwhile, researchers such as Davis continue to say there is reason for concern. Davis pointed out that infertility clinics ask men about their wireless devices and cellphone habits:

“They tell them to take these phones off their bodies and out of their pockets because there is evidence … where the greater the exposure, the lower the sperm count, and the poorer the sperm quality.

“This has been repeatedly shown in studies with human sperm done under controlled conditions, as well as cross-sectional studies.”

“In fact,” she added, “whether the government stops doing the research or not, there is a massive study underway because we have billions of people being exposed to ever-increasing levels of wireless radiation throughout the world. Millions of American children are exposed every day in classrooms.”

“The only problem is there is no control group anymore, which will make it difficult, but not impossible, to discern the impacts of wireless radiation,” Davis said.

What NTP’s 2018 study found 

As The Defender previously reported, NTP researchers in 2018 concluded there was “clear evidence” that male rats exposed to high levels of RF similar to those emitted by 2G and 3G cellphones developed cancerous heart tumors, and “some evidence” of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats.

Davis said NTP’s conclusions were consistent with and corroborated dozens of other studies. “It wasn’t like it [the NTP study] was a one-off study,” she said.

Once the word got out that the findings of the NTP study were positive — meaning the government researchers had found an association between cellphone radiation and the growth of cancerous tumors — the telecommunication industry “started its tactics” to suppress the findings, Davis said.

Davis has been researching those tactics for more than a decade. She is the author of “Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Is Doing to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family.”

Instead of the NTP study report being released in 2016, when it was first ready, she said, the telecom industry exerted pressure to subject the study’s conclusions to an unprecedented level of scrutiny.

“When the first drafts began to circulate internally, it was elevated for a peer review unlike any that has ever been conducted in the history of the entire program — and I can say that with great certainty. No other compound or substance [studied by the NTP] has ever been subject to this level of peer review,” Davis said.

A panel of external scientific experts convened for a three-day review of the study and its conclusions in March 2018.

However, rather than downplaying the study’s conclusions, the experts concluded that the scientific evidence in the study was so strong they recommended the NTP reclassify some of its conclusions from “some evidence” to “clear evidence” of carcinogenic activity.

To date, more than 250 scientists — who together have published more than 2,000 papers and letters on the biologic and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produced by wireless devices, including cellphones — signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for health warnings and stronger exposure limits.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/national-toxicology-program-stop-research-cellphone-radiation-human-health/

Biden Warns Congress Lack of Ukraine Aid Could Lead to US Troops on Ground

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US President Joe Biden addresses the nation on the conflict between Israel and Gaza and the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 19, 2023 - Sputnik International, 1920, 18.01.2024

Sputnik

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden met with congressional leaders and warned them that not approving additional funding for Ukraine could possibly result in the deployment of US troops to that country, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday.

“The president conveyed a sense of urgency about the stakes for our NATO partners in the region, what it would mean for our NATO partners in the region, and certainly we don’t want to see our own troops put in a position where we might need to put boots on the ground,” Jean-Pierre said.

On Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the United States’ status quo on Ukraine is unacceptable.

Johnson also said Congress needs a clearer explanation from the Biden administration about its strategy in Ukraine, the endgame and accountability for US funds. The speaker also added that US border security must be the top priority.

Biden’s supplemental request includes more than $60 billion for Ukraine.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20240118/biden-warns-congress-lack-of-ukraine-aid-could-lead-to-us-troops-on-ground-1116255970.html

French Revolution: The October Days

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Episode 10: Paris Commands the King

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

The 1789 October Days relate to a popular uprising in which the people of Paris forced Louis XVI to leave Versailles and return to the historic royal palace in Paris (the Tuilleries). According to Desan, the crisis was triggered by kings failure to approve the August Laws  (the Abolition of Feudalism and Declaration o the Rights of Man and Citizen) passed by the National Assembly.*

There was also growing popular angst about increasing bread prices (despite a good harvest**) and the king’s deployment of additional troops at Versailles.

The Parisian women who ran the city markets and led the 1775 flour wars (over high bread prices) also had a special relationship with the king.They organized a 12-mile march to Versailles every August and every time the Queen gave birth.

On October 2, 1789, the market women led a a march of 6,000-8,000 Parisian women to Versailles, where they stormed the National Assembly and shouted down proceedings with demands for flour.

Advised to flee, the king declined, fearful that his cousin Philippe d’Orleans might seize the throne in his absence. Instead Louis XVI promised them bread and approved the August Laws.

At this point the Paris National Guard, numbering 30,000** and led by US revolutionary war veteran Lafayette, marched to Versailles to convince the king to move to Paris (to be closer to his people). After a brief skirmish killing a teenage boy and two of the king’s troops, the king agreed.

After cheering the king (and Marie Antoinette), the women made the king’s troops put on tricolored revolutionary badges and together with the National Guard led the royal family in their carriage back to Paris, along with 60 wagon loads of grain,

Within days, the National Assembly also moved to Paris to meet in the Tuilleries stables. It was at this point of history concepts of left and right emerged, with the monarchists meeting on the right side of the podium.

Meanwhile Louis XVI was secretly playing a double game, corresponding with his cousin Charles IV of Spain about invading France and rescuing him.

*Although the king still had legal right to veto either law, he had the right to delay their implementation for up to four years.

** A former scientist turned journalist Jean-Paul Marat accused the Paris commune of plotting with finance minister Jacques Necker and the grain dealers to force prices up.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149343

FDA Seeks to Dismiss High Profile Ivermectin Case

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By Zachary Stieber

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seeking to persuade a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its repeated advisories against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

The FDA in a sealed motion asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to dismiss the suit, which was brought by three doctors who allege the FDA’s warnings were illegal.

The late 2023 motion was sealed because exhibits the government cited “include confidential information” from a separate legal proceeding, according to a government brief.

Government lawyers said they would file redacted versions of the motion for public perusal but still haven’t done so.
Attorneys for the doctors said on Jan. 12 that the court should reject the government’s fresh bid to throw out the case.“
[….]
The hammer needs to come down on the corrupt and dysfunctional FDA.  Anything less allows further tyranny.
The Appeals Court has ruled the FDA exceeded their authority.  This judgement should stand.
The FDA’s argument is that the plaintiffs haven’t suffered injuries traceable to the FDA, but the doctors state they have suffered economic harm, reputational harm, and increased exposure to malpractice liability and forced or untimely resignations due to the FDA’s actions.
Sadly, this is becoming the MO of our government.  I’m sure these doctors are mostly motivated by the illness and death they experienced with their patients due to being handcuffed from utilizing a safe, cheap, and effective medicine for COVID which could have saved lives.
The entire ivermectin saga has been chronicled.

While the FDA has power to authorize or approve drugs for a specific use, doctors are free to prescribe cleared drugs for other “off-label” purposes. Of course “off-label” prescribing of ivermectin was censored and prohibited not only by the FDA but by the AMA and other professional medical groups.  Pharmacists wouldn’t even fill prescriptions for it.  This is far bigger problem than just the FDA and each of these groups need to be overhauled to limit their power over doctors.

If they get away with it for ivermectin, it could be anything in the future.

Lastly, it must be celebrated widely and loudly that finally a doctor, at great personal cost, was willing to go the distance against our corrupt government and was exonerated.

This poor doctor’s crime?  He advised for time-tested, safe, and inexpensive vitamins & natural remedies for COVID.

Our corrupt and inept government sued him for $508 BILLION dollars.  

The case drug on for over 3 stressful years and he was debanked by 5 banks.  Insurance companies dropped his patient’s ability to use insurance while under his care.  

Knowing they couldn’t win the case, the FTC offered him money in a settlement that would have come with a gag order where he couldn’t discuss the case.  He refused their bribes and is now speaking out on how the government bankrupts dissenters.

[…]

Via https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2024/01/17/fda-tries-to-toss-out-ivermectin-case/

CDC Suppressed Covid Vax Myocarditis Warning

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US health agency hushed Covid vax myocarditis warning – media
FILE PHOTO ©  Getty Images / mikimad

RT

Officials promoted the vaccines even after drafting a memo about the deadly associated heart condition

The US Centers for Disease Control never sent an urgent health alert it had drafted in May 2021 regarding a potentially fatal side-effect linked to the Covid-19 vaccinations it was promoting, and continued to push the shots without warning the public, according to a document obtained by the Epoch Times on Wednesday.

In an inter-agency email titled “draft alert on myocarditis and mRNA vaccines” obtained by the outlet, CDC official Dr. Demetre Daskalakis informed two high-ranking colleagues that he had attached “the most recent draft of an alert as discussed.”

The agency disseminates what it describes as “vital health information” to doctors and public health officials at federal, state and local levels through a system called the Health Alert Network. The warning was reportedly prepared for release via this network; Daskalakis’ email was dated May 21, 2021, but never saw publication.

While the exact text of the warning has not been made public, the CDC had been tracking cases of myocarditis – a potentially deadly heart condition – in individuals vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines for months, witnessing what it internally acknowledged was an alarming spike in cases, even as it continued to urge all Americans to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.

Two days before the email was sent, the CDC told state officials it was “closely monitoring” post-vaccination cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, a similar condition, and acknowledged that such cases “can be serious.” However, the public was not notified until weeks later – and the CDC continued to promote the jabs to all Americans, even after the risk was made public.

Instead of the unreleased draft alert, the CDC later chose to inform healthcare providers about the danger in a document headed “clinical considerations” that lacked the forceful language or widespread distribution a Health Alert Network bulletin would have received. While it acknowledged the increased risk of myocarditis, it placed equivalent emphasis on the need to vaccinate everyone over age 11.

Last year, it emerged that both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration had been made aware of a myocarditis “safety signal” triggered by an unusually large number of adverse event reports as far back as February 2021 – just two months after the mRNA-based vaccines received regulatory approval.

Despite international news reports that vaccination with Pfizer and Moderna’s shots was associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis, the US regulatory agencies did not inform the public about the risk until after the jabs had been approved for patients between 12 and 15 years old – one of the age groups most susceptible to their deadly side-effects.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/590833-cdc-suppressed-covid-myocarditis-vaccines/

US/Israel Have Lost Battlefield Control

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by John Helmer

When your enemy dupes you into compounding your mistakes, without achieving your military objectives, he is leading you into an escalation of force which will defeat you, sooner or later. Later is more costly, defeat more ruinous, so the Arab-Iranian alliance against Israel and the US is waging the long war they were never before believed capable to fight.

No matter how much force you use, every US Army manual on winning battles and wars says the same thing.   Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, the British Army strategist of a generation ago, advised that “for success two major problems must be solved — dislocation and exploitation. One precedes and one follows the actual blow — which in comparison is a simple act.”

Today is Tuesday morning — and it is already plain on the Middle Eastern battlefield that the Anglo-American air attacks against Yemeni targets on Friday and Saturday have “dislocated” none of the capabilities of the Ansarallah government in Sanaa and the Houthi military units.

For exploitation after the air strikes, the initiative has remained instead with the Houthis: they  are continuing their attacks on the US Navy fleet in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, keeping them on guard, but demonstrating they are ineffectual to protect US and Israel-connected shipping now diverting from the area.  “War is a two-party affair,” old Liddell Hart had said, “in order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.” In the Middle East the enemy has been taken off his guard. That’s to say, the Israelis, the Americans, and the British.

Minutes after midnight on Tuesday, Moscow time, Russian military bloggers began relaying the news from Iran and Yemen of new missile attacks against a Greek-American owned bulker in the Gulf of Aden during the afternoon, and hours later at night, a US mercenary forces unit, a US consulate building, an Israeli base, and the home of a leading oil trader in the Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq.

According to Boris Rozhin’s Colonel Cassad Telegram platform, “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has officially announced that the ballistic missile attack on US and Mossad bases in Iraq was carried out in response to the bloody terrorist attack in Kerman during commemorative events dedicated to Qassem Soleimani.  Local sources in Erbil report at least 8 rocket strikes… At the moment, what is known is that there have been strikes against the following targets by IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] missiles: 1. The American base at Erbil airport. 2. The U.S. Consulate in Erbil. 3. The local headquarters of the Kurdish security service. 4. The private residence of a local businessman [Peshraw Dizayee] associated with the Mossad.  There is a high activity of ambulances in Erbil. There is no clarity about the victims, but it is obvious that there will be numbers of them.”

US media reporting after several hours of delay claimed there had been explosions near the US consulate in Erbil but “ ‘no US facilities were impacted. We’re not tracking damage to infrastructure or injuries at this time,’ a U.S. official told ABC News.”  On the contrary, Rozhin reported, “according to one of my friends who lives in the centre of Erbil, the blow fell not on the current consulate, but on the new one, which is just being built. There was everything in scaffolding and construction cranes. Eyewitnesses say that they were building something grandiose.”

During Sunday afternoon, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed reported Houthi drone or missile attacks targeting the US Navy destroyer, USS Laboon, which claims to have assisted a USAF fighter to intercept them before they reached the destroyer.  CENTCOM also reported Houthi launches “toward the southern Red Sea commercial shipping lanes.”

CENTCOM is saying nothing at all about the fate of the two US Navy F-18 pilots, shot down by Houthi air defence during the first raid on Friday morning and missing at sea since then.   Pentagon concealment of the shoot-down —  the first air battle success of its kind– has been camouflaged by a half-dozen press releases about the hospitalization and health of the Defense Secretary, General Lloyd Austin.     “I continue to recuperate and perform my duties from home,” Austin  has claimed.

According to US Army Lieutenant General Douglas Sims (lead image) who heads the staff advising the Joint Chiefs of Staff on operations:  “The hope would be that any real thought of [Houthi] retaliation is based on a clear understanding that, you know, we simply are not going to be messed with here…I know we have degraded capability.  I don’t believe that they [Houthis] would be able to execute the same way they did the other day.  But we will see.”    In less than 72 hours what Sims could see has had to be concealed from everyone else.

Not in Moscow.

“The Americans need controlled instability to realize their own plans,” Konstantin Dolgov, once a senior Russian diplomat  and now a senator, told Vzglyad. “But this instability has long been out of Washington’s control.”

Yesterday, January 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and announced “coordination at all levels, emphasizing the unwavering mutual commitment to the fundamental principles of Russian-Iranian relations, including unconditional respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and other principles of the UN Charter, which will be confirmed in the upcoming ‘big’  interstate agreement between the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“All levels” includes military coordination. It also means coordination with the Ansarallah representatives in Teheran.

As for the Houthi operations in the Red Sea, Lavrov and Amir-Abdollahian explicitly linked them to the Israeli-American blockade of the Palestinians in Gaza, calling for “an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and unhindered humanitarian access to the enclave to provide urgent assistance to the affected civilian population.”

Earlier on the same day, January 15, the Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met in Teheran with Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, and held detailed talks with Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian. The Indian minister revealed the same order of priorities for India as Lavrov revealed for Russia – strategic state interests shared with Iran for the long-term future, but for now the link between the Houthi shipping campaign and the Gaza blockade. In his tweet, Jaishankar said: “Our bilateral discussion focused on the long term framework for India’s involvement with Chabahar port and the INSTC [International North–South Transport Corridor] connectivity project. Also spoke about threats to maritime shipping in the region. Important that this be speedily addressed.  Other issues on the agenda were the Gaza situation, Afghanistan, Ukraine and BRICS cooperation.”

“This is what diplomacy is meant to be,” commented an Indian source in Moscow. “They disagree on a lot but they also know what they need to agree on.”

The Indian government has been briefed that the reason for the strike against the MV Chem Pluto on December 23 was the Israeli ownership of the vessel, not its Saudi oil cargo or the destination for its cargo in India.

The official Yemen declaration of Monday, following the attack against the USS Laboon, has now expanded the targeting to include the US and UK fleets which had taken part in the weekend bombing and missile raids.   “The naval forces of the Armed Forces of Yemen conducted a military operation targeting an American ship in the Gulf of Aden. All American and British ships involved in the aggression against our country are considered hostile targets by the Yemeni armed forces. The Yemeni armed forces confirm that a retaliatory strike against American and British attacks is inevitable, and that no attack in the future will go unpunished. The Yemeni armed forces continue to conduct their military operations and implement the decision to block Israeli shipping in the Arab and Red Seas until the aggression stops and the siege of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.”

“The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm the continuation of commercial traffic in the Arab and Red Seas to all destinations, with the exception of the ports of occupied Palestine, and that they continue to take all defensive and offensive measures within the framework of the right to defend and resist American-British aggression.” https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin January 16 — Min 03:05.

The attack on the Gibraltar Eagle in the Gulf of Aden, currently in the lead maritime news for today, makes the vessel appear to be unconnected to Israel. The vessel is publicly identified as  one of Eagle Bulk Shipping’s fleet;    Eagle Bulk Shipping is a New York Stock Exchange-listed company based in Connecticut which has been reporting dwindling profits.   But since a takeover transaction was announced last month,  the controlling owner is now the Greek company,  Star Bulk of Athens.  The two Greeks controlling Star Bulk are Petros Pappas and Spyros Capralos. They are shippers of dry bulk commodities — coal, grain, fertilizers, iron ore, steel products.  It is not known whether they have been delivering to or loading at Israeli ports. Western vessel tracking publications claim the Gibraltar Eagle had taken on its current cargo of steel products in South Korea and was headed for the Suez Canal when it was hit. At the time, and for several days of sailing before, the vessel had turned off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal.

Maritime industry sources say the secrecy employed by the Gibraltar Eagle may have been intended to conceal that it is carrying a cargo of South Korean arms and ammunition intended for unloading at a Polish port for onward delivery to the Ukraine; or for an Israeli port. The destination port recorded for the vessel is not showing in the regular western vessel tracking sites.

[…]

Via https://johnhelmer.net/the-us-israel-have-lost-battlefield-control-houthis-have-attacked-us-destroyer-hit-greek-us-owned-bulker-iran-has-hit-us-base-in-kurdish-capital-erbil/

 

Judge Rejects EPA’s Bid to Exclude Key Witness in Fluoride Lawsuit

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epa water fluoride lawsuit witness feature

By  Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

In a blow to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a federal judge on Tuesday ruled that a witness who claims he has direct knowledge of government agencies trying to suppress a key scientific report that concluded fluoride is neurotoxic to children may present his testimony.

The ruling pertains to a lawsuit filed in 2017 by Food & Water Watch, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) and others against the EPA after the agency denied the groups’ 2016 petition to end water fluoridation under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Since then, the parties have been engaged in an ongoing legal battle. The trial’s first phase was held in federal court in San Francisco in June 2020.

However, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen put the proceedings on hold pending the release of the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) systematic review of research available on the neurotoxic effects of fluoride.

The NTP is a federal research body within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The program’s scientists studied the neurotoxic effects of fluoride for seven years before issuing a draft report concluding that “higher fluoride exposure is consistently associated with lower IQ in children.”

Although NTP scientists finalized the report in May 2022, it was March 2023 before the report was finally released, under a court order. According to emails obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the plaintiffs, top officials from HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blocked the NTP from releasing the report.

Today, almost two years after the NTP scientists finalized the report, the final draft has not yet been published. Instead, the draft report continues to be mired in an ongoing process of repeated peer review, which FAN alleges is an attempt to “weaken, delay or kill” the report.

In December 2023, the EPA moved to exclude the testimony of Brian Berridge, DVM, Ph.D., the NTP’s scientific director at the time the report was produced and a key witness for the plaintiffs.

The EPA argued that Berridge’s testimony would speak to the political influence allegedly exerted to stop the NTP report’s publication, rather than to the scientific findings in the report, which are central to the trial. EPA attorneys argued Berridge’s testimony would be “unfairly prejudicial” to the agency.

The plaintiffs countered that given Berridge’s role at the NTP in overseeing the publication of the report — which the court recognized would be the “centerpiece of the dispute” in the second phase of the trial — the court would not be justified in disqualifying his testimony because it may reveal political pressures that prevented the NTP from publishing the manuscript.

At a pretrial status meeting held Monday in San Francisco, Chen agreed with the plaintiffs and ruled that Berridge could testify.

The ruling means that the NTP’s former scientific director will be able to testify at trial about the report, the peer review process and why he signed off on the May 2022 version of the report as a final and complete report that was ready for publication, Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender.

“We are pleased with the court’s ruling and look forward to introducing testimony from one of NTP’s own scientists about NTP’s landmark review,” Connett said.

Connett added:

“The court placed this case on hold for almost three years in order to consider the NTP’s report, which the court has called the ‘centerpiece’ to the dispute. It is entirely fitting, therefore, that the court would want to hear testimony from NTP’s scientific director about this critical piece of evidence.”

Separating science and politics?

After waiting three years for the draft report to be made public, Chen held an Apr. 11, 2023, status conference on Zoom to schedule the next phase of the trial. He determined the second phase could go forward with the draft report, and set the end of January 2024 as the date for the trial to begin.

At that time, Connett informed the judge that based on information obtained via FOIA requests indicating the report had been suppressed, the plaintiffs planned further depositions to understand why the NTP wasn’t allowed to publish the report, “which was considered complete by NTP scientists.”

Connett argued the EPA would likely seek to at least partially discount the findings of the NTP report because it remained in draft form and had been criticized by reviewers in a politicized process.

But Chen said that given that the draft report had been released, he didn’t see merit in further investigating the motives behind the release. He said that it was “the science” regarding fluoride’s neurotoxicity, rather than the politics behind the case, that would decide the case.

“To me, the science is more important than whether politicians got involved to try to squash the report,” Chen stated.

“It’s reasonable to say, ‘Let’s focus on the science,’” Connett told The Defender at the time, “but the science here has been influenced by politics and it is difficult to separate the two.”

EPA’s attempt to exclude key witness

In December 2023, the EPA submitted a motion seeking to exclude Berridge’s testimony, based on Berridge’s previous testimony about the politics of the report suppression. However, the plaintiffs argued that Berridge’s testimony wasn’t relevant exclusively to politics, but spoke to the validity of the NTP report overall.

Berridge was tapped as the associate director of the NTP in 2018 and served as its scientific director from 2018 through 2023. Prior to joining the NTP, Berridge worked for 17 years in the pharmaceutical industry as a toxicological pathologist at Eli Lilly and then at GlaxoSmithKline.

Berridge wasn’t an author on the NTP report, but he was responsible for overseeing its production and signing off on its publication.

Emails obtained by the plaintiffs via FOIA included emails from Berridge, in which he wrote that there was an ongoing attempt to modify the report to satisfy interested actors.

“After 17 years in industry, I’ve seen efforts to modify messages to fit commercial interests. I wasn’t party to that there and I’m not game to do that here,” Berridge wrote.

He also submitted comments to the NTP’s Board of Scientific Counselors, which was evaluating the NTP’s response to peer reviewers, stating that as former scientific director of the NTP, he could speak to the care, scientific rigor, balanced representation and clear communication of the work.

“The inordinate and unprecedented challenge and review that have been applied to these products have, in my opinion, been obstructive,” Berridge said. He also called them inconsistent with the White House Office of Science and Technology’s policy that aims to protect the integrity and independence of science.

The EPA argued that the plaintiffs had first disclosed Berridge as a witness who could speak to the political influence over the NTP’s publication, therefore Berridge’s testimony would have “nothing to do with the heart of this matter — the merits of the scientific evidence about the potential hazard of water fluoridation,” and would instead relate to the “political influence issue.”

Although the plaintiffs were also calling Berridge as a witness to comment about the report itself, allowing him to testify would risk “sidetracking” the trial in a discussion about political suppression that Chen had deemed irrelevant, the EPA said.

EPA attorneys also argued that the EPA had not deposed Berridge because it thought his testimony wouldn’t be relevant. So his inclusion as an expert witness would be unfair to the agency.

The plaintiffs disagreed, arguing that Berridge’s testimony would address the weight the court should give to the NTP report. That includes clarifying NTP’s purpose — conducting hazard evaluations — the process of producing the report and why he determined the report was in fact finalized in March 2022.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/judge-rejects-epa-bid-exclude-witness-fluoride-lawsuit/

RFK Jr’s ‘Unconditional’ Support of Israel Costing His Campaign

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By Scott Horton

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s staffers keep resigning.

Many antiwar Americans were thrilled when Kennedy announced last spring that he’d be running against Joe Biden in this year’s primaries and that he’d hired former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich to be his campaign manager. But Kucinich quit in the middle of October.

At the beginning of November, Kennedy’s field team, led by former California congressman Dana Rorabacher’s wife Rhonda, quit too.

Then in December, Kennedy’s foreign policy and veteran’s affairs adviser James R. Webb, Marine Corps veteran of Iraq War II and son of the former senator, also resigned. Webb said it was in disgust over Kennedy’s stance on Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians of the Gaza strip, and his preposterous justification: that U.S. troops in Iraq War II fought with similar rules of engagement as the IDF is currently fighting under in Gaza, using “collective punishment” against civilians.

Webb noted to Kennedy in his resignation letter that:

“[F]ollowing Mr. Kucinich’s departure in mid-October, the campaign’s message on core issues, particularly national security and war, has changed. …

“I felt compelled to let you know that your positions on [the Gaza war] are costing you a large amount of support from voters and mine, as 70% of voters between the ages of 18–34 disapprove of Biden’s support for the conflict.”

Regarding Kennedy’s justifying the IDF’s rules of engagement by citing Iraq, Webb wrote that this, “is a historically inaccurate moral equivalency that no one who honorably served in Iraq will agree with you on, and none of whom will support you.”

Another marine veteran and supporter close to the campaign sent a private letter to Kennedy after hearing of Webb’s resignation, and furnished a copy to me, saying:

“[L]ike James Webb, your perceived absence of empathy for Palestinian civilians has profoundly affected my enthusiasm and willingness to work on your behalf. …

“I’m begging you to see this, Bobby, you can’t win without fully harnessing the energy of passionate volunteers like James and me.”

Bobby Jr. could have been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what he is.

The trouble started when Kennedy praised former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters who was being canceled in Germany at the time. Informed by Israeli partisans that Waters is on their enemies list due to his support for the Palestinians, Kennedy immediately threw the singer under the bus, cravenly deleted his praise, and through a surrogate declared Waters a “vicious anti-Semite” — which is preposterous. This was bad enough.

But then someone got footage of Kennedy speculating about whether COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Asians. So to make up for this massive, self-inflicted blunder and show he was not racist against Jews, Kennedy decided to prove it by showing how much he hates Palestinians instead.

Like Winston Smith’s humiliation at the end of George Orwell’s 1984 when regime torturer O’Brien fits a rat cage to the protagonist’s face, Kennedy cried,

Do it to the Palestinians! Not me! I don’t care what you do to them. Tear their faces off, strip them to the bones. Not me! The Palestinians! Not me!

He claimed, absurdly, that the Palestinian Authority will pay a bounty to Palestinians to “kill a Jew anywhere in the world.” That was bin Laden and al Qaeda, not Mahmoud Abbas, that asked people to kill Americans and Jews everywhere, and they weren’t paying per hit.

It was RFK Jr. himself who was putting innocent Jews at risk with this despicable lie he wielded in an attempt to protect himself.

Since then he has doubled down, claiming Palestinian children are all “being raised as serial killers.”

Kennedy has been reciting pollster Frank Luntz’s talking points line by line, justifying demolitions of Palestinians’ homes and claiming that in its post-October 7th war, “Israel is doing more right now to protect human life” and praising the IDF’s “unique moral approach” to war.

But the Wall Street Journal compares Gaza to Dresden and Tokyo in World War II while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked those massive incendiary bombing raids against the Third Reich and Imperial Japan as precedent for his current rampage.

As Arnon Soffer, the architect of Israel’s “disengagement policy” said, there are too many Palestinians, so the Israelis “will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”

Kennedy picked the worst time to sell out to a foreign nation, as the IDF itself boasts they’ve built a “mass assassination factory,” deliberately bombing so-called “power targets,” including journalists, society leaders and their families. He dismisses all Palestinian civilian deaths — the supermajority of all deaths in the war, even according to Israeli officials — as simply being “human shields” whose lives are somehow then presumed to be forfeit.

Kennedy also ignores numerous statements by Israeli officials declaring their intent to cleanse the Gaza Strip of all or most Palestinian civilians, by killing or transferring them all to other countries. The Times of Israel says Netanyahu is negotiating to ship them all off to the Congo, presumably to toil in the cobalt mines — or maybe Rwanda or Chad will take them?

Just as more than 20,000 Gazans are being blown apart or buried alive in the ruins of their homes, as Israeli forces target highrises, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and refugee camps, and torture detainees, RFK Jr. even claims that “The Palestinian people are arguably the most pampered people by international aid organizations in the history of the world.” He was referring to the aid they live on, when they can get it, because they have no national economysince they live under foreign military occupation.

Despite claiming to have been there, Kennedy clearly has no idea what he’s talking about, referring to “Palestinian settlements within Israel,” when describing Palestinians living in what is left of their territory under Israeli occupation and constant settlement expansion, as though they are the ones colonizing the Israelis.

He claimed the Palestinians could have had independence in 1948 when Golda Meir actually made a secret side deal with the king of Jordan to prevent that state, and in 2001 — he meant 2000 — but that is still false as demonstrated by author Clayton Swisher and the admissions of Israeli diplomat Shlomo Ben Ami. Then we are to somehow conclude, even if Kennedy’s framing were correct, that 24 years ago was rightfully the Palestinians’ last chance and they can never again claim a right to self-determination.

Soon Kennedy is doing an event hosted by notorious Israeli partisan Rabbi Shmuley Boteach well as Miriam Adelson, widow of Sheldon Adelson, the major donor to Netanyahu and Donald Trump who bought Trump’s decisions to move the embassy to Jerusalem, recognize the seizure of the Golan Heights and hire John Bolton to be his national security adviser.

Kennedy’s most important supporters are turning away from him as he demonizes the worst-off people in the world while they’re being annihilated in a self-defeating attempt to fulfill his own ambitions.

And now he’s running as an independent, so who cares anyway?

[…]

Via https://lyumon1834.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/rfk-jr-s-unconditional-support-for-israel-is-costing-his-campaign-for-president/