DOD file image: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III is greeted by Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 13, 2023. 

Zero Hedge

Without doubt, military superiority belongs to Israel, and yet Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has raised eyebrows by saying Israel faces a “strategic defeat” if it doesn’t reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says over 15,200 – mostly women and children – have died since the start of the war.

The White House has questioned the official death count from the Palestinian side; however, even by conservative estimates, civilian deaths are in the multiple thousands. In a recent New York Times article entitled “Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace” (which proved controversial), the Times said more civilians have died in Gaza since Oct. 7 than have died in Ukraine after nearly two years of grinding war with Russia.

Lloyd Austin focused his Saturday comments on the long-term effects of mass civilian slaughter and not only the coming global backlash, but the potential for further radicalizing an entire population:

“The center of gravity is the civilian population and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” Austin said in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif., on Saturday.

The secretary added that he has personally pushed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian casualties, prevent violence to settlers in the West Bank.

“We will continue to press Israel to protect civilians and to ensure the robust flow of humanitarian aid,” he added. —The Hill

Despite this very rare commentary and warning, Austin still emphasized US will remain Israel’s “closest friend in the world” and American support will never waiver. He said Washington’s backing of Israel remains “crystal clear.”

Watch Austin’s remarks given in California over the weekend:

Already, nations of BRICS and throughout the Global South have voiced their increasing outrage over such a high civilian death toll. China and Russia have led these criticisms of Israel, and the US continues to be isolated in its ‘blank check’ support for Israel at the United Nations.

The Guardian recently observed of what has long been typical concerning Gaza-related resolutions at the UN: “The US has ended up looking quite badly isolated after only 12 countries joined Washington and Israel at the UN general assembly in opposing a motion calling for a sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.”

At the same time, US Congressional hawks continue to add fuel to the controversy with statements like the below, wherein Sen. Lindsey Graham rejects and lashes out Austin’s messaging on ‘strategic defeat’…

Graham flatly rejected the idea, saying “He’s so naïve! I mean, I just lost all confidence in this guy.”

“How about focusing on protecting our soldiers, men and women in Syria and Iraq?” Graham continued. “Strategic defeat would be inflaming the Palestinians? They’re already inflamed! They’re taught from the time they’re born to hate the Jews and to kill them.”

Graham continued calling it “really naive” to say that Israel is fighting against a “tranquil population” that was “only inflamed after Israel goes in to defend itself.”

“I don’t want to kill innocent people,” he said. “but Israel is fighting not just Hamas, but the infrastructure around Hamas… Strategic failure is letting Hamas stand.”

This is similar to the conclusion of entrepreneur and geopolitical analyst Arnaud Bertrand, who emphasizes, “There’s no overstating how extraordinary such a statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is, warning Israel it’s heading towards ‘strategic defeat’.”

Below are the rest of Bertrand’s observations in response to SecDef’s Austin’s surprisingly blunt and negative assessment [emphasis by ZH below]…

* * *

“In this kind of a fight the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.” Essentially saying what is obvious common sense: you create more Hamas than you destroy by killing civilians.

And as such what Israel has been doing so far is nothing but dig the hole it’s in deeper and deeper… After, obviously, it’s doing all this with Pentagon weapons and support in a myriad of ways, so Austin’s words are pretty disingenuous…

BUT they see Israel as their “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the region so they must feel that were they to stop this active support it’d “sink” pretty quickly, which they aren’t ready to do. Which actually goes to illustrate just how deep the hole Israel – and America – have put themselves in.

The “unsinkable aircraft carrier” is taking water and needs constant US support to avoid sinking but the US is now telling them publicly – in very frank terms – that their actions are actually accelerating the sinking…

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/military/pentagon-chief-unleashes-controversy-saying-israel-could-face-strategic-defeat

Episode 13 Etruscan Government

The Mysterious Etruscans

Dr Steven L Tuck (2016)

Film Review

Between 800 and 600 BC each Etruscan city was ruled by an elected king. Etruscan aristocrats voted to appoint one of their members as king (for life). In the late 7th century BC, some Etruscan cities were ruled by “tyrants.” The Greek word tyrant referred to a populist ruler whose from the lower classes and who worked to the detriment of the aristocracy. Athens, Syracuse, Corinth, Cerveterei and Rome all had a history of replacing aristocratic kings with populist tyrants. None were despots in the modern sense of the word tyrant.

As growing trade led to an expanding middle class, the Etruscan city-states overthrew their last kings, replacing them with participatory republican government (as Rome did). Etruscans tore down the palaces and mansions of their former aristocrats and replaced them with orthogonally planned (grid-based) cities with square homes of equal size. In Etruria, peoples assemblies met annually to elect magistrates to run their cities and priests their religious shrines.

All outward trappings of Rome’s republican government were of Etruscan origin: (eg the white toga of citizenship and the purple striped toga designating a magistrate.) Initially Rome consisted of a loose network of cities (like the Etruscan leagues), until they opted for central government. Fifty percent of magistrates elected to run Roman cities were Etruscan.

Government under the Etruscan leagues was similar to that of the US Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation. The leagues had no power to wage war, tax or regulate trade although they were allowed to make treaties with non-Etruscan states. Following Rome’s conquest of Etruria in the 3rd century BC, each Etruscan city negotiated a separate peace with Rome.

*Prior to the 5th century, Etruscan Italy was made up of three 12-city leagues, In addition to Etruria there was a league in southern Italy (in the modern day Campania Region) and in northern Italy in the Po River Valley. Each league met annually at Etruria’s principle religious sanctuary Voltumnae (located between Orvieto and Viterbo in modern Italy) to appoint an official to oversee the league.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/239710/239635

RF Safe

Introduction: On December 10th, SpaceX is set to conduct a significant test of its Starlink satellite technology, involving the irradiation of populated areas in 13 states across the USA. Thus creating control groups between different populations of microwave exposure from space.  This event, while a leap in technological advancement, raises profound ethical concerns. It mirrors the structure of well-known scientific studies by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the Ramazzini Institute (RI), where some rats were exposed to RF radiation while others were not, to assess health risks.

The Parallels with NTP and RI Studies: Both the NTP and RI studies were landmark in their exploration of RF radiation’s effects on health. In these studies, rats were exposed to varying levels of RF radiation, and their health outcomes were compared to those of unexposed rats. The findings were significant: increased risks of certain cancers, including brain and heart tumors, in rats exposed to RF radiation levels similar to what humans experience with cell phone use.

Simulating Human Experimentation: The upcoming Starlink test, in essence, sets up a similar experimental design but with humans as subjects. By selectively irradiating 13 states, it creates a scenario where some populations are exposed to heightened levels of RF radiation, while others are not. This situation is alarmingly reminiscent of the NTP and RI studies but lacks one critical element – consent.

Unconsented Human Experimentation: The Nuremberg Code, established post-World War II, underlines the importance of voluntary consent for any experimentation involving human subjects. The Starlink test, by exposing unaware and non-consenting populations to potentially harmful radiation, breaches this fundamental ethical principle. It transforms these populations into unwitting participants in a large-scale public health study.

What the NTP and RI Studies Found: The NTP study found clear evidence of tumors in the hearts of male rats exposed to RF radiation, as well as some evidence of tumors in the brains and adrenal glands. Similarly, the RI study observed an increase in heart schwannomas in male rats. These results point to a potential risk to human health – a risk that the Starlink test might inadvertently explore without ethical oversight.

The December 10th Starlink test raises critical ethical questions about the unconsented exposure of human populations to RF radiation. Drawing parallels to the NTP and RI rat studies, this event could be seen as a real-world, uncontrolled human experiment. As we advance technologically, it is imperative that we do not lose sight of the ethical considerations essential to protect public health and uphold human rights.

The Contemporary Concern: Microwave Technologies in Space

At RF Safe we would like to pivot to present-day concerns of electronic warfare, particularly focusing on the deployment of new microwave technologies in space, such as SpaceX’s Starlink service. While primarily commercial in nature, it raises the theoretical possibility that these technologies could be weaponized. With hundreds of satellites capable of beam-forming and concentrating power in small areas, there is a potential for misuse under the guise of technological advancement.

The deployment of technologies like SpaceX’s Starlink also touches on deeper ethical considerations, resonating with principles laid out in the Nuremberg Code. The Code, established post-World War II, underlines the imperative of informed consent and understanding potential risks in any experimental scenario involving human subjects. While primarily framed in the context of medical research, the essence of these principles extends to the deployment of new technology with unproven health impacts. The experimental nature of deploying such satellite systems, potentially exposing various populations to different levels of RF radiation, can be seen as a form of unconsented experimentation.

With SpaceX’s Starlink service planning to use frequencies in the 1910-1915 MHz and 1990-1995 MHz bands, which closely align with those examined for health risks (1947.47 MHz and 1977 MHz), the need for informed awareness and rigorous scientific scrutiny has never been more paramount.

[…]

Via https://www.rfsafe.com/the-december-10th-starlink-test-a-human-experimentation-paralleling-ntp-and-ri-rat-studies/

Daily Sceptic

Achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity. All the high voltage lines built in the last century will need to be built again by 2040 to benefit from all the intermittent power produced by the vast number of wind turbines. The ecological costs of all this can only be guessed at. Electricity cables are made of aluminium and copper and strung on giant pylons made of steel and supported by large concrete bases. For their part, wind turbines are a menace to both avian and oceanic wildlife, consume vast quantities of raw materials, have a limited lifespan and are an increasing blight on both inland and offshore landscapes.

If the International Energy Agency (IEA) gets its way, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The roll-out of high voltage lines will be on an unprecedented scale. In a report on global electricity grids issued to coincide with COP28, the IEA states that “an unprecedented level of attention from policymakers and business leaders is needed to ensure grids support clean energy transitions and maintain electricity security”. Major changes in how grids operate and are regulated are said to be essential. Annual investment in grids, which has remained broadly stagnant, needs to double to more than $600 billion a year by 2030.

The Australian science journalist Jo Nova is in no mood to be understanding: “Remember, it’s not their fault that renewables need far more land, more space, more backup and more infrastructure – it’s our fault we didn’t build a world ready for their holy energy.”

The IEA paints a world where electricity grids are becoming a “bottleneck” for transitions to Net Zero emissions. While investment in renewables has been increasing rapidly, global investment in grids “has barely changed”. In Europe, policymakers can speed up progress on grids by “enhancing planning, ensuring regulatory risk assessments allow for anticipatory investment, and streamlining administrative processes”. In plain English this means ripping up local planning laws in over-populated Britain and blanketing the country with millions of giant electricity pylons. These will be required to bring energy to urban areas from power intermittently generated far away in the North Sea and off the Scottish coast.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the British Government recently set out “major plans” to speed up connections and rapidly increase capacity on the electricity grid. The press release cunningly linked it with a £960 million government investment in “green industries”. The new package is “expected” to bring forward £90 billion of investment over the next 10 years. The Government promised that it will “reward” those living closest to new infrastructure with up to £1,000 a year off their electricity bills. In another part of the release, this is downgraded to communities “could” benefit, and the bung is limited to 10 years.

Whatever the money is spent on, it is likely to be chickenfeed compared with the growing £12 billion annual subsidy paid by electricity consumers to the producers of renewable energy. But the next British government will face an empty exchequer and soaring state debt. Lack of finance along with the end of low interest rates and free money printing is likely to kill many of the green fantasises currently being peddled by collectivist Net Zero fanatics. It is becoming clearer by the day, to an increasing number of people, that renewable energy is unreliable and uneconomic, and has an insatiable requirement for financial subsidy.

Emeritus Cambridge Professor Michael Kelly has long been a critic of the blind, un-costed rush to Net Zero. The U.K. electricity grid will require upgrading from top to bottom, he wrote in a recent GWPF essay. Leaving aside the massive roll out of long-distance transmission lines required, he noted the inadequacies of all the local cabling and sub-stations built before the need to charge electric cars and run heat pumps. “The whole distribution system will need to be upgraded… the work will be extraordinarily expensive, but without it there will either be regular brownouts, or drivers will be told where and when they can charge their batteries,” he explained.

Professor Kelly believes it is a failure of the British political machinery, notably the work of the unelected Climate Change Committee. “We have set out to decarbonise the economy without anyone having thought through all the engineering issues, let alone put a cost on the exercise,” he concluded.

But as Jo Nova observes, it is all our fault. “Apparently, we should have paid attention and built the right grid and now due to our laziness we will have to rush in another 80 million kilometres of interconnectors, just like that,” she writes Tell the children they’ve been lied to, she concludes. “The Green future is an industrial wasteland of concrete and steel built to line the pockets of billionaires and bankers.”

[…]

Via https://alethonews.com/2023/12/09/net-zero-requires-new-high-voltage-power-lines-to-be-wrapped-around-the-earth-2000-times-within-17-years/

Sputnik

The US Senate on Thursday blocked a joint resolution introduced by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul directing the Biden administration to remove US military forces from Syria within 30 days.

“The American people have had enough of endless wars in the Middle East. Yet, 900 US troops remain in Syria with no vital US interest at stake, no definition of victory, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization to be there,” Paul said in a statement on the resolution.

The resolution would direct the president to remove US troops from hostilities “in or affecting Syria” within 30 days of adoption, unless a declaration of war or other authorization for use of force was enacted by Congress.

Thursday’s resolution was the second time this year that anti-interventionist, pro-‘America First’ Republicans in Congress have attempted to force the Biden administration to pull US troops out of Syria. In March, the House of Representatives voted down a resolution put forward by Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz to remove American forces from the Middle Eastern country, with the lawmaker and his fellow pro-Trump Freedom Caucus Republicans getting a rare show of support from the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus, resulting in more than 100 lawmakers voting in favor of the bill (the measure ended up failing by a vote of 103 to 321).

US forces have occupied the oil and food-rich northeastern third of Syria since 2017, and have engaged in the smuggling of billions of dollars worth of Syrian oil out of the country to enforce a strategy by Washington to try to economically suffocate the government of President Bashar Assad into submission.

During his presidency, President Trump casually admitted on multiple occasions to the legacy media’s horror that US forces in Syria were in the country “only for the oil.” The Biden administration has insisted American troops are in the country only to prevent the resurgence of Daesh (ISIS), the Islamist extremist terrorist group vanquished from the region in 2017.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20231207/senate-blocks-resolution-calling-for-removal-of-us-forces-from-syria-1115461232.html

Dr Eddy Betterman

New research published in JAMA Oncology reveals that mammography is responsible for an astounding 84 percent higher rate of breast cancer deaths over a 20-year surveillance period.

Because of the very high rate of false positives they produce, mammograms end up killing, it would seem, many more women than would otherwise die from breast cancer had they never participated in the mammography racket.

Mammograms produce trauma in patients, both physically in breast tissue and also psychologically, emotionally and even spiritually in women who end up being told that they must undergo even more invasive “treatments” in order to survive.

The pressure that mammography puts on breast tissue can be a cause of cancer in and of itself, not to mention all the chemotherapy, radiation and surgery that typically ensues. It is a horrifically traumatic experience for women that leaves many of them scarred for life, assuming they even survive.

(Related: Back in 2016, some surgeons published a study showing that mammography is neither safe nor effective, and that women should opt out of participating in the “outdated” practice.)

Cancer is a for-profit industry

Mammography is also dangerous in that the primary modality utilized is x-ray technology, which radiates breast tissue on top of the machine physically pressing it down. The gamma rays alone are a known breast carcinogen that is especially concerning for women with so-called BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene “mutations.”

The official recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Guidelines pushes women to start getting screened through mammography every other year starting at age 40.

“These guidelines put millions more healthy women at risk of radiation-induced adverse breast changes, as well as the psychobiological harms addressed in this article,” contends Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo.

Pretty much across the board, the medical establishment tries to pretend as though mammography is risk-free, ignoring many known risks such as x-ray radiation exposure, false positive diagnoses, overdiagnosis, and of course all the invasive “treatments” that follow.

About a decade ago, it was determined that more than 1.3 million women have had their breast tissue wrongly removed due to a non-cancerous condition called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which is now recognized as being benign. For too long, though, DCIS was treated like cancer and many women underwent mastectomies for it for no good reason.

“Overdiagnosis can be distinguished from false positives in that in overdiagnosis screen-detected abnormalities are observed in asymptomatic and ostensibly healthy women which would not cause harm if left undetected, or would cause more net harm to be diagnosed and treated than if left undiscovered or left to progress untreated (so-called ‘watchful waiting.’),” Ji further writes.

“False positives, on the other hand, occur when there is a positive screening mammography assessment that leads to more diagnostic work-up but no diagnosis of breast cancer. While false positives are ultimately discovered as such, the damage may already be done, given the power of the subconscious mind and the so-called nocebo effect, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, to do profound emotional and bodily harm to those who think they have a life-threatening diagnosis of cancer but are not actually sick.”

In the United States, roughly 11 percent of women receive a false-positive result from just one single mammography screening. In Europe, that figure is much lower at just 2.5 percent, but still corresponds to a much larger cumulative risk in that after just 10 screenings, roughly 20 percent of women in Europe will receive at least one false-positive result.

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2023/12/08/mammograms-linked-84percent-higher-breast-cancer-deaths/

By Victor Nava

New York Post

Hunter Biden was indicted Thursday on nine charges — including three felonies — in part for allegedly dodging more than $1 million in taxes while living a hard-partying, “extravagant” life over a four-year period.

The three felonies leveled against President Biden’s 53-year-old son — who faces a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison if convicted on all counts — include one count tax evasion for his 2018 personal taxes and two counts of filing a false return for his 2018 personal taxes and on a corporate income tax return for his company Owasco, PC.

He has also been hit with six misdemeanor counts of failure to pay and failure to file charges for the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 tax years.

“The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019,” special counsel David Weiss wrote in the 56-page indictment out of the Central District of California.

“In furtherance of that scheme,” Weiss noted that Hunter “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC by withdrawing millions from Owasco, PC” and “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.”

Biden spent his cash on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,” according to the indictment.

Weiss highlighted that Biden used a business line of credit to make more than $27,000 in payments to a porn site, “which in total accounted for one fifth of all of the business line of credit expenditures.”

The porn payments were among nearly $189,000 the first son spent on “adult entertainment” while not paying taxes, according to Weiss, including a $10,000 payment for a sex club membership that he expensed as a “golf club membership.”

He also claimed a false deduction for “consulting” that was “in truth and in fact” payments to “various women who were either romantically involved with or otherwise performing personal services” for Biden.

More than $680,000 went to these women while Biden wasn’t paying Uncle Sam.

“When he did finally file his 2018 returns, [Hunter] included false business deductions in order to evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities he faced as of February 2020,” the special counsel added.

Judge Mark Scarsi, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, has been assigned the new case.

The scandal-scarred first son is already facing three felony counts related to false statements he made when purchasing a firearm. Weiss brought those charges against him in September, after a June plea deal fell apart in a Delaware courtroom.

Biden has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison in the gun case.

Weiss convened the Los Angeles grand jury that brought Thursday’s indictment against Hunter last month, according to CNN. The special counsel also issued a subpoena to first brother James Biden as part of his five-year investigation into Hunter.

In the failed deal, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of failing to pay at least $100,000 on more than $1.5 million in earned income in both 2017 and 2018.

At the time, Weiss declined to bring charges against Biden for alleged tax crimes committed in Southern California and Washington, DC, after US attorneys in both districts refused to partner in his investigation.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley claims Biden avoided paying taxes on $8.3 million in income he received between 2014 and 2019, a period during which he sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and the Chinese private equity fund BHR Partners.

During the plea hearing, prosecutors noted to US District Judge Maryellen Noreika that the agreement did not preclude bringing charges against Biden later for other alleged crimes — such as possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The alleged FARA violations stem from Biden failing to register as a foreign agent while engaged in lucrative dealings in countries such as China and Ukraine that allegedly involved his father and uncle.

The FBI, tasked with investigating aspects of Weiss’ probe related to money laundering and FARA violations, didn’t anticipate charges being brought against Hunter related to those matters, according to CNN.

Federal investigators also raised the possibility of charging Biden for crimes related to sex trafficking over his communications with numerous alleged prostitutes in which he appeared to be coordinating their travel across state lines – a possible violation of the federal Mann Act’s prohibition on interstate prostitution – according to IRS whistleblower documents.

The new criminal case against Biden comes as House Republicans prepare to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry into President Biden for alleged corruption.

The resolution, introduced by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) on Wednesday, directs the House Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees to determine “whether sufficient grounds exist” to impeach the president for his alleged role in Hunter and James Biden’s foreign business ventures during his vice presidency.

Two sources told The Post that the House tentatively plans to vote Wednesday on the legislation.

The Post has reached out to Hunter Biden’s lawyers for comment on the new charges.

5

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer lauded the IRS whistleblowers, Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, after the new indictment dropped, arguing that the charges wouldn’t have been filed if the agents had not come forward with allegations of a Justice Department cover-up in the probe.

“The Department of Justice got caught in its attempt to give Hunter Biden an unprecedented sweetheart plea deal and today’s charges filed against Hunter Biden are the result of Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler’s efforts to ensure all Americans are treated equally under the law,” Comer said in a statement. “Every American should applaud these men for their courage to expose the truth.

“Hunter Biden’s corporate entities implicated by today’s indictments funneled foreign cash that landed in Joe Biden’s bank account. Unless US Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy,” the Kentucky Republican added.

[…]

Via https://nypost.com/2023/12/07/news/new-criminal-case-filed-against-hunter-biden-report/