Psaki Archives - The Automatic Earth

Russia: “No we didn’t, but we’d be more than happy to convene the security council and open up internationally recognized institutional channels for thorough investigation.”

The west: “No”

Gonzalo Lira “YouTube bans any open discussion about the Bucha false flag”

We live inside a cartoon.

• Zelensky Tells Security Council that “Russians Killed for Pleasure” (GR)

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has shown the UN Security Council on Tuesday a harrowing video from Ukraine in an apparent attempt to embarrass Russia and rally world opinion. The clip lasted about a minute and showed image after image of dead Ukrainians – including some burned and disfigured bodies. Speaking to the Security Council for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, he said Russian troops have killed civilians and raped women. Zelensky’s comments follow his visit to the town of Bucha on Monday, where the bodies of dead Ukrainian civilians were seen. He claimed that in the town people were shot in the street, in their homes, thrown into wells, and crushed by tanks in the middle of the road “just for the pleasure” of the Russian soldiers.

“The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country,” he said, as Russia’s UN ambassador was looking on. Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes on Monday following the killings of civilians in the city of Bucha, Ukraine. Biden said the images coming from Bucha warranted calling Putin a “war criminal,” adding, “but we have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight and we have to get all the details so this can be an actual…war-crime trial.” “This guy (Putin) is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it,” Biden said.

Meanwhile, the United States ambassador to the UN called for Russia’s expulsion from the UN Human Rights Council. “Russia should not have a position of authority in a body whose very purpose is to promote respect for human rights. Not only is it the height of hypocrisy, it is dangerous,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said addressing the Security Council Tuesday. “Every day, we see more and more how little Russia respects human rights,” she added. “Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council hurts the Council’s credibility. It undermines the entire UN. And it is just plain wrong.”

“Moscow can no more lose the war with Ukraine than Washington could lose a war with Mexico.”

• Biden’s Folly In Ukraine (Gen. Douglas Macgregor)

Americans find it difficult to determine whether the Biden administration’s policy decisions regarding Ukraine are the product of a deliberate strategy, extraordinary incompetence, or some combination of both. Threatening Russia, a nuclear armed power, with regime change and then annunciating a nuclear weapons policy that allows for the United States’ first-strike use of nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances”—responding to an invasion by conventional forces, or chemical or biological attacks—suggests President Biden and his administration really are out of touch with reality. American voters instinctively grasp the truth that Americans have nothing to gain from a war with Russia, declared or undeclared. A short trip to almost any supermarket or gas station in America explains why. Last week, inflation hit its highest point in nearly 40 years and gas prices have skyrocketed since the conflict in Ukraine began.

Thanks to the Western media’s non-stop dissemination of unfavorable images of Russia’s leaders and its military, it would appear that President Biden is able to espouse any narrative that suits his purpose. Obscuring the true origins of this tragic conflict, however—NATO’s eastward expansion to include Ukraine—cannot alter strategic reality. Moscow can no more lose the war with Ukraine than Washington could lose a war with Mexico. Ukraine’s proximity to Russia gives Moscow unconstrained and immediate access to Russia’s reserves of military manpower, equipment, and firepower. Notwithstanding Moscow’s determination to avoid unnecessary collateral damage to Ukraine’s population and infrastructure, Russian Air and Ground Forces are at liberty to methodically destroy Ukrainian resistance in detail.

Russia’s commodity-based economy, with its abundance of food, energy, minerals, and other resources, creates enormous strategic depth for Moscow on the Eurasian landmass. These resources make Moscow Beijing’s natural strategic partner, thus securing Moscow’s Asian border. Moscow’s role in stabilizing Central Asia also makes Russian strength indispensable for the success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative rooted as it is in the historical Silk Road, linking the economies of East Asia to Europe, Africa, and the Near East. At the same time, Washington’s frequent use of financial sanctions have severely weakened, if not wrecked trust in the U.S. led global financial system. It is far more likely that countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa will either bypass sanctions to buy discounted Russian and Belorussian commodities or simply refuse to enforce them.

To minimize the impact of financial sanctions imposed by Washington and the European Union, Russia began “de-dollarizing” its economy years ago. Unburdened by the kind of odious sovereign debt that plagues Washington, Moscow has been able to stabilize the ruble with interest rate increases, and links to gold reserves. Now, de-dollarization is spreading. China, India, and Saudi Arabia are introducing de-dollarization policies as an anti-sanction measure. Saudi Arabia’s offer to sell oil in Chinese yuan raises real questions about the future of the petrodollar. Despite Japan’s public display of solidarity with Washington, Tokyo really made its bed with Eurasia when Tokyo signed on to membership in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Program (RCEP), the world’s largest trade bloc. Predictably, Tokyo already declared it will not ban Russian oil and natural gas imports and Japan will continue to work with Russia on important joint economic projects.

“Do you see the core and the rings? Do you see the suppression of everything Russian (Hitler never banned Russian music) and the weaponisation of the despicable ukro Nazi ideology? History might not repeat but it has just provided the rhyme of the century.”

• …But It Rhymes. Russia, Ukraine and Nazi Europe Mark II (Leslie)

Before I set off on my brief journey through history, there is a general point I want to address: There is a lot of anxiety floating around. Well-meaning people (including yours truly) are riding the waves of war, experiencing exaltation and dejection with every Russian triumph and setback. This is completely understandable and I would be less than honest if I did not admit to being utterly exhausted by worry and seesawing emotions. At the same time, I’ve come to understand one thing. My willing Russia to win will not make one bit of difference – well, perhaps it might. Russia is what it is – a great, fascinating, freedom-loving land of endless steppes and kind people whose mission is to rid the world of evil, full stop. As such, Russia must prevail, and it will.

However, such a great accomplishment – that no other country or civilization is close to being able to emulate – must come at a cost. This means that Russia’s struggle will (as always) involve setbacks, errors, losses, treachery and perhaps even tragedies. This is not something the Russians or their supporters want to countenance but please, hear me out. I am trying to desensitise you to the maelstrom of emotionally-charged information that can be very harmful if digested uncritically. Be strong but be prepared – like Russia – to sustain emotional losses that this long and immensely dangerous undertaking must produce. In the end, all we have is the belief that good must prevail and we should let that belief carry us all the way to victory.

[..] It was only the heroic offensive by the Red army that broke the back of the Euro beast – at a very high cost. However, not even they could break the back of the fanatical Ukrainian Nazis who continued with open terror until about 1956 and then went underground to await a fresh opportunity. Ukrainian terror against Russians which started in the 1910s has never stopped. Funded and supported by the Vatican, Austria-Hungary, Imperial Germany, Hitler’s Germany and Poland, the UK, US and West and the current German state, the Ukrainian Nazi virus was released again as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed (note the similarities with Yugoslavia and Croatia). Many Russians refused to see the truth and continued to support the increasingly anti-Russian ukro regimes in the name of “brotherhood” inculcated during Soviet times.

This is a simple replay of 1918, 1939, 1945 and 2014 when the Soviets/Russians forgave their hangmen only to have to fight the same battle again and again. This fully explains President Putin’s demand for a full denazification of the Ukraine. I can only hope that he completes this historic task fully. Can you see it yet? Do you see the geopolitical pattern that is currently forming? A deeply Russophobic Euro Reich centred on Germany, France and the Vatican (with a wholehearted Anglo-American support) is rapidly being turned into an anti-Russian fortress. Do you see the core and the rings? Do you see the suppression of everything Russian (Hitler never banned Russian music) and the weaponisation of the despicable ukro Nazi ideology? History might not repeat but it has just provided the rhyme of the century.

And he’s stoking it.

• Gen. Milley Says Risk of Conflict ‘Between Great Powers’ Is Increasing (Antiwar)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley warned Congress on Tuesday that the chances of a “significant international conflict between great powers” are increasing. Milley warned that both China and Russia are threats to the so-called “rules-based” global order. “We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules-based current global order,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee. “We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable. The potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing.” The hearing was focused on the Pentagon’s $773 billion budget request for 2023, part of the $813 billion in military spending President Biden has asked Congress for.

Milley said the budget is in alignment with the new National Defense Strategy (NDS) that was recently briefed to Congress but has yet to be declassified. In a fact sheet on the new NDS, the Pentagon named China as the top “threat” facing the US military, while Russia was second. The US military’s shift in focus towards “great power competition” was first outlined by the 2018 NDS, which put China and Russia as equal concerns. The Pentagon has plans to boost the US military’s presence in the Asia Pacific to counter China and in Eastern Europe to face Russia. While done in the name of deterrence, US military buildups in the regions will only make a conflict more likely. This is demonstrated by the fact that one of Russia’s main justifications for invading Ukraine was Kyiv’s alignment with NATO and the military alliance’s presence in the region.

Miles behind China and Russia. But trillions more for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon.

• Australia, US, UK Military Alliance to Develop Hypersonic Missiles (Antiwar)

The US, Britain, and Australia announced on Tuesday that they will work together to develop hypersonic missiles under the recently created AUKUS military alliance. President Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the plan in a joint statement. The leaders said they are “committed today to commence new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as to expand information sharing and to deepen cooperation on defense innovation.” US military leaders have been calling for more investment in the development of hypersonics and other advanced weaponry, which they see as vital for competing with China and Russia.

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said Tuesday that the US Air Force recently successfully tested a hypersonic cruise missile made by Lockheed Martin. The AUKUS military pact was signed by the three countries last September and is focused on increasing military technology ties to counter Beijing. Under the deal, Australia will get access to technology to build nuclear-powered submarines, which could be used to patrol waters near China. When asked about the AUKUS hypersonic plan, China’s UN Ambassador Zhang warned that such measures could lead to a crisis similar to what’s happening in Ukraine. “Anyone who do not want to see the Ukrainian crisis should refrain from doing things which may lead the other parts of the world into a crisis like this,” he said.

Nothing that I can see.

• What Would It Take for Military Spending in America to Go Down? (Astore)

I have a question for you: What would it take in today’s world for America’s military spending to go down? Here’s one admittedly farfetched scenario: Vladimir Putin loses his grip on power and Russia retrenches militarily while reaching out to normalize relations with the West. At the same time, China prudently decides to spend less on its military, pursuing economic power while abandoning any pretense to a militarized superpower status. Assuming such an unlikely scenario, with a “new cold war” nipped in the bud and the U.S. as the world’s unchallenged global hegemon, Pentagon spending would surely shrink, right? Well, I wouldn’t count on it. Based on developments after the Soviet Union’s collapse three decades ago, here’s what I suspect would be far more likely to happen.

The U.S. military, aided by various strap-hanging think tanks, intelligence agencies, and weapons manufacturers, would simply shift into overdrive. As its spokespeople would explain to anyone who’d listen (especially in Congress), the disappearance of the Russian and Chinese threats would carry its own awesome dangers, leaving this country prospectively even less safe than before. You’d hear things like: we’ve suddenly been plunged into a more complex multipolar world, significantly more chaotic now that our “near-peer” rivals are no longer challenging us, with even more asymmetrical threats to U.S. military dominance. The key word, of course, would be “more” — linked, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, to omnipresent Pentagon demands for yet more military spending.

When it comes to weapons, budgets, and war, the military-industrial complex’s philosophy is captured by an arch comment of the legendary actress Mae West: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” Even without Russia and China as serious threats to American hegemony, you’d hear again about an “unbalanced” Kim Jong-un in North Korea and his deeply alarming ballistic missiles; you’d hear about Iran and its alleged urge to build nuclear weapons; and, if those two countries proved too little, perhaps the war on terror would be resuscitated. (Indeed, during the ongoing wall-to-wall coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea did test a ballistic missile, an event a distracted media greeted with a collective shrug.) My point is this: when you define the entire globe as your sphere of influence, as the U.S. government does, there will always be threats somewhere.

But who still recognizes why?

• Jen Psaki Should Resign (WE)

The career path of White House press secretary-turned-TV pundit isn’t new. Tony Snow worked for Fox News and then moved to the George W. Bush White House. Dana Perino did the reverse. But never before has a chief press secretary for the president of the United States leveraged the position to negotiate a career move to cable news. That’s exactly what Jen Psaki has done, according to Axios . Psaki will soon be heading off to what’s likely a very lucrative contract with MSNBC. The White House press secretary should have resigned last week when this news broke. Let’s be clear — this is an unprecedented breach of public ethics. Unfortunately, most of Psaki’s colleagues in the press briefing room seem to be OK with it. Psaki was only questioned briefly by CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe on the possible ethical ramifications of these negotiations.

Then everyone simply moved on. Psaki’s move and the media’s nonchalant apathy about it explain so much about what is wrong with the incestuous nature of the Washington media’s relationship with the Biden White House. In turn, it helps explain why the public reputation of both institutions is hovering somewhere just above the popularity of bubbling street sewage. That media watchdogs such as CNN’s Brian Stelter see no conflict of interest here speaks more about corporate media’s agenda bias than it does about Psaki. It’s worth noting that Psaki is a former CNN contributor, serving the network after leaving the Obama administration’s State Department.

Psaki is not a free agent a la the world of sports. Her podium is not for sale to the highest media bidder. Any job in the executive branch is a job paid for by the people. But we know what comes next. Psaki will move from spinning for the Biden White House in the White House to spinning for the White House at MSNBC. And think about this: Psaki has been in her role as press secretary for just a little over a year. That means negotiations with MSNBC likely began not soon after she started! Consider something else: What’s the likelihood that NBC White House reporters Peter Alexander or Kristen Welker will aggressively challenge someone they know that they’ll soon share office space with? The very possibility of this concern is outrageous by itself. Equally absurd is the hypocrisy.

They know much more about adverse events than they let on.

• Pfizer Hired 600+ People to Process Vaccine Injury Reports (CHD)

Pfizer hired about 600 additional full-time employees to process adverse event reports during the three months following the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its COVID-19 vaccine, newly released documents reveal. According to the documents, Pfizer said, “More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021.” The information was contained in a 10,000-page document cache released April 1 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and made public as part of a court-ordered disclosure schedule stemming from an expedited Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The latest revelations appeared in a document, “Cumulative analysis of post-authorization adverse event reports” of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, highlighting such adverse events identified through Feb. 28, 2021.

The document was previously released in November 2021, but was partially redacted. The redactions included the number of employees Pfizer hired and/or was planning to hire. According to the unredacted document released April 1: “Pfizer has also taken a multiple actions [sic] to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports. This includes significant technology enhancements, and process and workflow solutions, as well as increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues. “To date, Pfizer has onboarded approximately 600 additional full-time employees (FTEs). “More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021.”

The unredacted version also revealed the number of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses shipped worldwide between December 2020 and February 2021: “It is estimated that approximately 126,212,580 doses of BNT162b2 [the Pfizer EUA vaccine] were shipped worldwide from the receipt of the first temporary authorisation for emergency supply on 01 December 2020 through 28 February 2021.” The number of shipped doses previously was redacted.

“..backing down from its lockdown in Shanghai would mean admitting that the “Zero COVID” approach has been an abject failure..”

• President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai COVID Outbreak (ZH)

In the span of just over a week, CCP authorities have gone from denying plans for a citywide lockdown of Shanghai to announcing what was supposed to be a two-part staggered lockdown – to simply locking down the entire city and sending in the military and a contingent of medical workers as locals accuse the government of violating its social compact to put the people’s interests first. Now, as the entire city of roughly 26 million faces what’s already shaping up to be the most punishing lockdown in China since the original three-month Wuhan lockdown nightmare, Nikkei reports that Beijing has found itself in an incredibly difficult position. On Sunday, Shanghai counted 9,006 mainly asymptomatic infections, more than two-thirds of the national tally.

The reason the situation in Shanghai presents such a difficult conundrum is that backing down from its lockdown in Shanghai would mean admitting that the “Zero COVID” approach has been an abject failure. But continuing with the heavy-handed lockdown risks spurring even more unrest – something the CCP has bent over backwards to avoid. For the CCP, it’s an impossible dilemma. Already, social media has been flooded with reports of locals dying from neglect as hospital resources have been stretched thin (and not from COVID; it’s other ailments that are killing people now). While the entire city has been locked down for less than a week, many individual residential compounds have been locked down for much longer – some since mid-March.

“It is so uncharacteristic of Shanghai to have to go through this,” said Zhong Lei, a teacher in the city, whose residential compound was locked down even earlier, in mid-March. On Tuesday, authorities reiterated that they must try to keep the city’s port and its factories running at full capacity. But accomplishing this – as we have already reported – will require even more draconian measures like forcing workers to essentially live inside the city’s factories.

10,000 health workers for a city of 25 million.

• 10,000 Health Workers Sent To Help Control Shanghai Outbreak (AP)

China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from around the country to Shanghai, including 2,000 from the military, as it struggles to stamp out a rapidly spreading outbreak in its largest city under its zero-COVID strategy. Shanghai was conducting a mass testing of its 25 million residents Monday as what was announced as a two-phase lockdown entered its second week. Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to re-open last Friday, remained locked down along with the western half of the city. While many factories and financial companies have been allowed to keep operating if they isolate their employees, concern was growing about the potential economic impact of an extended lockdown in China’s financial capital, a major shipping and manufacturing center.

The highly contagious omicron BA.2 form of the virus is testing China’s ability to maintain its zero-COVID approach, which aims to stop outbreaks from spreading by isolating everyone who tests positive, whether they have symptoms or not. Shanghai has converted an exhibition hall and other facilities into massive isolation centers where people with mild or no symptoms are housed in a sea of beds separated by temporary partitions. China on Monday reported more than 13,000 new cases nationwide in the previous 24 hours, of which nearly 12,000 were asymptomatic. About 9,000 of the cases were in Shanghai. The other large outbreak is in northeastern China’s Jilin province, where new cases topped 3,500. The Shanghai lockdown has sparked numerous complaints, from food shortages to limited staff and facilities at hastily constructed isolation sites. Some people who tested positive have remained at home for extended periods because of a shortage of isolation beds or transportation to take them to a center, the business news publication Caixin said.

Lying to the FBI…which was busy propagating its own lies.

• Durham Lowers the Boom on Former Clinton Counsel Michael Sussmann (Turley)

In a Monday night filing, Durham revealed that he has an incriminating statement by Sussmann that dramatically undermined his defense. In the text message, Sussmann denied that he was representing anyone before his critical meeting with the FBI. He then repeated the false statement in that meeting as he pushed a false Russian collusion claim against Donald Trump. Sussmann has been seeking the dismissal on the single charge under 18 U.S.C. 1001 for lying to the FBI in a meeting with the then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. In the indictment, Sussmann is accused of “mak[ing] a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation” in conversations with Baker. Durham argued that “the defendant provided the FBI General Counsel with purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and a Russia-based bank.”

That institution was Alfa Bank and Sussmann’s effort paralleled the work of his partner at the law firm Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, in pushing the Steele Dossier in a separate debunked collusion claim. The FEC recently fined the Clinton Campaign and the DNC for hiding the funding of the dossier as a legal cost by Elias at Perkins Coie. The Clinton Campaign’s Alfa Bank conspiracy was found to be baseless but the FBI did not know that it was being offered by someone being paid by the campaign to spread the claim. Had they known, Durham alleges the department might have been able to avoid the investigation costs and effort spent on the Alfa matter.

Sussmann has sounded a lot like Michael Flynn in court as he argued that this was trivial and inconsequential comment. On Monday night, Durham lowered the boom. He revealed that, before the meeting, Sussmann sent “the same lie in writing” that his effort was “not on behalf of a client or company.” Durham is seeking the introduction of a text message to Baker that said: “Jim—it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own—not on behalf of a client or company—want to help the Bureau. Thanks.” Thus, Durham writes that “on September 18, 2016 at 7:24 p.m., i.e., the night before the defendant met with the General Counsel, the defendant conveyed the same lie in writing and sent the following text message to the General Counsel’s personal cellphone.”

He was actively pushing the dossier. The campaign paid for it.

• Sussmann Doesn’t Want Steele Dossier Brought Up During Durham Trial (WE)

The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer charged by special counsel John Durham with lying to the FBI about working for the Clinton campaign doesn’t want British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier brought up at the trial following indications from the special counsel that it will be. Michael Sussmann was indicted last year on charges of concealing his clients, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and “tech executive” Rodney Joffe, from FBI general counsel James Baker when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank. He has pleaded not guilty. Steele created his now-discredited dossier after being hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself hired by Perkins Coie and Marc Elias, the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign.

Durham appears to be building a case that many collusion claims can be sourced back to Democratic operatives or linked to the Clinton campaign. Sussmann’s lawyers asked a federal judge on Monday to preclude three categories of evidence: the gathering of domain name system data by Joffe and others; the accuracy of that data and conclusions based on it; and “Christopher Steele and information he separately provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (including the so-called ‘Steele Dossier’).” The defense team argued: “The single false statement charge brought against Mr. Sussmann surely does not flow from the gathering of data, the accuracy of that data, the accuracy of the conclusions based on that data, or any information Mr. Steele may have provided to the FBI.”

The lawyers argued Sussmann did not have “any awareness” that Steele was “separately providing information to the FBI.” “The Special Counsel has not charged a substantive scheme to defraud the government, nor has he charged a conspiracy to defraud the government,” Sussmann’s lawyers argued. “The manner in which the data was gathered, the objective strength and reliability of that data and/or conclusions drawn from the data, and the information that Christopher Steele separately provided to the FBI all have no bearing on the only crime the Special Counsel chose to charge.” Sussmann’s lawyers said that during a phone conference last month, Durham indicated that “he intends to introduce evidence and argument pertaining to reports and information” that Steele provided to the FBI, adding that Durham “presumably” intends to call Steele as a witness.

Anyone want to question this?

• ‘If I Did 1/100 Of What Hunter Biden Did, I’d Be In Jail’ – Eric Trump (JTN)

Eric Trump, son of former President Donald Trump, called out what he sees as a double standard between him and President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. “If I did 1/100 of what Hunter Biden did, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life,” Eric Trump told NTD’s “Capitol Report.” Records Just the News obtained Wednesday show Hunter Biden and his business partners attempted to make millions off of the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. A report surfaced Monday that the Secret Service is paying more than $30,000 per month to rent a mansion in Malibu to provide security for Hunter. A retired intelligence officer told Just the News that the U.S. government was concerned the contents from Hunter Biden’s laptop could compromise the first family. “The mainstream media hasn’t mentioned Hunter Biden’s name in 258 days. There’s a serious problem with that. They let him skirt by. They carry Joe Biden’s water,” Eric Trump told NTD over the weekend.

“Based on their approval rating, [the mainstream media] is really damaged because they’ve got 7 percent approval rating in this country. It’s horrible,” he said. “People don’t trust them anymore.” He also said that the establishment media has been covering up for Hunter Biden’s father. He told NTD that if Donald Trump had said 1/100 of the “stupid things” that President Joe Biden has, the media would call for him to be removed from office under Article 25. “But again, they’re on that side, and they’ll do anything to cover up for him and let him get away with just about anything under the sun,” Eric Trump said. “You don’t have equal scales of justice in this country. You don’t have equal media coverage,” he said. “The media is the propaganda wing of the left-wing party. And I think that [has] become very clear to all Americans.”

“..their destiny was in the “place in the sun,” the way Ethiopia started to be described (as if Italy didn’t have enough sun)..”

• When A Country Is Destroyed By Its Own Propaganda (Ugo Bardi)

let’s put ourselves in the shoes of British admiralty in the 1920s. We have this problem. This British-created creature, Italy, that was supposed to be just a counterweight against France, now has started to behave like a golem. And to disobey her creators. It needs to be controlled before it is too late. Fine, but how? We already said that at, the time of the unification of Italy, the French ruler, Louis Napoleon, had been controlled by using a beautiful woman. But Mussolini didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would easily fall under a woman’s spell. He was closer to the prototypical “mad dictator,” more interested in power than in sex. So, to influence him, one needed to use his craving for power. As we enter this line of thought, we find an interesting event.

In 1925, there was an “exchange of notes” between Britain and Italy regarding Ethiopia. Known as the “Anglo-Italian Agreement” it essentially said that Ethiopia was part of the Italian sphere of influence. This agreement had a deep strategic significance. Essentially, the British were telling Italians, “go ahead, you can do whatever you want in Ethiopia. We won’t stop you” Perfidious Albion? I think so. VERY perfidious. We cannot know what went on inside Mussolini’s mind but, by 1932, he had taken the fateful decision of accepting Britain’s offer and invade Ethiopia. A major propaganda campaign started with the idea of convincing the public that Italy had a manifest destiny that consisted in re-creating the Roman Empire, and that this could be done by conquering Ethiopia and getting rid of the inferior races who lived there.

It involved slander campaigns against Ethiopia, scientific studies showing the inferiority of the black races in comparison to the white ones, and how modern Italians were the true heirs of the noble Roman warriors who had created and defended the greatest empire in history. That kind of thing. The slander campaign implied painting Ethiopians as insects to be exterminated with insecticides (it was done for real, using chemical weapons). After three years of campaign, the Italian public was completely bamboozled into believing that, yes, their destiny was in the “place in the sun,” the way Ethiopia started to be described (as if Italy didn’t have enough sun). You have to read the documents of the time to understand how well it worked. People were completely hypnotized. Just imagine yourself in 1934 asking the question, “you know, folks, before we attack Ethiopia, wouldn’t it be a good idea to carry out a cost-benefit analysis?” And you would have discovered that propaganda reduces the level of the discussion to that of the most stupid person involved in it.

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Debt Rattle November 8 2021

Nov 082021

November 8, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:16 am Finance Tagged with: booster, Comey, Durham, excess deaths, FBI, mandates, myopericarditis, natural immunity, Psaki 60 Responses »

Vincent van Gogh Roofs of Paris 1886

• No Booster… No Hassle-Free Foreign Travel (DM)

• The Mandate on Business Intensifies the Crisis (Tucker)

• Experts Rip CDC Study Claiming Vax Protection Beats Natural Immunity (JTN)

• UK Excess Deaths At Home Soar Past 65,000 In Just 18 Months (Exp.)

• When Will The CDC Correct Its Covid Death Counts, As Italy Just Did? (AT)

• Doctors And Researchers Demand That Vaccination In Sweden Be Suspended (LRP)

• World Record Freediver Diagnosed With Myopericarditis After Pfizer Vaccine (CW)

• Jen Psaki , Gavin Newsom Not Been Seen in Public for Eleven Days (BN)

• How Low Will He Go? Biden Approval Rating Now At 38% (JTN)

• Stop Looking at Danchenko, Start Looking at Weissmann and Robert Mueller (CTH)

• The Biggest Loser Of The Durham Indictments: James Comey’s FBI (JTN)

McCullough Spike Protein
https://twitter.com/i/status/1457322772439486464

“Ministers are drawing up plans to bring back tests and quarantine for those who refuse third Covid jab.”

• No Booster… No Hassle-Free Foreign Travel (DM)

British travellers who fail to take their booster jabs face renewed restrictions, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Plans to reimpose quarantine and testing for those who have refused their third vaccine are currently being drawn up by Ministers to protect the UK against the spread of new coronavirus variants. But they are likely to prove controversial if introduced before most of those eligible for their booster have received it. So far, only 60 per cent have done so. The move would change the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ from having had two jabs to three. Officials are divided over how soon to implement the measure and are discussing a grace period that would allow people to travel without quarantine if they had sought a booster six months after their second jab but had not yet been offered an appointment.

Under the plans, modelled on the Israeli system, travellers would not be able to avoid the need for a third jab by producing evidence of a negative Covid-19 test. Last night a Government source said: ‘This is not going to happen immediately – but happen it will.’ The news came as Health Secretary Sajid Javid said almost 10 million people have now received their booster jab, but encouraged people to urge their elderly relatives to come forward. Boosters are currently available to over-50s, health workers and the clinically vulnerable, although the scheme is expected to be extended to the over-40s early next year.

Seven out of ten of those over 80 and three in five of the over-50s in England have had their third injection, which can be administered six months after the second. As at present, those who have not been fully vaccinated will have to self-isolate for ten full days on returning to the UK and pay for four expensive PCR tests, two before departure and two back on British soil. It is the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ that will be extended to include only those who have accepted the booster.

Overreach.

• Opposition To New Biden Vaccine Mandate Explodes As 27 States Join Fight (JTN)

A total of 27 states so far have filed lawsuits against the Biden administration over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on private businesses of 100 or more employees. The mandate, which is being enforced by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), will require employers to ensure all their employees are either vaccinated by Jan. 4 or are tested weekly and wearing masks. If the businesses do not follow the mandate, they could face fines of up to $14,000 per violation. All but one of the states that filed lawsuits, Iowa, have Republican attorneys general. Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana are the only three of the 27 states that have Democratic governors, and Iowa’s governor is a Republican.

Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly criticized President Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses on Friday, saying, “While I appreciate the intention to keep people safe, a goal I share, I don’t believe this directive is the correct, or the most effective, solution for Kansas.” Kelly is up for reelection next year, and her GOP challenger is the state attorney general, whose campaign called her out for waiting until the mandate went into effect to criticize it. As for Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, he said he’s unsure if the state lawsuits against the Biden administration over the vaccine mandate have merit, WDRB reported. “I don’t know the nuances of this lawsuit, but in the end, we have to follow the law as a state, so we will prepare to comply,” Beshear said.

According to Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ spokeswoman, he is reviewing the “directive” and “will continue to ensure that all state resources are available to assist those employers affected by the requirements,” The Advocate reported. Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds released a statement on the lawsuit that reads: “I believe the vaccine is the best defense against COVID-19, but I also firmly believe in Iowans’ right to make healthcare decisions based on what’s best for themselves and their families, and I remain committed to protecting those freedoms. President Biden should do the same.”

“..the mandate is a masking and testing one, with an exemption permitted for the vaccinated. That little trick is designed to survive the flurries of inevitable court challenges.”

• The Mandate on Business Intensifies the Crisis (Tucker)

It’s hard to imagine that public confidence in everything could fall further, but it surely will. This past week was emblematic. We saw Biden’s party face an electoral rout on Tuesday due mostly to pandemic policy – even the education controversies in Virginia trace to disastrous school closures – followed two days later by an intensification of those very policies with a vaccine mandate on companies with 100 or more employees. That was followed by an announcement from Pfizer the very next day that they have a new therapeutic pill that is 89% effective, in which case, why the vaccine mandate? That’s more than enough to make one’s head spin. But then it got worse: on the same day, the head of the CDC claimed on Twitter that masks reduce “your chance of Covid-19 infection by 80%,” a claim without a shred of evidence in the scientific literature.

At this point, it seems like they will say anything, knowing full well that the fact checkers will leave alone any high official in the federal government. Let’s focus on the mandate on business. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has thankfully issued a stay on the entire order pending a closer review, citing grave constitutional problems with the OSHA order. The Biden administration is being asked to respond by tomorrow evening as of this writing. The edict itself relies most fundamentally on the claim that “immunity acquired through infection appears to be less protective than vaccination,” which is unproven and likely false. It is imposed in the midst of evidence all around us that the previous public-sector and contractor mandate has led to sickouts, resignations, and unpaid leave announcements hitting industrial sectors and cities all over the country, from airlines to fire departments to hospitals and academia.

In Senate testimony, Anthony Fauci cited the fantastic success of mandates at United Airlines while failing to mention the hundreds of firings and the pilot and staff revolt at every other airline. One would suppose that this mess would be enough to forestall more mandates but no: now all companies with 100 employees must force vaccines on its employees, or else pay fines of $13,600 per violation. More precisely, the mandate is a masking and testing one, with an exemption permitted for the vaccinated. That little trick is designed to survive the flurries of inevitable court challenges. Yes, it overtly creates a segregated caste system based on one’s willingness to submit to an injection via a government mandate. The rules come into effect on January 4, 2022, which means that businesses all over the country will spend the next two months trying to figure out what to do.

Same with workers, many millions of whom do not believe that they need, and thus do not want this vaccine that neither stops infection, nor transmission and is also associated with unusually high adverse effects for which the vaccine makers bear no liability. Buried in the gigantic text is a request for public comment on expanding this to all businesses of any size. So there is no real escape in the long run. It’s truly hard to imagine how this could happen in the U.S. But the same could be said about nearly everything that has happened in the last 21 months. Citizens are desperately struggling to get out from under the yoke of this despotism, and using every opportunity available to do so. Politicians who back these policies are being swept out of office. And yet they carry on. It appears that the sadistic state is quickly becoming a masochistic one.

“It’s not even clear enough naturally immune people were hospitalized to reach statistical significance..”

• Experts Rip CDC Study Claiming Vax Protection Beats Natural Immunity (JTN)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an “early release” study last week that uses a highly curated population to purportedly show that mRNA-vaccinated people have a much lower rate of reinfection by COVID-19 than naturally immune people, contradicting a much larger Israeli study this summer. The CDC study concludes: “All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.” The study analyzed “COVID-19–like illness hospitalizations among adults” across nine states from January through Sept. 2. Because public health authorities portrayed vaccination as the best way to avoid hospitalization, it’s less likely that vaccinated people would seek hospitalization, thus hiding their breakthrough infections relative to the naturally immune.

Attorney Jenin Younes, whose New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) files legal challenges against COVID vaccine mandates, tweeted that the study contradicts a meta-analysis touted by the CDC, which found “no significant difference” in protection between vaccination and natural immunity. Immunologist Hooman Noorchashm, the medical expert for multiple NCLA challenges, called the study “another teleological piece of propaganda” by the CDC because it excludes the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and likely includes recovered people in the vaccinated group.

Harvard Medical School epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff tweeted that the study has a “major statistical flaw” — falsely portraying hospitalized respiratory patients as “representative of the population” — which renders the odds ratio “wrong.” Former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson argued the study “is meaningless gibberish that would never have been published if the agency did not face huge political pressure to get people vaccinated.” It’s not even clear enough naturally immune people were hospitalized to reach statistical significance, he said, noting there’s no unadjusted odds ratio.

Nope, not a word about vaccines. It’s all very mysterious. What could it be?

• UK Excess Deaths At Home Soar Past 65,000 In Just 18 Months (Exp.)

Figures from the Office of National Statistics for England and Wales show over the past eighteen months there have been at least 74,745 excess deaths – deaths above the five-year average – in private homes. Only 8,759 (12 percent) involved COVID-19. The deaths at home figures from 7 March, 2020 to 17 September, 2021 are 37 percent higher than the 2015 – 2019 average and the numbers are continuing to climb. Last week was the 16th week in a row where the ONS reported extra or “excess” deaths. The disturbing trend includes 15-19-year-old boys. Deaths in this group have risen by 30 percent between January and October this year compared to the same period in 2020 – from 355 to 462. This is 20 percent higher than the five-year average for this period which was 386.

Last night Professor Carl Heneghan, Director of Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, called for an urgent inquiry into the circumstances behind the deaths to find out whether they could have been prevented. He said: “More people are dying of non-covid causes and we continue to see a considerable and continuing rise in excess deaths this year not caused by Covid-19 and occurring mostly in the home. This is extremely concerning. It is urgent we now launch a proper inquiry to find out whether these deaths could have been prevented. The death certificates only give a snapshot of what is actually going on. “We need to go beyond these and look at those deaths which may not have been covered by coroners. To understand the true cause and what can be done to reduce the high number of excess deaths, particularly those in the home setting.”

Don’t worry, the first fact checks deriding the Italian Higher Institute of Health are already out.

• When Will The CDC Correct Its Covid Death Counts, As Italy Just Did? (AT)

The Summit caught a fascinating story out of Italy: the Italian Higher Institute of Health decided it had miscounted COVID deaths. Instead of looking at people who died with COVID, as it once did, it looked only at people who died from COVID — leading to a 97% decrease in Italy’s COVID death count. So far, the CDC shows no signs of following suit. According to The Summit: “The Italian Higher Institute of Health has drastically reduced the country’s official COVID death toll number by over 97 per cent after changing the definition of a fatality to someone who died from COVID rather than with COVID. Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports that the Institute has revised downward the number of people who have died from COVID rather than with COVID from 130,000 to under 4,000. “Yes, you read that right. Turns out 97.1% of deaths hitherto attributed to Covid were not due directly to Covid,” writes Toby Young.

Of the of the 130,468 deaths registered as official COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic, only 3,783 are directly attributable to the virus alone. “All the other Italians who lost their lives had from between one and five pre-existing diseases. Of those aged over 67 who died, 7% had more than three co-morbidities, and 18% at least two,” writes Young. “According to the Institute, 65.8% of Italians who died after being infected with Covid were ill with arterial hypertension (high blood pressure), 23.5% had dementia, 29.3% had diabetes, and 24.8% atrial fibrillation. Add to that, 17.4% had lung problems, 16.3% had had cancer in the last five years and 15.7% suffered from previous heart failures.”

There’s more interesting material here, for the article discusses the ethics of overcounting to induce panic. Reading between the lines, the problem in Italy was that the socialized medicine system was unable to cope with an influx of patients during a bad flu season. (And it was a bad flu season.) The actual data match closely what those who are not panicking have observed in America. As with every flu season, there are unlucky young (and youngish) people who die from the flu. Overall, though, the ones who die are either very elderly or have comorbidities of the type described in the quoted material above. In America, however, counting COVID deaths is more of an art than it is a science (and that’s not even getting into the way the government incentivized hospitals to count COVID deaths).

Google translate.

“..the vaccine had a good effect for about two months..”

• Doctors And Researchers Demand That Vaccination In Sweden Be Suspended (LRP)

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) revealed on November 2, 2021 that a subcontractor to Pfizer was likely to conduct extensive research fraud during the Phase III study of Pfizer’s covid vaccine in the fall of 2020. The article’s main witness is Brook Jackson, in September 2020 , who worked on Pfizer’s vaccine studies. Jackson’s testimony shows that the company falsified data, blinded patients, hired insufficiently trained vaccinators and was slow to follow up on side effects reported in the Phase III study. The staff who performed quality checks were overwhelmed by the amount of problems they discovered. After repeatedly informing Ventavia of the shortcomings, Brook Jackson sent a complaint via email to the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) on September 25, 2020.

Ventavia fired her later that day. In support of his criticism, Jackson has provided BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings and emails. BMJ substantiates her testimony with statements from many former employees at Ventavia. The article also states that the FDA never did any review of the business where Brook Jackson worked. The article describes that the FDA has too few resources to review clinical trials. In the years 2000 to 2005, only about 1 percent of all studies were reviewed, since then the number of reviews has decreased. In August 2021, the FDA published a summary of the number of reviews of Pfizer’s covid vaccine studies. A total of 9 of 153 study places had been examined, which corresponds to 6 percent of the study’s research centers.

We believe that what BMJ reported is extremely serious. This overturns confidence in Pfizer, which is responsible for testing the vaccine and for the safety of the vaccine currently used by Swedes, of whom hundreds of thousands are children. The extent of the number of reported suspected side effects of the covid vaccine is also gigantic, for example in Sweden during the ten months that vaccination has taken place 83,744 suspected side effects have been reported , which is more than 10 times more than all side effects reported per year during the most recent years for all drugs and vaccines, a total of about 25,000 substances. About twenty studies have shown that the effect of the vaccine is very weak. One of these studies, which is Swedish, showed that the vaccine had a good effect for about two months, that AstraZeneca’s vaccine had no effect against the delta variant after four months and that the same applied to Pfizer’s vaccine after seven months.

The strong suspicion that parts of the clinical trial of Pfizer’s vaccine have not been performed in a scientifically acceptable manner and where the study results can not be considered reliable, combined with the large extent of reported suspected side effects after vaccination, many of a serious nature, make us doctors , researchers and immunologists are deeply concerned. Not least for children who are at extremely low risk of serious illness with covid-19, but who are at risk of serious side effects. The fact that the vaccine’s effect has already subsided sharply after a few months and is weak against the delta variant of the virus contributes to our conclusion that covid vaccination in Sweden should be paused until risk / benefit calculations are made for all age groups. Our position is taken in the light of the revelation in BMJ and what we know today about the risks for the patient.

End of career.

• World Record Freediver Diagnosed With Myopericarditis After Pfizer Vaccine (CW)

Florian Dagoury, currently the world’s top static breath-hold free diver, has been diagnosed with myocarditis and pericarditis 40 days following his second dose with the Pfizer vaccine. He is known for the fact he officially held his breath for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The elite Freediver, of French origin and based in Thailand, experienced a significant decrease in his breath-hold ability and went to a cardiologist who told him that it’s a common side effect of the Pfizer vaccine. Florian shared his experience on Instagram:

“Myocarditis, Pericarditis and Trivial Mitral regurgitation! Thank you Pfizer. Just want to share my annoying experience after vaccination and perhaps have some testimonials and similar stories around Freedivers. Did you get better? After my 2nd dose I noticed that my heart rate was way higher than normal and my breath hold capacities went down significantly. During sleep, I’m at 65-70bpm instead of 37-45bpm. During the day I’m now always over 100bpm instead of 65bpm, even when I sit down and relax. I once even reached 177bpm while having dinner with friends !!!! 10 days after my 2nd jab, I went to see a cardiologist and he told me it’s a common side effect of Pfizer vaccin, nothing to worry about, just rest it will pass. 40days after 2nd jab, I had no progress so I went to see another cardiologist and got diagnosed with Myocarditis, Pericarditis and Trivial Mitral regurgitation!

Which is basically an inflammation of the heart muscles caused by the immune system and some tiny leaks of blood from the valves that no longer close properly. I’m now struggling to reach 8min breath hold, 150m dyn and I even have a strong urge to breathe doing 40m dives. 30% decrease on my diving performance roughly. My first thought and recommendation to Freedivers around the world is to choose a vaccine which is done the old fashion way like Sputnik, Sinovac, Sinopharm etc…instead of those new mRNA vaccines.”

Both have sudden family emergencies.

• Jen Psaki , Gavin Newsom Not Been Seen in Public for Eleven Days (BN)

Ever since White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that she had a case of Covid-19, despite being fully vaccinated, she has been absent from the public spotlight. This week her role was taken by Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who just might be the least credible person on the planet. Psaki disclosed on October 31 that she had a “breatkthrough case” of Covid-19 in what she characterized as an abundance of transparency. “Psaki, who is fully vaccinated, said she has experienced only mild symptoms,” NPR reported. “In a statement, she said she had not had contact with senior White House officials since Wednesday — four days before she tested positive — and last saw Biden on Tuesday, when they were wearing masks and were more than six feet apart from each other, outdoors.”

“The White House had announced early on Thursday morning that Psaki would not be traveling with Biden to the G-20 summit in Rome due to a family emergency,” she said. “That emergency, she said on Sunday, was that members of her household had tested positive for COVID-19.” “Since then, I have quarantined and tested negative (via PCR) for COVID on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. However, today, I tested positive for COVID,” Psaki said. The last press conference given by Jen Psaki was on October 27. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had multiple myeloma, was reported to have died from “complications of Covid,” despite the 84-year-old being “fully vaccinated.” Powell’s passing caused a spike in searches on breakthrough infections.

As of October 18, 2021, the CDC reports that 41,127 patients have been hospitalized or died as a result of breakthrough COVID infections. The CDC saays that there were 10,857 deaths resulting from breakthrough COVID infections. The CDC claims that there are 189 million fully vaccinated people in the U.S. If mortality rates for these vaccinated Americans were reported the same way ‘Covid-related deaths’ have been since 2020, we would be reading about tens of thousands of “vaccine-related deaths.” Jen Psaki’s disappearance since news of her ‘breakthrough infection’ accompanies another mysterious shrinking from public view: California Govenor Gavin Newsom. As reported earlier today, Gavin Newsom hasn’t been seen in public for eleven days, since he received a ‘mix-and-match’ booster shot. Newsom also explained his cancelation of his trip to Rome as a sudden family emergency.

Don’t worry, Kamala is still lower..

• How Low Will He Go? Biden Approval Rating Now At 38% (JTN)

President Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest point thus far at 38%, according to a new poll released Sunday. USA Today and Suffolk University conducted the poll between Wednesday and Friday last week, following the Democratic party’s loss in the Virginia state elections and as Biden’s legislative agenda was in flux on Capitol Hill, but prior to the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, The Hill reported. Biden’s approval rating has continued declining in recent months, after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, as a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll at the end of last month found it to be at 43%, a five-point reduction from the previous September poll, according to the news outlet.

According to the USA Today/Suffolk University poll, 46% of respondents said Biden’s job as president is worse than expected, including 16% who voted for him last year. A total of 44% of Independents said Biden’s performance is worse than expected. The poll also found that 64% of those surveyed, including 28% of Democrats, didn’t want to see Biden run for reelection in 2024. In comparison, 58% didn’t want to see former President Trump as the GOP presidential nominee for 2024, including 24% of Republicans. Last week, Biden responded to his declining poll numbers, saying “that’s not why I ran,” according to The Hill. He remarked on the volatility of polls, adding that he “didn’t run to determine how well I’m going to do in the polls.”

FISA applications based on material they knew was false.

• Stop Looking at Danchenko, Start Looking at Weissmann and Robert Mueller (CTH)

When Andrew Weissmann and crew entered the DOJ to effectively run the Trump-Russia investigation, their purpose was to: (1) continue what was ongoing; and (2) coverup all that came before. AG Jeff Sessions recused himself, and DAG Rod Rosenstein became the co-dependent enabler for the Weissmann crew’s needs. During a June 2020 Senate hearing, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein openly admitted to being nothing more than the rubber stamp for every request. Rosenstein approved every request, signed every authorization and agreed to every scope expansion Andrew Weissmann put in front of him. There was nothing Rosenstein ever denied the Weissmann crew. Team Weissmann, under the authorities of a blank-check special counsel, effectively ran Main Justice top to bottom for two years.

When you accept the framework Rosenstein later admitted was in place, then you understand that anything blocked from DOJ/FBI release (see Nunes pleas) was blocked by Weissmann Inc; and everything that ever came out of the DOJ/FBI was released by Weissmann Inc. Reread that as many times as needed until it sinks in. Back to the question about why the DOJ/FBI were protecting Danchenko by not exposing the lies that John Durham is now making public in his indictments. To wit, I would reference you THAT specific moment in July of 2018 when Team Weissmann wrote a letter to the FISA Court that was increasingly distrusting of what they were seeing and hearing within the justice system: Look at how the FISA was used by the Mueller investigation to continue its weaponization throughout 2017 and even into 2018. In July of 2018, long after the source material was debunked, the special counsel office was still telling the FISA court the predication for the FISA application and subsequent renewals was valid.

Drive this point home. This is a key to understanding the scope of how weaponized the Mueller team was. In July of 2018 the special counsel resistance group was lying to the FISA court in order to protect the cornerstone document that permitted them to weaponize the intelligence apparatus. This letter was written July 12, 2018. It is NOT accidental that only a week later, July 21st, the special counsel released the FISA application under the guise of FOIA fulfillment. Aside from the date, the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The Mueller team running the DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application. The resistance unit running the DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

On page #8 [Source Document Here] when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, Igor Danchenko, the special counsel group notes the FBI found Danchenko to be truthful and cooperative. This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court, because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier Danchenko, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, disavowed the content and informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk. By July 2018, the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why? It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive. In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.

Wait till Obama’s involvement comes to light.

• The Biggest Loser Of The Durham Indictments: James Comey’s FBI (JTN)

Special Counsel John Durham’s latest criminal case is as much an indictment of James Comey’s FBI as it is of the primary source of the Steele dossier, whom Durham accuses of repeatedly lying to agents. The Steele dossier was the central evidence used by the FBI to win four consecutive FISA warrants targeting Trump’s campaign — and in 39 pages of painstaking detail the indictment lays out just how flawed and fake central elements of the dossier were. Those FISA warrants allowed the bureau to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page and his many contacts in Trump world for nearly a year.

Igor Danchenko, Steele’s primary source for the dossier, contrived an entire source for key allegations in the dossier and relied on a longtime Hillary Clinton-supporting public relations executive for other intelligence without telling the FBI, the indictment charges. That PR executive had extensive ties to Russian government officials, even as he provided Danchenko information that landed in the dossier. For some reason, Comey’s FBI couldn’t detect these serious flaws even though a group of civil lawyers was able to locate several Russians suspected of being Danchenko’s sub-sources, interviewing each of them and securing declarations that the information attributed to them in the dossier was wrong or contrived.

“I believe that Mr. Danchenko framed me as Sub-Source 4 to add credibility to his low-quality work, which is not based on real information or in-depth analysis,” said the witness declaration from Alexey Sergeyevich Dundich. “My impression is that Mr. Danchenko fabricated the information published in the Dossier to make quick money,” he added. “It is apparent to me that the Dossier is a deliberate fraud and a collection of idle rumors.” [..] In the meantime, experts see in Durham’s indictment serious red flags for an FBI counterintelligence probe on Comey’s and deputy Andrew McCabe’s watch before they were fired, an investigation that stretched more than two years without finding any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.

“The fact pattern that John Durham is methodically establishing shows what James Comey and Andrew McCabe likely knew from day one, that the Steele Dossier was politically-driven nonsense created at the behest of the Clinton campaign,” said Kevin Brock, the FBI’s former intelligence chief and one of the bureau’s most respected retirees. “And yet they knowingly ran with its false information to obtain legal process against an American citizen,” he said. “They defrauded not just a federal court, they defrauded the FBI and the American people.”

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Debt Rattle October 22 2021

Oct 222021

October 22, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 7:52 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, Celente, Civil War, DeSantis, Fauci, India, NIH, Psaki, Snowden, Wuhan 60 Responses »

M. C. Escher Still life and street 1937

• Covid Vaccines Will Keep You From Acquiring Full Immunity (Berenson)

• Vax Fight is On and Not Stopping – Gerald Celente (USAW)

• NIH Changes Story, Confirms It Funded Wuhan Gain-of-Function Experiment (JTN)

• Dr. Anthony Fauci Received Big Pay Increase To Prevent Pandemics (F.)

• India Administers A Billion Covid Jabs (F24)

• Over 300,000 Unvaxxed Australia Supermarket Workers To Lose Their Jobs (Sky)

• Striking Hospital Staff Hold Protest In Athens (K.)

• DeSantis Calls Special Session To Ban Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates (UPI)

• The Real Reasons for the Congressional 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)

• Jen Psaki Hates You (Klavan)

• Edward Snowden: ‘If You Weaken Encryption, People Will Die’ (TNW)

• Assange to Get Same Judge Who Sided with US on Appeal (Lauria)

Adverse reactions
https://twitter.com/i/status/1451159900940226564

Masks on kids

Florida's New Surgeon General Asks People To Step Away From What You Hear On TV For A Moment…

And Listen To What He Has To Say About School Mask Mandates & The Data… pic.twitter.com/5kngX0UQft

— Covid-1984 (@Spiro_Ghost) October 20, 2021

“I feel like I’m being groomed by an abusive partner.”

"I feel like I'm being groomed by an abusive partner."

GP Dr Renee Hoenderkamp says she has had enough of the Government threatening to cancel Christmas with another national lockdown.@TVKev | @DrHoenderkamp pic.twitter.com/XQiIGDAGZk

— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) October 21, 2021

They’ll do much more than that.

• Covid Vaccines Will Keep You From Acquiring Full Immunity (Berenson)

Don’t take it from me, I don’t even get to tweet anymore. Take it from a little place I call the British government. Which admitted today, in its newest vaccine surveillance report, that: “N antibody levels appear to be lower in people who acquire infection following two doses of vaccination.” (Page 23) What’s this mean? Several things, all bad. We know the vaccines do not stop infection or transmission of the virus (in fact, the report shows elsewhere that vaccinated adults are now being infected at much HIGHER rates than the unvaccinated). What the British are saying is they are now finding the vaccine interferes with your body’s innate ability after infection to produce antibodies against not just the spike protein but other pieces of the virus.

Specifically, vaccinated people don’t seem to be producing antibodies to the nucleocapsid protein, the shell of the virus, which are a crucial part of the response in unvaccinated people. This means vaccinated people will be far more vulnerable to mutations in the spike protein EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE BEEN INFECTED AND RECOVERED ONCE (or more than once, probably). It also means the virus is likely to select for mutations that go in exactly that direction, because those will essentially give it an enormous vulnerable population to infect. And it probably is still more evidence the vaccines may interfere with the development of robust long-term immunity post-infection. Aside from that, everything is fine.

Well it looks like the “mysterious” great die off has begun. pic.twitter.com/HIT26w31oL

— Ed ☯️ The Obsolete Man…a Free Thinker (@DowdEdward) October 22, 2021

“This is the beginning of a civil war. There are going to be states seceding from the Union, and they are going to push for it..”

• Vax Fight is On and Not Stopping – Gerald Celente (USAW)

Gerald Celente, a renowned trends researcher, is back this time to talk about the unrelenting full blown “Vax Wars” he predicted many months ago. Many people are being told “no vax, no job,” and now it’s really heating up. Celente explains, “The fight is on. The people that are not going to get it are not going to get it. They’re done. The fight is on. From the very beginning, I said about the ‘Covid War,’ it’s going to be anti-vax, anti-establishment, anti-immigration parties forming. This is the beginning of a new populous movement like we have never seen before. It is just the beginning. Remember, ‘it does not take a majority to prevail, but an irate tireless minority keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the hearts and minds of men,’ said Samuel Adams. . . .

‘Vax Wars,’ this is bigger than the Vax Wars. This is a war about freedom, and it’s going to rage around the world. Look what happened in Italy last week. Looks what’s going on in France. In the United States, it’s going to happen as well. This is the beginning of a civil war. There are going to be states seceding from the Union, and they are going to push for it. What they are doing is totally unconstitutional, un-American and un-Godly.” (as in God the Father.) All of the unions that usually support Democrats are up in arms about the coerced vax mandates. Is the DNC going to lose a huge segment of its base? Celente says, “Yes, they are. They are not the Democrat Party. They are not the Republican Party. It’s a crime syndicate. These are criminals. They are murderers and thieves. How much more proof does anybody need. . . .

Yes, the unions are going to run from the Democrat Party. There are going to be new forming parties. I say by their deeds you shall know them. Hey, you are too big to fail. The banksters, the Federal Reserve pumping in $29 trillion (in 2008 and 2009 to bail out their buddies.) . . . .They are murderers and thieves, and we are going to have a new political movement. You know what’s going to have to be behind this movement? Self-sustainability, it has to be a self-sustaining U.S. without supply chain backups. Why are we buying all that crap from China? . . . Why aren’t we making things in the United States? Because lowlife Democrat and Republican pieces of crap sold us out to get the products made overseas so they could mark up the prices when they brought them back.”

On the economic front, Celente says the trend is inflation and a coming collapse. What going to set that off? Celente says, “When they raise interest rates, this thing goes down — end of story. If they can’t put that monetary methadone out there for the money junkies for free anymore, this thing goes down. Inflation is going to make them raise rates. It’s going to make them start tapering. This is not a capitalist society, it’s fascist. They are buying $120 billion a month of government and corporate bonds. They are buying corporate bonds? Oh yeah, and junk bonds too. . . . That is a merger of state and corporate powers. That’s what Mussolini called fascism.” Celente says this is going to end badly, and he’s talking about “the greatest financial crash in history.” The little guy, meaning “We the People,” should prepare, and time to do that is running short. Celente says, “Prepare for the worst. If the worst doesn’t happen and you are prepared, you lose nothing. If the worst happens and you are not prepared, be prepared to lose everything.

“Knowingly. Willfully. Brazenly.”

All of a sudden, lying to Congress is no longer a serious offence.

• NIH Changes Story, Confirms It Funded Wuhan Gain-of-Function Experiment (JTN)

Two weeks after National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins announced his retirement, his agency has complicated congressional testimony by Collins and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci about alleged gain-of-function virus research sponsored by the U.S. Both officials have denied approving grants for such research through the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology, but a letter Wednesday from NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak to House Oversight Committee ranking Republican James Comer describes an unforeseen experimental result that calls the denials into question.

The letter shows that “NIH — and specifically, Collins, Fauci, and Tabak — lied to Congress, lied to the press, and lied to the public,” Richard Ebright, lab director at Rutgers University’s Waskman Institute of Microbiology, tweeted Wednesday night when sharing the letter. “Knowingly. Willfully. Brazenly.” The final progress report submitted by EcoHealth in August described a “limited experiment” in which a modified bat coronavirus made mice “sicker” than than original virus, Tabak told Comer. “As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do.”

NIH determined the proposed research didn’t meet the standard for “enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential” because it wasn’t shown these bat coronaviruses could infect humans. But “out of an abundance of caution” it required EcoHealth to “immediately” report “a one log increase in growth” if it happened, which would trigger a secondary review of the research by NIH. EcoHealth didn’t do that, Tabak wrote, and it now has five days to turn over “any and all unpublished data” from the research to NIH. The letter repeatedly emphasizes the viruses studied under the EcoHealth grant and “subaward” to the Wuhan lab “could not have become SARS-CoV-2” because the “sequences of the viruses are genetically very distinct.”

May 12: "The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute"

May 26: "That is correct" that the NIH never funded gain of function

July 20: "I have never lied before the Congress and I do not retract my statement." pic.twitter.com/hfXQorHv1e

— X Strategies LLC (@XStrategiesLLC) October 21, 2021

How much do Pfizer, Moderna pay him?

• Dr. Anthony Fauci Received Big Pay Increase To Prevent Pandemics (F.)

In a January article published at Forbes, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that Dr. Anthony Fauci was the highest paid federal employee, earning $417,608 (2019). Dr. Fauci is still the top-paid federal employee earning $434,312 in 2020. Fauci is the Director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and current Chief Medical Advisor to the President. Fauci out-earned the U.S. president ($400,000); four-star generals in the military ($282,000); and roughly 4.3 million other federal employees. Now, new documents released via our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the NIH tell us a lot more. Dr. Fauci received a big pay hike for his biodefense research activities. In other words, Fauci was paid to prevent future pandemics.

The documents released to our non-profit organization OpenTheBooks.com reveal that Dr. Fauci was approved for a “permanent pay adjustment” in excess of his regular salary in December 2004, during the George W. Bush Administration. From 2004 through 2007, Fauci received a 68-percent pay increase from $200,000- to $335,000-a year. This award was permanent and carried forward through 2020. Fauci’s permanent pay raise was to “appropriately compensate him for the level of responsibility… especially as it relates to his work on biodefense research activities.” However, critics say that Fauci was funding research that was actually creating pandemic pathogens in labs that, if leaked or if fell into the wrong hands, might create the very human pandemic they were trying to prevent.

Abusing the success of ivermectin to jab more people.

• India Administers A Billion Covid Jabs (F24)

According to the government, around three-quarters of adults in the country of 1.3 billion people have had one shot and around 30 percent are fully vaccinated. However, hundreds of millions of Indians under 18 — who make up some 40 percent of the population — have not had a single shot. India suffered a huge spike in cases in April and May, reporting more than 400,000 infections and 4,000 deaths per day, with many hospitals unable to cope and crematoriums overwhelmed. Cases have since fallen sharply, with fewer than 20,000 infections per day, and most activity has returned to normal. Mumbai, one of India’s myriad teeming cities, recently reported zero deaths in a day for the first time since the pandemic began.

The government was reportedly set to celebrate the milestone with Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanking health workers, special announcements at railway stations and airports and monuments lit up in the national colours. Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted: “Congratulations India! This is the result of the visionary PM Modi’s able leadership.” Only China has administered more doses — the Chinese government says it has given more than 2.3 billion shots. India began vaccinations in January and after a slow start, it is now administering around eight million jabs per day. “During the first wave, I remember hearing people talking about whether coronavirus was real or not,” said Reham Ali, a 49-year-old taxi driver in New Delhi who said he has had one shot. “Now, people know that it is and there is less hesitancy. The second wave was an eye-opener.”

Exports of vaccines — halted earlier this year — have tentatively resumed, with officials saying the “pharmacy of the world” will be back in full swing again in 2022 Most restrictions on activity have been lifted, with crowds celebrating India’s main religious festival season — an important time for the battered economy — for the first time in two years. This has sparked concerns about a new wave of infections and a renewed push by the government to push people to get their second shots. Media reports last week said an expert panel of India’s drug regulator recommended the use of the homegrown Covaxin — one of seven Covid-19 vaccines approved in India — for under-18s. “I think it is unlikely that we will see a third wave that in any way resembles the second wave,” said Dr Gangandeep Kang, from the Christian Medical College, Vellore.

Really? Where are they going to find 300,000 others?

Better grow your own food.

• Over 300,000 Unvaxxed Australia Supermarket Workers To Lose Their Jobs (Sky)

More than 300,000 workers across Australia’s largest supermarket chains have been warned they will lose their jobs without a valid reason for not getting vaccinated. Woolworths employees in New South Wales, the ACT, the Northern Territory, Victoria and Western Australia have until January 31 next year to get vaccinated with a March 31 deadline set for workers in the remaining states. “If they don’t have a valid reason, we will engage with them, make sure they get the best possible advice and availability to vaccines,” Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said. “But if they don’t have a valid religious or medical exemption, their employment at Woolworths will be terminated.”

“..to protest staff shortages and compulsory coronavirus vaccinations..”

The two are closely related.

• Striking Hospital Staff Hold Protest In Athens (K.)

Hundreds of state hospital workers marched Thursday through central Athens as part of a 24-hour strike to protest staff shortages and compulsory coronavirus vaccinations. About 500 protesters demonstrated in the center of the capital, heading past parliament toward the health ministry chanting slogans and holding up banners. Unions representing the doctors, nurses and other medical staff are protesting government plans they say exacerbate staffing shortages and lead to long working hours while undermining workers’ rights. Medical workers are also seeking to be included in the list of professions receiving extra hazard pay for “heavy and unhealthy” work. The unions have also objected to the suspension of unvaccinated health care workers, saying this only leads to further staff shortages.

Faced with rising infections and reluctance by many to get vaccinated, the government has introduced a series of incentives and penalties to encourage Greeks to get their anti-Covid-19 shots. Vaccinations have been made mandatory for health care workers and those working in care homes for the elderly, with those who refuse being suspended from work. Just over 60% of the country’s population of around 11 million people are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The unions say that while they support vaccinations, individual staff members should have the right to choose. Greece has seen a spike in coronavirus infections this summer, and new daily cases stand at around 3,000. On Wednesday, the country saw 3,279 new cases and 38 new deaths, bringing the total confirmed cases to over 704,000 and the total death toll to nearly 15,500 in the country of nearly 11 million.

What was normal all through our lives is now revolutionary.

• DeSantis Calls Special Session To Ban Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates (UPI)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday called a special session of the Florida Legislature to pass legislation banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Speaking from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Hangar, he announced the special session would take place in November. He called for lawmakers to provide protections for workers whose employment is threatened by vaccine mandates. “Your right to earn a living should not be contingent upon COVID shots,” DeSantis said. “When the vaccines first came out, we worked very hard to provide it, particularly to our elderly, but we said from day one: We will make it available for all, but we will mandate it for no one because ultimately we want individuals to make the determinations about what is right for them.

“I want a state in which people are able to maintain their livelihoods, earn a living, and provide for their families. And if the federal government or big corporations are hurting people, then we have a responsibility to step up and lead.” DeSantis was joined in the press conference by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “The governor has made it clear: Florida will not stand by and allow hard working citizens to be subjected to unemployment because they are being forced to show vaccine documentation, especially those who have remained on the front lines of COVID-19 for nearly two years now,” Ladapo said. “The Department of Health will continue to protect Floridians through multi-faceted and data-driven solutions, not overreach.”

In addition to banning mandates, DeSantis called for employers to be held accountable if an employee becomes sick or injured from taking a mandatory vaccine. Ahead of the press conferences, members of DeSantis’ staff handed out signs to attendees featuring an alligator on a yellow background reading “Don’t Tread on Florida.”

“The endorphin-producing fantasies on which they fed for years [..] were way too viscerally arousing for them to simply forget that none of it happened.”

• The Real Reasons for the Congressional 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)

Underlying so much of the anger and resentment surrounding 1/6 is the complete dissonance between the narrative fed to the citizenry by Democrats and their media allies on the one hand, and the legal realities on the other. It must be infuriating and baffling to a large sector of the population to have been convinced that what happened on January 6 was an unprecedentedly dangerous insurrection perpetrated by an organized group of seditious traitors who had plotted to kidnap and murder elected officials, only for the Biden DOJ to have charged exactly nobody with any criminal charges remotely suggesting any of those melodramatic claims.

This was the same frustration and confusion that beset a large portion of liberal America when they were led to believe for years that Robert Mueller was coming to arrest all of their political enemies for treason and criminal conspiracy with Russia, only for the FBI Superman to close his investigation without charging a single American with criminal conspiracy with Russia and then issuing a report admitting that he could not find evidence to establish any such crime. How to keep the flock loyal when the doomsday prophecies continue to be unfulfilled, as the World-Ending Date comes and goes without so much as a bang, let alone an explosion?

Adam Schiff’s new book — which essentially claims that Mueller is senile and was suffering from pitiful dementia — is obviously intended to provide some solace or at least a framework of understanding for disappointed liberals to keep the faith, but deep down, they know what they were expecting. The endorphin-producing fantasies on which they fed for years — of Trump and Trump, Jr. and Jared and Bannon and Ivanka being frog-marched out of the White House by armed, strapping FBI agents — were way too viscerally arousing for them to simply forget that none of it happened.

A repeat of this disorientation and disillusionment when it comes to 1/6 could be quite dangerous for Democrats. It could be devastating to the media outlets which survive on serving the Democrats’ messaging and feeding dramatic conspiracy theories to the beleaguered liberal flock. In the days and weeks following 1/6, liberals really thought that dozens of members of Congress — from Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene — would be not just expelled from Congress but summarily imprisoned as traitors by a newly righteous Justice Department. They were led to believe that, with Bill Barr out of the way, Trump and his mafia family would finally pay for their crimes.

“Jen Psaki, sneering avatar of an aristocracy that regards working Americans as less than dirt.”

• Jen Psaki Hates You (Klavan)

Let us now praise Jennifer Rene Psaki—English major, sorority girl, mother of two. Let us praise her seemingly endless supply of monochrome crew-neck blouses and pencil skirts, the way she peels her mask off after striding to the lectern. Jen Psaki has been briefed by her 11 staffers; she has had her coffee (and her bagel, if it’s Wednesday); she is freshly armed with the latest talking points and she is not going to take any of your guff today. Jen communicates just how on top of things she is by nodding ceaselessly throughout every question, interjecting an “uh-huh” or a “yep” to show she has not been caught off guard since the last clause of the reporter’s sentence. This is a patented bobblehead technique she perfected as a commentator at CNN in between the Obama and Biden Administrations.

What she is saying or listening to is less important than what she is communicating with her demeanor at all times: that she is serious, that she is informed, that she is the adult in the room. We have all met someone who behaves like this: someone who has done the homework and wants you to know it. Someone whose politeness is so aggressive that it can only be read as a kind of challenge. Jen Psaki dares you to find her off-putting. Why would you? She is smiling. She even had a joke written down that she made at the appropriate juncture. See? It says “laughing time” right here in the schedule from 5:01 to 5:03 PM. Then laughing time is over, and it is time for the lies and the jabs and the polite little smirks. Jen Psaki is frankly disappointed that you would stoop so low as to question Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s right to paternity leave during a supply chain “crisis.”

It’s not really a crisis, anyway: “people have more money, expendable resources, more people are working than they were a year ago.” The economy is getting built back better, says Jen, and our ports runneth over. What are you, some kind of Peloton slut who can’t wait five extra months for your new treadmill? This is what Trump’s critics meant when they said we needed to restore “civility” to the White House: they meant we need the right kind of disdain for the right kinds of people, expressed in the right kinds of ways. Gone are the mean tweets, the off-color jokes, the rough pugilism. Now instead we have Jen Psaki, sneering avatar of an aristocracy that regards working Americans as less than dirt. People are straining to put food on the table and gas in their cars; they increasingly fail to see the point in going to work at all. Psaki’s response is that of the anointed class she represents: shut up and take it.

“This year alone, after the fall of the government of Afghanistan, we saw how crucial encryption is in keeping ordinary people safe.”

• Edward Snowden: ‘If You Weaken Encryption, People Will Die’ (TNW)

Our online privacy faces growing threats. Governments around the world are calling for encryption backdoors that would enable access to personal information. They argue that encryption protects criminals. But it also protects activists, dissidents, persecuted groups, and ordinary citizens. Edward Snowden is among the most prominent beneficiaries. The whistleblower’s first messages to journalists were made with encryption. They resulted in revelations that millions of Americans had been under illegal mass surveillance. “If you weaken encryption, people will die,” said Snowden in a statement. “This year alone, after the fall of the government of Afghanistan, we saw how crucial encryption is in keeping ordinary people safe.” Snowden has joined the Global Encryption Coalition to launch a campaign to protect encryption.

The group of civil society organizations and tech firms warns that undermining encryption will leave people more vulnerable to crime and surveillance. “I have seen first-hand how governments can abuse the power they have to access the personal data of innocent people in the name of national security,” said Snowden. “Weakening encryption would be a colossal mistake that could put thousands of lives at risk.” End-to-end encryption would make it harder to implement spy programs like the one Snowden exposed — which may be one reason why governments want to circumvent it. It would not be the first time that lawmakers have undermined our privacy in the name of fighting terrorism. Politicians assert — with justification — that criminal gangs and paedophiles use encryption.

But so do racial justice protestors to avoid police surveillance, LBTQ+ people in countries where their sexual orientation is criminalized, and even some of the politicians who have called for Snowden to be put in jail. Reporters also rely on encryption to protect their sources. “Now more than ever, journalists are facing digital threats to their work and safety,” said Lisa Dittmer, advocacy officer for Internet Freedom, Reporters Without Borders. “Encryption plays a critical role in protecting journalists and their sources, enabling them to share information even in the most dangerous environments. Yet as the need for encryption grows, so do the efforts to weaken it. Governments from India to Australia are calling for tech companies to build backdoors into their end-to-end encrypted systems.

In the UK, new regulation could make service providers criminally liable for the acts of users if law enforcement can’t access their encrypted data. Their proposals, however, could actually make people more vulnerable. Any encryption backdoor may be a target for criminals. The information they access could threaten both national security and individual privacy. “Encryption makes us all safer,” said Snowden. “From families protecting photographs of their kids, to personal healthcare information, encryption keeps our private information private.” We all have private conversations that we don’t want overheard. Encryption backdoors would give malicious actors another way to access them.

“Nothing in this case is proceeding as it should do.”

• Assange to Get Same Judge Who Sided with US on Appeal (Lauria)

Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, the High Court judge who reversed an earlier court order to bar the U.S. from appealing Julian Assange’s medical issues, will preside over the substantive U.S. appeal hearing at the High Court next week. In January, lower court Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused the U.S. request to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher because of his high risk of suicide and the conditions of U.S. prisons. The U.S. applied to appeal that decision, which was granted by the High Court in July. The court allowed three of five grounds of appeal, excluding the matter of Assange’s health. The U.S. challenged that ruling and in an Aug. 11 High Court hearing, Holroyde overturned the earlier court decision, siding with the U.S. argument that Baraitser’s finding on Assange’s health could be appealed.

That will be the central argument in the two-day hearing beginning next Wednesday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The U.S. says Assange is not too ill to be extradited and has accused him of being a malingerer. Joining Holroyde on the High Court bench will be Dame Judith Farbey, who remained silent during the Aug. 11 hearing. It is highly unusual for a judge who has already ruled in favor of one party to continue on the bench, according to Consortium News legal analyst Alexander Mercouris. In most cases, fresh judges would be brought in who have had no part in earlier rulings for either side.

After the Aug. 11 hearing, Mercouris said Holroyde’s “comments made it clear” that he would not be part of the appeal panel. “If he does turn up on the panel then that would be an extremely serious development,” he said, adding that it would be “open to legal challenge if he did.” It is not known at this time whether Assange’s lawyers will challenge Holroyde’s appointment to the case. After learning Holroyde would indeed oversee the hearing next week, Mercouris said it was “extremely disturbing news” and “very worrying. Nothing in this case is proceeding as it should do.”

Soy Cuba

If you haven't yet seen the 'impossible' crane shot from Soy Cuba (1964), prepare to have your day made. pic.twitter.com/zbatIz2h6k

— Nick Dale (@NickDale) October 20, 2021

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