I Don't Believe The West Has Successfully Tested A Maneuverable Hypersonic Weapon

 

defenseone | The trouble is, the new weapons keep failing in tests, sometimes in fairly rudimentary ways that don’t lend themselves to evaluating and improving the design. The truncated development strategy seems to require a faith that American aerospace engineering can overwhelm all the usual difficulties by force of sheer élan. The results turn out differently.

Now, if you think I’ve just described the last few years of U.S. efforts to build and fly hypersonic gliders and cruise missiles, you’re right. In December, for example, the Air Force’s Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) failed in testing for the third time running in 2021, not even leaving the wing of the B-52 bomber carrying it. ARRW, remarkably, is supposed to become an operational weapon by 2023. Nor is it the only developmental hypersonic missile with a troubled test record. 

But I could just as easily have been recalling U.S. efforts to build new ballistic missile defense systems in the 1990s. It’s little remembered now, but BMD got off to a rocky start. After repeated disappointments, a trio of Pentagon agencies did something perhaps uncharacteristically forward-looking: it assembled a panel of seasoned experts to examine the situation, under the leadership of retired Air Force general Larry Welch. It even allowed the panel’s reports to be released to the public. 

The first report of the Welch Panel made something of a splash at the time. It’s worth recalling its frank account of the self-defeating nature of short timetables in complex technology development efforts:

“These programs are pursuing very aggressive schedules, but these schedules are not supported by the state of planning and testing…the perceived urgency of the need for these systems has led to high levels of risk that have resulted in delayed deployments…

“[Failures] were caused by poor design, test planning, and preflight testing deficiencies; poor fabrication; poor management; and lack of rigorous government oversight.

“The tendency of the government and program managers to trivialize the causes of these costly failures, combined with the aggressive schedule… has led to a ‘rush to failure.’”

The report’s main recommendation—to put all BMD programs on “realistic schedules”—met with some predictable resistance, and we can’t be sure how much influence any single report or expert panel may have had. But it was surely vindicated after one of the most troubled BMD efforts shifted to a longer timeline. Prototypes of the THAAD system had produced four consecutive failures in hit-to-kill intercept tests by the time of the first Welch report in February 1998. After another two out of four test failures by August 1999, the program entered a new phase of development. Flight tests did not resume until 2005, but have yielded consistent successes since then—at least when the target missile has not failed. The first operational THAAD battery, originally scheduled to deploy in 1996, appeared in 2008.

We also don’t know if all of the Welch Panel’s judgments about the shortcomings of missile defense systems under development in the 1990s would apply equally to today’s hypersonic weapons projects. But an April 2021 report from Congress’s Government Accountability Office sounds some unhappily familiar notes.

Most of the efforts to develop these new missiles, GAO found, use a new development authority that bypasses regular DOD “acquisition and requirement development policies and processes.” These projects aim at building an initial prototype within six months and deploying an initial capability within five years. Among the many problems facing the development of hypersonic missiles, GAO noted, were “immature technologies and aggressive schedules.”

The lesson should be clear: if it’s genuinely important to deploy these new missile types, the Pentagon should adopt development schedules conducive to their success. If it won’t do so, Congress should ask what drives it to repeat the errors of the past.

Shooting Down 60 Year Old SCUD Missiles Is Difficult And The Government Lies About It

NYTimes |  The official story was clear: Saudi forces shot down a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group last month at Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh. It was a victory for the Saudis and for the United States, which supplied the Patriot missile defense system.

“Our system knocked the missile out of the air,” President Trump said the next day from Air Force One en route to Japan, one of the 14 countries that use the system. “That’s how good we are. Nobody makes what we make, and now we’re selling it all over the world.”

But an analysis of photos and videos of the strike posted to social media suggests that story may be wrong.

Instead, evidence analyzed by a research team of missile experts appears to show the missile’s warhead flew unimpeded over Saudi defenses and nearly hit its target, Riyadh’s airport. The warhead detonated so close to the domestic terminal that customers jumped out of their seats.

Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment. Some U.S. officials cast doubt on whether the Saudis hit any part of the incoming missile, saying there was no evidence that it had. Instead, they said, the incoming missile body and warhead may have come apart because of its sheer speed and force.

The findings show that the Iranian-backed Houthis, once a ragtag group of rebels, have grown powerful enough to strike major targets in Saudi Arabia, possibly shifting the balance of their years-long war. And they underscore longstanding doubts about missile defense technology, a centerpiece of American and allied national defense strategies, particularly against Iran and North Korea.

“Governments lie about the effectiveness of these systems. Or they’re misinformed,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst who led the research team, which shared its findings with The New York Times. “And that should worry the hell out of us.”

 

The Mighty Wurlitzer Did A Complete About Face On Ukrainian Nazis

It's like all the media forgot that they themselves were reporting on the neo-Nazi's in Ukraine as far back as eight years ago. 

In fact, it’s like all the MSM (*) outlets were told what to say back then, and what precisely opposite things to say now.

Ukraine First Minister Alexei Goncharuk speaks at the performance of Neonazi rock band "Sokyra Peruna" known for their Holocaust denial and antisemite songs. October 2019. The band has extremely close links with Azov and the Misanthropic Division. pic.twitter.com/Dgs3hYAkee

— Juan Sinmiedo (@Youblacksoul) April 23, 2022

EUROPEAN "JUSTICE"
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ignored ALL 689 COMPLAINTS filed against Kiev for its slow motion killing of more than 14,000 civilians in the Luhansk People’s Republic in the past 8 years.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/14/us-house-admits-nazi-role-ukraine
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-neo-nazi-question-in_b_4938747
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-heartbreaking-irony-of-winter-on-fire/tnamp/
(*) https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/opinion/speedie-ukraine-far-right/index.html
(*) https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/18/yes-there-are-bad-guys-in-the-ukrainian-government/
(*) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis
(*) https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/analysis-u-s-cozies-kiev-government-including-far-right-n66061
https://www.rferl.org/a/azov-ukraine-s-most-prominent-ultranationalist-group-sets-its-sights-on-u-s-europe/29600564.html
(*) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27173857
(*) https://www.salon.com/2014/02/25/is_the_us_backing_neo_nazis_in_ukraine_partner/
(*) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-idUSKBN1GV2TY
https://fair.org/home/denying-the-far-right-role-in-the-ukrainian-revolution/
(*) https://www.channel4.com/news/svoboda-ministers-ukraine-new-government-far-right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpV16BQfbrQ
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/americas-collusion-with-neo-nazis/
(*) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-idUSKBN1GV2TY
(*) https://thehill.com/opinion/international/359609-the-reality-of-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-is-far-from-kremlin-propaganda
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
(*) https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-america-training-neonazis-in-ukraine
(*) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/10/ukraine-azov-brigade-nazis-abuses-separatists/24664937/
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/

 

The Audacity Of The Jews Sacrificing Ukraine Knows No Bounds

haaretz  |  But none of this is surprising, considering the fashion in which Kolomoisky built his business empire. He now has to fight both to maintain it and for an opportunity to expand in the future, and he seems to be relishing the challenge. What has astonished even those who know him well is how the oligarch – who previously preferred to operate far from the public eye – has taken to his new, exposed role. In the first week of his governorship in April, he held a press conference in which he made no bones about blaming Putin for Ukraine’s crisis.

In his colorful, often expletive-laden monologues, he said the Russian president was a “psychopath,” a “schizophrenic of short stature” who is “completely inadequate, totally insane. His messianic drive to recreate the Russian empire of 1913 or the U.S.S.R. of 1991 could plunge the world into catastrophe.” It became a personal feud between the outspoken businessman and the former KGB officer. Putin responded a day later, at a press conference in Moscow, calling Kolomoisky a “unique crook” and questioning the motives of the Kiev government to appoint “such a scoundrel. Now this crook is appointed governor of Dnepropetrovsk. No wonder the people are dissatisfied.”

To add spice, Putin told reporters how Kolomoisky had allegedly swindled “our oligarch,” Roman Abramovich (the London-based, Jewish owner of Chelsea Football Club), in a multimillion dollar business deal.

Playing oligarchs off each other is a sport in which Putin is a recognized grandmaster. But in Kolomoisky he is up against a formidable foe, one who is, for now, outside his reach. And when the Kremlin made him a target of their propaganda, they only added to his popularity in Ukraine.

Kipperman is not worried by the feud with Moscow. “Putin is paying the separatists, who are terrorists and criminals – this will bring about his downfall, while we have stabilized the situation in Ukraine.”

After years of remaining in the shadows, Kolomoisky seems to be enjoying his newfound notoriety. Unlike other oligarchs who, once they made their fortunes, tried to construct suave new personas for themselves – learning English and acquiring a wardrobe of tailored suits – Kolomoisky is still happy to conduct his business in a T-shirt and sweatpants, and is not a habitué of fancy restaurants. He also disdains gadgets, proudly owning an old Nokia cellphone on which he makes his calls.

It is fascinating to compare Kolomoisky with another Ukrainian-Jewish billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, who a month ago held the annual Yalta European Strategy conference of his private foundation. Statesmen such as Tony Blair, academic superstars and journalists rubbed shoulders in an ornate arts palace and heard lectures on the future of Europe, while Kolomoisky was cloistered with his inner circle in smoke-filled rooms drinking vodka. Pinchuk is the cosmopolitan, suave oligarch who hangs out with international celebrities such as the Clintons and Elton John, and is proud of having featured on Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people list. Kolomoisky, on the other hand, prefers to stick with his reputation as a street fighter.

‘Don’t go anywhere’

Neither has his new position made him give up his colorful and blunt way of talking. Anonymous sources leaked a phone conversation between him and Oleg Tsarov, a pro-Russia parliamentarian who had fled to Moscow. In it, Kolomoisky, swearing and cursing throughout, told Tsarov that following the death of a member of Dnipropetrovsk’s Jewish community – a militia member killed in the fighting in the eastern city of Mariupol – a $1 million reward had been put on Tsarov’s head. “They will be looking for you everywhere,” he says in the tape. “Don’t go anywhere.” Kolomoisky had no problem confirming that the tape, most likely recorded by Russian intelligence, was authentic, though he claimed he wasn’t threatening Tsarov.

Though not religiously observant, Kolomoisky has been proud of his Jewish identity. Together with fellow oligarch Gennadiy Bogolyubov, he has built the largest Jewish community center in the world in central Dnipropetrovsk – a massive complex that includes a synagogue, library, conference halls, three hotels, kosher restaurants and a supermarket. He served as the president of the one of the organizations competing to represent Ukraine Jewry – the United Jewish Community of Ukraine – and as president of the European Council of Jewish Communities. The center’s seven connected menorah towers stick out on Dnipropetrovsk’s skyline like a middle finger to the Communists and Nazis who tried to exterminate the local Jewish community, today prospering in a country that knew so many centuries of persecution and pogroms.

He has been mentioned as a possible buyer of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer club and was an investor in the short-lived JN1 cable news station, which offered news on Israel and the Jewish world. Some of the journalists who were employed there are now working for a new news channel launched by Kolomoisky – Ukraine Today, which has been set up specifically to counter the Kremlin-directed Russia Today network, which is extremely hostile to Ukraine.

Despite repeated warnings of anti-Semitic attacks in Ukraine following the revolution, many Jewish leaders have come out in support of the new Kiev government. Dozens of prominent Jewish figures signed an open letter to Putin in March, calling upon him to stop interfering in Ukrainian politics and urging him to refrain from accusing the new government of being anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi.

But while Kolomoisky is one of the leaders of this surge of Ukrainian patriotism among the country’s Jews, his prominence has still made him subject to criticism. Not all Jewish leaders are happy with the role he has played in recent months. “Jews shouldn’t be involved in politics in such a way,” says one community leader, who asked not to be named. “There is enough anti-Semitism here without making us into more obvious targets.”

“Putin is here to stay,” said another. “We don’t have to pick fights with him.” Yuri Kipperman defended his partner, though, noting, “The Jewish leadership helped to make sure the elections took place safely. We were doing our duty.”

Should Be Amusing To See Which Hit Twits Yelp First!

WaPo  |  Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion on Monday, the company announced, giving the world’s richest person command of a highly influential social media site that serves as a platform for political leaders, a sounding board for experts across industries and an information hub for millions of everyday users.

The acquisition followed weeks of evangelizing on the necessity of “free speech,” as the Tesla CEO seized on Twitter’s role as the “de facto town square” and took umbrage with content moderation efforts he views as an escalation toward censorship. He said he sees Twitter as essential to the functioning of democracy and said the economics are not a concern.

Ownership of Twitter gives Musk power over hugely consequential societal and political issues, perhaps most significantly the ban on former president Donald Trump that the site enacted in response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Under the terms of the deal, Twitter will become a private company and shareholders will receive $54.20 per share, the company said in a news release. The deal is expected to close this year.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in the release. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”

“Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he added.

 

Wikipedia Now Carrying Water For The Bidens...,

jonathanturley  |   Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca.

Wikipedia has been accused of raw bias in removing the entry at a time when interest in the company is at its peak, including the possibility of an indictment of Hunter Biden over his financial dealings.  Rosemont Seneca is one of the most searched terms for those trying to understand the background on the Biden business operations.

Yet, an editor “AlexEng” wrote that the company was simply “not notable” — an absurd claim reminiscent of the recent claim by Atlantic Magazine’s writer Anne Applebaum that she did not cover the scandal because it simply was “not interesting.”

Alex wrote: “This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz.” That itself is an odd statement. It is mentioned as one of the key conduits of alleged influence peddling money. Alex added that “keeping it around” ran the risk of the page becoming “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.” It is that last comment that I found most concerning as part of this decision.

Any Wikipedia page could be a magnet for conspiracy theories, including the page on Hunter Biden himself. The fact is that this is a real company with real dealings that are the subject of a real criminal investigation. Indeed, various Republican members have already pledged to conduct investigations into this and other companies if they secure either house of Congress after the midterm elections.

So Wikipedia killed it just as a United States Attorney is drilling down on financial dealings of Hunter Biden, including money received from foreign sources through Rosemont Seneca.

It's Not Just Censorship - The Fog Of War Is Covering Property Theft Under Color Of Authority

lewrockwell  |  I have argued in this column and elsewhere that the Biden administration sanctions imposed on Russian and American persons and businesses are profoundly unconstitutional because they are imposed by executive fiat rather than by legislation and because the sanctions constitute either the seizure of property without a warrant or the taking of property without due process.

When the feds seize a yacht from a person whom they claim may have financed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, they are doing so in direct violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Similarly, when they freeze Russian assets in American banks, they engage in a seizure, and seizures can only constitutionally be done with a search warrant based on probable cause of crime.

As well, when the feds interfere with contract rights by prohibiting compliance with lawful contracts, that, too, implicates due process and can only be done constitutionally after a jury verdict in the government’s favor, at a trial at which the feds have proved fault.

As if to anticipate these constitutional roadblocks to its interference with free commercial choices, Congress enacted the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 and the Magnitsky Act of 2016. These constitutional monstrosities purport to give the president the power to declare persons and entities to be violators of human rights and, by that mere executive declaration alone, to punish them without trial.

These laws turn the Fourth and Fifth Amendments on their heads by punishing first and engaging in a perverse variant of due process later. How perverse? These laws require that if you want your seized property back, you must prove that you are not a human rights violator.

As if to run even further away from constitutional norms, a group of legal academics began arguing last week that the property seized from Russians is not really owned by human beings, but by the Russian government. And, this crazy argument goes, since the Russian government is not a person, there is no warrant or due process requirement; therefore, the feds can convert the assets they have seized and frozen to their own use.

To these academics — who reject property ownership as a moral right and exalt government aggression as a moral good — the argument devolves around the meaning of the word “person.” The Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect every “person” and all “people,” not just Americans.

And in American jurisprudence, “person” means both human beings and artificial persons — corporations and governments capable of owning property. Property ownership is defined by the right to use, alienate and exclude. Only persons can exercise those rights.

Madison and his colleagues clearly sought to protect property rights from government aggression, no matter the legal status of the owner. We know this from the judicial opinions involving foreign property that preceded and followed the ratification of the Fifth Amendment. If this were not so, then nothing could prevent the feds from seizing and converting the property of states or local governments or international religious institutions to federal use.

War is the health of the state and the graveyard of liberty. The drug war was a disaster for freedom. The war in Ukraine will be so as well, only if we permit it.

While Speaking In Delhi Boris Johnson Discarded Brandon's Ridiculous Ukraine Narrative

indianpunchline |  This is where the defeat in Donbass turns into a climactic event calling into question the entire US narrative on Ukraine — NATO expansion, European security, and dialogue with Russia — and, of course, the fixation about Vladimir Putin’s leadership of Russia.

A poll published Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows Americans’ desire to get involved has waned somewhat. Only 32% say the U.S. should have a major role in the conflict, down from 40% last month. An additional 49% say the US should have a minor role.

While speaking in Delhi, Johnson all but discarded Biden’s narrative. Instead, he called for “setting out a vision for the future of Ukraine in the security architecture of Europe. Where does Ukraine fit in now?”

Johnson said Ukraine needs to be able to answer that question eventually — “what the Ukrainians want eventually.” Interestingly, he didn’t use the word “Ukrainian government.”  

Johnson dilated on “a collection of security guarantees from like-minded countries — security commitments about what we can do to back them up with weaponry, with training, and with intelligence sharing.” But he quickly added that this cannot be “like an Article 5 (NATO) guarantee.” Instead, he said, Ukraine should have “deterrence by denial.”  

Per Johnson’s vision, Ukraine’s NATO membership is inconceivable. Britain anticipates new facts on the ground. Johnson appeared to recognise the emergent political realities as the Russian juggernaut relentlessly “grinds” Kiev’s war machine to dust.

Censorship And Disinformation The Only Western Weapons That Still Appear To Work

mtracey  |  Another severe difficulty of Ling’s, which raises fundamental questions about his ability to cover his declared beat, is recognizing what “disinformation” even is. Maybe Ling missed it, but earlier this month Ken Dilanian of NBC News — one of the most faithful mouthpieces of the US national security state — went on air and openly revealed that the US Government is mounting a full-fledged “information warfare” campaign related to Ukraine. A key component of which is feeding fake information to the media. Dilanian cited one particular fake story that had been deliberately planted to journalists by intelligence officials — despite those officials knowing it was fake. Weirdly though, all the newly emboldened, “disinformation” debunking journalists like Ling don’t seem to regard that campaign of unconcealed information warfare as within their job’s purview.

Ling also appears to have missed a recent revelation reported at CNN of all places, in which an anonymous “Western” official is quoted saying this about the current PR activities of Ukraine government officials: “It’s a war — everything they do and say publicly is designed to help them win the war. Every public statement is an information operation, every interview, every Zelensky appearance broadcast is an information operation.” And yet despite the admitted existence of this “information operation,” Ling is gleeful to participate in it, by giddily spreading around the Ukraine officials’ photos, videos, and claims without a shred of independent corroboration — all under the veneer of Ling’s tough, adversarial journalism. Russia is obviously engaged in its own “information operation,” but so too is Ukraine. Will Ling report on himself next as a “disinformation” culprit?

Of course he won’t, because despite his bogus pretensions, Ling has made it perfectly clear that he has no problem at all with “disinformation” as such. In fact, he actively supports disinformation tactics when it’s in service of his desired political objectives. He publicly demanded that the “intelligence service” of his own government, Canada, ought to be “doing a lot more” to proactively counter Russia by utilizing more robust information warfare techniques. So that’s Justin Ling for you: a “disinformation” reporter who loves disinformation.

If you want to understand why there is so little deviation today from the burgeoning pro-war consensus, it’s got a lot to do with media functionaries like Ling. Most journalists would be utterly mortified to be accused, in a “Serious” outlet like Foreign Policy, of abetting a “Russian disinformation operation.” And their fear would probably be rational: this could genuinely be a career-killer, particularly in the current war-fevered climate. All bets are off in terms of what retribution tactics are potentially on the table. They could be socially shunned, professionally ostracized, and have their material well-being seriously imperiled. The self-appointed “disinformation” pontificators such as Ling, posturing as these tenacious public-spirited watchdogs, really could destroy them.

Ling is an especially blatant joke and fraud, but the media industry is increasingly dominated by creeps like him. Fortunately, they can’t do much to me — except to provide occasional amusement at how pathetic they are.

The West Lacks The Productive Capacity To Supply Ukraine And Thus To Supply Itself

guardian |  The past week furnished a grim glimpse of the future that awaits if Putin is able to continue to wage war with impunity, commit more heinous crimes, threaten nuclear and chemical blackmail and trash the UN charter. Drastically downgrading its growth forecasts due to the conflict, the International Monetary Fund predicted global economic fragmentation, rising debt and social unrest.

David Malpass, head of the World Bank, said a “human catastrophe” loomed as an unprecedented, estimated 37% rise in food prices, caused by war-related disruption to supplies, pushed millions into poverty, increased malnutrition, and reduced funding for education and healthcare for the least well-off.

More than 5 million people have fled Ukraine in two months, and more will follow, exacerbating an international migration emergency that extends from Afghanistan to the Sahel. In drought-hit east Africa, the World Food Programme says 20 million people may face starvation this year. Putin’s war did not create the drought, but the UN warns it could hurt efforts to reduce global heating, thereby triggering further displacement and forced migration.

The broader, negative political impact of the war, should it rage on indefinitely, is almost incalculable. The UN’s future as an authoritative global forum, lawmaker and peacekeeper is in jeopardy, as more than 200 former officials warned Guterres last week. At risk, too, is the credibility of the international court of justice, whose injunction to withdraw was scorned by Putin, and the entire system of war crimes prosecutions.

In terms of democratic norms and human rights, the full or partial subjugation of Ukraine would spell disaster for the international rules-based order – and a triumph for autocrats everywhere. What message would it send, for example, to China over Taiwan, or indeed to Putin as he covets the vulnerable Baltic republics? Islamist terrorists who now furtively plot to exploit the west’s Ukraine distraction would relish such a victory for violence.

Failure to stop the war, rescue Ukraine and punish Russia’s rogue regime to the fullest extent possible would come at an especially high price for Europe and the EU. In prospect is a second cold war with permanent Nato bases on Russia’s borders, massively increased defence spending, an accelerating nuclear arms race, unceasing cyber and information warfare, endemic energy shortages, rocketing living costs, and more French-style, Russian-backed rightwing populist extremism.

In short, the dawn of a new age of instability. Why on earth would politicians such as America’s Joe Biden, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, and France’s Emmanuel Macron tolerate so fraught and dangerous a future when, by taking a more robust stand now, they might prevent much of it from materialising? By supposedly avoiding risks today, they ensure a much riskier tomorrow.

No Amount Of Ukraine Crisis Propaganda Can Save Old Brandon

BAR  |  The U.S. propaganda victory over Russia will do Joe Biden and the democrats little good. Their willingness to act on their promises and meet the people's needs will be the deciding factors in determining their political fate.

Biden’s actions aren’t very surprising. He was the Ukraine point person after the Barack Obama coup in 2014. He was always one of the most hawkish democrats and came into the presidency with Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and the same cast of characters who first violated Ukraine’s sovereignty. He hoped to instigate Russia and kill the NordStreamII pipeline and sanction Russia. He didn’t expect the full incursion that he spent months saying would happen.

Now he is hoisted on his own petard, trying to bully other nations into condemning Russia when it isn’t in their interests to do so, and causing world wide suffering in a futile effort to destroy Russia’s economy. Sanctions against Russia have increased fuel prices all over the world. Disruptions in wheat production will reduce Ukraine’s harvest and decrease supplies in places that had no connection with this ginned up conflict. The anti-Russian propaganda is working but the pro-Biden effort is not, hence the public disapproval.

Millions of Americans are now convinced that Putin is evil and Zelensky is good, but they still have doubts about their own president. The corporate media pro-Biden propaganda said that he was the most progressive president since Franklin Roosevelt and had cut child poverty in half. Now the child tax credit is gone, Build Back Better is up in the air, and promises to relieve student loan debt are a distant memory. Biden and his team think that spin about “Putin’s price hikes” will help to minimize political damage but the polls are an indication of a sour national mood.

Biden is mistaken if he thinks that Putin hatred is enough to save his and the democratic party’s political fortunes. They will sink or swim based on how well they meet needs here at home. Right now, public money that we’re told can’t be used for a child tax credit is going to the military industrial complex to “save” Ukraine.

Is Unselfconscious Absurdity A Symptom Of Senile Dementia?

NYPost |  President Biden on Friday celebrated Earth Day in Seattle with a rambling speech vowing to make “every vehicle” in the military “climate-friendly” while admitting his personal fleet includes a prized Corvette that “does nothing but pollute.”

Biden didn’t offer specifics while telling local Democrats in a park that he intends to cut the emissions of war machines like tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.

“I’m going to start the process where every vehicle in the United States military — every vehicle is going to be climate-friendly. Every vehicle. No, I mean it. We’re spending billions of dollars to do it,” Biden said.

The president, who uses large amounts of fossil fuels for regular weekend trips home to Delaware, admitted he’s had a hard time practicing what he is preaching.

“I’m an automobile buff. I have a ’68 Corvette that does nothing but pollute the air. But I don’t drive it very much,” Biden joked, appearing to refer to his 1967 Corvette Stingray.

The gaffe-prone president’s week began with an aide dressed as an Easter bunny intervening to stop him from talking to reporters, but no staffers stepped in as he proceeded to use baby-talk to imitate a child’s plea for him to”pwomise” him to “pwease” protect the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

Why Brandon Can't Ditch "The Ukraine Is Winning" Narrative...,

The West made an unforced political error - right at the start - by pushing the volume up to eleven. Since then, it has effectively painted itself into a corner. It’s unclear exactly why this happened, but at least three things seem to have been operating. One was genuine shock and surprise, as the house of cards they had built over several decades started to fall apart. A second was the confident predictions that the Russians would fail. 

How much of this was wishful thinking? How much inability to face facts? How much bad analysis? How much excessive trust in the Ukrainians? How much the escalation effect, as one government felt it had at least to equal, if not exceed, the condemnations of another.  Historians of the future will have to sort all of this out. But it’s clear that, to the extent that western leaders believed the attack would fail, and that the war would be unpopular, they must have felt that amping up the volume would have no adverse consequences. 

A third factor is the fear engendered by the capabilities the Russians have been demonstrating and the low-key practical response of the US. It’s not that Europeans ever naively imagined that the US was going to “defend” them. Rather, the hope was that in any political crisis in Europe, first with the Soviet Union and then with Russia, the US would necessarily be an actor, and this would give the Russians pause. But it’s clear that the Russians had already gamed out a lack of US response in their planning. In addition, I think that western elites have been genuinely shocked at how little high-intensity warfare capability the NATO countries actually have.  To some extent, all this shouting is aimed at keeping up their collective morale. Most of our leaders are of a generation that grew up with the belief that if you want something badly enough, you can will it into being. But let's digress for a moment...,

Because Obama was inexperienced in Foreign Affairs, he was coerced into partnering with the corrupt and compromised Joe Biden for foreign affairs supervision. Even worse, as Senator Obama he had been "schooled" by Sen Joe Lieberman on the Middle East and foreign affairs.  Consequently, when he was tapped for the presidency, Obama made extremely poor choices for his foreign policy team. 

The nomination of Hillary was not just clumsy, it was a disaster. Susan Rice and Samantha Power with regime change policy .... drone assassinations ...Iraq, Afghanistan (nixed advise in 2009 from Richard Holbrooke), Libya and Syria. War crimes and crimes against humanity. Gross failure in the so-called reset with Russia. Obama was so outmanned by Putin, that he initiated the policy to make Russia a pariah state. Obama also initiated regime change in Ukraine in 2014.

A U.S. President gets a daily briefing from the CIA. Then he gets the same story a second time from the Washington Post. Then he gets it a third time from the NYTimes. If that president is Joe Biden, his aides are a pack of nitwits. His Vice President is astonishingly stupid. Are there any better informed parties in Biden's circle? Probably. Do they have access? Who knows. 

Another old story, this is one Seymour Hersh used to tell in interviews. Shortly after Obama was inaugurated Thomas Pickering, then retired but still the dean of US diplomatic corps, got a call from parties in Iran. Said parties complained they were being shut out by the new administration and wanted Pickering to get a message to the President. Pickering had worked for every US President from Johnson to Bush Jr. And had had some interaction with Ike and JFK. Pickering could not get through. Baby Bush was often called the boy in the bubble. Obama’s bubble was far more exclusive. Iranians could not believe such an arrangement was possible; it was so.

The U.S. was the first to mine oil and gas in a big way, and exploited that to build a huge economy. But it has mostly wasted this gift, this patrimony, and now depends on the looting of others. On the other hand, Russia is pretty much self–sufficient, has a very advanced economy, has a very well educated workforce, has huge reserves of energy, and the most efficient military in the world, spending but a fraction of the U.S. and equal or surpassing it in every important way. This is real power, unlike the froth of the present U.S. economy with a hollowed out industrial base and a bloated military, led by incompetent and corrupt politicians who have swallowed their own propaganda and have come to believe the lies they tell.

The U.S. empire and the British empire before it (and more or less successful European competitors also) grew to prominence mostly by piracy and looting, imposing their world view and economic and religious regimes on the rest of the world by force. That system is collapsing before our eyes.

One of the reasons that the “Ukraine is winning” narrative is still (just) holding up, is that nobody in a position of responsibility or influence wants to consider the real consequences of a Russian victory – which will, of course, go much wider than just Ukraine. 

This is why it’s wrong to see the Europeans as passively following American orders. For a start, the major European powers (notably the French and the UK) have been investing heavily in Ukraine for a long time, and this is a significant and long-term defeat for them. In addition, their leaders are beginning to understand that the results of this chaos are going to include a hostile and distrustful Russia on the frontiers of the EU, and with a military capability that exceeds now anything the Europeans could collectively generate in less than ten years. Get out of that. But how? 

I suspect we are in for a period of epic sulking, a bit like that after the Communist victory in China. But that won’t solve any practical problems, and I also suspect we shall see the slow disintegration of EU solidarity as countries like Spain and Portugal ask exactly why they should continue to sacrifice their economies to make political points against a large country, far away, with which they have no quarrel.

The Devil Has To Have Access To You In Order To Tempt You...,

Central European states, whose political and economic systems had been completely destroyed, and which in any case were regarded as having been imposed by a foreign power, looked westwards for help, and much of their leadership saw western Europe as an inspiration. 

It is important to understand what that inspiration was for.

The fundamental contradiction of the Soviet system was that the nomenklatura had control over fantastic real wealth but did not have the official right to live better than the common worker. And in fact did not live better for a long time, and even later on it wasn’t enough — privileged people did gain access to luxury goods from the West in the last couple decades of the USSR, but there were limits to that (you had to keep appearances after all, as there were serious punishments for crossing certain lines even in the 1980s). They also could not pass that control over resources to their progeny, which was a huge problem on its own.

Once economic ties were established between East and West that contradiction became really glaring. Imagine being one of those Soviet officials signing the original gas and oil export deals — you go to the West, they wine you and dine you in various fancy mansions, drive you around in limousines, etc. the people you negotiate with are all very wealthy. And you negotiate with them as an equal, signing deals worth many billions. But then you go back to Moscow where, if you are lucky, you live in one of the Stalinkas (the nicer relatively roomy apartments built in the 1930s in more central areas of cities), and if you are not, you at best have a 2-bedroom dingy flat in a non-descript Khrushchyovka, quite possibly something even smaller.

That starts to gnaw on people over time and the question “why can’t I enjoy the same level of consumption as those people” begins to weigh on them. Even more so under the pressure from their wives and children, who are generally even more materialistically oriented. The argument “You can’t live in a mansion, drive a Ferrari and have a yacht in order for your fellow citizens to have free housing and healthcare and high-quality education” didn’t go well with these people, if it was ever considered.

So that is what the “inspiration” was for — the Western system provided both opportunity and ideological justification for uncontrolled looting. Pure greed ruled the day.

In effect the years 1989-1991 were the second phase of the neoliberal revolution — it started in the West in the 1970s, then a certain layers in the Soviet bureaucracy saw that and decided “Hey, that sounds good, we should do it here too”, and the rest is history. The 1980s were in a way a lot more similar on both sides of the curtain than people realize.

Now notice what the turning point was — it was once extensive direct contacts between East and West were established. The Devil has to have access to you in order to successfully tempt you. So separating as completely as possible from the West would not have been a bad idea back then, and it might still be beneficial now.

That realization is starting to slowly creep into the public subconscious, we will see how far it goes.

Vladimir Putin Meets With Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu

kremlin  |  The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the people’s militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic have liberated Mariupol. The remaining nationalists are hiding in the industrial area of the Azovstal steel plant.

Mariupol is a major industrial centre and the main transport hub on the Sea of Azov. In 2014, the Kiev regime declared the city the temporary capital of the Donetsk Region, and during the subsequent eight years it has been turned into a powerful stronghold and the base of far-right Ukrainian nationalists. In fact, it was the capital of the Azov Battalion.

A large amount of heavy weaponry and military hardware have been deployed in the city, including tanks, the Smerch and Uragan multiple rocket launcher systems, heavy artillery systems and the Tochka-U missile complexes. Tochka-U has a range of 120 kilometres, while the distance from Mariupol to Russia’s city of Taganrog is 94 kilometres and approximately the same to Rostov, the capital of the Southern Federal District.

The city has been stocked with missiles, munitions, fuel and lubricants, and food provisions for lengthy hostilities. The main infrastructure facilities, including the seaport and the waterway, have been mined and blocked with floating cranes. The majority of vessels there belong to foreign states.

As for armoured vehicles, there were 179 tanks and armoured fighting vehicles there, 170 various guns and mortars, including multiple rocket launchers which I have already mentioned, the Smerch and Uragan systems. When the city was surrounded on March 11, there were more than 8,100 troops of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and nationalist units in the city, as well as foreign mercenaries, who formed a large group. During the operation to liberate the city, over 4,000 of them have been neutralised, 1,478 have surrendered, and the remaining group of over 2,000 has been blocked in the industrial area of the Azovstal plant.

In their resistance efforts, the nationalists used almost all residential buildings as fortified emplacements. Armoured vehicles and artillery were placed on ground floors, and snipers took up positions on upper floors. There were separate units armed with ATGMs as well. The residents were brought to the middle floors and basements and used as human shields. It was done in almost every block of flats.

When retreating, the Ukrainian army and the nationalist battalions in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities were using civilians as a cover. We are aware of four instances when, in order to cover their retreat, they made people leave the basements. The latest incident was literally four days ago, when we were liberating the port area and they made almost everyone leave high-rise buildings so that they could flee leaving behind ruins, including completely destroyed socially important and cultural sites.

While liberating Mariupol, the Russian army and the people's militia units from the DPR took every precaution to save civilian lives. Mr President, as you instructed, humanitarian corridors have been created daily since March 21 to evacuate civilians and foreign nationals.

Servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and militants from nationalist battalions were encouraged to lay down their arms. Of course, they were guaranteed life, safety and medical help.

We remained in daily communication with Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine [Irina] Vereshchuk with regard to planned humanitarian acts, which included corridors and transport, both ambulances and buses. Occasionally, up to 100 such buses and 25 to 30 ambulances were made available per day.

Foreign diplomatic missions got in touch with us in various ways because their nationals were there. By the way, we have been able to free and evacuate many of them from Mariupol as part of these humanitarian initiatives. We provided official notifications to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the relevant OSCE structures, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organisations stating the time and place of these initiatives. In some instances, we even insisted on their presence to make sure that all the humanitarian rules are complied with to the extent it was possible, considering the constant and never-ending fire coming from the nationalist battalions and the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Despite the resistance of the fighters and all others, we were able to evacuate 142,711 civilians from Mariupol after you issued instructions to this effect. We freed all hostages at the seaport, including sea crews. Those who took them hostage damaged their communications systems so that they could not get in touch with anyone. The port was mined, and the waterway blocked. I hope that these ships will now be able to leave this port.

As of today, the Russian Army and the Donetsk People’s Republic’s people’s militia control all of Mariupol, reliably blocking Azovstal territory with what remains of the nationalist forces and foreign mercenaries.

Over the past two days, again as per your instructions, we declared a ceasefire between 2 pm and 4 pm, stopped all military action and opened humanitarian corridors to enable civilians who may be at Azovstal to leave.

We prepared about 90 buses for them, and 25 ambulances. Of course, considering all the distortions we face, we installed Russian Aerospace Forces cameras and received the stream almost in real time here at the command centre. No one left Azovstal. However, other civilians, over 100 of them, were able to leave. This was a major effort for us over the past few days, and we carried it out together with all the relevant international organisations.

The city is now calm, which allows us to begin efforts to restore order, enable people to return to their homes and bring peaceful life back to the city. As for those hiding at Azovstal, we have reliably sealed its perimeter, and need three or four days to complete this effort at Azovstal.

This concludes my report.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I believe it would be inadvisable to storm this industrial zone.

I order you to cancel it.

Sergei Shoigu: Yes, sir.

Vladimir Putin: This is the case when we have to prioritise preserving the lives and health of our soldiers and officers. Of course, this is our constant priority, but even more so in this case. There is no need to penetrate these catacombs and crawl under these industrial facilities.

Seal off the industrial zone completely.

Sergei Shoigu: Yes, sir.

Vladimir Putin: You must offer all those who have not laid down their weapons to do so. Russia guarantees them their lives and dignity as per the relevant international legal instruments. All the wounded will get medical assistance.

You successfully completed the combat effort to liberate Mariupol. Let me congratulate you on this occasion, and please convey my congratulations to the troops. I am also asking you to submit proposals on bestowing state decorations on the service personnel who distinguished themselves. Of course, as usual, there will be various decorations, but I want everyone to know that they are all heroes for us and for all of Russia.

In this context, we need to make sure that we fulfil all the social commitments to our service personnel, especially the wounded and the families of our fallen comrades.

However, I believe that this would not be enough. We have to do more and come up with additional support measures, and in some case to consider ways of perpetuating the memory of those of our comrades who displayed heroism and sacrificed their lives so that our people in Donbass live in peace and to enable Russia, our country, to live in peace. These people deserved this by what they did and the way they honoured their oath.

I am asking you to work on this matter within the Defence Ministry, while I will issue the corresponding instructions to the Presidential Executive Office. I will talk to my colleagues in the regions, and they will work with the municipalities across Russia.

Assuming control over Mariupol, a major city in the south of the country, is obviously a success. Congratulations.

Sergei Shoigu: Thank you, Mr President.

Areas Of Ukraine That Russia Is In Process Of Securing

Tass  |  The Russian army during the second stage of the special operation should establish full control over the Donbass. This was stated by Deputy Commander of the Central Military District (CVO), Major General Rustam Minnekayev, at the annual meeting of the Union of Defense Industries of the Sverdlovsk Region.

"From the beginning of the second phase of the special operation, it has already begun, literally two days ago, one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbass and southern Ukraine," he said.

The control of the Russian Armed Forces over the Donbass will allow the creation of a land corridor to the Crimea, Minnekaev emphasized.

"This (control over the Donbass - TASS note) will provide a land corridor to the Crimea, as well as influence the vital facilities of the Ukrainian [military forces], Black Sea ports through which agricultural and metallurgical products are delivered to [other] countries," - said the deputy commander.

"Control over the South of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population. Apparently, we are now at war with the whole world, as it was in the Great Patriotic War, all of Europe, the whole world was against us. And now the same thing, they never liked Russia," he added.

Minnekaev stressed that the technical superiority of the Russian army over the Ukrainian Armed Forces on land, sea and airspace is obvious.

"During strikes, the Russian armed forces do not suffer any losses. This kills the morale of the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine the most. The technical superiority of the Russian army on land, at sea and in the air has become obvious," he said.

Minnekaev added that the special operation should be "successfully brought to its logical conclusion." He stated that all tasks set will be fulfilled.

“We didn’t start this war, but we will finish it,” Minnekaev said.

Obama Reversed The Smith Mundt Act Prohibiting Goverment From Waging Infowar On U.S. Citizens

stanford  |  In his keynote, Obama reflected on how technology has transformed the way people create and consume media. Digital and social media companies have upended traditional media – from local newspapers to broadcast television, as well as the role these outlets played in society at large.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the American public tuned in to one of three major networks, and while media from those earlier eras had their own set of problems – such as excluding women and people of color – they did provide people with a shared culture, Obama said.

Moreover, these media institutions, with established journalistic best practices for accuracy and accountability, also provided people with similar information: “When it came to the news, at least, citizens across the political spectrum tended to operate using a shared set of facts – what they saw or what they heard from Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley.”

Fast forward to today, where everyone has access to individualized news feeds that are fed by algorithms that reward the loudest and angriest voices (and which technology companies profit from). “You have the sheer proliferation of content, and the splintering of information and audiences,” Obama observed. “That’s made democracy more complicated.”

Facts are competing with opinions, conspiracy theories, and fiction. “For more and more of us, search and social media platforms aren’t just our window into the internet. They serve as our primary source of news and information,” Obama said. “No one tells us that the window is blurred, subject to unseen distortions, and subtle manipulations.”

The splintering of news sources has also made all of us more prone to what psychologists call “confirmation bias,” Obama said. “Inside our personal information bubbles, our assumptions, our blind spots, our prejudices aren’t challenged, they are reinforced and naturally, we’re more likely to react negatively to those consuming different facts and opinions – all of which deepens existing racial and religious and cultural divides.”

But the problem is not just that our brains can’t keep up with the growing amount of information online, Obama argued. “They’re also the result of very specific choices made by the companies that have come to dominate the internet generally, and social media platforms in particular.”

The former president also made clear that he did not think technology was to blame for many of our social ills. Racism, sexism, and misogyny, all predate the internet, but technology has helped amplify them.

“Solving the disinformation problem won’t cure all that ails our democracies or tears at the fabric of our world, but it can help tamp down divisions and let us rebuild the trust and solidarity needed to make our democracy stronger,” Obama said.

He gave examples of how social media has fueled violence and extremism around the world. For example, leaders from countries such as Russia to China, Hungary, the Philippines, and Brazil have harnessed social media platforms to manipulate their populations. “Autocrats like Putin have used these platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat,” Obama said.

He also called out emerging technologies such as AI for their potential to sow further discord online. “I’ve already seen demonstrations of deep fake technology that show what looks like me on a screen, saying stuff I did not say. It’s a strange experience people,” Obama said. “Without some standards, implications of this technology – for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order – are frightening and profound.”

Clinton/Obama Intel Officials Claim That Big Tech Monopolies Are Essential To National Security

greenwald  |  Needless to say, the U.S. security state wants to maintain a stranglehold on political discourse in the U.S. and the world more broadly. They want to be able to impose propagandistic narratives without challenge and advocate for militarism without dissent. To accomplish that, they need a small handful of corporations which are subservient to them to hold in their hands as much concentrated power over the internet as possible.

If a free and fair competitive market were to arise whereby social media platforms more devoted to free speech could fairly compete with Google and Facebook— as the various pending bills in Congress are partially designed to foster — then that new diversity of influence, that diffusion of power, would genuinely threaten the ability of the CIA and the Pentagon and the White House to police political discourse and suppress dissent from their policies and assertions. By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state, the ability of the U.S. national security state to maintain a closed propaganda system around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed.

In this new letter, these national security operatives barely bother to hide their intention to exploit the strong animosity toward Russia that they have cultivated, and the accompanying intense emotions from the ubiquitous, unprecedented media coverage of the war in Ukraine, to prop up their goals. Over and over, they cite the grave Russian threat — a theme they have been disseminating and manufacturing since the Russiagate fraud of 2016 — to manipulate Americans to support the preservation of Big Tech's concentrated power, and to imply that anyone seeking to limit Big Tech power or make the market more competitive is a threat to U.S. national security:

This is a pivotal moment in modern history. There is a battle brewing between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and the threat of cyber-attacks, to bring about a change in the global order. We must confront these global challenges. . . . U.S. technology platforms have given the world the chance to see the real story of the Russian military’s horrific human rights abuses in Ukraine. . . . At the same time, President Putin and his regime have sought to twist facts in order to show Russia as a liberator instead of an aggressor. . . .

The Russian government is seeking to alter the information landscape by blocking Russian citizens from receiving content that would show the true facts on the ground. .. . . . Indeed, it is telling that among the Kremlin’s first actions of the war was blocking U.S. platforms in Russia. Putin knows that U.S. digital platforms can provide Russian citizens valuable views and facts about the war that he tries to distort through lies and disinformation. U.S. technology platforms have already taken concrete steps to shine a light on Russia’s actions to brutalize Ukraine. . . . Providing timely and accurate on-the-ground information – and disrupting the scourge of disinformation from Russian state media – is essential for allowing the world (including the Russian people) to see the human toll of Russia’s aggression. . . . [T]he United States is facing an extraordinary threat from Russian cyber-attacks . . .

In the face of these growing threats, U.S. policymakers must not inadvertently hamper the ability of U.S. technology platforms to counter increasing disinformation and cybersecurity risks, particularly as the West continues to rely on the scale and reach of these firms to push back on the Kremlin . . . . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the start of a new chapter in global history, one in which the ideals of democracy will be put to the test. The United States will need to rely on the power of its technology sector to ensure that the safety of its citizens and the narrative of events continues to be shaped by facts, not by foreign adversaries.

It is hardly controversial or novel to observe that the U.S. security state always wants and needs a hated foreign enemy precisely because it allows them to claim whatever powers and whatever budgets they want in the name of stopping that foreign villain. And every war and every new enemy ushers in new authoritarian powers and the trampling of civil liberties: both the First War on Terror, justified by 9/11, and the New Domestic War on Terror, justified by 1/6, should have taught us that lesson permanently. Usually, though, U.S. security state propagandists are a bit more subtle about how they manipulate anger and fear of foreign villains to manipulate public opinion for their own authoritarian ends.

Perhaps because of their current desperation about the support these bills have attracted, they are now just nakedly and shamelessly trying to channel the anger and hatred that they have successfully stoked toward Russia to demand that Big Tech not be weakened, regulated or restricted in any way. The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt: if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should, then you must devote yourself to full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

It should go without saying that these life-long security state operatives do not care in the slightest about the dangers of "disinformation.” Indeed — as evidenced by the fact that most of them generated one Russiagate fraud after the next during...

military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex

consortiumnews  |  Every silicon fragment in the valley connects Facebook as a direct extension of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s LifeLog project, a Pentagon attempt to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.” Facebook launched its website exactly on the same day – Feb. 4, 2004 – that DARPA and the Pentagon shuttered LifeLog.

No explanation by DARPA was ever provided. The MIT’s David Karger, at the time, remarked, “I am sure that such research will continue to be funded under some other title. I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.”

Of course a smokin’ gun directly connecting Facebook to DARPA will never be allowed to surface. But occasionally some key players speak out, such as Douglas Gage, none other than LifeLog’s conceptualizer: “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point (…) We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”

So Facebook has absolutely nothing to do with journalism. Not to mention pontificating over a journalist’s work, or assuming it’s entitled to cancel him or her. Facebook is an “ecosystem” built to sell private data at a huge profit, offering a public service as a private enterprise, but most of all sharing the accumulated data of its billions of users with the U.S. national security state.

The resulting algorithmic stupidity, also shared by Twitter – incapable of recognizing nuance, metaphor, irony, critical thinking – is perfectly integrated into what former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern brilliantly coined as the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex).

In the U.S., at least the odd expert on monopoly power identified this neo-Orwellian push as accelerating “the collapse of journalism and democracy.”

Facebook “fact-checking professional journalists” does not even qualify as pathetic. Otherwise Facebook – and not analysts like McGovern – would have debunked Russiagate. It would not routinely cancel Palestinian journalists and analysts. It would not disable the account of University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi – who was actually born in the U.S.

I received quite a few messages stating that being canceled by Facebook – and now by Twitter – is a badge of honor. Well, everything is impermanent (Buddhism) and everything flows (Daoism). So being deleted – twice – by an algorithm qualifies at best as a cosmic joke.