The Occupation Of The American Mind

al-jazeera  |   Since World War II, the US has vied to achieve two main foreign policy objectives in the Middle East: Control the region and its resources and prop-up its allies (often dictators), while maintaining a degree of “stability” so that the US is able to conduct its business unhindered.

Nevertheless, Israel remained on the warpath. Wars that Israel couldn’t fight on its own required American intervention on Israel’s behalf, as was the case in Iraq. The outcome was disastrous for US foreign policy. Even hardened military men began noticing the destructive path their country had chosen in order to defend Israel.

In March 2010, General David Petraeus, then head of the US Central Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a testimony that Israel had become a liability for the US and that has become a challenge to “security and stability”, which his country aimed to achieve.

He said: “Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR (Area of Operations) and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab World. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilise support.”

Although speaking strictly from a US military interest, the Israeli lobby attacked Petraeus almost immediately. Abe Foxman, Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which often mischaracterises its role as that of combating racism in the US lashed out at the top American commander calling his conclusions “dangerous and counterproductive.”

That spectacle alone demonstrated that Israel’s power in the US has grown tremendously through time.

In the US, no one is immune to Israeli criticism, including the president himself, who is expected to accommodate Israeli whims, without expecting any Israeli reciprocation.

A particularly telling episode revealed the degree of Israeli influence in the US, when then-House Speaker John Boehner plotted with then-Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer to arrange a visit and a speech before Congress for Netanyahu, in defiance of President Obama.

Netanyahu then raged and raved before a united Congress (with a few exceptions) that repeatedly endowed the Israeli prime minister with many standing ovations as he belittled their president and strongly criticised US foreign policy on Iran.

Obama felt isolated as if a target of a political coup; a few Democrats fumbled in a disorganised press conference to respond to Netanyahu’s accusations, but they were certainly the tiny minority.

That spectacle alone demonstrated that Israel’s power in the US has grown tremendously through time from a “client regime”, to a “partner”.

But how did Israel achieve such commanding influence over US foreign policy?

Wall Street Journal Blames Iran For Hamas Rebellion

 WSJ  |  Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.

Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.

Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.

U.S. officials say they haven’t seen evidence of Tehran’s involvement. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.” 

“We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account,” said a U.S. official of the meetings.

A European official and an adviser to the Syrian government, however, gave the same account of Iran’s involvement in the lead-up to the attack as the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members.

Asked about the meetings, Mahmoud Mirdawi, a senior Hamas official, said the group planned the attacks on its own. “This is a Palestinian and Hamas decision,” he said. 

How the Hamas Attack on Israel Unfolded

 

A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations said the Islamic Republic stood in support of Gaza’s actions but didn’t direct them.

“The decisions made by the Palestinian resistance are fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people,” the spokesman said. “We are not involved in Palestine’s response, as it is taken solely by Palestine itself.”

A direct Iranian role would take Tehran’s long-running conflict with Israel out of the shadows, raising the risk of broader conflict in the Middle East. Senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis.

The IRGC’s broader plan is to create a multi-front threat that can strangle Israel from all sides—Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official.

 

Netanyahu Laying Down With Dogs Has All Of Israel Itching With Fleas...,

timesofindia  |  NEW DELHI: Israel carried out deadly air strikes and pounded hundreds of locations in Gaza on Sunday, a day after suffering its bloodiest attack in decades when Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting an unknown number of others, threatening a major new war in the Middle East.

Across the Middle East, there were demonstrations in support of Hamas while Iran and Hezbollah praised the attack.

Western countries, led by the United States, have denounced the attack by Hamas, while President Joe Biden issued a blunt warning to Iran and other countries: "This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks."

Israel pounds Gaza after deadly Hamas raid as conflict threatens to spiral

Osama Hamdan, Hamas leader in Lebanon, said Saturday's operation should make Arab states realise that accepting Israeli security demands would not bring peace.
Our guns and rockets are with you: Hezbollah tells Hamas

In a sign the conflict could quickly spread beyond Gaza, Israeli artillery responded to mortar fire from Lebanon and drone strikes hit a post of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia along Israel's northern border on Sunday.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it had carried out a rocket and artillery attack on three posts including a "radar site" in the Shebaa Farms, a slice of land occupied by Israel since 1967 that Lebanon claims. Israel responded with artillery fire on southern Lebanon. There were no reports of casualties.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said his group's "guns and rockets" were with Hamas. "Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you. Everything we have is with you," Safieddine said at an event in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh on Beirut's outskirts in solidarity with the Palestinian fighters.

Hezbollah and Israel exchange fire as Israeli soldiers battle Hamas on second day of surprise attack

Hezbollah fought a war with Israel in 2006 and tensions have regularly flared since.

"We recommend Hezbollah not to come into this and I don't think they will," Israel's army spokesperson said.

Taliban fighters to join Palestine conflict?

Meanwhile, some media reports also stated that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has requested the Iranian and Iraqi governments to provide safe passage to its fighters so they can join the conflict in Palestine. Most of the reports have cited a social media account on X by the name 'Taliban Public Relations Department'.
The authenticity of the social media account has not been verified.

Several media reports have cited a Taliban spokesperson who denied that any such request had been sent to Iran or Iraq.

Ever since storming to power in Kabul after US troops pulled out in August 2021, the Taliban has been attempting -- with little success -- to train its fighters to use US military hardware that has been left behind. The fighters are, however, well armed.

More than $7.1 billion in US-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021, according to a Defense Department report. Though more than half of it was ground vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons plus ammunition and other accessories.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, meanwhile, said the assault that began in Gaza will spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Gazans have lived under an Israeli blockade for 16 years, since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

Why is al-Aqsa at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

In a speech, Haniyeh highlighted what he called threats to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, a site that is also holy to Jews who know it as the Temple Mount, the continuation of Israel's blockade on Gaza and Israeli normalisation with countries in the region.


"How many times have we warned you that the Palestinian people have been living in refugee camps for 75 years, and you refuse to recognise the rights of our people?"

Cornpop Hopped Up On Drugs, Reading The Teleprompter And Slurring His Words

WSJ  |  As explosions rang out and bullets flew over Tamir Erez’s home in Mefalsim near the Gaza Strip border, he said he kept asking himself, “Where is the Israeli military?” He fled town with his children holding their heads down so they couldn’t see the bodies of dead Israelis killed by Palestinian militants.

“It will take a long time for us to recover from this day,” Erez said. 

Israel’s failure to anticipate an attack Saturday that left hundreds of soldiers and civilians dead and militants rampaging through villages punctured a sense of invincibility built on its vaunted military and intelligence apparatus. It left the world questioning what went wrong and Israel’s leaders facing pressure to retaliate with overwhelming force.

The assault came as Israel faces its most difficult series of threats in the decades since what remains the country’s greatest security failure, the Yom Kippur War, the surprise attack launched 50 years ago this week by Egyptian and Syrian forces.

Iran has provided unprecedented coordination among the forces of several militant groups, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and stoked deadly conflict in the West Bank, putting Israel at risk on three fronts.

Using rockets, paragliders, motorcycles, pickup trucks, and boats, Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip launched a coordinated attack that showed an unexpected level of sophistication. 

Israeli forces appeared to be caught completely by surprise as Hamas militants in Gaza used bulldozers to tear down the security fence with Israel and streamed into the country.

How Israel’s Iron Dome works

Interception

The missile destroys the incoming rocket by exploding near it.

Launcher

Each has 20 interceptor missiles

with an in-built radar seeker

Mobile control Unit

Analyses trajectory, estimates impact point and commands launch of interceptor missile

Radar

Identifies rocket shell

Source: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems

“Clearly this was a well-planned operation that didn’t just emerge overnight and it’s surprising it was not detected by Israel or any of its security partners,” said Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington. “It’s hard to think of a security failure of this magnitude in Israel’s recent history.”

Israeli security leaders had played down the threat from Hamas in recent months, as the group abstained from conflicts started by its smaller ally in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There was a sense that Israel, with its Iron Dome air defense systems, had rendered ineffective Gaza’s main threat of short-range rockets. 

Last month, the Israeli military confidently characterized Gaza as being in a state of “stable instability,” suggesting that the dangers posed by Hamas militants were largely contained. 

Recent Israeli intelligence assessments of Hamas were that the militant group had shifted its focus to trying to stoke violence in the West Bank and that it was looking to avoid launching major attacks from Gaza in an effort to avoid the kinds of punishing Israeli military responses that have devastated the isolated area in the past.

 

President Vladimir Putin At The Valdai International Discussion Club

kremlin.ru  |  President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Participants in the plenary session, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

I am glad to welcome you all in Sochi at the anniversary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. The moderator has already mentioned that this is the 20^th annual meeting.

In keeping with its traditions, our, or should I say your forum, has brought together political leaders and researchers, experts and civil society activists from many countries around the world, once again reaffirming its high status as a relevant intellectual platform. The Valdai discussions invariably reflect the most important global political processes in the 21^st century in their entirety and complexity. I am certain that this will also be the case today, as it probably was in the preceding days when you debated with each other. It will also stay this way moving forward because our objective is basically to build a new world. And it is at these decisive stages that you, my colleagues, have an extremely important role to play and bear special responsibility as intellectuals.

Over the years of the club’s work, both Russia and the world have seen drastic, and even dramatic, colossal changes. Twenty years is not a long period by historical standards, but during eras when the entire world order is crumbling, time seems to shrink.

I think you will agree that more events have taken place in the past 20 years than over decades in some historical periods before, and it was major changes that dictated the fundamental transformation of the very principles of international relations.

In the early 21^st century, everybody hoped that states and peoples had learned the lessons of the expensive and destructive military and ideological confrontations of the previous century, saw their harmfulness and the fragility and interconnectedness of our planet, and understood that the global problems of humanity call for joint action and the search for collective solutions, while egotism, arrogance and disregard for real challenges would inevitably lead to a dead-end, just like the attempts by more powerful countries to force their opinions and interests onto everyone else. This should have become obvious to everyone. It should have, but it has not. It has not.

When we met for the first time at the club’s meeting nearly 20 years ago, our country was entering a new stage in its development. Russia was emerging from an extremely difficult period of convalescence after the Soviet Union’s dissolution. We launched the process of building a new and what we saw as a more just world order energetically and with good will. It is a boon that our country can make a huge contribution because we have things to offer to our friends, partners and the world as a whole.

Regrettably, our interest in constructive interaction was misunderstood, was seen as obedience, as an agreement that the new world order would be created by those who declared themselves the winners in the Cold War. It was seen as an admission that Russia was ready to follow in others’ wake and not to be guided by our own national interests but by somebody else’s interests.

Over these years, we warned more than once that this approach would not only lead to a dead-end but that it was fraught with the increasing threat of a military conflict. But nobody listened to us or wanted to listen to us. The arrogance of our so-called partners in the West went through the roof. This is the only way I can put it.

The United States and its satellites have taken a steady course towards hegemony in military affairs, politics, the economy, culture and even morals and values. Since the very beginning, it has been clear to us that attempts to establish a monopoly were doomed to fail. The world is too complicated and diverse to be subjected to one system, even if it is backed by the enormous power of the West accumulated over centuries of its colonial policy. Your colleagues as well – many of them are absent today, but they do not deny that to a significant degree, the prosperity of the West has been achieved by robbing colonies for several centuries. This is a fact. Essentially, this level of development has been achieved by robbing the entire planet.

The history of the West is essentially the chronicle of endless expansion. Western influence in the world is an immense military and financial pyramid scheme that constantly needs more “fuel” to support itself, with natural, technological and human resources that belong to others. This is why the West simply cannot and is not going to stop. Our arguments, reasoning, calls for common sense or proposals have simply been ignored.

I have said this publicly to both our allies and partners. There was a moment when I simply suggested: perhaps we should also join NATO? But no, NATO does not need a country like ours. No. I want to know, what else do they need? We thought we became part of the crowd, got a foot in the door. What else were we supposed to do? There was no more ideological confrontation. What was the problem? I guess the problem was their geopolitical interests and arrogance towards others. Their self-aggrandisement was and is the problem.

We are compelled to respond to ever-increasing military and political pressure. I have said many times that it was not us who started the so-called “war in Ukraine.” On the contrary, we are trying to end it. It was not us who orchestrated a coup in Kiev in 2014 – a bloody and anti-constitutional coup. When [similar events] happen in other places, we immediately hear all the international media – mainly those subordinate to the Anglo-Saxon world, of course – this is unacceptable, this is impossible, this is anti-democratic. But the coup in Kiev was acceptable. They even cited the amount of money spent on this coup. Anything was suddenly acceptable.

At that time, Russia tried its best to support the people of Crimea and Sevastopol. We did not try to overthrow the government or intimidate the people in Crimea and Sevastopol, threatening them with ethnic cleansing in the Nazi spirit. It was not us who tried to force Donbass to obey by shelling and bombing. We did not threaten to kill anyone who wanted to speak their native language. Look, everyone here is an informed and educated person. It might be possible – excuse my ‘mauvais ton’ – to brainwash millions of people who perceive reality through the media. But you must know what was really going on: they have been bombing the place for nine years, shooting and using tanks. That was a war, a real war unleashed against Donbass. And no one counted the dead children in Donbass. No one cried for the dead in other countries, especially in the West.

This war, the one that the regime sitting in Kiev started with the vigorous and direct support from the West, has been going on for more than nine years, and Russia’s special military operation is aimed at stopping it. And it reminds us that unilateral steps, no matter who takes them, will inevitably prompt retaliation. As we know, every action has an equal opposite reaction. That is what any responsible state, every sovereign, independent and self-respecting country does.

Everyone realises that in an international system where arbitrariness reigns, where all decision-making is up to those who think they are exceptional, sinless and right, any country can be attacked simply because it is disliked by a hegemon, who has lost any sense of proportion – and I would add, any sense of reality.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that our counterparties in the West have lost their sense of reality and have crossed every line. They really should not have done this.

The Ukraine crisis is not a territorial conflict, and I want to make that clear. Russia is the world’s largest country in terms of land area, and we have no interest in conquering additional territory. We still have much to do to properly develop Siberia, Eastern Siberia, and the Russian Far East. This is not a territorial conflict and not an attempt to establish regional geopolitical balance. The issue is much broader and more fundamental and is about the principles underlying the new international order.

Lasting peace will only be possible when everyone feels safe and secure, understands that their opinions are respected, and that there is a balance in the world where no one can unilaterally force or compel others to live or behave as a hegemon pleases even when it contradicts the sovereignty, genuine interests, traditions, or customs of peoples and countries. In such an arrangement, the very concept of sovereignty is simply denied and, sorry, is thrown in the garbage.

Happy Birthday Vladimir Putin

livemint  |  Russian politician and former intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, serving as the president of Russia since 2012, has turned 71 years on 7 October.

Born on 7 October, 1952, in Leningrad, Soviet Union, Putin is the youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and Maria Ivanovna Putina.

Details say, his grandfather, Spiridon Putin, was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. His father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. But during Nazi German invasion of Soviet Union, his father served in the destruction battalion of the NKVD, but in 1942 transferred to the regular army and was severely wounded in 1942.

A graduate in law from the Leningrad State University -- now Saint Petersburg State University -- in 1975, he also received his Ph.D. in economics at the Saint Petersburg Mining University for a thesis on the strategic planning of the mineral economy in 1997.

Apart from studies, he also studied German at Saint Petersburg High School and speaks German as a second language. He practice sambo and judo.

Career:

Putin joined the KGB in 1975 and trained at the 401st KGB School in Leningrad's Okhta. In his career, he was transferred to New Zealand, East Germany, and other places.

He was appointed as deputy chief of the Presidential Staff in 1997 by President Boris Yeltsin and then chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department.

Putin was appointed First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff for the regions in 1998 and was appointed head of the commission.

He was appointed one of three first deputy prime ministers in 1999 and was appointed acting prime minister of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Yeltsin.

Putin has held continuous positions as president or prime minister since 1999. He served as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.

The Establishment vs. The American Liberation Movement

Newsweek  |   Newsweek has also reviewed secret FBI and Department of Homeland Security data that track incidents, threats, investigations and cases to try to build a better picture. While experts agree that the current partisan environment is charged and uniquely dangerous (with the threat not only of violence but, in the most extreme scenarios, possibly civil war), many also question whether "terrorism" is the most effective way to describe the problem, or that the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups constitute the most fruitful way to craft domestic solutions.

"The current political environment is not something that the FBI is necessarily responsible for, nor should it be," says Brian Michael Jenkins, one of the world's leading terrorism experts and senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation.

In a statement to Newsweek, the FBI said: "The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI's goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence. Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI's top threat priorities." The FBI further said, "We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person's political beliefs or affiliations."

The White House declined to comment. The Trump campaign was given an opportunity to comment but did not do so.

What the FBI Data Shows

From the president down, the Biden administration has presented Trump and MAGA as an existential threat to American democracy and talked up the risk of domestic terrorism and violence associated with the 2024 election campaign.

"Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country," President Biden tweeted last September, the first time that he explicitly singled out the former president. "MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of past elections but elections being held now and into the future," Biden said.

Biden's Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall said: "The use of violence to pursue political ends is a profound threat to our public safety and national security...it is a threat to our national identity, our values, our norms, our rule of law—our democracy."

For Attorney General Merrick Garland: "Attacks by domestic terrorists are attacks on all of us collectively, aimed at rending the fabric of our democratic society and driving us apart."

Though the FBI's data shows a dip in the number of investigations since the slew of January 6 cases ended, FBI Director Christopher Wray still says that the breach of the Capitol building was "not an isolated event" and the threat is "not going away anytime soon." In a joint report to Congress this June, the Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security say that "Threats from...DVEs [domestic violent extremists] have increased in the last two years, and any further increases in threats likely will correspond to potential flashpoints, such as high-profile elections and campaigns or contentious current events."

The FBI and DHS report concludes: "Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence."

The threats listed in that paragraph are all clearly associated with America's right and in particular with Trump's MAGA supporters. Right after January 6, the FBI co-authored a restricted report ("Domestic Violent Extremists Emboldened in Aftermath of Capitol Breach, Elevated Domestic Terrorism Threat of Violence Likely Amid Political Transitions and Beyond") in which it shifted the definition of AGAAVE ("anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism") from "furtherance of ideological agendas" to "furtherance of political and/or social agendas." For the first time, such groups could be so labeled because of their politics.

It was a subtle change, little noticed, but a gigantic departure for the Bureau. Trump and his army of supporters were acknowledged as a distinct category of domestic violent extremists, even as the FBI was saying publicly that political views were never part of its criteria to investigate or prevent domestic terrorism. Where the FBI sees threats is also plain from the way it categorizes them—a system which on the surface is designed to appear nonpartisan. This shifted subtly days after the events of January 6 when it comes to what the Bureau calls AGAAVE.

"We cannot and do not investigate ideology," a senior FBI official reassured the press after January 6. "We focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence or criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security."

If You're Willing To Be Hated By Rich People - You Can Help Your Own People

RT  |   The McCarthy drama shows that a small band of representatives can actually change things in Washington – even if all it leads to is chaos.

Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy just got ousted from his post as the third-highest constitutional officer in Washington after a contingent of Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to remove him.

While the details of this situation are, to be honest, pretty hilarious and indicate a lack of a serious plan by those GOP members, it also reveals what’s possible if elected representatives in America actually hold the establishment’s feet to the fire.

First, a word on what happened. In a nutshell, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz forced a vote on a motion to vacate the office of the speaker after threatening to do so last week because McCarthy apparently acquiesced to Democrats by passing a bipartisan temporary spending bill, funding the government through November 17 and narrowly avoiding a government shutdown.

Where it goes from there is not fully detailed yet, but some emerging reports from the right-wing press, such as Fox News, suggest that even the Republicans who joined Gaetz, first of all, weren’t even sure of their own votes until the very moment they cast them. They also don’t seem to have any sort of plan at all.

Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry adjourned the House, since pretty much the only thing he can do is form a session to specifically vote for a new speaker (this has never happened before and the rules are vague). With the House adjourned, no congressional hearings can happen, subpoenas can’t go through, and committees can’t convene. This is telling because the same Republicans who ousted McCarthy are also leading an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. Without a speaker, the impeachment process is halted. 

Given this, it was foolish for these lawmakers to vote out McCarthy. And that’s especially the case when it took nearly two months of negotiations to install him in the first place back in January. Now, there’s no telling where things will go or how long it will take to cut deals and find a new speaker. If it takes even the same amount of time as before, then a government shutdown would be inevitable. That level of dysfunction from the GOP is not only poor governance but also bad politics, since it would allow Democrats to look good by contrast.

“Follow your heart, but take your brain with you. The American people expect us to govern. I also advise my House colleagues to be sure and take your meds,” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, said to the press after McCarthy was booted. 

At the same time, this situation demonstrates quite clearly that the establishment – especially during a period of intense partisan divide – is not truly safe. Even powerful figures such as McCarthy can be dethroned by a small contingent of representatives. That shows that people like Jimmy Dore, a well-known YouTube personality, are unfortunately correct for once. The so-called comedian called on progressives to refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker when Democrats controlled the House until a vote was taken on Medicare for All. It turns out he was completely correct on that.

If ‘The Squad’ (a team of relatively young Democratic lawmakers who got into the House on a super-progressive platform) had any backbone, as Gaetz and his gang of rebels have shown, they could have forced a vote on that important issue and many others. They certainly could have squeezed out concessions from Pelosi and the political establishment, making her understand that her position on the pedestal is contingent on the support of progressives and not the other way around. The fact that they, who are supposed to be more savvy and calculated than the MAGA mutineers, didn’t do that indicates, at the very least, a lack of commitment to the values that got them elected. 

For their part, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is making waves: they have made Ukraine funding a hot-button issue, censured Rep. Adam Schiff (a mortal enemy of their cause), put ‘the border’ and fake allegations of election fraud front and center, shouldered out establishment Republicans such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, and they’re building their own media ecosystem. Even though their self-imposed speaker debacle clearly lacks any serious intent, MAGA is flexing its muscles – even if, at times, for nothing.

Will those who are supposedly fighting for the working class in Congress ever exert the same pressure? Doubtful, and it’s also doubtful if these people have any serious commitment to doing that in the first place, since they have the very same tools as Gaetz and his friends yet refuse to wield them. Undoubtedly, however, the political situation in the US is getting a whole hell of a lot more interesting.

 

 

 

Beyond VAIDS (Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency) mRNA May Have Intergenerational Consequences

lewrockwell  |  In early April 2023, microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project¹ — posted a preprint paper² detailing massive DNA contamination in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s bivalent COVID booster shots.^3,4,5,6 As explained in the abstract:⁷

“Several methods were deployed to assess the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent mRNA vaccines. Two vials from each vendor were evaluated …

Multiple assays support DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements …”

The highest level of DNA contamination found was 30%, meaning nearly one-third of the content of certain vials was plasmid DNA, the presence of which dramatically increases the likelihood of genomic integration and cancer.

What this means, in plain English, is that the shots could potentially alter your DNA, which is something vaccine makers, health authorities and fact checkers have vehemently denied and written off as “impossible.” Yet here we are, with inconvenient facts staring us in the face yet again.

Regulatory Agencies Were Aware of the Problem

In a May 20, 2023, Substack article,⁸ McKernan pointed out that regulatory agencies were clearly aware of this problem early on, as Pfizer submitted documents to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) showing sampled lots had a broad range of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) in them.

The EMA’s limit for dsDNA is 330 nanograms per milligram (ng/mg), and Pfizer’s data show sampled lots had anywhere from 1 ng/mg to 815 ng/mg of DNA. And, according to McKernan,⁹ the EMA’s limit may be too high to begin with, as “lower limits should be applied if the DNA is packaged in transfection ready lipid nanoparticles,” as they are in the shots.

In a sane regulatory environment, this kind of contamination would have resulted in a massive recall, considering the known and suspected dangers of dsDNA contaminants. Yet nothing was done about it.

Since McKernan’s paper was posted, others have confirmed the presence of dsDNA contaminants in the COVID shots. To be clear, DNA should not be present in a commercial product that has been made under good manufacturing practices.

Obviously, Pfizer and Moderna have not perfected their commercial process, or have taken shortcuts they shouldn’t have. As a result, countless millions have been injected with unnecessarily risky COVID shots.

University of South Carolina professor Phillip Buckhaults has since confirmed the presence of dsDNA in the COVID shots. September 13, 2023, he testified¹⁰ to this before the South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs Ad-Hoc Committee on the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

Buckhaults is a molecular biologist and cancer geneticist with extensive experience in DNA sequencing, and initially set out to debunk McKernan’s claims. To his shock, he replicated McKernan’s findings instead.

In his testimony, he explained how these DNA contaminants can integrate into your genome and disrupt the function of other genes, either long term or permanently, and may be passed on to offspring for generations.

He told the senators he was “alarmed about this DNA being in the vaccine,” as “there is a very real hazard” of the dsDNA integrating into a person’s genome and becoming a “permanent fixture of the cell” that can result in autoimmune problems and cancers.¹¹

Buckhaults suspects high levels of DNA contaminants may also be causing some of the more serious side effects of the jabs, such as lethal cardiac arrest.¹² Of the two lots he analyzed, he found between 5 nanograms and 20 ng of plasmid DNA — ranging from one to 200 base pairs long — per 300 microliter dose, and he points out that having a multitude of tiny fragments is far riskier than having one big piece of DNA.¹³

The risk of genome integration by dsDNA has been known for decades,¹⁴ so the individuals who decided to allow this contamination to remain cannot claim they didn’t know public health would be put at risk.

 

Plans For mRNA Technology Extend Far Beyond COVID-19 Jabs

vigilantnews  |   Soon, mRNA technology will be coming to flu vaccines. Supporters tout that the adaptability of mRNA technology allows for quicker response times in developing vaccines that can more accurately target circulating influenza strains, potentially making yearly flu shots more effective.

Furthermore, work is being done to apply mRNA technology to “treat” various other diseases. It is being explored as a potential treatment for sickle-cell disease and the autoimmune disorder, multiple sclerosis. Additionally, its application in cancer treatment is under investigation, with the aim of harnessing the immune system to combat malignancies.

The fight against HIV, a long-standing global health challenge, is also on mRNA’s radar. Currently, three experimental HIV vaccines, built on an mRNA design akin to the COVID-19 vaccines, are in the early stages of human clinical trials.

The award to Karikó and Weissman is not without controversy.

Dr. Robert Malone, a renowned scientist, medical doctor, and pioneer in mRNA vaccine technology, made some fiery comments on “X.”

He stated, “Kariko and Weissman get the Nobel, not for inventing mRNA vaccines (because I did that) but for adding the pseudouridine that allowed unlimited spike toxins to be manufactured in what could have been a safe and effective vaccine platform, if safely developed.”

Malone further criticized the integrity of the award process, suggesting undue influence from pharmaceutical giants. “Pfizer has been campaigning for this since 2020 - at first, they even claimed (as did Kariko) that she invented the mRNA vaccine platform technology. Pfizer donates heavily to the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel. Science has been hijacked again by big pharma.”

The decision to honor Karikó and Weissman while omitting key contributors like Dr. Robert Malone raises questions about the narrative that’s being pushed surrounding mRNA technology. One thing is sure: COVID is just the beginning. And what will likely ensue will be subsequent campaigns to get more mRNA injected into every man, woman, and child.

They Must Really Think You're Stupid!!!

attorneycox  |  The “they” is our government (federal and state). The “we” is you and me, and the other 300+ million Americans across our country.

Alas, here we are, entering the final quarter of 2023, and we have the United States government, and many state governments (including New York’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo, current left-wing Governor Kathy Hochul, and the super-majority Dem legislature) proclaiming for all to hear that they did not force anyone to do anything detrimental these past 3.5 years. UNBELIEVABLE! Did you hear this? They are actually saying with straight faces that they didn’t force you to wear a mask, or lockdown and shutter your businesses, or choose between taking an experimental drug or losing your job… Nope! They did none of that. And you - well, you are flat out crazy if you think they did. You are lying. You are exaggerating and totally overreacting.

Unfortunately for Big Brother, ooops, I mean unfortunately for our 100% reliable, never-lies-to-us government, we have actual documents (including lawsuits), news stories, social media posts, and videos of the government at all levels mandating and forcing us to do all of those things, and more. Here’s just one example of Biden himself, the “Big Guy,” mandating the C19 shot:

Biden is not alone. No, no. His entire administration is right there with him. His head of OSHA, Douglas Parker, is also now lying through his teeth about the OSHA mandate that REQUIRED (not suggested) that all employers in the entire nation with 100 or more employees force their employees to get the C19 shot, otherwise they had to wear a mask and test constantly for C19. (That OSHA mandate was struck down by SCOTUS last year because it was unconstitutional, by the way). Then there’s the head of HHS, Xavier Becerra, saying there was never a mask mandate. What?! Another blatant lie.

Please take the 2 minutes to watch this Congressman Kevin Kiley clip. You truly won’t believe your ears with the bullsh#* these Biden agency heads are spewing! As Congressman Kiley says in the video, the government is trying to tell us that “2 + 2 doesn’t equal 4.” You don’t get much more Orwellian than that!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Why are they backtracking now?

Easy answers: 1) they didn’t have the authority to do any of it (all of it was unconstitutional) so they can’t justify and defend it now, and 2) if they can convince you they didn’t do it before, then you won’t mind as much when they do it again.

This should make your blood boil. It’s particularly infuriating to those of us who were speaking out from basically day one trying to tell people that the lockdowns, the masking, the shots, the limited number of people at your wedding or at your Thanksgiving table were all violations of the Constitution and our basic human rights!

There Isn’t A Single Working mRNA Covid Vaccine Right Now...,

This picture is worth a thousand words:

The Nobel Prize laureates do not trust their own 'innovation' and instead rely on pseudoscience—face diapers. https://t.co/pudNl9wIq9 pic.twitter.com/klgoBiklOo

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) October 2, 2023

There isn’t a single working mRNA vaccine right now...,

How can you give a Nobel Prize for it?

Reduce transmission? – you seriously must be kidding at this point. I could never even dream to make that claim with a straight face at this point. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that is causing the damage to the reputation of medicine to be hyper-driven.

Morbidity – Given the number of instant severe problems that many patients had with the vaccine – even in the early days. Blood clots, pulmonary emboli, autoimmune and neurological issues…. And now that it is becoming obvious that it is the multiply boosted and vaxxed that seem to be having many more problems with getting infected over and over again – multiple studies are now showing this.

Again – if someone can please answer the question – If it seems that the multiply boosted are getting infected more often – and it seems that multiple infections increase the incidence of all kinds of problems – how are the vaccines helping?

Extreme morbidity and mortality – hospitalizations, etc. —– in the first year of the pandemic, this may have been so. However, as with any mitigation scheme, one must keep track over the entire event – and one also must keep track of those being harmed by the mitigation procedure.

The overwhelming majority of patients who are being admitted right now are vaxxed/boosted. I think the claim of improvement in morbidity early on was justified. I am not seeing this now. When taken in its entirety – I am not certain that we can make the claim that this vaccine program has been a success. It is going to take the entirety of the raw data over the entire country/world to really ascertain this. But yet, the authorities are completely unwilling to do so. Can you explain to me why that is? What about releasing all raw data is so problematic? Especially for “The Scientists”?

With regard to Nobel prizes. We all must remember that the Medicine Prize went to the gentleman who pioneered frontal lobotomies. The Peace Prize went to Obama who spent the next 8 years bombing weddings with drones. Sometimes Nobel prizes go pear-shaped.

It should truly be an award for those whose work has stood the test of time. I wonder what will be thought of this one awarded yesterday a generation from now.

It is significant that the Nobel recipients were not involved with the development of the mRNA spike protein vaccines. Their work was in developing a mechanism for repressing the immune system response to allow cells to absorb mRNA. This mechanism was then utilized by Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer in their vaccines.

I think this was simply a way to award “The Nobel Prize” to the vaccines without actually giving it directly to Big Pharma. – i.e. it is a propaganda move.  Heaven forbid we get into the DAPRA project with Moderna concerning the Pathogen Protection Platform, which was to use mRNA to spur antibodies to send soldiers into an environment where the pathogen of interest was used as weapon. That was 2013, and DARPA stopped.

Why?

This Is A Test Of The Emergency Broadcast System, This Is Only A Test...,

 reuters  | Summary

• Russia holds public warning tests
• Russia says: Please remain calm
• United States also to hold public warning test

MOSCOW, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Russia tested its emergency public warning systems across the country on Wednesday, blaring out sirens and interrupting some television and radio broadcasts to warn the population to stay calm.

The test, first conducted in 2020, is part of a new initiative that requires authorities to conduct tests twice a year, starting from Sept. 1.

It comes, though, amid the war in Ukraine that has triggered the deepest crisis in Russia's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

At around 10:40 a.m. Moscow time (0740 GMT), sirens wailed across some parts of Russia and stern announcements demanded "Attention everyone!".

"The readiness of warning systems is being checked, please remain calm," speakers said in a stern male Russian voice.

"When you hear the sound of a siren, you need to remain calm and not panic, turn on the TV - any publicly accessible channel or radio - and listen to the information message," the Ministry of Emergency Situations said in a statement.

"The warning system is designed to timely convey a signal to the population in the event of a threat or emergency of a natural or man-made nature."

The United States was also conducting a large-scale test of its public warning systems on Wednesday, via U.S. mobile phones and TV and radio stations.

The purpose of the U.S. test is to ensure that the systems "continue to be effective in alerting the public to emergencies, particularly at the national level", the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, said in a press release.

Many other countries have also conducted alert system tests for crises and disasters in recent years.

The Russian test falls on the 91st anniversary of the creation of Russia's civil defence system and follows nationwide educational drills in August on practicing actions and procedures in emergency situations, Russian media reported.

The goal of Russia's tests is to assess the warning systems, the readiness of personnel responsible for launching them and raise public awareness, the emergency ministry said.