Comey and Mueller: Pretty Much Just Head Snowflakes in Charge

Counterpunch |  Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.

Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.

Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller’s role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI’s illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other “top echelon” informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang.

Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders, which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfill) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller’s FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of “national security letters” to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating “terrorism.”

For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, too, went along with the abuses of Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives. Comey also defended the Bush Administration’s three-year-long detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.

After Nuland And Rubio, You Just Knew A False Flag Was Coming...,

thesaker  |  The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.

The information received from various sources confirms the leading role of the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency in financing and conducting military biological research on the territory of Ukraine.

Details of the UP-4 project became known, which was implemented with the participation of laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa and was designed for the period up to 2020.

Its purpose was to study the possibility of the spread of particularly dangerous infections through migrating birds, including highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza, the mortality rate of which reaches 50 percent for humans, as well as Newcastle disease.

Due to the fact that Ukraine has a unique geographical location where transcontinental migration routes intersect, 145 biological species were studied within the framework of this project. At the same time, at least two species of migratory birds were identified, whose routes pass mainly through the territory of Russia. At the same time, information about migration routes passing through the countries of Eastern Europe was summarized.

Of all the methods developed in the United States to destabilize the epidemiological situation, this is one of the most reckless and irresponsible, since it does not allow to control the further development of the situation. This is confirmed by the course of the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection, the occurrence and features of which raise many questions.

In addition, the R-781 project is interesting, where bats are considered as carriers of potential biological weapons agents.

Among the priorities identified are the study of bacterial and viral pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans: pathogens of plague, leptospirosis, brucellosis, as well as coronaviruses and filoviruses.
It is noteworthy that the research is carried out in close proximity to the borders of Russia – in the areas of the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus.

The project is being implemented with the involvement of not only Ukrainian, but also Georgian biological laboratories controlled by the Pentagon in cooperation with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the US Geological Survey.

The analyzed materials on the UP-8 project, aimed at studying the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine, clearly refute the US public statement that only Ukrainian scientists work in the Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine without the intervention of American biologists. One of the documents confirms that all serious high-risk studies are conducted under the direct supervision of specialists from the United States.

The payroll of Ukrainian contractors clearly demonstrates how they are financed. It has been confirmed that the US Department of Defence paid the money for research participation directly, without the involvement of intermediaries. The extremely modest pay, by US standards, is noteworthy. This indicates a low estimation of the professionalism of Ukrainian specialists and the neglect of their American colleagues.

In addition, the studied materials contain proposals for the expansion of the US military-biological program in Ukraine. Thus, there was evidence of the continuation of completed biological projects UP-2, UP-9, UP-10, aimed at studying the pathogens of anthrax and African swine fever.

The Pentagon is also interested in insect vectors capable of spreading dangerous infectious diseases. The analysis of the obtained materials confirms the transfer of more than 140 containers with ectoparasites of bats – fleas and ticks from the biolab in Kharkov abroad.

cooperative social networking key to helping microbes spread...,

sciencedaily |  Fresh discoveries about how bacteria co-operate with each other when causing infection could help scientists identify animal diseases that might transmit to people.

Bugs that can co-operate best with each other are most likely to be able to jump to new species, including humans, a new study shows.

Bacteria interact by releasing molecules to help them adapt to their environment -- for example, when killing competing infections in their victim. They co-ordinate these actions by releasing tiny amounts of chemicals as signals.

Bacteria that can co-operate to create an environment in which they can thrive are potentially able to infect lots of different species, including humans. Discovering why some diseases are better equipped to infect more species than others -- and therefore could affect humans -- could be valuable in predicting and managing health threats.

Most new human infections arise from diseases that transmit from animals to humans. Many of these cause serious infections and are difficult to control, such as anthrax and the superbug MRSA.

Research led by the University of Edinburgh used a combination of mathematical models and scientific analysis of genetic code in almost 200 types of bacteria. They found that those bugs that carry lots of genes that help them to co-operate are best equipped to adapt to various environments.

Dr Luke McNally of the University of Edinburgh' School of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said: "Humans have been able to colonise almost all of their planet by collectively modifying the environment to suit themselves. Our study shows bugs try to do the same -- co-operation is important for the spread of bacteria to new species."

Who Or What Started It: The Everlasting Gobstopper Account of SARS-CoV2 Outbreak

AHTribune |  The Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, is cutting a broad and deep swath though epidemiological history with uncertain impact on the viability of many families, communities, institutions, economies, and even countries starting with the most heavily populated nation on earth. Many fates are hanging in the balance, not the least of which is that of the communist government that has ruled China since the Maoist Revolution brought it to power in 1949.

The new strain of Coronavirus has added novel genetic features to the same family of pathogens that brought the world the SARS crisis in 2002-3 and, a decade later, the less lethal MERS outbreak. This Novel Coronavirus strain, COVID-19, is showing itself to be much more contagious and lethal than was SARS and MERS.

Some have anticipated that, if not dramatically countered, the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic could be headed in the direction of the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918. This prediction flows from the assessment of, for instance, Prof. Gabriel Leung, Chair of Public Health Medicine at Hong King University. Looking at the very fast rate of COVID-19’s spread from human to human through the air, Dr. Leung challenged any residual sense of complacency. He anticipated a possible 60 per cent infection rate of the world’s entire population with deaths numbering in the many tens of millions.

The so-called Spanish flu has set the bar for how severe and widespread a contagious plague can become. The pandemic of 1918 took more lives in one year than all deaths due to World War II. The Spanish flu of 1918 engendered more mortality in one year than the four peak years of the notorious Black Death Bubonic Plague that decimated Europe in the middle years of the fourteenth century. The worldwide pandemic of 1918 infected over a quarter of all people on earth. About 65 million people died from the illness.

News reports from the ground zero area of the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic demonstrate that the effects of the viral infection cut far and wide. Every facet of Chinese society is being challenged to the limit by a fast-spreading plague disseminating germs of destruction disrupting many biological, political, economic, and knowledge systems simultaneously.

Questions about how to interpret the epidemic and how to explain to the public what is known or not known are quickly coming into focus. Who should be believed? Who is credible and who is not credible as the epidemic unfolds. What should be the role of social media and of whistle blowers in the process of deciding how to respond? What happens when genuine whistle blowers like Dr. Li are too quickly dismissed and reprimanded by ruling authorities as “conspiracy theorists”?

An essential task that must be faced in this initial phase of this crisis is to develop an accurate explanation of where contagion came from and how the first victims of the Novel Coronavirus came to be infected. The need for some degree of certainty about the origins of the virus and its subsequent genesis is absolutely essential to the development of sound and appropriate responses. It would be highly irresponsible to rush ahead with the development of an overall strategy for dealing with the plague without making an honest attempt to get at the truth of how the contagion first came into existence.

The importance of getting to the factual roots of what happened to put humanity on this epidemiological trajectory should be especially clear after the debacle of September 11, 2001. Without any sustained investigation of the 9/11 crimes, Americans were rushed into cycles of seemingly perpetual warfare abroad, police state and surveillance state interventions at home. This cycle of fast responses began within a month of 9/11 with a full-fledge military invasion of Afghanistan, an invasion that continues yet.

When two US Senators, Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle, sought to slow the rush of the US executive into emergency measures and war, they and the US Congress they served were hit hard by a military grade bioweapon, anthrax. The violent tactic of the saboteurs proved effective in easing aside close scrutiny that might have slowed down the fast approval by the end of October of Congress’s massive Patriot Act. 

Since then a seemingly endless cycle of military invasions has been pushed forward in the Middle East and Eurasia. The emergency measure powers claimed by the executive branch of the US government extended to widespread illegal torture, domestic spying, media censorship and a meteoric rise in extrajudicial murders especially by drones. This list is far from complete.

All of these crimes against humanity were justified on the basis of an unproven official explanation of 9/11.  Subsequent scholarly investigations have demonstrated unequivocally for the attentive that officialdom’s explanations of what transpired on the fateful day in September were wrong, severely wrong. The initial interpretations are strongly at variance with the evidentiary record available on the public record.

We must not allow ourselves to be hoodwinked in the same manner once again. The stakes are too large, maybe even larger than was the case in 2001. The misinterpreted and misrepresented events of 9/11 were exploited in conformity with the “Shock Doctrine,” a strategy for instituting litanies of invasive state actions that the public would not otherwise have accepted.

The conscientious portion of humanity, many of whose members have done independent homework of their own on the events of 9/11, will well understand the importance of identifying the actual originating source of the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic.

Why North Korea Wants Nuclear Weapons

counterpunch |  It was the terrible devastation of this bombing campaign, worse than anything seen during World War II short of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that to this day dominates North Korea’s relations with the United States and drives its determination never to submit to any American diktat.

General Curtis Lemay directed this onslaught. It was he who had firebombed Tokyo in March 1945 saying it was “about time we stopped swatting at flies and gone after the manure pile.” It was he who later said that the US “ought to bomb North Vietnam back into the stone age.” Remarking about his desire to lay waste to North Korea he said “We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too.” Lemay was by no means exaggerating.

On November 27, 1950 hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops suddenly crossed the border into North Korea completely overwhelming US forces. Acheson said this was the “worst defeat of American forces since Bull Run.” One famous incident was the battle at the Chosin Reservoir, where 50,000 US marines were surrounded. As they escaped their enclosure they  said they were “advancing to the rear” but in fact all American forces were being routed.

Panic took hold in Washington. Truman now said use of A-bombs was under “active consideration.” MacArthur demanded the bombs… As he put it in his memoirs:

I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs…strung across the neck of Manchuria…and spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea- a belt of radioactive cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years.

Cobalt it should be noted is at least 100 times more radioactive than uranium.

He also expressed a desire for chemicals and gas.

It is well known that MacArthur was fired for insubordination for publically announcing his desire to use nukes. Actually, Truman himself put the nukes at ready and threatened to use them if China launched air raids against American forces. But he did not want to put them under MacArthur’s command because he feared MacArthur would conduct a preemptive strike against China anyway.

By June 1951, one year after the beginning of the war, the communists had pushed UN forces back across the 38th parallel. Chinese ground forces might have been able to push the entire UN force off the peninsula entirely but that would not have negated US naval and air forces, and would have probably resulted in nuclear strikes against the Chinese mainland and that brought the real risk of Soviet entry and all out nuclear exchanges. So from this point on the war became one of attrition, much like the trench warfare of World War I. casualties continued to be high on both sides for the duration of the war which lasted until 1953 when an armistice without reunification was signed.

Of course the victims suffering worst were the civilians. In 1951 the U.S. initiated “Operation Strangle” which officialls estimated killed at least 3 million people on both sides of the 38th parallel, but the figure is probably closer to 4 million. We do not know how many Chinese died – either solders or civilians killed in cross border bombings.

The question of whether the U.S. carried out germ warfare has been raised but has never been fully proved or disproved. The North accused the U.S. of dropping bombs laden with cholera, anthrax, plague, and encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever, all of which turned up among soldiers and civilians in the north. Some American prisoners of war confessed to such war crimes but these were dismissed as evidence of torture by North Korea on Americans. However, none of the U.S. POWs who did confess and were later repatriated were allowed to meet the press. A number of investigations were carried out by scientists from friendly western countries. One of the most prominent concluded the charges were true. At this time the US was engaged in top secret germ-warfare research with captured Nazi and Japanese germ warfare experts, and also experimenting with Sarin, despite its ban by the Geneva Convention. Washington accused the communists of introducing germ warfare.

Russian President Vladimir Putin Lays Out His Economic Plans For The Russian People

kremlin.ru  |  Taking part in our meeting are senior Government officials, plenipotentiary presidential envoys in the federal districts and heads of Russian regions.

We are meeting in a complicate period as our Armed Forces are conducting a special military operation in Ukraine and Donbass. I would like to remind you that at the beginning, on the morning of February 24, I publicly announced the reasons for and the main goal of Russia’s actions. It is to help our people in Donbass, who have been subjected to real genocide for nearly eight years in the most barbarous ways, that is, through blockade, large-scale punitive operations, terrorist attacks and constant artillery raids. Their only guilt was that they demanded basic human rights: to live according to their forefathers’ laws and traditions, to speak their native language, and to bring up their children as they want.

During these years, the Kiev authorities have ignored and sabotaged the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures for a peaceful settlement of the crisis and ultimately late last year openly refused to implement it.

They also started to implement plans to join NATO. Moreover, the Kiev authorities also announced their intention to have nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. This was a real threat. With foreign technical support, the pro-Nazi Kiev regime would have obtained weapons of mass destruction in the foreseeable future and, of course, would have targeted them against Russia.

There was a network of dozens of laboratories in Ukraine, where military biological programmes were conducted under the guidance and with the financial support of the Pentagon, including experiments with coronavirus strains, anthrax, cholera, African swine fever and other deadly diseases. Frantic attempts are being made to conceal traces of these secret programmes. However, we have grounds to assume that components of biological weapons were being created in direct proximity to Russia on the territory of Ukraine.

Our numerous warnings that such developments posed a direct threat to the security of Russia were rejected with open and cynical arrogance by Ukraine and its US and NATO patrons.

In other words, all our diplomatic efforts were fully in vain. We have been left with no peaceful alternative to settle the problems that developed through no fault of ours. In this situation, we were forced to begin this special military operation.

The movement of Russian forces against Kiev and other Ukrainian cities is not connected with a desire to occupy that country. This is not our goal, as I pointed out openly in my statement on February 24.

As for the combat tactics drafted by the Defence Ministry of Russia and the General Staff, this has fully justified itself. Our fellows – soldiers and officers – are displaying courage and heroism and are doing all they can to avoid civilian losses in Ukrainian cities.

This is what I would like to say for the first time: at the very start of the operation in Donbass, the Kiev authorities were offered opportunities to avoid hostilities, via different channels, to simply withdraw their troops from Donbass as an alternative to bloodshed. They did not want to do this. Well, this was their decision; now they will understand what is happening in reality, on the ground.

The operation is being carried out successfully, in strict conformity with the approved plan.

I must note that, encouraged by the United States and other Western countries, Ukraine was purposefully preparing for a scenario of force, a massacre and an ethnic cleansing in Donbass. A massive onslaught on Donbass and later Crimea was just a matter of time. However, our Armed Forces have shattered these plans.

Kiev was not just preparing for war, for aggression against Russia – it was conducting it. There were endless attempts to stage acts of subversion and organise a terrorist underground in Crimea. Hostilities in Donbass and the shelling of peaceful residential areas have continued all these years. Almost 14,000 civilians, including children have been killed over this time.

As you know, there was a missile strike at the centre of Donetsk on March 14. This was an overt bloody act of terror that took over 20 lives. Shelling has been ongoing during the past few days. They are striking randomly at squares with the fervor of fanatics and the exasperation of the doomed. They are acting like the Nazis did when they tried to drag as many innocent victims as they could to their graves.

But what is shocking in its extreme cynicism is not just Kiev’s blatant lies and statements that Russia allegedly launched this missile at Donetsk (they have gone as far as this), but the attitude of the so-called civilised world. The European and American press did not even notice this tragedy in Donetsk, as if nothing happened.

This is how they have been hypocritically looking the other way over the past eight years as mothers buried their children in Donbass, as elderly people were killed. This is simply moral degradation, complete de-humanisation.

It was no longer possible to tolerate this outrageous attitude towards the people of Donbass. To put an end to this genocide, Russia recognized the people’s republics of Donbass and signed treaties of friendship and mutual aid with them. Based on these treaties, the republics appealed to Russia for military aid in rebuffing the aggression. We rendered this aid because we simply could not do otherwise. We had no right to act otherwise.

I would like to emphasise this point and draw your attention to it: if our troops had acted only within the people's republics and helped them liberate their territory, it would not have been a final solution, it would not have led to peace and would not have ultimately removed the threat – to our country, this time to Russia. On the contrary, a new frontline would have been extended around Donbass and its borders, and shelling and provocations would have continued. In other words, this armed conflict would have continued indefinitely. It would have been fuelled by the revanchist hysteria of the Kiev regime, as NATO deployed its military infrastructure faster and more aggressively. In this case, we would have been faced with the fact that the attack, the offensive weapons of the alliance were already at our borders.

I will repeat – we had no alternative for self-defence, for ensuring Russia's security, to this special military operation. We will reach the goals we set. We will certainly ensure the security of Russia and our people and will never allow Ukraine to be a bridgehead for aggressive actions against our country.

We remain ready to discuss matters of fundamental importance to Russia’s future during the talks. This includes Ukraine’s status as a neutral country, and demilitarisation and denazification. Our country has done everything it could to organise and hold these talks realising that it is important to use every opportunity to save people and their lives.

But time and time again we see that the Kiev regime, which its Western handlers have charged with the task of creating an aggressive “anti-Russia” stance, does not care about the future of the people of Ukraine. They do not care that people are dying, that hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people had to flee their homes, and that a horrendous humanitarian disaster is unfolding in the cities controlled by the neo-Nazis and armed criminals who were cut loose.

Clearly, Kiev’s Western patrons are just pushing them to continue the bloodshed. They incessantly supply Kiev with weapons and intelligence, as well as other types of assistance, including military advisers and mercenaries.

They are using economic, financial, trade and other sanctions against Russia as weapons, but these sanctions have backfired in Europe and in the United States where prices of gasoline, energy and food have shot up, and jobs in the industries associated with the Russian market have been cut. So, do not shift the blame on us and do not accuse our country of everything that goes wrong in your countries.

I want ordinary Western people hear me, too. You are being persistently told that your current difficulties are the result of Russia’s hostile actions and that you have to pay for the efforts to counter the alleged Russian threat from your own pockets. All of that is a lie.

The truth is that the problems faced by millions of people in the West are the result of many years of actions by the ruling elite of your respective countries, their mistakes, and short-sighted policies and ambitions. This elite is not thinking about how to improve the lives of their citizens in Western countries. They are obsessed with their own self-serving interests and super profits.

This can be seen in the data provided by international organisations, which clearly show that social problems, even in the leading Western countries, have exacerbated in recent years, that inequality and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and racial and ethnic conflicts are making themselves felt. The myth of the Western welfare society, the so-called golden billion, is crumbling.

To reiterate, the whole planet is now paying for the West’s ambitions and the West’s attempts to maintain its elusive dominance by any means possible.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov - Bio Weapons Briefing Sep 19 - Geneva

VK  |  A meeting of States parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons was held in Geneva from 5 to 9 September in connection with the violation of articles I and IV of the Convention by the United States and Ukraine, initiated by the Russian Federation.

The Russian Ministry of Defense analyzed the materials of speeches made by representatives of the United States and Ukraine, working documents of the participating states, joint statements and the final document of the meeting.

Recall that the Russian Federation was asked more than 20 questions concerning the illegal activities of Kiev and Washington in the framework of the BTWC. Here are some of them.

What is the reason for the choice of pathogenic microorganisms studied on the territory of Ukraine within the framework of the Threat Reduction Program and why the nomenclature of pathogens studied is not related to current health problems, for example, the Tep-6 project on the study of the glanders pathogen, cases of which have never been recorded on the territory of Ukraine?

How should the accumulation of highly dangerous strains of infections and their transfer to other countries contribute to improving the state of infectious diseases?

Why was the emphasis placed on studying natural foci and particularly dangerous infections, which according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists are considered potential agents of biological weapons?

What studies using infectious agents and toxic substances were conducted on Ukrainian military personnel and the mentally ill, who are one of the most vulnerable categories of citizens?

And finally, why do the United States and Ukraine hide the facts of cooperation in the military-biological sphere in international reporting under the BTWC, while the United States has blocked the development of its verification mechanism since 2001?

The meeting participants were presented with copies of real documents previously announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as material evidence confirming the implementation of military biological programs on the territory of Ukraine.

None of the delegations had any doubts about the authenticity of the submitted documents, including the accumulation of pathogenic materials in Ukrainian laboratories, including the Mechnikov Anti-Plague Institute.

In its speech, Ukraine acknowledged the fact that the institute was inspected by a commission of the Ministry of Health, noting that the QUOTE: "... 80 percent of violations were eliminated...". At the same time, the Ukrainian side completely ignored questions about the unjustified storage of dangerous biological agents on the basis of the institution and revealed gross violations of the conditions for their accumulation: storage of biomaterials in stairwells, the lack of a functioning access control system for pathogenic microorganisms.

No explanation was received regarding the nomenclature of accumulated strains of dangerous pathogens, although 19 studies aimed at studying potential agents of biological weapons (Congo-Crimean fever, hantaviruses, anthrax and tularemia) and economically significant ones have been implemented in Ukraine since 2008 under the projects codenamed "Yu-Pi" and "Tep". infections (African and classical swine fever, Newcastle disease).

Neither Ukraine nor the United States has provided convincing evidence that cooperation has helped improve the sanitary and epidemiological situation, which has steadily worsened over the past 15 years.

The practical results of the activities of the US Department of Defense's Office for Threat Reduction DITRA in Ukraine presented during the meeting were reduced to a demonstration of several photos of renovated laboratory facilities. Most likely, apart from these pseudo "achievements", no other results were achieved.

The explanations of the United States and Ukraine regarding the export of strains and biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens and compliance with ethical standards when conducting research on military personnel, low – income citizens, as well as on one of the most unprotected categories of the population-patients in psychiatric hospitals looked extremely unconvincing.

When discussing this issue, the American delegation acknowledged such facts, while noting that the transfer of samples of pathogenic biomaterials to the United States QUOTE: "...was infrequent...".

Apart from this wording, which does not allow estimating the volume and frequency of bioassays transferred abroad, no other explanations were provided to the meeting participants.

Some Saw Opportunity?

Yes, that's former general and Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up a vial of anthrax - part of the generalized misrepresentations alleging that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.

In the lead-up to the invasion, the U.S. and UK emphasized the argument that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction" and thus presented an imminent threat to his neighbors, to the U.S., and to the world community. The US stated "on November 8, 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441. All fifteen members of the Security Council agreed to give Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its obligations and disarm or face the serious consequences of failing to disarm. The resolution strengthened the mandate of the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), giving them authority to go anywhere, at any time and talk to anyone in order to verify Iraq’s disarmament." Throughout late 2001, 2002, and early 2003, the Bush Administration worked to build a case for invading Iraq, culminating in then Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the Security Council. Shortly after the invasion, the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies largely discredited evidence related to Iraqi weapons and, as well as links to Al Qaeda, and at this point the Bush and Blair Administrations began to shift to secondary rationales for the war, such as the Hussein government's human rights record and promoting democracy in Iraq.

Accusations of faulty evidence and alleged shifting rationales became the focal point for critics of the war, who charge that the Bush Administration purposely fabricated evidence to justify an invasion it long planned to launch.

Many opine that the U.S. was conscientious in its pursuit of the Iraqi WMD artifacts. Given that the Pentagon and foggy bottom probably still had the invoices and receipts for much of that material, their level of concern was warranted.

Who can say?

From where I sit, it's already just another one of history's mysteries and an anomalous link in the chain of elite rule and the narratives supporting the same. Always interesting to see how a face and a voice invested with such trust and gravitas as Powell's could be associated with something so rank, dank, and stank. The lesson, I suppose, is to always critically examine the facts and the statements and to scrupulously ignore the feelings that the spokesperson evokes. If it bolsters public confidence and is expedient to the narrative aims - TPTB have access to a stellar cast of characters that can be deployed against public confidence building objectives.....,

Who Believes The Military Simply Stopped Arcane Human Experimentation?

antiwar  |  Has the government become any more humane, any more respectful of the rights of the citizenry?

Has it become any more transparent or willing to abide by the rule of law? Has it become any more truthful about its activities? Has it become any more cognizant of its appointed role as a guardian of our rights?

Or has the government simply hunkered down and hidden its nefarious acts and dastardly experiments under layers of secrecy, legalism and obfuscations? Has it not become wilier, more slippery, more difficult to pin down?

Having mastered the Orwellian art of Doublespeak and followed the Huxleyan blueprint for distraction and diversion, are we not dealing with a government that is simply craftier and more conniving that it used to be?

Consider this: after revelations about the government’s experiments spanning the 20^th century spawned outrage, the government began looking for human guinea pigs in other countries, where “clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules.”

In Guatemala, prisoners and patients at a mental hospital were infected with syphilis, “apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease.” In Uganda, U.S.-funded doctors “failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study… even though it would have protected their newborns.” Meanwhile, in Nigeria, children with meningitis were used to test an antibiotic named Trovan. Eleven children died and many others were left disabled.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Case in point: back in 2016, it was announced that scientists working for the Department of Homeland Security would begin releasing various gases and particles on crowded subway platforms as part of an experiment aimed at testing bioterror airflow in New York subways.

The government insisted that the gases released into the subways by the DHS were nontoxic and did not pose a health risk. It’s in our best interests, they said, to understand how quickly a chemical or biological terrorist attack might spread. And look how cool the technology is – said the government cheerleaders – that scientists can use something called DNATrax to track the movement of microscopic substances in air and food. (Imagine the kinds of surveillance that could be carried out by the government using trackable airborne microscopic substances you breathe in or ingest.)

Mind you, this is the same government that in 1949 sprayed bacteria into the Pentagon’s air handling system, then the world’s largest office building. In 1950, special ops forces sprayed bacteria from Navy ships off the coast of Norfolk and San Francisco, in the latter case exposing all of the city’s 800,000 residents.

In 1953, government operatives staged “mock” anthrax attacks on St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Winnipeg using generators placed on top of cars. Local governments were reportedly told that “‘invisible smokescreen[s]’ were being deployed to mask the city on enemy radar.” Later experiments covered territory as wide-ranging as Ohio to Texas and Michigan to Kansas.

In 1965, the government’s experiments in bioterror took aim at Washington’s National Airport, followed by a 1966 experiment in which army scientists exposed a million subway NYC passengers to airborne bacteria that causes food poisoning.

And this is the same government that has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests – GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc. – and used it against us, to track, control and trap us.

So, no, I don’t think the government’s ethics have changed much over the years. It’s just taken its nefarious programs undercover.

The question remains: why is the government doing this? The answer is always the same: money, power and total domination.

It’s the same answer no matter which totalitarian regime is in power.

The mindset driving these programs has, appropriately, been likened to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews. As the Holocaust Museum recounts, Nazi physicians “conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.”

The Nazi’s unethical experiments ran the gamut from freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia, tests to determine the maximum altitude for parachuting out of a plane, injecting prisoners with malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis, exposing prisoners to phosgene and mustard gas, and mass sterilization experiments.

The horrors being meted out against the American people can be traced back, in a direct line, to the horrors meted out in Nazi laboratories. In fact, following the second World War, the US government recruited many of Hitler’s employees, adopted his protocols, embraced his mindset about law and order and experimentation, and implemented his tactics in incremental steps.

when agricultural science goes really wrong....,

NYTimes | With the F.B.I. preparing to close the case, The New York Times has taken the deepest look so far at the investigation, speaking to dozens of Dr. Ivins’s colleagues and friends, reading hundreds of his e-mail messages, interviewing former bureau investigators and anthrax experts, reviewing court records, and obtaining, for the first time, police reports on his suicide in July, including a lengthy recorded interview with his wife.

That examination found that unless new evidence were to surface, the enormous public investment in the case would appear to have yielded nothing more persuasive than a strong hunch, based on a pattern of damning circumstances, that Dr. Ivins was the perpetrator.

Focused for years on the wrong man, the bureau missed ample clues that Dr. Ivins deserved a closer look. Only after a change of leadership nearly five years after the attacks did the bureau more fully look into Dr. Ivins’s activities. That delay, and his death, may have put a more definitive outcome out of reach.

Brad Garrett, a respected F.B.I. veteran who helped early in the case before his retirement, said logic and evidence point to Dr. Ivins as the most likely perpetrator.

“Does that absolutely prove he did it? No,” Mr. Garrett said. With no confession and no trial, he said, “you’re going to be left not getting over the top of the mountain.”

We've endeavored to look at this story just a little bit hereabouts. This is the NYTimes swan song narrative account. It's a very lengthy story, well worth reading. Not because it clarifies or closes the subject which it addresses, but because it exemplifies the mystifying interstitial space between and accounting of the sundry institutions, apparatuses and operatives of the state and of the Deep State.

preparedness plans in place...,

WaPo | The Bush administration implemented an $8 billion pandemic flu planning program that created a detailed national blueprint and funneled millions of dollars to state and local governments to create and rehearse their own plans.

After the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the World Health Organization instituted measures that heightened the world's ability to identify and respond swiftly to outbreaks. They included international regulations that call for countries to report worrisome outbreaks quickly and a revised pandemic threat alert system, which was ratcheted up quickly last week.

So when reports emerged from Mexico of a new virus that most people might have no immunity against, and that appeared to be spreading easily from person to person and -- in an eerie echo of 1918 -- was killing healthy young adults, the world went on high alert.

"If what was being reported in Mexico played out in the United States and elsewhere, this was a potentially serious epidemic that was getting underway," Inglesby said. "We had to respond quickly."

The reaction has also been influenced by political missteps in previous emergencies, including the mixed messages and poor communication about the 2001 anthrax letters and the slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

AP | "If we do move into a pandemic, then our expectation is that we will see a large number of people infected worldwide," Fukuda said. "If you look at past pandemics, it would be a reasonable estimate to say perhaps a third of the world's population would get infected with this virus."

With the current total population of more than 6 billion, that would mean an infection total of 2 billion, he said, but added that the world has changed since pandemics of earlier generations, and experts are unable to predict if the impact will be greater or smaller.

system failure

The Nation | There is a widespread consensus that the decade we've just brought to a close was singularly disastrous for the country: the list of scandals, crises and crimes is so long that events that in another context would stand out as genuine lowlights--Enron and Arthur Andersen's collapse, the 2003 Northeast blackout, the unsolved(!) anthrax attacks--are mere afterthoughts. We still don't have a definitive name for this era, though Paul Krugman's 2003 book The Great Unraveling captures well the sense of slow, inexorable dissolution; and the final crisis of the era, what we call the Great Recession, similarly expresses the sense that even our disasters aren't quite epic enough to be cataclysmic. But as a character in Tracy Letts's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, August: Osage County, says, "Dissipation is actually much worse than cataclysm."

American progressives were the first to identify that something was deeply wrong with the direction the country was heading in and the first to provide a working hypothesis for the cause: George W. Bush. During the initial wave of antiwar mobilization, in 2002, much of the ire focused on Bush himself. But as the decade stretched on, the causal account of the country's problems grew outward in concentric circles: from Bush to his administration (most significantly, Cheney) to the Republican Party to--finally (and not inaccurately)--the entire project of conservative governance.

As much of the country came to share some version of this view (tenuously, but share it they did), the result was a series of Democratic electoral sweeps and a generation of Americans, the Millennials, with more liberal views than any of their elder cohorts. But it always seemed possible that the sheer reactionary insanity of the Bush administration would have a conservatizing effect on the American polity. Because things had gone so wrong, it was a more than natural reaction to long for the good old days; the Clinton years, characterized by deregulation and bubbles, seemed tantalizingly placid and prosperous in retrospect. The atavistic imperialism of the Bush administration had a way of making the pre-Bush foreign policy of soft imperialism and subtle bullying look positively saintly.

Toward the end of the decade, as the establishment definitively rebuked Bush and sought to distance itself from his failures, the big-tent center-left coalition took on an influential constituency--the Colin Powells and Warren Buffetts--who didn't want reform so much as they wanted restoration. This was reflected in a strange internal tension in the Obama campaign rhetoric that simultaneously promised both: change you can believe in and, as Obama said at a March 2008 appearance in Pennsylvania, a foreign policy that is "actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father."

If the working hypothesis that bound this unwieldy coalition together--independents, most liberals and the Washington establishment--was that the nation's troubles were chiefly caused by the occupants of the White House, then this past year has served as a kind of natural experiment. We changed the independent variable (the party and people in power) and can observe the results. It is hard, I think, to come to any conclusion but that the former hypothesis was insufficient.

So what, exactly, is it that ails us?

Controlavirus: Timelines And Narratives And Set-Ups - Oh My!!!

strategic-culture |  There may have been subtle hints of slightly increased activity at clinics in Wuhan in late November and early December. But at the time nobody – Chinese doctors, the government, not to mention U.S. intel – could have possibly known what was really happening.

China could not be “covering up” what was only identified as a new disease on December 30, duly communicated to the WHO. Then, on January 3, the head of the American CDC, Robert Redfield, called the top Chinese CDC official. Chinese doctors sequenced the virus. And only on January 8 it was determined this was Sars-Cov-2 – which provokes Covid-19.

This chain of events reopens, once again, a mighty Pandora’s box. We have the quite timely Event 201; the cozy relationship between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the WHO, as well as the Word Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins galaxy in Baltimore, including the Bloomberg School of Public Health; the ID2020 digital ID/vaccine combo; Dark Winter – which simulated a smallpox bio-attack on the U.S., before the 2001 anthrax attack being blamed on Iraq; U.S. Senators dumping stocks after a CDC briefing; more than 1,300 CEOs abandoning their cushy perches in 2019, “forecasting” total market collapse; the Fed pouring helicopter money already in September 2019 – as part of QE4.

And then, validating the ABC News report, Israel steps in. Israeli intel confirms U.S. intel did in fact warn them in November about a potentially catastrophic pandemic in Wuhan (once again: how could they possibly know that on the second week of November, so early in the game?) And NATO allies were warned – in November – as well.

The bottom line is explosive: the Trump administration as well as the CDC had an advance warning of no less than four months – from November to March – to be properly prepared for Covid-19 hitting the U.S. And they did nothing. The whole “China is a witch!” case is debunked.

Moreover, the Israeli disclosure supports what’s nothing less than extraordinary: U.S. intel already knew about Sars-Cov-2 roughly one month before the first confirmed cases detected by doctors in a Wuhan hospital. Talk about divine intervention.

That could only have happened if U.S. intel knew, for sure, about a previous chain of events that would necessarily lead to the “mysterious outbreak” in Wuhan. And not only that: they knew exactly where to look. Not in Inner Mongolia, not in Beijing, not in Guangdong province.

It’s never enough to repeat the question in full: how could U.S. intel have known about a contagion one month before Chinese doctors detected an unknown virus?

Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo may have given away the game when he said, on the record, that Covid-19 was a “live exercise”. Adding to the ABC News and Israeli reports, the only possible, logical conclusion is that the Pentagon – and the CIA – knew ahead of time a pandemic would be inevitable.

That’s the smokin’ gun. And now the full weight of the United States government is covering all bases by proactively, and retroactively, blaming China.

ANY Chance Rochelle Bersoff-Walensky's Daddy's Thumb Was On The Scale Of The CDC Director's Selection?

profilesinsuccess  |  Ed’s wife, Marilynn, was beside him every step of the way through the BTG journey. In fact, several years before they married, she left CTEC and became Ed’s first employee at BTG. “She’s my moral compass,” he says. “Through all the ups and downs, she’s always kept me on the straight and narrow, and is an exceptional judge of character. She’s got this sense about her, and she keeps me grounded.” Ed is also grounded by his remarkable daughters—one a research physician and professor at Harvard Medical School, and the other a practicing physician in DC who successfully treated one of the anthrax patients. “As proud as my parents were of me when I showed them my speech at the White House, I’m equally proud of my daughters,” says Ed.

Ok I'll weigh in. The question for me isn't whether it's okay to express schadenfreude wrt Walensky. It's how can we pressure her, as executor of a family trust whose $ comes from her father's role in Titan Corporation, to pay reparations to Titan's torture victims in Abu Ghraib

— Justin Feldman (@jfeldman_epi) October 23, 2022

Ed’s engagement in the business community has remained strong in the wake of selling BTG. In 2006, he joined with a team of investors to form a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation, raising $126 million in the public market to purchase a civilian government contractor called ATS Corporation. Ed served as CEO of ATS, leading it to flourish until it was sold in 2010 to Salient Technologies, Inc.

Ed then shifted his focus full-time to his participation in nonprofit and for-profit boards—commitments he has prioritized since 1984.  Using his “Seven P’s” as guiding beacons, he has served as a Board member, Advisor, or Committee member of over fifty organizations, including Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the Technology Work Group of the Virginia Economic Recovery Commission, and Holy Cross Hospital.

Education, as well, has remained a passion for Ed, and although full-time academic teaching never became the focal point of his career, he taught mathematics at NYU and Kingsborough Community College. During his tenure at NASA, he taught similar courses at Boston University and Northeastern University. Later on, he continued to teach at American University, the University of Maryland, and George Mason University. He served as President of the Board of Directors of the Northern Virginia Community College Educational Foundation, as well as on the Board of Trustees at Virginia Commonwealth University. One of his greatest honors came when he was asked to serve on the Board of Trustees at New York University, his Alma Mater, and more recently, he was invited by Governor Terry McAuliffe to serve on the Board of the Virginia 529 Program. “It’s a lot of fun,” he says. “We have to think about how you finance a college education, and what the return on capital for that education will look like in 20 years.”

In advising young people entering the working world today, Ed underscores the importance of commitment as a foundation for laying out the Seven P’s. “Nothing is easy,” he says. “Don’t flounder. Figure out what you want to do and then go do it. And when you face setbacks, remember you have two choices. You can go back to bed and hide, or you can go to work and put on a brave face. Those moments will be your waypoints, and I hope you choose to do what you have to do, rather than what you might want to do in that moment.”

Beyond that, Ed has found that the Seven P’s tend to lead people to that ideal ground where altruism and self-interest intersect. “Self-interest is fine, but never at the expense of others,” he says. “Altruism is wonderful, but you can’t have a mission without money. I think the real value set is all about pursuing something of importance, but in a business-like way so you ensure you have the resources to actually accomplish it.”

From his days delivering papers and playing street ball in Manhattan, to his introduction of President Bill Clinton at the White House, to his legacy of leadership throughout the DC business community, Ed’s astounding accomplishments are the projection of the mission sense that has always guided him—a pixel-precise vision he hopes the entire country will reclaim with time. “When I graduated from college and started work at NASA, every single person in that organization—and across the U.S.—was aligned and motivated in our goal to make it to the moon,” he reflects. “Now, I attribute our national sense of malaise to the fact that we’ve lost our mission sense as a country. Everyone needs that object called mission—the new moon that inspires them to write their future, and then go out and live it.”

Why Did Neftali Bennett Have To Urgently Pay V.V. Putin A Visit?

gilbertdoctorow  |  In recent days, in what is surely a coordinated action by NATO and European authorities acting hand in glove, Russian news broadcasters have been taken off servers in Europe and effectively made inaccessible to the entire European public.  This modern day “jamming” concerns not just RT or Sputnik, the best known state owned voices of Russia because they broadcast in English and other languages that we all know, but virtually every news outlet based in Russia, public and privately owned, and broadcasting in the Russian language.

In this regard, EU Member States are waging an Information War of greatest significance that is absolutely not mentioned, let alone discussed in Western media, whether mainstream or otherwise. The victim is the European public, which, if bad turns to worse, will not know what hit them and why when cruise or hypersonic missiles descend on NATO bases or infrastructure. This enforced silence prevents Western civil society from taking any steps to save its own neck in what have become wartime conditions on the Continent.

The blockage is not uniformly enforced at all times, so that some Russian print and video producers can be accessed at one moment or another before going black.

In particular, one vitally important 3.30 minute video of Russian military spokesman Igor Konoshenkov yesterday and this morning remains accessible on youtube. I will detail below what he was saying, because the messenger and the message concern whether you and I will live to see another day.

Konoshenkov’s points in this video were the following:

1) Russia has now destroyed the entire Ukrainian air force that remained within the confines of Ukraine

2) There are also Ukrainian fighter jets that left the country and are now parked in Romania and other neighboring countries. If these planes are allowed by local authorities to take off from Romania, etc. and enter Ukrainian air space, Russia will consider the country from which they took off as a co-belligerent and will take appropriate action against them. The subtext is that Russia is ready to make missile strikes against NATO airfields that transgress the rules of war.

3) Russia is now about to destroy all military industrial complex factories in Ukraine and has formally warned all employees of these factories to leave the premises and stay away

4) Russia has received documentation from Ukrainian health authorities on the production of biological weapons  (anthrax, Siberian plague and much more) by Ukrainian labs in Kharkiv and elsewhere in cooperation with the United States. Stocks of such weapons were being stored in direct violation of international conventions.  On 24 February, in advance of the start of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, the Ukrainian health authorities destroyed these illicit biological weapons. However, Russia has obtained the official documentation certifying this destruction of what should never have been there. Moscow is now studying this documentation, which indicates United States participation in the development of the biological weapons and will publish the incriminating documents, starting from yesterday.

5) Russia has also obtained documentation proving that Ukraine, in cooperation with the United States, was since the presidency of Petro Petrushenko, actively developing nuclear weapons, including “dirty” nuclear devices using readily available fuel from its reactors.  Such activity was going on in the Zaporozhye nuclear plants, and it is very likely that the fire reported at a ‘training unit’ adjacent to an active reactor two days ago related to destruction of incriminating papers, if it was not otherwise a ‘false flag’ operation to allege a Russian attack on the power station, in violation of international law.

Directed Evolution Via Phage Display

thescientist |  Caltech’s Frances Arnold, who advanced a technique called directed evolution to shape the function of enzymes, has received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry today (October 3). She shares the honor with George Smith, now emeritus professor of the University of Missouri, and Gregory Winter, emeritus group leader at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, UK. Smith and Winter are both recognized for their work on a lab technique known as phage display in the directed evolution of new proteins—in particular, for the production of antibody therapeutics.

“I’d like to congratulate this year’s laureates for their tremendous breakthrough work in using chemistry to speed nature's own processes,” Peter Dourhout, president of the American Chemical Society, says in a statement. “The breakthroughs from these researchers enable that to occur thousands of times faster than nature to improve medicines, fuels and other products. This is truly directed evolution using chemistry.”

First reported by Smith in 1985, phage display involves the introduction of foreign DNA coding for a protein, such as an antibody, into a bacteriophage—a virus that infects bacteria. That protein is then displayed on the surface of the phage. Researchers can use these protein-displaying phages to screen for interactions with other proteins, DNA sequences, and small molecules. 

Speaking to the Associated Press this morning, Smith emphasized the role of others’ work in his achievement. “Very few research breakthroughs are novel,” he says. “Virtually all of them build on what went before. . . . That was certainly the case with my work.”

Winter, who cofounded the biotech company Cambridge Antibody Technology in 1989, developed the technique for the purpose of finding novel therapeutics. In 1993, his research group used phage display to successfully isolate fragments of human antibodies that could bind specific antigens. The genes for these fragments could be expressed in bacteria, the team reported, and could offer a “promising alternative” to mouse-based methods for the “production of antibodies against cell surface molecules.”

In 2002, adalimumab (Humira), a therapeutic produced by this approach, was approved by European and US regulators for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Speaking in 2006, Winter called the approval “the sort of thing I’m most proud of.” The technique has since been used to isolate molecules against autoimmune diseases, multiple cancers, and bacteria such as Bacillus anthracis—the cause of anthrax.

Bad Faith Lawfare Against Dr. Meryl Nass

childrenshealthdefense  | Dr. Meryl Nass today filed suit against the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine and its individual members, alleging the board violated her First Amendment rights and her rights under the Maine Constitution.

The complaint alleges the board engaged in retaliatory conduct against Nass, a practicing internal medicine physician and member of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory board, when the board suspended her medical license for publicly expressing her dissenting views on official COVID-19 policies, the COVID-19 vaccine and alternative treatments.

“Because she was outspoken, the board targeted Dr. Nass as someone to silence,” her attorney, Gene Libby told The Defender.

In fall 2021, the board issued a position statement, quoted in the complaint, stating that licensees could face disciplinary action if they “generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation.”

In October 2021, soon after the statement was issued, the board received a complaint alleging Nass was spreading misinformation online and soon after launched an investigation.

The board suspended Nass’ medical license on Jan. 12, 2022, without a hearing, accusing her of engaging in “unprofessional conduct” by spreading “misinformation about COVID-19.”

It also accused her of improperly prescribing hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for three patients for off-label uses of those drugs.

The board suspended Nass’ license and ordered a neuropsychological evaluation, implying she was mentally impaired or a substance abuser and incompetent to practice medicine.

“There were no grounds to order a mental health examination,” Libby said. “That was simply a means to communicate to the public that there was something wrong with Dr. Nass, to discredit her and tarnish her reputation.”

After Nass moved to have the board dismiss its complaint against her, alleging First Amendment violations, the board on Sept. 26, 2022, withdrew its accusations of “misinformation”, just prior to her first hearing date, Oct. 11, 2022.

The board’s case now rests on Nass’ alleged non-adherence to the medical “standard of care” as it pertained to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19 and on the alleged “record-keeping” issues.

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Nass told The Defender:

“The two primary complaints against me were that my statements were misleading and that I was prescribing drugs off-label. My speech — which I should note, was not simply opinion, it was an educated opinion developed after consulting the medical literature — is protected by the First Amendment.

“And prescribing drugs off-label is a perfectly legal thing to do, as explicitly stated on the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] website. Somewhere between 20-50% of drugs are prescribed off-label. The lawyers on the board staff know all of this. It’s their job to know the law with respect to medicine.

“They didn’t do this because they thought I had committed some kind of violation. They did it because they thought I’m older and I wouldn’t have the money to challenge them and so they could get away with it — they thought they could turn me into a poster child to scare all the doctors in the country.

“It is part of this broader attempt by the U.S. government and governments across the world to criminalize dissent by criminalizing so-called ‘misinformation.’”

Libby said the remaining allegations against Dr. Nass “are simply a pretext to discipline her. Because now, from an institutional standpoint, the board has to do something. She’s been under suspension for 19 months, which is the longest suspension that I’m aware of for any physician in the state.”

The board refused to schedule hearings on Nass’ suspension on consecutive days. Instead, it has held one day of hearings every other month. There have been six days of hearings so far over 10 months — and Nass’ license has been suspended the entire time.

“This is fundamentally unfair to Dr. Nass, but she’s within the grip of an institution that doesn’t want her speaking out,” Libby said.

In her lawsuit, Nass alleges the board and its members used their power to “crush dissenting views and chill disfavored speech.”

Nass is asking the court for declaratory relief, for an injunction to stop the board from continuing to retaliate against her and for monetary damages and legal fees.

CHD is providing financial and legal resources to Nass’ Maine-based legal team.

CHD President Mary Holland told The Defender:

“CHD is proud to support Dr. Nass’ lawsuit against the Maine medical board and its individual members.

“The board and its members have deprived Dr. Nass of her license and livelihood for over a year with no basis whatsoever. This kind of censorship, intimidation and punishment of doctors of conscience must stop.

“People need independent, thoughtful, caring physicians like Dr. Nass to be honored, not hounded as the board has done.

“I am pleased to see this case move forward in the courts in the interests of justice, for Dr. Nass, her patients and the broader society.”

Board provided resources to ‘combat spread of vaccine misinformation’

The Maine board’s Fall 2021 position statement expressed its support for a statement by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) — a private organization with no regulatory authority — which threatened physicians “who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation” with suspension or revocation of their medical license.

According to the statement, physicians have a high degree of public trust and therefore a responsibility to “share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health.”

The Maine board’s statement endorsed the FSMB statement, encouraged physicians to address misinformation when encountered, directed physicians to use circulated materials from the American Medical Association (AMA) and said that questioning the COVID-19 vaccine qualifies as “misinformation,” according to the complaint.

The AMA materials provide scripts, talking points and strategies for “combating the spread of vaccine misinformation.”

The Maine board’s chair, Dr. Maroulla Gleaton, is also an FSMB director.

Nass is a widely recognized expert on the anthrax vaccine and biological warfare. She testified before Congress six times and was quoted in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.