Western Lies About The War In Ukraine

sonar21  |  If you want to know how the war is going in Ukraine, you only needed to take note of one piece of “news” today–Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called his Russian counterpart:

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon announced on Friday.

The call lasted approximately an hour and was at the request of Austin, who used the first call between the two in 84 days to urge Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to implement an “immediate ceasefire,” according to a brief readout of the call. The two last spoke on February 18, a week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

CNN

If Russia was losing or completely stuck in Ukraine, one would expect that Sergei Shoigu would be the guy calling Austin and begging for mercy. Well, that is not what happened. It was Austin that placed the call, apparently unconcerned about his recent public call to weaken Russia. Why would Austin urge Shoigu to implement an “immediate ceasefire” if Russia was getting its ass kicked? Russia getting whipped by Ukraine is exactly what Austin has called for. Remember?

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. . .”

If Russia is on the ropes, why call off the beating? You call off the fight when its your guy getting pummeled. The Russian offensive in the Donbass has ramped up significantly in the last week and it is carving up entrenched Ukrainian units with no hope of being reinforced or rescued by a counter-offensive.

The situation in Mariupol is returning to normal and Russia controls the city. The Russians are restoring electrical and water services and providing food to the population.

Ukrainian counter-attack reaches Russian border and threatens to break Donbas supply line.

LIE–The Ukrainians have not reached the Russian border and at least one Russian Battalion Tactical Group has crossed the Severs Donetsk river and are expanding their position south toward Kharkiv. But this is a sideshow. The area is isolated and there is only one significant road running from Kharkiv to Belgorod in Russia.

DOUBLE LIE–There is zero threat to the “DONBAS SUPPLY LINE.” Those lines are south and east of Kharkiv. Just look at the map–the Donbas with the city of Luhansk is prominently displayed. Kharkiv is 230 miles northwest of Luhansk.

The map does get two things right–the Russia has taken Avdiivka and has surrounded Ukrainian troops at Severodonetsk. It is because of the progress Russia is making in the Donetsk that Lloyd Austin called Sergei Shoigu to beg for some mercy. I suspect that General Shoigu told Austin, идите стучите по песку (which is Russian for “go pound sand.”)

One more observation regarding the supposed defeat of the Russians north of Kharkiv on the border of Russia. The people writing on this cannot even get their facts straight about the size of a Russian Battalion Tactical Group aka BTG. Here are three different “experts” with their numbers:

Each Russian Battalion (BTG) tactical group has around 700-900 soldiers (Justin Bronk)

According to the DOD on 18 April there are almost a dozen BTGs in Mariupol. As each BTG has about 200 infantry, then 11 x 200 gives us 2,200 infantry. (Christopher Lawrence, Dupuy Institute)

A Russian battalion tactical group consists of about 1,000 troops. (Associated Press)

The western media has been crowing about the mighty Ukrainians wiping out a Russian BTG. Yet no photos of Russian medical units recovering the dead and wounded from the battle site have been published on Ukrainian or Russian sites. But let us assume the claim is true–the Ukrainians reportedly ambushed and defeated one BTG. It is meaningless as far as the progress of the Russian war effort is concerned. If the Russians were concerned about the battle over a pontoon bridge they would have deployed fixed wing and rotary wing support aircraft armed with rockets and delivered an artillery barrage on the attacking Ukrainians. That apparently did not happen either.

 

Why Are The ADL And The SPLC Conspicuously AWOL On Public Support For Azov Nazism?

Chants of support for the controversial Azov Battalion break out at a pro Ukraine rally in lower Manhattan

Attendees chant “Azov” pic.twitter.com/fFguwpRa82

— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) April 23, 2022

mtracey |  Two advocacy organizations in particular devoted huge amounts of resources to documenting the purported rise of Nazism during this period. If you read an article over the past several years which purported to announce that Nazism, “white nationalism,” and similar tendencies were ascendant, there’s a good chance the basis for the article’s claims was sourced either to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). “Neo-Nazi Groups Explode Under Trump,” read one representative Daily Beast headline from 2018, citing a report produced by the SPLC. In denouncing Trump for having “flirted with the deepest racists and Nazis,” Charles Blow of the New York Times cited a report from the ADL which claimed that “anti-semitic incidents in the United States surged 57 percent in 2017.” And 2017, as Blow shrewdly reasoned, “was of course the first year of the Trump administration.” The methodology of such “reports” is hardly ever scrutinized with any degree of precision; organizations like the SPLC and ADL are largely just assumed by journalists to possess unchallengeable empirical authority. On the rare occasions when someone in the media does think to dig deeper into the genesis of these groups’ oddly precise statistical figures, doubts as to their veracity sometimes arise.

After having spent such enormous effort warning Americans that their country was being overwhelmed by Nazis, you’d have thought it would be a no-brainer for these groups to spring immediately into action last month and sound the alarms again. Because another “incident” took place that was right up their alley: an honest-to-god pro-Nazi rally. In the middle of New York City. Thanks to footage captured by journalist Elad Eliahu, we know that on April 23 in Downtown Manhattan, a group of rally-goers gathered to chant — with total, uninhibited exuberance — “Azov! Azov! Azov!”

Eliahu told me the rally was organized by a group called “Razom for Ukraine,” which has held regular protest actions in the city since the war began, including to demand a No Fly Zone. But on this occasion, they were focused on rapturous praise for “Azov.”

In case you still need a primer on what “Azov” refers to, you may want to consult The Nation magazine, which has been unique among US left-liberal media over the last several years in still allowing a modicum of countervailing thought. And so The Nation is one of the vanishingly few outlets that continues to plainly describe Azov — i.e., the Battalion of the Ukraine military currently fighting in the war — as an “outright Neo-Nazi group.”

The bluntness of The Nation’s description stands in stark contrast to what the vast majority of US media consumers have recently been told about said group. Elsewhere, Americans are being instructed to actively root for the righteous battlefield victory of Azov — particularly in the city of Mariupol, where the fighters have been under sustained siege by Russia. It’s easy for the untrained eye to miss, but US journalists — including the top Ukraine war correspondent for TIME magazine — have taken to characterizing these Azov fighters merely as Mariupol’s brave “defenders.” Which is a term that coincidentally obscures the fighters’ ideological composition. Thanks to most US and “Western” media coverage, this foreign battalion comprised of “outright Nazis” has become primarily known as valorous warriors for “democracy.” 

Tune into NPR or the BBC, and you will similarly hear the “defenders” euphemism used in reports about Mariupol. Naturally, this is also the preferred nomenclature of the “Kyiv Independent,” the newly-formed English-language media outlet whose sudden emergence owes to an emergency infusion of funds late last year from the European Union’s equivalent of the National Endowment for Democracy. Relentlessly touted by “Western” media as an authoritative source for news-on-the-ground from Ukraine, the outlet has also enjoyed massive algorithmic amplification by Twitter — with it seldom ever noted that their chief “defense reporter” publicly proclaimed himself a “brother in arms” with Azov.

Despite his public admission of affiliation with what most reasonable observers used to uncontroversially classify as a Neo-Nazi regiment, millions of Americans have been fed a regular supply of “journalism” from this person, Illia Ponomarenko, who appears to function as Azov’s main English-speaking PR operative. But he’s far from alone: a whole roster of newly-minted social media stars regularly heap praise on Azov fighters for “sacrificing their lives for democracy.” By sheer coincidence, these superstars also frequently tend to be affiliated with US-based think tanks funded by the weapons-manufacturing industry.

Do you think if NPR or BBC listeners were clearly informed that the “defenders” of Mariupol were in fact “outright Neo-Nazis,” they might have a slightly different reaction to the news segments extolling their bravery? Especially if they can recall earlier NPR or BBC segments, such as those which warned listeners to be petrified of Trump-backed “Nazis” taking over the US? Alas, we can only speculate.

Now, one might reasonably ask: isn’t this whole “Nazi” angle a bit overblown? After all, in the US, that label gets blithely slapped onto anyone who’s slightly more right-wing than Mitt Romney. And it’s not an unfair point. The elasticity of the term “Nazi” has become so preposterous, and it was deployed so indiscriminately during the era of Trump, that one could be forgiven for having an urge to immediately eye-roll whenever they hear it uttered. 

Here’s the point, though: in a prior political context, the purported existence of Nazis was supposed to prompt an earnest outpouring of shock, horror, and counter-Nazi mobilization. But in the current political context, the existence of Nazis is supposed to be carefully ignored — in service what is now the superseding imperative, namely to “Stand with Ukraine.”

 

Youtube Has Suspended Judicial Watch's Account For A Week Over This Video

These Foreign Policy Jaw-Jackers Need To Up Their Economic Multi-Polarity Games...,

munkdebates |  Be it resolved, ending the world’s worst geopolitical crisis in a generation starts with acknowledging Russia’s security interests.

By any measure, the Russian invasion of Ukraine represents a profound security risk for the world. It raises fundamental issues about the basic principles that underwrite the current international order and it threatens the specter of an entrenched, high-risk Great Power conflict. How is this fast-evolving crisis best addressed? Does it demand a resolute and relentless push by the West to punish, isolate and degrade Putin’s Russia economically, politically and militarily? Or is a solution to be found in acknowledging Russia’s security needs and finding ways to mutually de-escalate the war, sooner not later? Which of these different strategies stand the best chance of success? And how ultimately is this conflict best resolved?

Janice Gross Stein, the Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, will moderate the panel discussion portion of the debate.

The debate video is available to our Curator and Supporter Members. To view the video, log-in to your member account and go Russia-Ukraine War Debate page here. 

Summary: Michael McFaul was in Toronto yesterday for the Munk Debate: Russia-Ukraine War, with Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer v Michael McFaul, Radosław Sikorski, the resolution being debated was Yay/Nay "ending the world's worst geo-political crisis starts with acknowledging Russia’s security interests", For those who don't follow the Munk debates, about 4 yrs ago there was a similar debate with Stephen Cohen where the Munk debates reversed the results when they came out "wrong". Anyhow the Munk debates made sure to pepper the results well in advance this time with an 63% nay vote (ok, well if your not willing to acknowledge Russia's security interests to stop a war, that can ONLY mean you want to continue the war in the hopes of "winning" the war against Russia).

Anyhow, I bring this up because McFaul was a hysterical mess during the debate, talking over the other debaters, interrupting them, shouting, at one point he even said that YES, US diplomats lie to other nations (ok Michael, then why the hell should Russia believe YOU when you give these worthless security assurances!) McFaul looks like he realizes that the US's ambitions in Ukraine are collapsing and he's hoping for a miracle to save them. But listening to these people (even Mearsheimer) makes it obvious how out of touch all of them are with the global situation. Globalism is dead, Russia will never reintegrate with the West, the theft of the 300 billion dollars, will not be forgiven or forgotten, what most people dont remember is that this is the 2nd time in 100 yrs where the West has seized Russia's foreign reserves, they did it before after the Russian Revolution and it took more than 60 yrs before Russia was willing to trust the West with their money again. How long will it take this time, 80 yrs, 100yrs? But listening to these "experts" they talk as if once Russia is expelled from Ukraine and Putin is removed from power, Russia will beg to be integrated into the West. No, Russia and the West have undergone a bitter divorce and never again the twain shall meet.

Seems There's Some Non-IQ-75 Opposition To Endlessly Funding Ukro-Nazism

WaPo |  But Massie — an engineer who graduated with several degrees from M.I.T. and became an inventor who still holds a number of patents — has devoted time and energy to honing his America First views during five terms in the House.

“I’m further, I think, than he is on the issue of NATO. He demanded that the partners pay their share. I would withdraw us from NATO,” Massie explained of his and Trump’s views toward the critical alliance. “It’s a Cold War relic. Our involvement should have ceased when the [Berlin] wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed.”

Inside the Republican drift away from supporting the NATO alliance

He would have preemptively surrendered portions of eastern Ukraine to Russia in a manner that would have “avoided tens of thousands of people dying,” because this is how he sees the war ending anyway.

“A fractured Ukraine, with the Eastern portion of it being a satellite or more government, more deferential to Putin, and the Western part of it more deferential to Europe or the United States,” Massie said.

These views are anathema to traditional Republican hawks as well as Democrats in line with Biden, who push for a vigorous foreign policy that works to unify allies, particularly in Europe.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have at different times in history had a more isolationist, nativist wing,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “Right now, it’s the Republicans who are highest on that. They’re playing a very isolationist card.”

“Honestly there is an isolationist wing within the party that’s traditionally been there,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Smith takes a more optimistic outlook, focusing on how more than 70 percent of House Republicans supported the latest Ukraine aid package and that on other votes, Massie and Greene have had few allies.

“Pretty much everybody else understands that this isn’t just about Ukraine. It is about our security and peace and stability in the world. So thus far the Republican Party is still there,” Smith said.

McCaul has actually been pleasantly surprised that the anti-Ukraine faction has not grown larger, something he attributes to the success on the ground of Ukrainian troops and the atrocities committed by Putin’s troops.

“I was really worried, interestingly, earlier on about how this was going to trend,” McCaul said Friday.

Biden's Disinformation Czar Nina Jankowicz A Veteran Propagandist For Ukro-Nazis

thenation  |  Late last month, the Joe Biden administration publicly confirmed that a “Disinformation Governing Board” working group had been created within the Department of Homeland Security. The news prompted a flood of concern about the impact of such an Orwellian organ on America.

But there’s no need to engage in hypotheticals to understand the dangers. One has to only consider the past of Nina Jankowicz, the head of the new disinformation board.

Jankowicz’s experience as a disinformation warrior includes her work with StopFake, a US government-funded “anti-disinformation” organization founded in March 2014 and lauded as a model of how to combat Kremlin lies. Four years later, StopFake began aggressively whitewashing two Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups with a long track record of violence, including war crimes.

Today, StopFake is an official Facebook fact-checking partner, which gives it the power to censor news, while Jankowicz is America’s disinformation czar. 

If the Biden administration is serious about combating threats such as white supremacy, perhaps it should first reflect on the old Roman question: Who will guard the guardians?

StopFake was founded right after Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan uprising ousted the country’s president and swept a new, US-backed government into power. Formed by professors and students from the Kyiv Mohyla Journalism School, StopFake presented itself as a plucky, grassroots group wielding hard facts and semi-permanent smirks as it shredded Russian propaganda. It gained notoriety by producing slick videos hosted by dynamic disinformation warriors debunking the Moscow lies of the day.

Western reporters—and checkbooks—were paying attention. Shortly after its creation, StopFake began receiving funding from Western governments, including the National Endowment for Democracy—an organization mainly funded by the US Congress—and the British embassy in Ukraine. It was also supported by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. (StopFake has run numerous episodes that cover Soros but fail to disclose this potential conflict of interest—a violation of basic tenets of journalism.)

Among StopFake’s hosts was Jankowicz, a graduate of Bryn Mawr and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service who was already part of the burgeoning disinformation warrior industry while in Ukraine as a Fulbright Clinton Public Policy Fellow. On January 29, 2017, she hosted StopFake Episode 117, whose lead story dealt with a perennial obsession of Russian propaganda: Ukraine’s volunteer battalions.

These are the dozens of paramilitaries formed in 2014 to fight against Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region. From the beginning, Moscow focused on the violent and far-right nature of many of these units.

At the time of Jankowicz’s piece, the Russian press was bristling at Kyiv’s creating a new holiday to honor military volunteers—Moscow commentators depicted this as a celebration of far-right butchers. Jankowicz offered an emphatically different take.

“Volunteer battalions organized throughout the country and they supported weak Ukrainian armed forces and prevented further Russian separatist encroachment. Today the volunteer battalions are part of the official Ukrainian armed forces, overseen by the Defense and Interior Ministries,” she said in her StopFake debunking segment.

 

 

Scratch A Christian Democrat And You're Liable To Find A Fascist

cynthiachung |  “By destroying communism in his [Hitler’s] country, he had barred its road to Western Europe…Germany therefore could rightly be regarded as a bulwark of the West against communism.” (1)

– The Earl of Halifax, aka Lord Halifax (British Ambassador to the U.S. 1940-1946, Secretary of State for British Foreign Affairs 1938-1940, Viceroy and Governor-General of India 1926-1931)

Everyone is aware of the Iron Curtain speech delivered by Winston Churchill, who was no longer British Prime Minister by then, on March 5, 1946.

However, it is not Churchill who is the originator of the phrase, but rather Nazi German Foreign Minister Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk who made a speech in Berlin on May 3, 1945, which was reported in the London Times and the New York Times on May 8, 1945. In the speech, Krosigk uses the Nazi-coined propaganda phrase “Iron Curtain,” which was used in precisely the same context by Churchill less than one year later.

Following this German speech, only three days after the German surrender, Churchill wrote a letter to Truman, to express his concern about the future of Europe and to say that an “Iron Curtain” had come down. (2)

This sharing of policy between Nazi Germany and England should not come as a complete surprise.

Richard Cottrell writes in “Gladio: NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe”:

“After NATO was established in April 1949, the secret armies gradually came under the direct control of the new military alliance. NATO carefully established departments of clandestine warfare which managed the secret armies and allocated their tasks. Only a few trustworthy intimates were to know of their existence. As each secret unit was eventually exposed, the name Gladio came to be applied to all of them.”

However, the expected Soviet invasion never occurred. And thus, these secret armies found another purpose, they were to be used against the people.

The desire was that by staging false-flag operations that were blamed on communists, this would in turn invoke panic and revulsion and would send voters flocking to the welcoming arms of a secure Right-wing government.

Richard Cottrell writes:

“Bands of secret soldiers and their cohorts were ordered to shoot, bomb, maim and kill their own citizens. The United States forbade any sovereign European states to seat communist ministers in government. All movements of the Left fell under suspicion as cloaks for Moscow.”

Italy, who had the largest and most powerful communist party in Europe, would be first on the list.

The Communist Party of Italy, admired for leading the fight against Mussolini, was expected to win in Italy’s first post-war election in June 1946. This, of course, was considered intolerable under the Iron Curtain diktat.

Investigative journalist Christopher Simpson writes in his book “Blowback,” how a substantial part of the funding for the opposition to the Communist Party of Italy, which was the Christian Democratic Party, came from captured Nazi assets, (largely held by the Americans). This intervention tipped the balance in favour of Italy’s Christian Democratic Party, which hid thousands of fascists in its ranks.

The Christian Democratic Party would be the dominating party in Italy for five decades, during the Operation Gladio years, until it was dissolved in 1994.

In order to ensure that no further communist support were to arise in Italy, Operation Gladio, with knowledge and support by the CIA, MI6 and European intelligence agencies, led a campaign of brutal violence against Italians that stretched the better part of two decades known as the “years of lead,” the anni di piombo.

Ukrainian Nazi Mykola Lebed Died At 89 In 1998 In New Jersey Under CIA Protection...,

cynthiachung |  In July 1944 Mykola Lebed helped form the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (UHVR), which would claim to represent the Ukrainian nation and served as an underground government in the Carpathian mountains, in opposition to the Ukrainian SSR. The dominant political party in UHVR was the Bandera group and the UPA, which from that point on served as the army of UHVR and continued to fight the Soviets until 1956.

A feud erupted in 1947 between Bandera and Stetsko on one side for an independent Ukraine under a single party led by Bandera himself vs. Lebed and Father Ivan Hrynioch (chief of the UHVR Political Section) who were against Bandera being head of state.

At an August 1948 Congress of the OUN Foreign Section, Bandera (who still controlled 80% of the UHVR) expelled the Hrynioch-Lebed group. He claimed exclusive authority on the Ukrainian national movement and continued terror tactics against anti-Banderist Ukrainian leaders in Western Europe and maneuvered for control of Ukrainian émigré organizations. (10) However, Lebed who had become close with the Americans at that point was recognized, along with Hrynioch as the official UHVR representation abroad.

With the war lost, Lebed adopted a strategy similar to that of Reinhard Gehlen – he contacted the Allies after escaping Rome in 1945 with a trove of names and contacts of anti-Soviets located in western Ukraine and in displaced persons camps in Germany. This made him attractive to the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) despite their above admission in their 1947 report.

In late 1947, Lebed who it was feared would be assassinated by the Soviets in Rome, was smuggled along with his family by the CIC to Munich, Germany in December 1947 for his safety.

Norman J.W. Goda writes (11):

“By late 1947, Lebed had thoroughly sanitized his prewar and wartime activities for American consumption. In his own rendition, he had been a victim of the Poles, the Soviets, and the Germans – he would carry the Gestapo “wanted” poster for the rest of his life to prove his anti-Nazi credentials…He also published a 126-page booklet on the UPA, which chronicled the heroic struggle of Ukrainians against both Nazis and Bolsheviks, while calling for an independent, greater Ukraine that would represent the human ideals of free speech and free faith. The UPA, according to the booklet, never collaborated with the Nazis, nor is there any mention of the slaughter of Galician Jews or Poles in the book. The CIC considered the booklet to be the ‘complete background on the subject.’ The CIC overlooked the fact that under its own watch an OUN Congress held in September 1947 had split, thanks to Lebed’s criticism of the creeping democratization of the OUN. This was overlooked by the CIA which began using Lebed extensively in 1948…In June 1949…the CIA smuggled him [Lebed] into the United States with his wife and daughter under the legal cover of the Displaced Persons Act.” [emphasis added]

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began investigating Lebed and in March 1950 reported to Washington that numerous Ukrainian informants spoke of Lebed’s leading role among the “Bandera terrorists” and that during the war the Bandersists were trained and armed by the Gestapo and responsible for “wholesale murders of Ukrainians, Poles and Jewish [sic]…In all these actions, Lebed was one of the most important leaders.” (12)

In 1951, top INS officials informed the CIA of its findings along with the comment that Lebed would likely face deportation. The CIA responded on October 3, 1951, that all of the charges were false and that the Gestapo “wanted” poster of Lebed proved that he “fought with equal zeal against the Nazis and Bolsheviks.” (13)

INS officials as a result suspended the investigation on Lebed.

In February 1952, the CIA pressed the INS to grant Lebed re-entry papers so that he could leave and re-enter the United States at will. Argyle Mackey, Commissioner of the INS, refused to grant this.

On May 5, 1952, Allen Dulles, then Assistant Director of the CIA wrote a letter to Mackey stating (14):

“In connection with future Agency operations of the first importance, it is urgently necessary that subject [Lebed] be able to travel in Western Europe. Before [he] undertakes such travel, however, this Agency must…assure his re-entry into the United States without investigation or incident which would attract undue attentions to his activities.”

What was in West Germany? General Reinhard Gehlen, former chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence, who had been conveniently allowed to re-enter West Germany to establish his Gehlen Organisation which would later form the Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany) in 1956 .

Dulles also wanted Lebed’s legal status changed to that of “permanent resident,” under Section 8 of the CIA Act of 1949. The INS never investigated further after Dulles’ letter and Lebed became a naturalized U.S. citizen in March 1957.

Bandera would also be stationed in West Germany with his family after the war, where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations as well as with British Intelligence. (15) At this point Bandera had become too much of a liability and there were multiple attempts, by both the Americans and British starting in 1953, to get Bandera to step down and for Lebed to represent “the entire Ukrainian liberation movement in the homeland.” Bandera refused and went rogue.

It is said that Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by a KGB agent in Munich, however, one cannot help but note that it was excellent timing and extremely beneficial for the Americans that Bandera was taken out when he was, considering what they had planned for Ukraine’s future…

Among the declassified records are that of Hoover’s FBI, who had a small trove of captured German General Staff documents from 1943 and 1944, which revealed German appreciation of the UPA’s work while mentioning Lebed by name. (16) It appears this was never shared with any agency or institution, other than the CIA, despite requests from the INS during their investigation of Lebed.

Interestingly, Goda writes (17):

“The full extent of his [Lebed’s] activities as ‘Foreign Minister’ [of the UHVR] may never become known, but FBI surveillance of him gives some idea. Partly, Lebed lectured at prestigious universities such as Yale on such topics as biological warfare used by the Soviet government in the Ukraine.” [emphasis added]

The following is an indication as to what Dulles may have been referring to as the urgent need for Lebed’s re-entry into Western Europe.

Breitman and Goda write (18):

“By 1947 some 250,000 Ukrainians were living…in Germany, Austria, and Italy, many of them OUN activists or sympathizers. After 1947 UPA fighters began crossing into the U.S. zone, having reached the border on foot through Czechoslovakia.”

However, Lebed was not only urgently needed in Europe, but also within the United States. Once in the United States, Lebed was selected as the CIA’s chief contact/advisor for AERODYNAMIC.

 

Are Nazis Now the New “Good Guys”?

cynthiachung  |  Are there real Nazis in Ukraine that are being selected, with U.S. and possibly NATO backing, to play a political and military role? And if so, why? What is happening to the Ukrainian people if this is in fact the case?

What even constitutes as “Ukrainian” under an increasingly ultra-nationalist movement? An ultra-nationalist movement which self-identifies as pure ethnic Ukrainians. Ukraine is an ethnically mixed population, with both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians living together.

In light of this situation, how are we to regard the people of Donbass asking to form their own republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, separate from the rest of Ukraine? Are we in the west going to deny the people of Donbass, with a large population of ethnic Russians, the right to separate themselves from an ultra-nationalist movement that self-identifies as a pure Ukrainian race?

How are we to regard Crimea’s own request to re-join Russia in 2014, a referendum that the West refuses to acknowledge actually happened, despite mainstream western reporters confirming that Crimeans have indeed chosen and are happy to have returned to Russia? (Crimeans mostly consist of ethnic Russians.)

What are we to think of the Ukrainian government withholding 85% of drinkable water to Crimea these past eight years? An action by the Ukrainian government that constitutes a humanitarian crisis against the Crimean people. Are these the actions of a friendly government that cares for the welfare of the Crimean people?

This humanitarian crisis was corrected by the Russians as soon as they entered Ukraine, as acknowledged by Reuters. However, most in the west will never hear anything about this.

We should have the courage to ask ourselves: Is there in fact a civil war that has been going on in Ukraine not just these past weeks, but these past eight years? A civil war that has not been reported to the western people for political reasons, where certain regions of Ukraine have been under attack by neo-Nazi paramilitary units who have been receiving political support and funding from the United States, and possibly NATO.

Why would the west support such a horrific initiative?

To answer these questions, we will have to have the courage to look at the historical root of Ukrainian Nationalism and its relationship to namely U.S. Intelligence and NATO post-WWII.

There Is A Pattern Here: And Clinton - Despite Her Efforts - Only Served To Point It Out In Her Interview...,

I am insufficiently informed as to how the Russian internal economy works at this point to fully parse Hitlery's assertions.  But, even without that information it is possible to infer some things.

Resource economies are not unusual among developing nations, and Russia has had less than thirty years to date in order to redevelop and modernize its’ infrastructure. Why would anyone expect a fully industrialized economy without the financial basis upon which to build one? Perhaps those leftist economists have expected too much in the face of the kinds of sanctions regimes leveled upon them to prevent just such an economy as they are claiming he is unwilling to create? In light of the present situation, they may now be more forgiving of having invested in guns rather than butter. It is they, after all, who are possessed of hypersonic weapons that we have no defense from.

Investments of any sort are subject to a cost benefit analysis; industrialization costs money, and one might forgive them for declining what the IMF has to offer in view of what has been required of those who take them up on their loans in the past. That may have rendered full integration into the Western economy on their terms unwise in the face of the kinds of hostility that have faced them since the fall of the Soviet Union. Slower growth appears to have benefited them, and Putin appears to have tamed his oligarch problem in the process.

The Russian economy that evolved under Putin from the basket case that US shock therapy left is now sufficiently diversified to handle all of the shocks that the west has leveled upon it. That would imply that it is not being handled in such a way as to sow chaos and mine it for the benefit of oligarchs, as it was initially designed to do by Larry Summers’ Harvard boys. 

Present day Ukraine would be a perfect example of how that paradigm works out; Kolomoisky is clearly not a Putin, and it was not Russia that Bidens’, Kerrys’, Pelosi’s, Clinton’s and Romney’s kids were invested in. It sounded like Clinton was trying to make that case, but it has been her own cadre of political wrecking balls that have left the kinds of devastation which would normally result from such actions. If there is a “mean neighbor” out there trying to strip Ukraine of its’ assets, one might first look at the efforts made on behalf of Shell and Monsanto to do precisely that in 2014 rather than the Gazprom that has done yeoman’s work in stabilizing Russia’s foreign exchange.

“…just like boosting defense contractor revenues was not the primary reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.” 

It was a nice bonus, but Iraq, Libya, Iran and Venezuela were never in a position to eliminate the petro-dollar/reserve currency as handily as Russia presently is. Nevertheless, there appear to be a lot of bankers who have found other nations gold and foreign reserves to be irresistible. The proposed playbook WRT Russia appears to be identical. Russia has not featured the cast of characters that we routinely find pirating them away while they are common as dirt here in our own failing Monopoly board paradigm. 

The irony is that Hillary is like a broken clock in that clip.

First, one of the consistent critiques of the Putin regime by Russian leftists is that his government has spent the past twenty years or so transitioning to a so-called “semi-peripheral, resource-based” economy. That is – export lower-end goods, such as natural resources and low-processed materials, and import higher-end products. [E.g. export raw material for fertilizer, import finished fertilizer.] Then take the euro and dollar surplus thus received, and instead of investing it internally (as would have been done in the Soviet era) export it back to the West both as oligarchic wealth and as central bank deposits abroad, thus also creating a shortage of euros and dollars internally and artificially depressing the exchange rate (further inflating private fortunes – in rubles). Komolov has done multiple presentations and papers on this, and other left-wing or left-leaning economists have as well.

So in a sense, yes, the Putin regime, instead of building up the internal economy and industry, either dismantled it or let it go fallow so as to pour everything into this semi-peripheral scheme. But that was not a “failure” of policy – it was the policy, designed to benefit specific groups. Putin, thus, from the standpoint of the socio-economic elites that back him, has been an incredibly successful president. One might even call him the Russian Obama or some such, if framed in those terms.
This, incidentally, is exactly how a bourgeois republic of any kind is supposed to work, after adjusting for local nuances.

Secondly, she notes that “Putin now wants to take what Ukraine has”. Well, to be sure, when the war is finally over, or at least when the situation is stabilised, then yes, one would fully expect the oligarchs close to the government to engage in vigorous redistribution of formerly Ukrainian assets (land, port facilities, mines, whatever), not to mention in competing for fat reconstruction contracts. This was not the primary reason for going to war, of course, just like boosting defence contractor revenues was not the primary reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. But it is a nice bonus, and again, exactly the way imperialism (as in, highest form of capitalism) is supposed to function. Incidentally, she also very quickly elides when it comes to listing what is it exactly that Ukraine “has” that Putin “wants – because Ukraine, too, had downshifted into a peripheral-type resource-export economy over the past three decades, so essentially Russia is not getting any new industry or technology or whatnot; Russia is getting more of the same resources, plus an infusion of cheap labour, plus, of course, some security enhancements offset by countervailing nonsense happening elsewhere such as Finland wishing to join NATO.

[For fun, look up the length of the Finnish-Russian land border and then consider that this is the stretch that NATO will now have to “defend” against “Russian aggression”…]

Idiots Who Say 'I Stand With Ukraine' Don't Seem To Realise That Russia Does Too!

This is not about fascism or nazism or Galician nationalism, which all so many cynical ways to inflame grunts on the ground. From day 1 Ukraine has been the new Albania, a black state run by a huge interlocking global mafia. It was designed so, a place where a black market in girls, drugs, intelligence, guns, money laundering and electronic warfare could thrive and proliferate like a tumour inside Europe and Russia. The Russians wanted to clean it up. I bet most of the Ukrainians did too. 2014 was a mafia coup with eyes on land grabs in the East. The first Donbass war was fought against the foot soldiers of the capos.

A good friend of mine was caught up in a marriage scam in Kiev about a decade ago, two years before the coup. It was an utterly lawless town by his account and he was shocked to say he'd felt far safer in Lagos, Kinshasa or even Soweto. From the moment he arrived the taxi driver suggested a hired bodyguard/interpreter connected to various organisations in order to smooth his trip out. When he pulled the plug after 3 days goons paid him a scary visit at his hotel room after which he was lucky to make his way straight to the airport and camped there for 24hrs until his rescheduled flight. All up he forked over somewhere between $5-6K in payoffs. It made 1980s El Salvador look civilised. He later heard horror stories that might have been his story with a different ending.

Ukraine has to be taken and cleaned out because it is a collection of organised criminal fiefdoms. The empire needs it because it is a blackbox in Europe: nothing that goes in comes out, and nothing that comes out can be traced. One can only guess at the volume of untraceable goods and services that have flowed through there since 1992. I'd guess more than anywhere else in the last 200 years. That's a huge chunk of Ukraine's value to the West.

Imagine a cartel of organized criminals demanded protection payments from you. Imagine you were able to resist their depredations in collaboration with other locals similarly threatened. Now imagine that your government backed the criminals (because they were cartel shills) and you spent the next eight years terrorized by both your government and the cartel.

Now imagine the US, UK and Europe also backed the cartel against you. But Russia said 'enough'.

We shouldn't forget what happens to those who say 'enough' in the face of such coalitions. If anyone has seen the documentary 'Excellent Cadavers' (2005) you'll know what I mean. And I guess we can also simply point to the Kennedys and remind ourselves never again bring a knife to a gunfight. One must be like 'Robespierre L'Incorrutible' and mix virtue with terror.

Shutting Ukraine down is not an ethnic, political, ideological or territorial imperative, but a civilisational imperative. If it can be done there one can turn to the US/UK/EU and begin the real work. Russia is raining on the West's cosy black-ops parade in Ukraine where old-fashioned criminal scams are concealed under layers of misdirection ("hey let's put Nazi symbols on their uniforms, it'll keep everyone guessing and the skinheads we hired will dig it"). But there is something really archaic about it all: think about what Cicero disclosed about Verres' operation in Sicily in the 70s BC, or even before that how Italian tax-farmers were allowed to do what they like in the province of Asia—until the locals had enough and called in Mithridates. The scams are as old as the hills: slavery, theft, extortion, rackets, land-grabs, forced migration. The genius of the western psyop is to have its public smell shit and say its roses.

About the child-exploitation. That alone must be an immense operation with many dimensions—blackmail, extortion, laundering. But the suffering inflicted on thousands of girls is a crime without justice. Unless Russia can lay hands on the evidence. Wouldn't that be a dossier worth publishing online.

Russia Has Provided Full Online Disclosure Of Who In The US Government Funded Ukraine BioWeapons

"During a briefing on the findings of the Russian Defense Ministry’s investigation into the purportedly US-funded bioweapon labs in Ukraine, Chief of Russia’s Radioactive, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov made several statements:

• The special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces made it possible to stop criminal experiments on civilians of Ukraine;
• Ukraine is a training ground for the West for the development of biological weapons components and testing of new samples of pharmaceuticals;
   
• The Russian Ministry of Defense has information about the Pentagon's experiments on Ukrainian citizens in a psychiatric hospital near Kharkov;
   
• The United States tried to hide their participation in biological experiments on patients of a psychiatric hospital in Ukraine;
   
• Fake money distributed in 2020 in the LPR were infected with a strain of tuberculosis resistant to anti-tuberculosis drugs;
   
• Collection of biomaterials from Ukrainians by epidemiologists of a Bundeswehr Institute confirms the military focus of research in Ukraine;
   
• The information available to the Russian Defense Ministry confirms the implementation of the US offensive military biological program in Ukraine;
   
• The leaders of the Democratic Party are the ideologists of the US military-biological activities in Ukraine;
   
• Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and other pharmaceutical companies are involved in US military biological activities in Ukraine;
   
• Military biological projects on the territory of Ukraine, in addition to the United States, are being implemented by Germany and Poland;
   
• US specialists are testing new drugs bypassing international safety standards, reducing the cost of research;
   
• Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biological activities in the country along with Pentagon contractors;
   
• At the end of April, ten more UAVs were found in the area of Kakhovka, equipped with containers and equipment for spraying biorecipes.
• Russian forces had obtained evidence suggesting Kiev attempted to infect residents of the Slavyanoserbsk district of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) with a highly pathogenic strain of tuberculosis in 2020.

“Leaflets made in the form of counterfeit banknotes were infected with the causative agent of tuberculosis and distributed among minors in the village of Stepovoe,” Kirillov said, adding that the organizers of this crime took into account the behavior of children, which includes “putting things in their mouth” and handling food without washing their hands.

"Kirillov stated that the results of the bacteriological studies confirmed the resistance of the isolated bacteria found on the leaflets to first and second line anti-TB drugs, which meant that the disease caused by them was much more difficult and expensive to treat.

"He went on to quote the conclusion of the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological station, which stated that “the infection of the banknotes was most likely artificial, since the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in a concentration that can ensure infection and the development of the tuberculosis process.”

"Kirillov added that the LPR TB dispensary also noted signs of “deliberate, man-made contamination of leaflets with biomaterials of high pathogenicity.”

"Russian officials also claimed that the Pentagon had been allegedly conducting “inhumane” experiments on the patients of at least two psychiatric institutions in Kharkov. “The main category of experimental subjects was a group of male, highly physically exhausted patients aged between 40 to 60 years,” Kirillov said.

"The experiments were run directly by foreign specialists that had arrived in Ukraine through third-party nations to conceal the US’ involvement. The specialists were abruptly evacuated from the country earlier this year, shortly before the Russian military operation kicked off, Kirillov noted.

“In January 2022, the foreign citizens who conducted the experiments were urgently evacuated, and the equipment and drugs they used were taken to the western regions of Ukraine,” he said. "Last week, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, told RT that the service had “clearly identified” multiple Americans involved in the military biological research in Ukraine, including Pentagon employees, as well as companies closely associated with the US military. According to Russian estimates, Washington poured more than $224 million into biological research in the country between 2005 and early 2022, Bastrykin stated.

"US officials have confirmed the existence of “biological research facilities” in Ukraine, but said Washington only provided what they called “assistance” for efforts that did not involve the development of bioweapons..."

Have You Talked At Any Length With A Full-On Victim Of The Anti-Russian Hysteria?

thesaker  |  The U.S. and its NATO puppies cannot possibly come to grips with their perplexity when faced with a staggering loss: no more entitlement allowing exclusive geopolitical use of force to perpetuate “our values”. No more Full Spectrum Dominance.

The micro-picture is also clear. The U.S. Deep State is milking to Kingdom Come its planned Ukraine gambit to cloak a strategic attack on Russia. The “secret” was to force Moscow into an intra-Slav war in Ukraine to break Nord Stream 2 – and thus German reliance on Russian natural resources. That ends – at least for the foreseeable future – the prospect of a Bismarckian Russo-German connection that would ultimately cause the U.S. to lose control of the Eurasian landmass from the English Channel to the Pacific to an emerging China-Russia-Germany pact.

The American strategic gambit, so far, has worked wonders. But the battle is far from over. Psycho neo-con/neoliberalcon silos inside the Deep State consider Russia such a serious threat to the “rules-based international order” that they are ready to risk if not incur a “limited” nuclear war out of their gambit. What’s at stake is nothing less than the loss of Ruling the World by the Anglo-Saxons.

Alastair Crooke called my attention to a startling, original interpretation of what’s goin’ on, offered in Russian by a Serbian analyst, Prof. Slobodan Vladusic. His main thesis, in a nutshell: “Megalopolis hates Russia because it is not Megalopolis – it has not entered the sphere of anti-humanism and that is why it remains a civilization alternative. Hence Russophobia.”

Vladusic contends that the intra-Slav war in Ukraine is “a great catastrophe for Orthodox civilization” – mirroring my recent first attempt to open a serious debate on a Clash of Christianities.

Yet the major schism is not on religion but culture: “The key difference between the former West and today’s Megalopolis is that Megalopolis programmatically renounces the humanistic heritage of the West.”

So now “it is possible to erase not only the musical canon, but also the entire European humanistic heritage: the entire literature, fine arts, philosophy” because of a “trivialization of knowledge”. What’s left is an empty space, actually a cultural black hole, “filled by promoting terms such as ‘posthumanism’ and ‘transhumanism’.”

And here Vladusic gets to the heart of the matter: Russia fiercely opposes the Great Reset concocted by the “hackable”, self-described “elites” of Megalopolis.

Sergey Glazyev, now coordinating the draft of a new financial/monetary system by the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) in partnership with the Chinese, adapts Vladusic to the facts on the ground (here in Russian, here in an imperfect English translation).

Glazyev is way more blunt than in his meticulous economic analyses. While noting the Deep State’s aims of destroying the Russian world, Iran and block China, he stresses the U.S. “will not be able to win the global hybrid war”. A key reason is that the collective West has “put all independent countries in front of the need to find new global currency instruments, risk insurance mechanisms, restore the norms of international law and create their own economic security systems.”

So yes, this is Totalen Krieg, Total War – as Glazyev spells it out with no attenuation, and how Russia denounced it this week at the UN: “Russia needs to stand up to the United States and NATO in its confrontation, bringing it to its logical conclusion, so as not to be torn between them and China, which is irrevocably becoming the leader of the world economy.”

 

The Panicdemic Separated Nudgeable Softheaded Sheep From Rational Hardheaded Goats...,

naomiwolf  |  On driveway after driveway of the ex-Brooklynites, of the former weekend people — (and I confess that I too was once a weekend person, but something has happened to me in the last two years that has changed me even more than my change of home address) there were now Ukrainian flags. Not American flags. No one cared or even asked about the town halls being closed for the past two years. Tyranny overseas was more pressing than the rights that had been suspended just up the road.

Otherwise most things were almost back to normal! Almost pre-2020 normal!

The masks had recently come off. Hudson, New York, and Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the two cities nearest us, and also, by chance, both left-leaning, had also been two of the maskiest and most coercive of places when it came to pandemic policies and pandemic cultures. Now businesses were being allowed to reopen.

(I’d been fired from my Great Barrington synagogue because I’d dared to invite people over to my house at the depth of the pandemic — if they had wanted, as adults, affirmatively, to join me — to watch the Zoom Friday Evening Shabbat service together. Shocking behavior on my part, I know.)

As if a switch had been flicked, now the cruel moral judgments, the two-tier society, the mandates, the coercions, the nasty looks, the desperate masked children with their laboring breath, the loneliness, the desolate centrally-planned economies — had evaporated and were no more.

A memo from a political consultancy had gone out to the DNC, warning about how these policies spelled defeat in the midterms, and Pouf! — a whole retinue of “mandates” messaged as if they had been matters of life and death, a raft of Board of Health demands, a plethora of social strictures, and baroque instructions on how and when to discriminate against one’s fellow Americans — vanished, like the smoke from an unwelcome cigarette on a breezy veranda. An MSNBC commentator said, in a logical non sequitur, that now that vaccines were available for kids, in-person office life would resume.

Overnight, a new concern, a new moral signifier, was presented, wholly formed: and it involved a conflict area half a world away. Now, war is always bad and invasions are always cruel; but I could not help noticing that there are wars, refugees, invasions and conflict areas around the world, and that only this one — this one one — demanded the attentions of my irksomely cultish and uncritical former tribe. I could not help noticing that the dozens of devastated conflict areas and war zones being totally ignored by the ex-Brooklynites — from Ethiopia, where there have been 50,000 deaths since September, to Sri Lanka, with its catastrophic food shortages, to Mexico’s drug war, which has led to 300,000 deaths, to Afghanistan, where women are being rounded up and people are being shot in the street — do not involve white people who look like the ex-Brooklynites; and for various other reasons, are not attracting a lot of television cameras.

You’d think the ex-Brooklynites, with their expensive educations, would bear those complexities in mind.

But no; the ex-Brooklynites are so easily led, when it comes to anyone invoking their particular moral high ground.

When they are directed to pay attention to one conflict out of dozens, and ignore the rest, no matter how dire the rest may be, they do so. Just like, when they were instructed to present their bodies uncritically to an untried MRNA injection and to offer up the bodies of their minor children, they did so. When they were asked to shun and to discriminate against their blameless neighbors, they did so.

So the great apparatus of messaging about COVID was switched off, almost overnight, as the politics clearly soured and as Republicans consolidated an increasingly popular, multiracially inclusive, transpartisan-ly appealing freedom message; and the comms apparatus simply replaced the COVID drama with a new, equally gripping European-conflict drama.

Digital Choice Architectures Increase Behavioral Inefficiency

laidlawscholars  |   The internet has been appraised by economists for reducing search costs and increasing market efficiency. This article argues that economists should adopt a more critical view of digital markets because only a small part of the internet is easily accessible to consumers through search engines and this information is easy to be presented suggestively. The digital choice architecture is explored through the concept of digital nudges, which could be used to guide people to make better choices in digital environments.

Digital nudge is defined as an aspect of a digital choice architecture, which alters people’s decisions online in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing economic incentives. This is a similar definition to how Thaler and Sunstein (2008) defined the general nudge. Weinmann et al. (2016) define digital nudges as “the use of user-interface design elements to guide people’s behaviour in digital choice environments.”

The goal of a nudge is to help people to make better decisions. However, often the elements of choice architecture lead people to make worse decisions. This kind of use of choice architecture is defined as “sludge”. (Thaler, 2018)

More and more decisions are being made online and these decisions can be influenced by considering psychological principles when designing the digital choice architecture. An excellent example of the use of the scarcity effect (Cialdini, 2007) is a hotel booking website advertising that you are booking the last room available. Similarly, the same site might benefit from the social proof effect (Cialdini, 2007) by saying that ten people are looking at the same room as you. A streaming service might attempt to hook you into watching multiple episodes in a row by automatically starting the next episode, which is an example of cognitive ease. (Kahneman, 2011) A smartphone might send out a notification informing you about a personal situation at a mobile game to lure you in with a method similar to nudging by presentation. (Thornhill et al., 2019; Acquisti et al., 2017)

Creating a digital choice architecture, where the user ends up making biased decisions is relatively easy and cost-effective. Our literature review found multiple examples of well-functioning digital nudges which show how digital choice architecture can impact people’s decisions online.

According to economic theory, reduced search costs will lead to improved and more efficient competition because comparing prices is easier and more information is available. Electronic marketplaces have been appraised for reducing search costs. (Petersen et al., 2002; Bakos, 1997; Goldfarb & Tucker, 2019) More efficient competition is good for the consumers because they can receive the best possible prices, quantity, and service.

However, the downside of electronic marketplaces is that altering the digital choice architecture is relatively easy making it possible to sludge consumers into buying your company’s product. Even though consumers might have access to more information online, the way in which information is presented also matters a great deal.

 

Another issue is with search engines, which can only access a small part of the internet. Furthermore, consumers are likely to click on only the first results offered by search engines.

Digital nudges

Multiple ways of digital nudging have been proposed. Already in 2002 Mandel and Johnson found that even changing the colours or background photo of a website can prime people to make different choices online.

 

Search "Cass Sunstein" Here To Know The Origin Of The Disinformation Governance Board

 twitter  |  Interesting long thread from the Last Refuge

(1) The FBI is the codependent agency for Antifa.
(2) Homeland Security (DHS) is run by U.S. Intel agencies under the umbrella of the ODNI office.
(3) Nina Jankowicz works for U.S. Intelligence.
(4) "Disinformation" is information adverse to the interests of U.S. Intel.

(5) Big tech social media companies operate on joint access databases of the U.S. govt.
(6) As a result of #5, tech data processing costs are essentially subsidized.
(7) FB, Insta, YouTube, MS, Google, and all tech platforms operating on AWS are connected to intel.

(8) Twitter as a private company is adverse to this preestablished relationship.
(9) ODNI office as well as DHS, DOJ and FBI domestically have self-interest in blocking Musk.
(10) Starlink presents problem for pre-established ISP control nodes for internet traffic surveillance.

(11) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) is well aware of this relationship between U.S. Intel and Social media.
(12) Current network of U.S. surveillance state is authorized by congress through SSCI notification.
(13) National Security shields prevent disclosure.

(14) Current surveillance system has been active for ten full years.
(15) Budget is hidden by using Ominibus and Continued Resolutions.
(16) Retaining opaque budgeting is why Congress stopped using ordinary budgetary processes.
(17) Last federal budget passed Fiscal Year 2008

(18) Expanded data processing and social media user metadata required massive expansion of data library.
(19) Funding for expansion delivered in federal infrastructure spending.
(20) Federal broadband expansion covered expenses for expanded server library and data processing.

(21) U.S. citizen data is all inclusive.
(22) Two-factor authentication sold under auspices of user security, was critical USIC developmental tool.
(23) U.S. Digital Identity database already exists.
(24) Database and geolocation used in J6 investigation is simple example of use.

(25) Current emphasis for future network expansion is facial recognition program to put it all together.
(26) China is approximately 5 years behind U.S. development of surveillance state.
(27) Huawei operation was/is to identify technology behind U.S. system and replicate.

It's Not Just Fauci: Power-Sunstein An AssClown Two-Fer That Doesn't Bode Well....,(REDUX from 3/8/21)

WaPo |  Almost all conversations about roadblocks Trump faces or opposition to his initiatives centered on what was perceived as the media’s biased portrayal of him and his administration, rather than on anything the Democrats were doing.

Republicans and conservatives have grumbled about unfair coverage from the “mainstream media” for decades. But the Trump era has brought us to a new plateau, one where the media has moved from adversarial to oppositional. Many observers, on both right and left, have come to see the media as the leader of the resistance.

If you care about journalism, it’s a disturbing trend. Many in the media would undoubtedly lay much of the blame on Trump’s “fake news” attacks. But peruse the pages or websites of most of our nation’s leading news providers, and it’s easy to understand why such a perception has taken hold, apart from Trump’s claims. 

Former Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s widely reported comments in Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times column about the media’s coverage of Trump were a welcome acknowledgment of the obvious from someone other than a Trump loyalist. 

“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.” 

Out of curiosity, I checked the Democratic National Committee’s website this week. Some of the headlines were: “Trump abuses role as commander-in-chief in latest lie.” “Tom Perez on Trump’s executive order to sabotage Americans’ health care.” “Trump’s lapdog Pence must return wasted taxpayer dollars.” 

That’s what you would expect from the opposition party. The problem is, headlines accusing Trump of “sabotage,” “lies” and more are not uncommon from our major media outlets. That’s why I was curious whether the DNC was still bothering to employ a press staff when it has been made so redundant.

We're Witnessing the Implementation of Cass Sunstein's Vile Wet Dream...,(REDUX from 11/1/17)

WaPo |  Almost all conversations about roadblocks Trump faces or opposition to his initiatives centered on what was perceived as the media’s biased portrayal of him and his administration, rather than on anything the Democrats were doing.

Republicans and conservatives have grumbled about unfair coverage from the “mainstream media” for decades. But the Trump era has brought us to a new plateau, one where the media has moved from adversarial to oppositional. Many observers, on both right and left, have come to see the media as the leader of the resistance.

If you care about journalism, it’s a disturbing trend. Many in the media would undoubtedly lay much of the blame on Trump’s “fake news” attacks. But peruse the pages or websites of most of our nation’s leading news providers, and it’s easy to understand why such a perception has taken hold, apart from Trump’s claims. 

Former Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s widely reported comments in Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times column about the media’s coverage of Trump were a welcome acknowledgment of the obvious from someone other than a Trump loyalist. 

“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.” 

Out of curiosity, I checked the Democratic National Committee’s website this week. Some of the headlines were: “Trump abuses role as commander-in-chief in latest lie.” “Tom Perez on Trump’s executive order to sabotage Americans’ health care.” “Trump’s lapdog Pence must return wasted taxpayer dollars.” 

That’s what you would expect from the opposition party. The problem is, headlines accusing Trump of “sabotage,” “lies” and more are not uncommon from our major media outlets. That’s why I was curious whether the DNC was still bothering to employ a press staff when it has been made so redundant.

Rule Of Law: Elite, Establishment Politics, Psyops, And Livestock Management Methods (REDUX from 5/13/15)

Kahneman |  Another scholar and friend whom I greatly admire, Cass Sunstein, disagrees sharply with Slovic’s stance on the different views of experts and citizens, and defends the role of experts as a bulwark against “populist” excesses. Sunstein is one of the foremost legal scholars in the United States, and shares with other leaders of his profession the attribute of intellectual fearlessness. He knows he can master any body of knowledge quickly and thoroughly, and he has mastered many, including both the psychology of judgment and choice and issues of regulation and risk policy. His view is that the existing system of regulation in the United States displays a very poor setting of priorities, which reflects reaction to public pressures more than careful objective analysis. He starts from the position that risk regulation and government intervention to reduce risks should be guided by rational weighting of costs and benefits, and that the natural units for this analysis are the number of lives saved (or perhaps the number of life-years saved, which gives more weight to saving the young) and the dollar cost to the economy. Poor regulation is wasteful of lives and money, both of which can be measured objectively. Sunstein has not been persuaded by Slovic’s argument that risk and its measurement is subjective. Many aspects of risk assessment are debatable, but he has faith in the objectivity that may be achieved by science, expertise, and careful deliberation.

Sunstein came to believe that biased reactions to risks are an important source of erratic and misplaced priorities in public policy. Lawmakers and regulators may be overly responsive to the irrational concerns of citizens, both because of political sensitivity and because they are prone to the same cognitive biases as other citizens.

Sunstein and a collaborator, the jurist Timur Kuran, invented a name for the mechanism through which biases flow into policy: the availability cascade. They comment that in the social context, “all heuristics are equal, but availability is more equal than the others.” They have in mind an expanded notion of the heuristic, in which availability provides a heuristic for judgments other than frequency. In particular, the importance of an idea is often judged by the fluency (and emotional charge) with which that idea comes to mind.

An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which becomes aroused and worried. This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in turn produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by “availability entrepreneurs,” individuals or organizations who work to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines. Scientists and others who try to dampen the increasing fear and revulsion attract little attention, most of it hostile: anyone who claims that the danger is overstated is suspected of association with a “heinous cover-up.” The issue becomes politically important because it is on everyone’s mind, and the response of the political system is guided by the intensity of public sentiment. The availability cascade has now reset priorities. Other risks, and other ways that resources could be applied for the public good, all have faded into the background.

cognitive infiltration (REDUX from 1/16/10)

SSRN | Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light. (Cass Sunstein is President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs)