Assange – by Mr. Fish
Anthony Bourdain: “Today nearly everything is made in China — except for courage, it’s made in PALESTINE!”
Assange
We live in a ‘Mediaocracy’.
Julian Assange and @WikiLeaks expanded the horizon of acceptable debate and political possibility. That’s why he is imprisoned.#FreeAssangeNOW pic.twitter.com/hRbj2JbGLE
— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) February 18, 2024
Tucker invasion
TC Shorts: The Invasion pic.twitter.com/uSIqE22Tcm
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 17, 2024
Mike Benz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1759213479817334819
Ted Cruz
JUST IN: Fed up Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) says the attorney general in New York campaigned on getting Donald Trump, says Democrats are leading an assault on democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution. WATCH pic.twitter.com/oI4jQFbT4H
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 18, 2024
Gorka Taibbi
.@mtaibbi joins me to discuss the plot against Donald Trump orchestrated by Obama, Brennan, and Comey, and the explosive revelations brought to light by new sources.
We also delves into the existence of undeclared reports and unreleased information, the targeting of the Trump… pic.twitter.com/vluLp6CMtC
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) February 18, 2024
God have mercy.
• Julian Assange’s Final Appeal (Chris Hedges)
If Julian Assange is denied permission to appeal his extradition to the United States before a panel of two judges at the High Court in London this week, he will have no recourse left within the British legal system. His lawyers can ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is far from certain that the British court will agree. It may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court. The nearly 15-year-long persecution of Julian, which has taken a heavy toll on his physical and psychological health, is done in the name of extradition to the U.S. where he would stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years.
Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted.
'Prosecuting Julian Assange threatens journalists and press freedom'@FreedomOfPress calls for an end to the unjust prosecution of publisher Julian Assange whose pivotal UK court hearing will be held Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st February #FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/HEe18sLLV3
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 19, 2024
Christophe Deloire is secretary-general and Rebecca Vincent is director of campaigns at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) .
• We Have Seen Assange’s Plight In A UK Prison (RSF)
Given the high stakes for journalism and press freedom, we have been dismayed to be confronted with extensive barriers to our UK-focused work on Assange’s case. Our prison visits followed months of fighting for access after the prison arbitrarily barred us in April 2023, when we were refused entry for a vetted prison visit on the grounds that the prison had received “intelligence” that we were journalists. As a non-governmental organisation (NGO), our role differs from that of journalists. We sought access to discuss our advocacy efforts directly with Assange rather than to interview him for a media report. Over the next four months, we sought legal advice, submitted subject access requests, secured an intervention by a member of parliament, and engaged in extensive correspondence with Belmarsh. In August 2023, the block on our access was finally lifted, and we became the only NGO that has been able to visit Assange in prison.
This is not the first time the British system has created obstacles to our work on Assange’s case. We have experienced extensive and evolving barriers to accessing court hearings as NGO observers, often having no choice but to queue outside for up to five hours, very early in the morning and sometimes in freezing temperatures, to secure one of the few spaces in the public gallery. At one point during the pandemic, we were threatened with arrest simply for queueing to get into court. This absurd series of restrictions meant that RSF was the only NGO to monitor the full proceedings. We have not experienced such barriers, which effectively violate the principles of open justice and the right to a fair trial, in any case we have monitored in any other country. But these difficulties are nothing compared with the violations Assange has faced directly, including the fact that he has not been allowed to attend court hearings in person since 6 January 2021 – the last time he was seen outside prison walls.
Prisons are always grim places, and high-security Belmarsh is no exception. It’s hard to describe how Assange himself is faring in this environment, which is a stark contrast to his previous life of freedom, or even to his years at the Ecuadorian embassy. Assange’s worrying state of mental health, and his risk of suicide, have been well-documented in the medical evidence presented to court. But he is still very much involved in his case and fighting for his future. These visits allowed us to discuss and evaluate Assange’s situation with him, and RSF’s interventions led to him finally being permitted a typewriter, which he had been requesting for three years. On our last visit in January, he was clearly unwell and in pain, with a broken rib due to excessive coughing from a respiratory illness. It is a bleak and unjust situation, but it’s also clear how much worse the conditions of extradition and long-term detention in the US would be, which he may not survive.
Of course, Assange should not be in prison anywhere – not in the UK, nor the US, nor Australia, as was suggested to the UK court by the US authorities. No one, anywhere, should be targeted for publishing information in the public interest. Assange should be immediately released – perhaps through a political solution if not the courts, given the political nature of the case against him. The possibility of extradition is dangerously close. From 20 to 21 February, a panel of two high court judges will consider Assange’s final application to appeal against the order for his extradition. Any grounds that are rejected this time cannot be further appealed against, leaving the European court of human rights as his only further recourse.
In the meantime, Assange is in a high-security prison nearly 4,000 miles from the epicentre of the case, reading through a pile of books in his cell, finally typing some letters, and chatting with the few visitors who manage to navigate the myriad obstacles to get in. He has referred to his possible extradition as “Day P” – the day he might be put on a plane. It remains to be seen whether the British judiciary will deliver some form of justice at this late stage by preventing extradition, or whether the UK will become the country that enables a historically damning blow to press freedom, and the right of all of us to know.
“60% of the world is going to the polls in 2024 to vote for a new government. You might as well throw them into a tumbler, shake well and see what comes out.”
• 2024: The Year from Political Hell – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is predicting political turmoil, civilian unrest, war and a big economic downturn in 2024 in a new report called “The Year from Political Hell.” It’s not just a US election year, but it is an election year for more than half of the world. This is a global phenomenon which no one can be sure of the outcome. Armstrong explains, “This is not just the United States election. This is what you hear on the news locally. However, step outside this country, and, for example, Indonesia just voted in a leftist government. You have the EU going for elections. You have on May 2nd all the local elections in Britain. You have Russian elections on May 7th. 60% of the world is going to the polls in 2024 to vote for a new government. You might as well throw them into a tumbler, shake well and see what comes out. I mean it’s all over the place.”
On the war front, get ready for more mass killing, and don’t be surprised if it goes nuclear. Armstrong predicts, “There will be nuclear weapons. The neocons keep telling people on Capitol Hill that Russia would never use a nuke because they know we would use them back. That is nonsense! If you are about ready to conquer somebody, and this is all they’ve got left, they are pushing the button. . . . These people, all they want is war. They don’t care. They really do not care. They don’t care about the economy. They don’t care about anything.”
Armstrong says the coming war will make the economy “crash in 2024” as people get scared, spend a lot less and save a lot more. Armstrong says, “What we are looking at is a contraction in spending because of uncertainty. This is what these neocons are creating, and they don’t want to listen to anybody, and it is just their agenda, and they don’t care what happens to the country. . . .We are looking for a contraction of 12% to 18%. GDP is not going to be rising, but you are going to find inflation still rising.” Armstrong also says to look for “a rebellion in government debt” as people lose faith in governments around the world. This rebellion in government issued debt will include US Treasuries, according to Armstrong. This means interest rates will continue to trend upward and not downward.
On volatility in the markets, Armstrong predicts, “Look for volatility to start around July, and there may be some false flags too.” Armstrong continues to say Trump is still looking like he can “win in a landslide in 2024,” but expect the Deep State to pull every dirty trick in the book to keep him out of office. Armstrong points out, “If Trump gets back in power, they are all fired. . . . They know they are losing power. Instead of reforming and doing the right thing, they clamp down and they think they can retain power by pressing us even more. Sorry, but that’s what creates revolution.” In closing, Armstrong says, “Pretty much everything is going wrong for the Deep State. . . . confidence in government has collapsed everywhere.” This is what makes the Deep State Dems, RINOs and Neocons very dangerous. By the way, Armstrong says he would be a buyer of physical gold to hold as a core asset.
“From the Woke perspective, which has risen to the ascendancy in the intellectual outlook in the West, all normal people are undesirables..”
• The Genocide of the West (Paul Craig Roberts)
Are NGOs another example of liberal goody two shoes good intentions going wrong, or are they an organized plot against white countries? Whatever the answer, NGOs have certainly done enormous harm to white countries. After many years of negligence, Putin finally partially cracked down on Western-financed NGOs that were organizing disruptive events in Russia and creating the image of Putin as a dictator. Putin’s government required foreign-financed NGOs to register as foreign agents. Documented reports from independent journalists have established that NGOs are spearheading the immigrant-invaders who are overrunning the United States. As I recently reported, NGOs are actually recruiting “people of color” into the ranks of immigrant-invaders, providing them with transportation, money, and maps of the pathways to the US border that are supplied with accommodation, food, and health care.
One of the most important NGOs underwriting the immigrant-invaders seems to be the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), of which the current director of the US Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, himself a Jew, was a board member until December 2020. According to an article on substack, HIAS has received $100,000,000 from the US government in the past three years. If this is true, then the Biden regime is underwriting the immigrant invasion with US taxpayers’ money. The long-term, ongoing invasion of the EU and UK has benefited enormously from NGOs, especially from the moral support the NGOs provide for the invasion and for their work in conditioning Europeans to accept immigrant-invaders as the moral thing to do. You might remember the reports of the German women whose reward for welcoming the immigrant-invaders was to be raped by them. When the women complained of being raped, they were branded “racists.”
The story is the same in Sweden and Norway. NGOs are largely a post-1990 phenomena. Recently there have been reports of the impact of foreign-funded NGOs in diversifying Ireland’s population and transforming its culture in Woke directions that elevate the legitimization of sexual perversion above Christian morality. US billionaire Chuck Feeney has underwritten pro-immigrant-invader NGOs in Ireland. In Ireland NGOs have been successful in bringing abortion in under the cover of human rights. Other NGOs focus on legitimizing sexual perversion, such as Lesbians In Cork. In other words, the NGOs serve as weapons with which to revolutionize society and to replace natural life with Woke ideology and its amoral and immoral values.
Every Western country is being watered-down with diverse elements that destroy the unity of the country, turn it into a tower of babel, replace sexual and Christian morality with legitimization of sin, and transform traditional citizens into undesirables, arrogantly rejecting the majority as Hillary Clinton did Trump voters when she branded them “Trump deplorables.” From the Woke perspective, which has risen to the ascendancy in the intellectual outlook in the West, all normal people are undesirables. Consequently large numbers of NGOs have been, and are being, created, and huge sums are being funneled into them to take our culture away from us. No one is funding a countervailing effort. Indeed “our” governments provide matching funds for the NGOs. This is what I mean when I speak of the genocide of the West.
“..this lawless, Israeli government-indentured Congress which refuses even to demand a ceasefire..”
• Biden & Blinken – Rule of Illegal Power Over Rule of Law (Ralph Nader)
Among the puzzling questions that the media chooses to ignore is asking high government officials why they are exercising the illegal use of power that violates the rule of law which they are required to obey. This week, the Veterans for Peace (VFP) made it very easy for reporters to pose questions by sending an open letter (See veteransforpeace.org) to the Inspector General of the U.S. State Department and Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, invoking several U.S. statutes that require the “termination of provision of military weapons and munitions to Israel.” Josh Paul, a former senior official in the State Department’s office charged with reviewing weapon transfers to foreign countries, said: “The Secretary and all relevant officials under his purview should take this letter from Veterans for Peace with the utmost seriousness. It is a stark reminder of the importance of abiding by the laws and policies that relate to arms transfers.”
What laws are being violated by the State Department daily as it approves ships and cargo planes full of weapons of mass destruction to be used in Israel’s war crimes and genocide against hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s civilians, mostly children and women? These are the laws highlighted in the VFP letter:
• The Foreign Assistance Act, which forbids the provision of assistance to a government which “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
• Arms Export Control Act, which says countries that receive US military aid can only use weapons for legitimate self-defense and internal security. Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza goes way beyond self-defense and internal security.
• The U.S. War Crimes Act, which forbids grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, including wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and unlawful deportation or transfer, perpetrated by the Israeli Occupying Forces.
• The Leahy Law, which prohibits the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.
• The Genocide Convention Implementation Act, which was enacted to implement U.S. obligations under the Genocide Convention, provides for criminal penalties for individuals who commit or incite others to commit genocideUnder these laws, the State Department has a “Conventional Arms Transfer Policy” which, the letter notes, “prohibit [U.S. weapons transfers when it’s likely they] will be used by Israel to commit … genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, [including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected] or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights laws.” The VFP letter continues, “Dozens of authoritative complaints and referrals made by hospital administrators in Gaza, as well as by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Palestine Authority, South Africa, Turkey, Medicins san Frontieres, UNRWA, UNICEF, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the World Food Programme have confirmed that there is an ongoing human rights and humanitarian disaster due to Israel’s cutoff of water and electricity, deliberate destruction of sewage infrastructure and delaying of aid shipments by Israeli forces.”
If you are wondering why these laws are not being enforced – the answer is that individual citizens or groups of citizens do not have any “legal standing” to sue Secretary Blinken, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only a Committee of Congress, backed by a Senate or House Resolution, can take the State Department to federal court. That action to enforce Congressionally passed and enacted laws is not likely to happen in this lawless, Israeli government-indentured Congress which refuses even to demand a ceasefire. Mike Ferner, VFP National Director, observed “Just as any good soldiers can recognize when they are given an unlawful order, we believe some State Department staff are horrified at the orders they’re given and will decide to uphold the law, find the courage to speak out and demand an end to the carnage.”
“..journalists are persistently interested in the topic of a ‘potential war with Russia’ because they see it as a good selling point to their readers..”
• Western Europe Could Become The New Ukraine (Bordachev)
A side effect of the tragic Ukrainian problem for Russian foreign policy is that it helps us to understand the degree of economic and moral decay that our other Western neighbors would have to reach in order to pose a threat to our security. It is these two factors – impoverishment and spiritual decline – that create a critical mass necessary for an adventurer to drag his country into a destructive conflict. So far, as public opinion polls show, the citizens of Western European countries do not see any potential for aggressive behavior towards Russia. Despite the fact that some NATO military leaders and even politicians have suddenly started talking about the possibility of a military conflict, the inhabitants of its member states in Europe do not perceive Russia as a threat at all. Therefore, they have no feelings of aggression towards us. However, this state of affairs could change, and the most important thing is not the geopolitical situation, but the internal situation of our neighbors to the West.
The military-political conflict between Russia and NATO over Ukraine has been accompanied by hostile rhetoric in the media and political circles of Western countries that is unprecedented by the standards of recent decades. We can see how this goes through stages. It is not difficult to see the distribution of roles among the various representatives of Russia’s adversaries in Europe and North America. Now, for example, representatives of military structures are the most active. Literally every week, the Russian media discusses another statement by a British, Danish, or Dutch commander on the alleged inevitability or high probability of an armed conflict between Russia and NATO within a few years. With the same frequency, new NATO ‘secret plans’ for war with Russia are leaked to the Western European media. As a rule, they are poorly adapted to the mass-reader scenarios of yet another hypothetical exercise. The question inevitably arises – should we take all this at face value? So far, there seems to be a certain cunning in such statements.
Especially since the main organizers of the Ukraine crisis – the Americans – prefer to remain silent on the matter and are not throwing around theories about the likelihood of a direct armed conflict with Russia. The situation is fundamentally different for Washington’s European allies. First of all, Western European military and political leaders act with no formal accountability for their words. Since all security and defense decisions within NATO are made by the US, any general or politician in Europe can say whatever he wants; his words mean absolutely nothing in practice – especially since military spending is in the hands of the civilian authorities, and they are in no hurry to spend money on military exercises. Secondly, it is clear to Western European military leaders that politicians are in no hurry to fulfil the promises they made in the early stages of the conflict. As early as March 2022, for example, the German chancellor loudly proclaimed a U-turn in Berlin’s defense policy, an increase in real spending on armaments, and a build-up of military forces.
So far, nothing has been done, and the state of the German economy is not conducive to new spending that goes beyond supporting the welfare of citizens and the corporate sector. Thirdly, journalists are persistently interested in the topic of a ‘potential war with Russia’ because they see it as a good selling point to their readers. And the generals have to answer direct questions that European men in uniform, due to their lack of intellectual flexibility, cannot delicately avoid. And generally speaking, their job is to prepare for war, even if they know they will never have to fight it. Civilian heads of military departments also fall for this bait. A few days ago, for example, journalists had to literally torture the bellicose meaning out of an interview with Poland’s new defense minister.
It should be noted that officials directly involved in US military planning, as well as representatives of Eastern European countries, are more circumspect in their statements. Even officials and military officers from the former Baltic republics of the USSR have not yet issued statements of comparable alarm to their counterparts in Western Europe. Nor does NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speak of a direct armed conflict as a foreseeable probability. American restraint and better coordination between the US and those which directly represent its interests in Europe are probably at work here. Of course, German, Swedish, Dutch, and Danish generals cannot count on the same quality of communication with Washington that Warsaw has. And the Americans themselves, to their credit, are rather cautious when it comes to strategic issues – despite their adventurism and constant desire to test Russia’s patience ‘on the ground’.
The assessments of European generals and officials are even more contradictory when compared with the opinions of their populations. The Bundeswehr general’s comments on the likelihood of war with Russia were published alongside the results of an opinion poll showing that 71% of Germans do not consider Russia a military threat. The annual Munich Security Conference, the West’s main ‘production meeting’ on its relations with the rest of humanity, has produced a report devoted in part to Western Europeans’ attitudes to various threats. Observers have already noted that Russia has fallen to ninth place on the list of ‘threats’ this year. Clearly, the Western European populace no longer feels that Russia threatens them in any way. More importantly, they have no reason to be aggressive towards Russia themselves.
The real causes of major armed conflicts such as world wars are always linked to socio-economic factors. For the naturally cautious German nation to become a bunch of cannibals, it first had to sink into the economic misery and moral oppression of the 1920s. Before that, demographic growth and the unresolved social problems of industrialization created the necessary mass of people willing to kill and die on the fields of the First World War.
“For them [the West], this is an improvement in their tactical position. While for us it is fate, it is a matter of life and death,..
• Everything Happening in Ukraine Matter of Life, Death for Russia – Putin (Sp.)
Everything that is happening in the Ukrainian direction is a matter of life and death for Russia, it is the fate of the country, whereas for the West it is only a matter of their tactical position, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “I think that for ourselves, and even more so for listeners and viewers abroad, it is important to understand the course of our thoughts, to understand our condition, to understand how sensitive and important this is for our country — everything that is happening in the Ukrainian direction. For them [the West], this is an improvement in their tactical position. While for us it is fate, it is a matter of life and death,” Putin said, commenting on the historical part of his recent interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson. Last week, Putin sat down for an interview with Carlson, discussing the Ukraine conflict, the Nord Stream sabotage, Russia-NATO relations, artificial intelligence, and other topics. The interview has attracted huge interest around the world. The video has been viewed 202 million times on X. On YouTube, the video has been viewed over 17.4 million times.
“..other EU member-states should follow suit..”
• Denmark Will Give All Its Artillery To Ukraine – PM (RT)
Denmark will transfer all of its artillery to Ukraine, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during a panel debate at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. According to her, despite production issues, Copenhagen and the EU in general have enough arms stockpiled to supply the country with the necessary weaponry. Kiev has increasingly complained of personnel and ammunition shortages on the front lines, appealing to its Western supporters for more financing and arms. However, Brussels is yet to finalize its next aid package, while the EU’s earlier pledge to provide Ukraine with one million artillery rounds by March this year has not been met. “If you ask Ukrainians – they are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now.
From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery to Ukraine,” Frederiksen stated, adding that other EU member-states should follow suit. “I am sorry to say, friends, but there is still ammunition in stock in Europe. This is not only a question about production because we have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defense, that we don’t have to use ourselves at the moment, that we should deliver to Ukraine,” she said. Frederiksen noted that it would be ineffective to wait for the US aid package to come through to make decisions on supplies to Ukraine. US lawmakers failed to approve additional funding of around $60 billion for Kiev before going on winter break, and are expected to resume discussions on the package on February 28.
“We have to speed up and scale up, no matter what will happen in the US. We as Europeans need to be able to protect ourselves, and to protect ourselves we need to deliver what is needed in Ukraine now. The responsibility for Europe has to be in Europe and we have to do more,” she stated. Denmark is among the major suppliers of weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It also spearheaded an effort to help Ukraine procure F-16 fighter jets and train its pilots to fly the warplanes last year, and is a member of the so-called ‘drone coalition’, a recently-formed group of countries that has pledged to give Kiev one million drones to fight Russia.
“..on Russia 1, the country’s most popular TV channel.”
• Biden Offered Prime Time Russian TV Slot (Sp.)
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down for an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson to discuss the Ukraine conflict, the Nord Stream sabotage, Russia-NATO relations, artificial intelligence and other topics. Dmitry Kiselev, general director of the Rossiya Segodnya media group — Sputnik’s parent company — said he had sent a request to the White House for an interview with US President Joe Biden. “We believe that our countries lack the ability to listen and hear each other, and we believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin has set a worthy example by agreeing to an interview aimed at the American viewer,” the letter said. “The interview is planned to be conducted by me, Dmitry Kiselev, CEO of the Rossiya Segodnya Media Group and host of the highest-rated Sunday news and analysis program Vesti Nedeli on Russia 1, the country’s most popular TV channel.”
If it goes ahead, the interview would be translated into foreign languages and distributed on Sputnik’s Telegram channel, the ria.ru website, and numerous media platforms and social networks of the media group in Russia and around the world “In general, in a good way, US President Biden must respond to all this. The best and most spectacular option for the White House would be a mirror interview with a Russian journalist. As we have a saying, waiting for an answer, like the nightingale of summer,” Kiselev said in his program.
“Does the Kremlin comprehend that its de-nazification agenda cannot be limited to Ukraine but must be applied to the entirety of the Western world?”
• French “Democracy” Establishes Medical Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)
Professor Michel Chossudovsky, director of Global Research, has examined the new French law that defines dissent from official medical narratives as a “sectarian aberration” and criminalizes dissent from medical narratives, such as “the mRNA vaccine is safe and effective.” The law also creates a new crime called “provocation to abstention from medical care.” A French citizen is guilty of a crime if the person refuses a vaccine or medical treatment handed down by authorities. Had the law been in place during the mass vaccination campaign with the deadly mRNA “vaccine,” all who refused would have received three years imprisonment and paid a 45,000 euro fine. This ensures that next time everyone will receive the “vaccine,” because if you refuse you will be imprisoned and the prison rules will require you to be “vaccinated.”
The new law also protects the pharmaceutical corporations from any accountability for the deaths and health damage their lies caused by criminalizing French citizens–including doctors and medical scientists–who speak against the Covid-19 “vaccines.” This demonstrates the power of Big Pharma over democracy, which with this death blow given to free speech and medical fact no longer exists in France. This is a very serious development. It is an official act by an alleged “Western democracy” that criminalizes truth. For example, French medical scientists who find that the mRNA “vaccines” result in death and health injury will be imprisoned if they report their findings. The new French law takes the determination of medical fact out of the hands of medical scientists. The “fact” henceforth is whatever Big Pharma’s paid shills among politicians and medical “authorities” say it is.
Something similar has occurred in Germany. The distinguished German attorney Reiner Fuellmich was about to file a lawsuit supported by thousands of medical doctors and attorneys against the mRNA manufacturers when he was kidnapped by the German state and imprisoned in Germany where he is currently standing trial on trumped up charges brought by what appears to be paid “witnesses.” This is not the way democracies operate. As I have written on many occasions, Western countries have ceased to be democracies. The people have no voice. The countries are governed by the agendas of the elites and powerful corporations with the money to purchase the laws that serve their agendas and interests. The people who run for office are the people approved by these elites. Trump was the exception, and look at what has happened to him. The ruling elite have made their point: “Cross us and we will destroy you.”
Western governments serve at the expense of the people the material interests of the powerful and ideologies such as the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset.” Dutch and Irish governments are dispossessing under the rubric of “global warming” farmers of their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, thereby driving up food prices by curtailing the supplies of meat, milk, butter, and cheese, while simultaneously allowing entry to hordes of immigrant-invaders whose support the people are forced to undertake. Today a “Western democracy” is an institution that forces citizens to support interests that are not their own. We are now witnessing, with the new French law, with the German government’s kidnapping of Reiner Fuellmich, with the American persecution of medical scientists who truthfully reported the mRNA danger, the Stalinist indictments of President Trump, and with media that no longer serve as watchdogs over the government but as propaganda ministries for government lies, the legalization and institutionalization of the tyranny that has displaced democracy in the Western world.
A large percentage of Western peoples are so indoctrinated and brainwashed that they do not see what is happening. Moreover, Western countries having been turned into towers of babel means there is no social unity, which makes it impossible to oppose the tyranny as some of the diverse elements see tyranny useful in suppressing political and ideological opponents. In the US the Democrats’ policy of wide-open borders for “people of color” but not for whites is dispossessing Americans of their own country. Despite public opposition to the policy, it has moved into high gear with, according to official numbers, entry each year of immigrant-invaders in numbers equivalent to 12 cities the size of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There is no doubt whatsoever that the goal is to replace the white American population who are powerless to do anything about it. Meanwhile the Western governments foment wars with Russia, China, and Iran and expect the demoralized citizens they are dispossessing to supply the army. Does the Kremlin comprehend that its de-nazification agenda cannot be limited to Ukraine but must be applied to the entirety of the Western world?
She’s addicted to power.
• Von der Leyen Wants Second EU Term – Bild (RT)
Ursula von der Leyen will formally announce her candidacy for a second term as president of the European Commission on Monday, German tabloid Bild has reported. Von der Leyen has already hinted that she seeks a second term, promising on Saturday to appoint a dedicated “defense commissioner” if she holds on to her office. To secure a second term, von der Leyen will first have to be nominated by her faction in the European Parliament, the centrist European People’s Party (EPP). Speaking to Reuters last month, EPP lawmaker Daniel Caspary said the party would nominate von der Leyen at a congress in March, “if that’s what she wants.” Should the EPP emerge as the largest party in June’s European elections, which it is projected to do, von der Leyen’s candidacy would then be put before the European Council.
From there, a majority vote by the council’s 27 members followed by the parliament’s final approval would see the German installed for another five-year term at the helm of the commission. Opponents of von der Leyen, chief among them Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, will have few opportunities to stymie her nomination. Despite the fact that Hungary will hold the council’s rotating presidency after the elections, no one member state can veto a majority vote in her favor. Additionally, the EPP is a big-tent organization of centrist and center-right parties, meaning potential dissenters like Italy’s Forza Italia will be easily overruled by von der Leyen’s Christian Democrats and their allies. Von der Leyen has already strongly suggested that she will seek a second term. “If I would be the president of the next European Commission, I would have a commissioner for defense,” she said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, without spelling out what this commissioner’s responsibilities would be.
Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began, von der Leyen has positioned herself as one of Kiev’s most ardent Western backers. She has authorized 12 packages of sanctions on Russia, overseen the dramatic expansion of the so-called ‘European Peace Facility’ – a €12 billion ($12.9 billion) fund used to funnel weapons to Ukraine – and hurried Ukraine’s bid for EU membership through the normally drawn-out application process. So antagonistic is her relationship to Moscow that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reportedly forbade US President Joe Biden last year from endorsing her bid to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as secretary-general of NATO. According to Germany’s Welt newspaper, Scholz felt that von der Leyen’s hardline anti-Russian stance “could prove to be a disadvantage in the long term.” Von der Leyen will return to Berlin from Munich on Sunday, and is expected to announce her candidacy after a discussion with her fellow Christian Democrats on Monday, Bild reported.
“..last thing we need right now is elections.”
• Netanyahu To Be Ousted – Israel Media (RT)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be able to retain power after the country’s military has concluded its operation against Hamas in Gaza, Ynet media outlet has claimed, citing anonymous sources within his Likud party. Amid mounting calls for early elections, the Israeli leader insisted on Saturday that now is “not the time for politics,” suggesting that the next vote will take place “in a few years.” Multiple opinion polls have demonstrated that Netanyahu’s approval ratings and those of his Likud party have been on the decline since Hamas militants conducted their deadly surprise incursion into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. Back in December, the Israel Democracy Institute, citing survey results, claimed that more than two-thirds of Israelis want general elections to be held as soon as hostilities in Gaza are over.
A survey conducted earlier this month showed that opposition parties would secure as many as 75 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats if elections were held now.In its report on Saturday, Ynet quoted an unnamed senior member of Likud as predicting that “whoever was prime minister on October 7 will finish his post at the end of the war.”Another staffer from Netanyahu’s party allegedly contended that no matter “how much Netanyahu postpones the end and how much he doesn’t want to, at the end of this war we will go to elections.” According to the media outlet, the anonymous Likud bigwig added that the prime minister would be forced to call a snap election either by members of his own political force or by other parties making up the ruling coalition, with everyone understanding that “this is what’s going to happen.”
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Netanyahu dismissed calls for a snap election, insisting that a vote for the Knesset should take place as scheduled, that is, in October 2026. “I suggest we don’t concern ourselves with that during the war,” the prime minister said, arguing that the “last thing we need right now is elections.” Netanyahu warned that internal political division in Israel would play into the hands of Hamas. The opposition Yesh Atid party released a statement describing the prime minister’s comments as “another performance by an unfit prime minister who, by all accounts, has long lost the public’s trust and continues to flee from the responsibility of the greatest failure to the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” “Israel needs change. Elections are the order of the day,” the party argued.
“..a week of hearings on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestine..”
• ICJ to Examine 57 Years of Israeli Occupation of Palestine (Wilkins)
More than 50 countries are set to participate in next week’s hearings at the International Court of Justice focusing on Israel’s illegal 57-year occupation of Palestine, a forum that follows the Hague tribunal’s finding last month that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in occupied Gaza. The ICJ—also known as the World Court—will hold a week of hearings on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which dates to the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Syrian Golan Heights, and Egyptian Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 Six-Day War. “The International Court of Justice is set for the first time to broadly consider the legal consequences of Israel’s nearly six-decades-long occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian people,” Human Rights Watch senior legal adviser Clive Baldwin said in a statement.
“Governments that are presenting their arguments to the court should seize these landmark hearings to highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” The West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights remain under Israeli military occupation six decades after their conquest. The United Nations—to which the ICJ belongs—and many international NGOs contend that, despite removing its troops and settlers from Gaza two decades ago, Israel continues to occupy Gaza by controlling the besieged enclave’s airspace, territorial waters, and the entry and exit of people and goods. Since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed or wounded more than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza while forcibly displacing around 90% of the population. Numerous Israeli leaders have called for the renewed physical occupation, Jewish resettlement, and ethnic cleansing of the strip.
During the current assault on Gaza, occupation forces have also killed at least 388 Palestinians, including 99 children, in the West Bank, according to U.N. human rights officials. Israeli settlers have for decades been steadily colonizing the occupied territories under the protection of the IDF, while ethnically cleansing Palestinians whose lands and homes they steal. Next week’s hearings come on the heels of the ICJ’s provisional ruling last month in a case led by South Africa—which will be the first nation after Palestine to present at next week’s hearing—that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza. The tribunal ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to adhere to its obligations under Article II of the Genocide Convention.
Earlier this week, South Africa urgently appealed to the ICJ to act amid the looming threat of an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah. More than 1.5 million Palestinians, most of them refugees ordered to flee to the south of Gaza by invading Israeli forces, are crammed into what is now one of the world’s most densely populated places. On Friday, the ICJ declined to take any additional action against Israel, while reiterating that the “perilous situation” in Rafah “demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court” in last month’s ruling.
“..including the threat from Morris to sue me for defamation if I continued to raise ethical concerns over his conduct..”
• Hunter’s Lawyers Balked at Kevin Morris Laptop Conspiracy Theories (Turley)
We have previously discussed the controversial representation of Kevin Morris of Hunter Biden, including the threat from Morris to sue me for defamation if I continued to raise ethical concerns over his conduct. Now a report by the New York Times suggests that even Hunter’s other lawyers had concerns over Morris’s claims, particularly the fostering of a conspiracy theory to deny the authenticity of the infamous laptop of Hunter Biden. According to the New York Times, Kevin Morris “quietly pushed a complex theory under which the repair shop was a front and the information had been made public through a cast of characters including a psychiatrist who had treated Mr. Biden’s addiction using ketamine therapy and the Trump-allied operative Roger J. Stone Jr.” That is notable because many in the media picked up on the conspiracy theory despite ample evidence that the laptop was genuine.
Indeed, a similar theory was contained in the now debunked letter of former intelligence officials just before the election — a letter widely used in the media to effectively shutdown coverage. Some later admitted that they assumed the emails were genuine. The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump and others pushed the conspiracy theory. Indeed, in 2021, when media organizations were finally admitting that the laptop was authentic, Bump was still declaring that it was a “conspiracy theory.” Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bump continued to suggest that “the laptop was seeded by Russian intelligence.” What is equally astonishing is that in 2023 the Post expressly stood by Bump’s reporting on the laptop and other debunked claims. The media report suggests that Chris Clark and Joshua Levy stopped working on the case as the false claims were being pushed. It is not clear if they support the reporting in the Times. Levy reportedly exited from representation in March 2023 after “unease and dissent” over the Hunter Biden legal team and its direction.
Clark withdrew shortly after he admitted that Hunter’s notorious 2017 WhatsApp text demanding money from a Chinese businessman was genuine. In the message, Hunter literally describes his father sitting next to him to drive home the threat, declaring “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled…I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight…I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.” Morris has increasingly appeared to be something of an enabler for Hunter, reinforcing a persecution complex while funding his lavish lifestyle. What is striking about the report is that the conspiracy theory is precisely the type of disinformation that the Biden Administration has alleged against critics to seek their censorship, throttling, and banning on social media.
Dog turtle
This is how them sibling fights be…pic.twitter.com/I2ACDfmnT7
— Figen (@TheFigen_) February 18, 2024
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