International
How the US government is thwarting peace efforts in Ukraine and Israel
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh warns of political repercussions for the Biden administration’s handling of the international crises in Europe and the Middle East.
To get to the news these days, you have to look beyond the facade of mainstream media. No major outlet in the West has reported the findings of Seymour Hersh, made in a post on Substack on March 21, which claim that the United States government is determined to prevent peace in Ukraine.
Citing an anonymous “American official,” Hersh wrote “officials of the Biden administration, working with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, continue to rebuff any chances of significant progress in peace talks.” Referring to his earlier report, which documented ongoing talks between the U.S. and Russia, Hersh says his source is “kept abreast” of this dialogue concerning a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine. According to the unnamed mole, peace was within reach, and the U.S. moved to prevent it with a threat to turn off the money supply to Ukraine.
We were on the verge of a reasonable negotiation several months ago before Putin’s re-election and Zelensky’s military degradation.
The U.S. leaders got wind of the possibility and gave Zelensky the ultimatum – ‘No negotiations or settlement or we won’t support your government with the $45 billion in non-military funds.’
This is the amount that Ukraine receives now, aside from military aid, to support its government. Without it, Zelensky’s regime would collapse. This was an ultimatum – but why did the U.S. issue it? The source explained:
Biden has staked his presidency on meeting the Russian threat to NATO and outsmarting the monster, and he will not change course now, under any circumstances, and the end is inevitable.
Does this end justify the means? The source gave a sobering assessment of the Biden administration’s willingness to risk a war with Russia, to save face at home: “There is no road to victory for Ukraine, and it will end with Putin as an historical icon in Russia, having recovered a national jewel [Kharkov] from the West.”
What Russia has gained, it is going to keep, said the source. “The reality,” he said, is “that the lands in dispute” – four oblasts formerly in Ukraine’s control and Crimea – “from north to south and east to west all are Russia’s. So stop talking about it and make a deal.”
This may be news to many “news-believers” in the subject nations of the U.S. Empire, but it is well known in government circles. Aside from Hersh’s report, a grim assessment that “Ukraine could fall very quickly” is reported to have fueled French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent outbursts, which saw him threaten to send French troops to fight Russia.
Panic in the EU
Macron is reported by Politico to have made that remark at a dinner in Paris on Tuesday, March 19. It followed leaks from French intelligence which said Ukraine could not win the war, was running out of men to conscript, and that the French army were “majorettes” compared to that of the Russians.
Germany and other EU nations were quick to distance themselves from Macron’s rhetoric, fearing the direct entry of NATO troops into Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war.
Even Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba downplayed the suggestion, saying Macron’s words were “misinterpreted” by EU leaders who “panicked” over his talk of sending troops to Ukraine.
Added to this picture, again largely excluded from the news, is the obvious fact that the sanctions intended to weaken Russia have backfired. In reality, the one beyond the official narrative, the actions of the Biden administration have been a catastrophic failure.
“This is the world the Biden administration fostered,” says Hersh, quoting an Economist report that shows how Russia has not only weathered the storm of sanctions, but has in the process emerged a champion of a strengthening system, parallel to that controlled by the U.S.
According to The Economist on March 14:
Russia’s economy has been re-engineered. Oil exports bypass sanctions and are shipped to the global south. Western brands from BMW to H&M have been replaced with Chinese and local substitutes… Dissent at home has been strangled.
This last line could apply equally to the situation in the West, whose propaganda apparatus overmatches anything seen in the Soviet Union. Our “hypernormalization” – the state of unreality created by state propaganda – differs in one other important regard. Toward the end, most of the people in the Soviet Union knew their government was lying to them.
Biden, Trump, and the end times
Hersh claims that the predicament created by the Biden administration will likely see its undoing in the next election.
“Its refusal to seek a middle ground in the Ukraine war, along with its inability to check Israel’s continued assault in Gaza, will become a political liability in Biden’s campaign against Donald Trump, who warns of unending violence if he loses the presidential election in November.”
Trump’s own remarks on Israel have caused much concern amongst those convinced of his pledge to “end the forever wars” – a vow he repeated on the campaign trail in January.
Yet his ambiguity on Israel has seen him criticized by Jewish groups, as PBS reported on March 22.
Trump’s stance on both Israel and Ukraine – that neither war would have happened had he been president – is shaded by moves to appease the over 30 million Christian Zionists who PBS says lie at the core of his support. PBS said of Trump’s previous tenure:
Trump pursued policies that were popular among American Christian Zionists and Israeli religious-nationalists, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and supporting Jewish settlements in occupied territories.
PBS also noted his family connections to the Jewish community:
His daughter Ivanka is a convert to Orthodox Judaism, and her husband and their children are Jewish. The couple worked as high-profile surrogates to the Jewish community during Trump’s administration.
Finally, the report touched on the evangelical Zionists:
Trump’s core supporters include white evangelicals, many of whom believe the modern state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy. Prominent evangelicals who support Zionism have also been criticized for inflammatory statements about Jewish people.
This huge constituency includes many Christian Zionists who support the Armageddonist notion of ushering in the “Jewish Messiah” – through the sacrifice of red heifers and the rebuilding of the Jewish Third Temple on the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque.
This process is underway, with five red heifers arriving in Israel in September 2022, expedited by U.S. Zionist Christian group Boneh Israel, and a large altar was constructed in Jerusalem to perform the diabolical ritual to usher in “the End Times.”
CBS News reported from the site on March 5, 2024.
Beyond the end?
With the sitting president mired in a disaster of his own making, and his successor with ties to a group dedicated to sparking Armageddon, the story beyond the mainstream media is all about the end times. The end of the Biden administration, the end of the war in Ukraine, and perhaps the end of the world if the factions of insanity succeed in provoking an escalating war with Russia or in the Middle East.
Hersh’s article ends with what could read as the epitaph for the one-term wonder Joe Biden.
The best that Biden has come up with is continued, if so far empty, talk about a ceasefire in Gaza, and a commitment that no American soldiers will be sent to the front in Ukraine.
The president also promises that the United States will keep on paying for Ukrainians to fight and die in a proxy war that could be ended.
Added to this is the fact that the Biden administration continues to supply Israel with military hardware, without which it could not continue its war. As retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brik said of the U.S. in November, “The minute they turn off the tap you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability… Everyone understands we can’t fight this war without the United States.”
Brik has returned with an assessment of Israel’s war which dovetails with that provided by Hersh on Ukraine. It has been a defeat, both in military and in diplomatic terms.
“We have already lost the war with Hamas, and we are also losing our allies in the world at a dizzying pace Brik said to Israeli news outlet Ma’ariv, on March 24.
The realization is growing that the current model of U.S. power is determined to prevent the outbreak of peace. With little promise in the White House but more of the same, the hope is that in November, this will change. Yet, here are forces at work which would prefer that the end times come for us all.
What is needed is a clear statement on the future of Ukraine, of relations with Russia and the state of Israel from a man who once promised he could stop it all. We have a leaderless U.S. in the thrall of an election cycle. Instead of resignation to the end times, we need to hear some serious talk about what comes next. Our future depends upon an alternative to business as usual.
Business
Trump’s government efficiency department plans to cut $500 Billion in unauthorized expenditures, including funding for Planned Parenthood
From LifeSiteNews
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy shared their plans to ‘take aim’ at ‘500 billion plus’ in federal expenses, including ‘nearly $300 million’ to ‘progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.’
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are planning to ax taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood as part of their forthcoming work for the next Trump administration, they revealed in a Wednesday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
The businessmen have been appointed by President Donald Trump to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will work from outside the official government structure to cut wasteful government spending and excess regulations, as well as “restructure federal agencies,” as Trump announced last week on Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy shared Wednesday that as part of their work at DOGE to downsize government spending, they will be “taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended,” thereby “delivering cost savings for taxpayers.”
They specifically called out Planned Parenthood as one institution that will lose taxpayer funding once DOGE kicks into gear. In their op-ed, the duo said the federal expenditures they plan on cutting includes the “nearly $300 million” dedicated “to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.”
Musk and Ramaswamy also reportedly will take aim at the “$535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations,” according to Catholic Vote, although they have not shared all of the federal spending they plan to cut or reduce.
“With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” the business duo wrote. “We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail.”
Mogul and X owner Musk, who was outspoken before his DOGE appointment about the big problem of waste, noted last week that if the government is not made efficient, the country will go “bankrupt.”
He reposted a clip from a recent talk he gave in which he explained that not only is our defense budget “pretty gigantic” — a trillion dollars —but the interest the U.S. now owes on its debt is higher than this.
“This is not sustainable. That’s why we need the Department of Government Efficiency,” Musk said.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Congressional investigation into authors of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ intensifies
From LifeSiteNews
By Dr. Michael Nevradakis of The Defender
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, authors of ‘The Disinformation Dozen,’ faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), authors of the “Disinformation Dozen,” faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Nov. 7 subpoenaed CCDH as part of an ongoing congressional investigation, launched in August 2023, into the nonprofit’s censorship-related activities.
The subpoena requests all communications and documents “between or among CCDH, the Executive Branch, or third parties, including social media companies, relating to the identification of groups, accounts, channels, or posts for moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation.”
The subpoena also requests all records, notes, and other “documents of interactions between or among CCDH and the Executive Branch referring or relating to ‘killing’ or taking adverse action against Elon Musk’s X social media platform (formerly Twitter).”
CCDH previously included Kennedy on its “Disinformation Dozen” list, published in March 2021, of the 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers.”
Leaked CCDH documents released last month by investigative journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi revealed that CCDH sought to “kill” Twitter and launch “black ops” against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
CCDH included Kennedy, founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), on its list of “The Disinformation Dozen” when he was still chairman of CHD.
“Black ops” are defined as a “secret mission or campaign carried out by a military, governmental or other organization, typically one in which the organization conceals or denies its involvement.”
A subsequent report by Taibbi and Thacker showed that CCDH employed tactics it initially developed to help U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the U.S. Democratic Party, to target Musk, Kennedy and others.
CCDH used ‘explicit military terminology’ to target speech
Thacker told The Defender the leaked documents “definitely spurred” Jordan’s subpoena.
Sayer Ji, the founder of GreenMedInfo, was also listed among “The Disinformation Dozen.” He said the leaked documents were “chilling” and that CCDH’s efforts were part of “the largest coordinated foreign influence operation targeting American speech since 1776.”
Ji told The Defender:
The leaked documents confirm what we experienced firsthand: CCDH wasn’t just targeting 12 individuals – we were test cases for deploying military-grade psychological operations against civilians at scale.
Just as the British Crown once used seditious libel laws to silence colonial dissent, CCDH’s operation expanded to silence hundreds of millions globally, from doctors sharing clinical observations to parents discussing vaccine injuries.
Ohio physician Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, also on “The Disinformation Dozen” list, told The Defender, “The exposure of the manipulation that went on behind the scenes to silence us is what we suspected, and now we know … We have the sad last laugh against their attacks. They are the ones with blood on their hands.”
Ji said CCDH’s internal communications reveal not just bias, “but explicit military terminology – ‘black ops,’ ‘target acquisition,’ ‘strategic deployment’ – coordinated between Five Eyes networks and dark money interests to target constitutionally protected speech.”
Writing on GreenMedInfo, Ji said, “CCDH’s ‘black ops’ approach includes coordinated media smears, economic isolation, and digital censorship.” Ji said CCDH’s activities represent “a new level of institutionalized power directed at civilian targets, often bypassing constitutional safeguards.”
Thacker said Jordan’s investigation should expand to include CCDH’s “black ops.”
“I don’t want to speculate on what CCDH was doing with ‘black ops’ against Kennedy,” Thacker said. “I think that should be explored by a congressional committee, with CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed put under oath,” Thacker said.
CCDH facing multiple lawsuits, possible Trump administration investigation
Jordan’s subpoena is the latest in a series of legal challenges for CCDH. According to GreenMedInfo, the organization faces several lawsuits and government investigations.
Following last month’s CCDH document leak, the Trump campaign said an investigation into CCDH “will be at the top of the list.”
The campaign also filed a complaint against the Harris campaign with the Federal Election Commission, “for making and accepting illegal foreign national contributions” – namely, from the U.K. Labour Party.
This followed the release of evidence indicating that the Biden administration coordinated with the U.K. Foreign Office as part of what GreenMedInfo described “as a systematic censorship regime involving CCDH and affiliated organizations.”
A lawsuit Musk filed against CCDH in July 2023 for allegedly illegally obtaining data and using it in a “scare campaign” to deter advertisers from X will likely proceed on appeal. A federal court initially dismissed the lawsuit in March.
Discovery in the Missouri v. Biden free speech lawsuit may also “shed further light and legal scrutiny on the critical role that CCDH played in allegedly suppressing and violating the civil liberties of U.S. citizens,” according to GreenMedInfo.
CCDH, others flee X in protest
Earlier this week, CCDH deleted its account on X, the platform it wanted to “kill.”
Writing on Substack, Ji said CCDH’s departure from X, during the same week Trump nominated Kennedy to lead HHS, represents a “seismic shift” and marks “a watershed moment, signaling the unraveling of entrenched systems of control and the rise of a new era for health freedom and open discourse.”
Several other left-leaning organizations and individuals, including The Guardian and journalist Don Lemon, also said they will stop using X, after Trump tapped Musk to lead a federal agency tasked with increasing government efficiency.
According to NBC News, many ordinary users are also fleeing X, citing “bots, partisan advertisements and harassment, which they all felt reached a tipping point when Donald Trump was elected president last week with Musk’s support.”
But according to Adweek, X’s former top advertisers, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment, resumed ad spending on the platform this year, but at “much lower rates” than before.
“Elon Musk’s ties with Donald Trump might spur some advertisers to think spending on X is good for business,” Adweek reported.
Thacker said CCDH’s deletion of its X account was “aligned” with the departure of “other organizations and ‘journalists’ aligned with the Democratic Party.” He said it appears to have been a “coordinated protest.”
Ji said organizations like CCDH view X “as an existential threat.” He added:
Having experienced both Twitter 1.0’s AI-driven censorship system and X’s more open environment, I understand exactly why CCDH sees X as an existential threat. X represents what Twitter 1.0’s embedded censorship infrastructure was designed to prevent: a truly free digital public square.
Under Musk’s commitment to free speech, their tactical advantage disappeared. They’re not leaving because X is toxic. They’re leaving because they can’t control it.
Online censorship ‘may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny’
According to GreenMedInfo, CCDH’s departure from X “appears to reflect an internal recognition that their operational model – characterized by critics as a US-U.K. intelligence ‘cut-out’ facilitating unconstitutional suppression of civil liberties – may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny.”
In recent months, several mainstream media outlets have corrected stories that relied upon CCDH reports claiming “The Disinformation Dozen” was responsible for up to two-thirds of vaccine-related “misinformation” online.
According to Thacker, this reflects an increasing awareness by such outlets that readers are turning their backs on such reporting.
“The outlets that promoted CCDH propaganda are being investigated by their own readers, who are fleeing in droves. Readers are voting against this type of propaganda by refusing to subscribe to these media outlets,” Thacker said.
Yet, “many outlets continue to host these demonstrably false narratives without correction,” Ji said.
According to Ji, these false narratives resulted in medical professionals fearing the loss of their licenses for expressing non-establishment views, self-censorship among scientists “to avoid career destruction,” suppression of “critical public health discussions” and the labeling of millions of posts as “misinformation.”
“This isn’t just about suppressing speech. It’s about establishing a new form of digital control that echoes the colonial-era suppression our founders fought against,” Ji said.
“CCDH has polluted political discourse by pretending there is some absolute definition of the term ‘misinformation’ and that they hold the dictionary,” Thacker said. “That’s nonsense. They spread hate and misinformation to attack perceived political enemies of the Democratic Party.”
Ji called upon Congress to investigate “The full scope of those silenced beyond the ‘Disinformation Dozen,’” the “systematic suppression of scientific debate,” “media organizations’ role in amplifying foreign influence operations” and “dark money funding networks” supporting such organizations.
Thacker said Congress should examine possible CCDH violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “We need to also look at how much foreign money they took in and whether we as a nation are comfortable with foreign influence trying to alter the law and political discussions.”
“The fight isn’t just about correcting past wrongs or personal vindication. It’s about preserving fundamental rights to free speech and scientific inquiry in the digital age,” Ji said. “If we don’t address this systematic abuse of power, we risk surrendering the very freedoms our founders fought to establish.”
This article was originally published by The Defender – Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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