Good morning all.
— Victor vicktop55 (@vicktop55) April 29, 2023
Putin: "What are the rules? Who wrote them, these rules? They write somewhere under the blanket and do something about it under the blanket themselves. But we will not crawl under the blanket to them and are not going to follow their rules either"… pic.twitter.com/AuZmKfpeDy
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All posts for the month April, 2023
William Gibson said, “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”
April 28, 2023
![](https://talesfromtheconspiratum.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/image-4.png?w=527)
When everyone’s mind is always being pummeled with mass-scale messaging that you’re deficient if you can’t thrive under our oppressive systems, that you’re deficient if you don’t look, think and act a certain way, that poverty and war are normal, it’s a wonder we don’t all snap.
When everyone’s consciousness is being continually warped and twisted to suit the agendas of the powerful, it’s surprising there aren’t more suicides, more mass shootings, more substance abuse, more clinical depression and anxiety.
In a totalitarian dystopia that’s held together by mass-scale psychological abuse, it’s entirely reasonable that people are finding themselves overwhelmed with despair, alienation, depression and anxiety. Everything seems phony, meaningless and needlessly difficult because it is.
William Gibson said, “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” I would expand on that to say, “First make sure that you are not, in fact, just ruled by assholes.”
The Americans claim there is “unsafe and unprofessional” activity where they have no right to be
https://www.rt.com/news/575456-us-accuse-russia-syria/
The US military, with the help of its Kurdish allies, occupies a third of Syrian territory with no legal basis and is now complaining about Russia antagonizing its troops. Although Moscow has been invited into Syria by Damascus and the US has repeatedly been asked to leave, the Americans are treating Syrian territory as if it is their own.
April 29, 2023
![Robert Inlakesh](https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2021.03/original/6053a5cb85f5400d5c71d75b.jpg)
![US officials accuse Russia of antagonizing Washington's illegally occupying troops in Syria](https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2023.04/xxs/644b7b4a85f54018947b48ca.jpg)
US forces provide military training to members of the YPG/SDF, which Turkiye consider as an extension of PKK in Syria, in the Al-Malikiyah district in the Al-Hasakah province, Syria on September 7, 2022. © Photo by Hedil Amir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The US military, with the help of its Kurdish allies, occupies a third of Syrian territory with no legal basis and is now complaining about Russia antagonizing its troops. Although Moscow has been invited into Syria by Damascus and the US has repeatedly been asked to leave, the Americans are treating Syrian territory as if it is their own.
US officials have recently lashed out with yet more accusations against Moscow. This time the complaints have surfaced through Western corporate media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The head of US Air Forces Central Command, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, told the WSJ that “we continue to see unsafe and unprofessional area activity from the Russians,” reportedly in proximity of US forces. No evidence has been provided for the claims and Moscow has yet to make any comment.
In July of last year, Dana Stroul, the Biden administration’s deputy assistant secretary of defense (DASD) for the Middle East, said: “Russia is flying in and moving about, at times, in the same space or terrain, near our forces, and it is the responsible, professional thing to do to make sure we have a channel to talk to each other.” She claimed this system has been in place for “a very long time” and is key in preventing misunderstandings that could “tip into an escalatory cycle.” With the presence of both forces in close proximity so frequently, there has yet to be any indication that what is being complained about now is anything new.
However, the story that is being completely written out of existence here is that the US has no legitimacy whatsoever to even operate inside Syria. The US government attempts to legally justify its presence by asserting that under international law it is a victim state in the face of non-state actors such as ‘Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Therefore, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (UAMF) against Iraq, which was passed by US Congress in 2002, is utilized here.
People care about Ukrainians because they’re white, MSNBC host says
The problem is that the US invasion of Iraq had no validity under international law either, a point explicitly made by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2004. Knowing this, US government officials will always cite their invitation from the Iraqi government to operate inside the country today, sometimes attempting to attach their operations in Syria as coming in defense of their Iraqi ally. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, an international law which prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, completely invalidates US operations inside Syria, since the sovereign government of the nation never granted America permission to enter its territory. In fact, it has even ordered US forces to leave.
Even if you buy the domestic argument about the US fight against ISIS, an organization that has been reduced to terror cells that linger in caves for the most part, this justification also begins to fall apart when examined closely. In 2017, US Senator for Virginia, Tim Kaine, wrote to the US State Department and Secretary of Defense, expressing his concern that if the anti-ISIS mission was extended to include pursuing objectives outside combating the terrorist group, it would have no legitimacy.
In 2018, former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated that he planned on maintaining an indefinite troop presence in Syria, both to fight ISIS and to combat Iran and Syrian President Bashar Assad. Even today, the US Department of Defense openly mentions that its mission in Syria and Iraq is a strategy to undermine Iran and ISIS. At one point, after former US President Donald Trump had been misled to believe that all US forces had been withdrawn from Syria, he corrected himself by saying that the US military presence there is “only for the oil.”
Interestingly, at a conference in 2019, Stroul stated that despite the lack of investment that the US was able to muster to counter Iranian and Russian influence in Syria, it still maintained compelling leverage “to shape an outcome that is more protective and conducive to US interests.”
Stroul outlined four ways that the US maintains its leverage. The first key point she made was about the territory in the north-east, which she said is “owned via the US military with its local partner,” adding that the “one third of Syria is the resource rich, economic powerhouse of Syria.” She elaborated that this is “where the hydrocarbons are” and that it is also the “agricultural powerhouse” of the country. Additionally, she stated that the strategy of isolating the government in Damascus diplomatically is in part about preventing Moscow’s efforts to re-integrate the country onto the international stage, and that US sanctions are partly attached to a wider anti-Iran strategy.
Perhaps the most shocking of all Stroul’s points was the admission that the US has only allowed reconstruction in the areas controlled by its SDF allies in occupied Syria while commenting that “the rest of Syria is rubble.” Stroul continued, “What Russia wants and what Assad want, is economic reconstruction and that is something that the United States can basically hold a card on via the international financial institutions and our cooperation with the Europeans.” In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Northern Syria earlier this year, the prevention of reconstruction has contributed significantly to civilian suffering resulting from the natural disaster.
The US Caesar Act sanctions have been blasted for years by UN experts, who have called upon the Biden administration to drop them over the “suffocating” humanitarian crisis they are inflicting on Syrian civilians. Under international law, the third of Syrian territory “owned” by the US can be argued as tantamount to an illegal occupation by a foreign military force. Given that the US military is an occupying power, Damascus has the right to use force to expel it, furthermore, since Russia has been invited into Syria by the official government, the US claims of harassment carry no weight. The United States of America has no right to claim self defense in Syria, it has only one right there – to leave and not return.
US officials are making urgent efforts to rescue the struggling First Republic Bank, as attempts by private-sector companies have thus far failed, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources.
People familiar with the matter told the outlet that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Treasury Department, and Federal Reserve have arranged meetings with financial firms in recent days in an effort to hand the distressed lender a lifeline.
Sources claimed that the step could pave the way for more parties, including banks and private equity companies, to become involved. However, they added it was unclear if the government was considering participating in a private-sector rescue of First Republic. They also highlighted that US officials view a private-sector deal as preferable, rather than First Republic falling into FDIC receivership.
“We are engaged in discussions with multiple parties about our strategic options while continuing to serve our clients,” First Republic stated.
A dramatic sell-off has wiped out 75% of the bank’s stock value this week, following the disclosure on Monday that it had lost more than $100 billion of deposits in the first quarter of the year. The San Francisco-based lender has struggled to stay afloat since the US banking sector was hit by a major crisis stemming from the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March.
Silicon Valley Bank, a significant player serving the tech and startup sectors, was shut down by regulators last month shortly after California-based, crypto-focused Silvergate liquidated its bank. New York-based Signature Bank was also closed down by regulators due to liquidity concerns.
READ MORE: US banking crisis fears mount as major lender struggles
To help First Republic avoid the same fate, leading US financial institutions agreed last month on a $30 billion injection into the troubled regional lender. Efforts to inspire confidence in the banking system thus far appear to have failed, however. Shares of First Republic are down 97% this year.
WORLD GOVERNMENTS ARE MAKING PLANS TO INTRODUCE CBDCS.
“The major apprehension with FedCoin, the CBDC, is that it erodes our privacy. By tracking every financial transaction, they will have access to every detail of our spending, the recipient of our money, and how we allocate our resources. In essence, it replicates George Orwell’s dystopian society depicted in 1984. Big Brother will be constantly monitoring our financial activity, and this is precisely the problem with central bank digital currency or the Fed Coin. “As an individual, I become nervous at the thought of this. I do not want them to monitor my every transaction or be privy to my spending habits. It is a violation of my privacy, and they have no business knowing how I choose to allocate my resources.”
SOURCE: RECLAIM THE NET
![](https://reclaimthenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Kiyosaki-90832893.jpg)
Acclaimed author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, has issued a stark warning that the US’s possible launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) could lead to a surveillance state akin to George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984.
Kiyosaki shared his concerns in a recent episode of The Rich Dad podcast, suggesting that a Federal Reserve-backed CBDC would enable an unprecedented level of government surveillance on citizens.
Related: Biden signals support for CBDCs
Kiyosaki expressed his apprehension regarding the potential loss of privacy that would accompany the introduction of a CBDC. He fears that with the “FedCoin,” authorities will have the ability to monitor every transaction, purchase, and financial interaction, effectively erasing any semblance of privacy.
In drawing parallels to Orwell’s 1984, Kiyosaki highlights the potential for a “Big Brother” scenario, where people’s lives are constantly scrutinized through their monetary activities.
The author’s comments have emerged at a time when the Federal Reserve is actively investigating the advantages of implementing a CBDC.
“The major apprehension with FedCoin, the CBDC, is that it erodes our privacy. By tracking every financial transaction, they will have access to every detail of our spending, the recipient of our money, and how we allocate our resources. In essence, it replicates George Orwell’s dystopian society depicted in 1984. Big Brother will be constantly monitoring our financial activity, and this is precisely the problem with central bank digital currency, or the Fed Coin.
“As an individual, I become nervous at the thought of this. I do not want them to monitor my every transaction or be privy to my spending habits. It is a violation of my privacy, and they have no business knowing how I choose to allocate my resources.”
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) introduced a bill that would ban the US Federal Reserve from introducing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or using a digital currency to control monetary policy.
![](https://reclaimthenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Fpkfri4WcAAzEqQ.jpg)
The bill would also require the Fed to be transparent with Congress about its efforts to study digital currency systems.
All over the world, central governments are increasingly exploring the idea of central bank digital currencies, to not only digitize money but also financial systems.
That would be possible because a CBDC is programmable, meaning the government can dictate how much you spend, what you can use it for, and even how much you can save. A government can also program negative rates on savings accounts to encourage people to spend money.
“There’s now literally no reason to watch Fox News.”
In Kennedy’s view, Carlson “crossed a red line” in his April 19 monologue, during which he “broke TV’s two biggest rules.”
“Tucker told the truth about how greedy Pharma advertisers controlled TV news content, and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless,” Kennedy wrote in a tweet.
“Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma,” he added.
During the said monologue, Carlson openly chastised the pharmaceutical industry and the media, including his own network, for taking in hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies in exchange for “shill[ing] for their sketchy products on the air.”
“And as they did that,” Carlson went on to state, “they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products. At the very least, this was a moral crime. It was disgusting, but it was universal. It happened across the American news media. They all did it.”
by: Ethan Huff
Friday, April 28, 2023
![Image: Tucker Carlson fired from Fox for calling out Big Pharma advertisers’ “deadly” vaccines, says Robert F. Kennedy Jr.](https://www.naturalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/91/2023/04/Editorial-Use-Robert-F-Kennedy-Jr-Hearing.jpg)
Weighing in on Tucker Carlson’s recent firing from Fox News, 2024 presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blamed “pharma advertisers” for pushing “deadly and ineffective” vaccines that Carlson refused to promote and even blasted as dangerous and unnecessary.
In Kennedy’s view, Carlson “crossed a red line” in his April 19 monologue, during which he “broke TV’s two biggest rules.”
“Tucker told the truth about how greedy Pharma advertisers controlled TV news content, and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless,” Kennedy wrote in a tweet.
“Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma,” he added.
During the said monologue, Carlson openly chastised the pharmaceutical industry and the media, including his own network, for taking in hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies in exchange for “shill[ing] for their sketchy products on the air.”
“And as they did that,” Carlson went on to state, “they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products. At the very least, this was a moral crime. It was disgusting, but it was universal. It happened across the American news media. They all did it.”
(Related: Check out what Kennedy had to say about his uncle’s assassination.)
Natural News was censored and blacklisted for the same reasons: we call out Big Pharma and its puppets
With guns blazing, Carlson continued to point out that the vast majority of everything “in public life is corrupt,” stating that there are “too many to count.”
“The question is: who is telling the truth?” Carlson further said. “There are not many of those.”
“One of them is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Robert Kennedy knew early that the covid vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed. Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right. Unequivocally right.”
Instead of being rewarded for his honesty, Kennedy was vilified and censored, just like Carlson now has been at the hands of Fox, ironically enough. Kennedy, and now Carlson himself, have both been censored for daring to criticize media advertisers, which are largely dominated by pharmaceutical industry interests.
“He was censored because he dared to criticize their advertisers, the news media called Bobby Kennedy a Nazi, and then they attacked his family, but he kept doing it,” Carlson revealed in his last segment before getting axed by Fox.
“He was not intimidated and we were glad he wasn’t. This is one of those moments when it’s nice to have a truth teller around. It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.”
Carlson’s full segment is available for viewing at Infowars.com.
Keep in mind that Natural News, Brighteon, and other affiliated platforms have been blacklisted and censored for years for doing the same things Carlson and Kennedy have: telling the truth.
Check out the following video from Carlson announcing Kennedy’s run for president in 2024:
“Tucker makes news with his monologues,” tweeted conservative commentator Matt Walsh in response to Carlson’s firing from Fox. “People talk about them.”
“Nobody talks about Sean Hannity monologues. Fox is insane for letting that kind of cultural relevance go.”
Paul Joseph Watson of Summit News tweeted much more simply that “There’s now literally no reason to watch Fox News.”
“Well, there’s still the Pfizer commercials,” responded someone else jokingly about how Fox News is little more than Big Pharma news – which, by the way, we have been warning you about for years.
The latest news about Big Pharma’s control over the media through advertising can be found at Fascism.news.
Sources for this article include:
“Russia and Iran’s alliance is as strong as ever. Given the two countries’ fraught geopolitical history -— both in Russia’s imperial and Soviet historical phases — such an alliance would almost seem unthinkable. But this is geopolitics after all where long-standing rivals become strange bedfellows time and time again.
As the US continues its hostilities against both Iran and Russia, this partnership will only grow strong over time. Those are the realities of the new multipolar order.”
Narrowing permitted ideas on both left and right, one unsuitable voice at a time
People like AOC can couch these moves in terms of prevention of violence all they want, but it’s just too conspicuous that what’s left of major commercial media also happens to be much engaged in the trumpeting of government messaging, to the point where the people reading the news are government officials. It was once considered healthy for the press to play to mass audiences and position itself as a skeptical thorn in the side of officialdom. There is no institution like that left in American life. What we have instead is an increasingly pissed-off population that needs to look about eighty results down in every Google search to find its point of view represented. Who thinks that situation is going to hold?
https://www.racket.news/p/america-the-single-opinion-cult
APR 27, 2023
That interview says it all, doesn’t it?
Not long ago I was writing in defense of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When she first entered Congress as an inner-city twenty-something who’d knocked off longtime insider Joe Crowley with a Sandersian policy profile, her own party’s establishment ridiculed her as a lefty Trump. Nancy Pelosi scoffed that her win just meant voters “made a choice in one district,” so “let’s not get carried away.” Ben Ritz, director of the Progressive Policy Institute, an offshoot of the old Democratic Leadership Council, groused, “Oh, please, she just promised everyone a bunch of free stuff.”
This was before AOC decided to be the next Pelosi, instead of the next Sanders. The above sit-down on MSNBC shows the transformation. Having shed the mantle of an outsider who shook the old guard with online savvy, she appeared in soft light for a softball “interview,” by a literal Biden official (Inside With Jen Psaki is as close as you can get to a formal dissolution of the line between White House and media). In it, she seemed to argue for the outlaw of Fox News. “We have very real issues with what is permissible on air,” she said, adding people like Tucker Carlson are “very clearly” guilty of “incitement to violence,” a problem in light of “federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t.”
I was attracted to liberalism as a young person precisely because it didn’t want to ban things. Every liberal morality play in the seventies, eighties and nineties featured a finger-wagging moralist who couldn’t stomach an obscene joke (Jerry Falwell, over a Hustler parody), “obscene” art (Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center, over Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos), “objectionable” music (Tipper Gore, in the now-seems-tame record-labeling furor), or unpredictable humor (NBC, in its attempts to put Richard Pryor on tape delay for Saturday Night Live). Pryor’s favored writer Paul Mooney objected so much to all the hoops they had to jump through to be allowed on air, he ended up writing a parody “job interview” skit that sent SNL’s ratings soaring, though ironically it would probably never air today:
Hollywood made self-congratulating feature films about nearly every one of those speech clashes, from The People vs. Larry Flynt to Dirty Pictures (starring James Woods, about the Cincinnati episode!) to Parental Advisory. The movie Field of Dreams features Ray Kinsella’s wife Annie telling off “IRATE MOTHER” in a school library debate about banning writer Terrence Mann, with Annie saying after: “Fascist. I’d like to ease her pain!” (The actual book Shoeless Joe featured J.D. Salinger, one of America’s most-censored authors). From To Kill a Mockingbird to Dead Man Walking liberalism celebrated the belief that truth, tolerance, and forgiveness are the way to reach closed minds. I mentioned this before, but Rob Reiner’s The American President — a naked hagiography of Clintonian politics — came to a climax with “President Andrew Shepherd” defending his flag-burning girlfriend’s honor, saying:
You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing…
That scene, which sounds like it should apply to any Democrat thinking about someone like Carlson, would become ironic later. Back to AOC and Fox: like so many other things in America, the marketplace of ideas is no longer a market. Voices with organic appeal are artificially restricted. Watching “approved” news these days is like watching scab baseball: you know most of the players the crowds really want to see aren’t even in the dugout. By no means is this phenomenon confined to the right.
As far back as the spring of 2017, when Google introduced “Project Owl,” a new tool designed to “surface more authoritative content,” outlets like the World Socialist Web Site, Alternet, Truthdig, Democracy Now!, and Consortium News reported dramatic drops in audience. Wikileaks traffic plummeted (that site’s content is extremely difficult to access for a variety of reasons now). Years later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google employed “maintainers” to tend to an “‘anti-misinformation’ blacklist” to prevent sites from “appearing in Google News and other products.”
The next big event was the removal of Alex Jones from Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify. No fan of Jones, I was struck by how quickly critics moved to looking around for the next targets. Rob Reiner, the “acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil” auteur, said on MSNBC, “You have Fox, Breitbart, Sinclair, and Alex Jones, which has now been taken off of Facebook, thank God…” Senator Chris Murphy said Jones was just the “tip of a giant iceberg” and “companies must do more than take down one website”:
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec716c32-a6cf-46c6-bd18-d75fde81edbc_1204x608.png)
Apple CEO Tim Cook insisted the Jones episode was not coordinated with the other firms, saying, “I’ve had no conversation. And to my knowledge, no one at Apple has.” Later stories like the Apple-Amazon squeeze of Parler ended the ruse that the major distribution platforms were not working together to create private agreements on speech, and the #TwitterFiles showed countless episodes of supposedly independent companies engaging in seeming anticompetitive behavior, coordinating on everything from election “misinformation” to pandemic messaging and holding regular “industry meetings” with government to discuss moderation issues.
The attendees of the call below include Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, Wikimedia, even Medium, gathering to hear the “USG” list “watch-outs” and other threats:
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d7aa645-daf4-484e-bbc1-4eebd581b8c8_747x456.jpeg)
In the six years since “Project Owl,” think about how many voices have been fully or partially removed from public view. True-blue “progressives” won’t mourn many, from Jones to Donald Trump to Carlson to RT and Sputnik to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Add the deamplification or algorithmic blacklisting of sites like Truthdig, Wikileaks and third-party candidates like Jill Stein, the removal under government pressure of content from people like Joe Rogan, and the seemingly endless advertiser boycotts of various other classes of badthinker, and the field of view has been drastically narrowed.
The one undeniable fact about Carlson’s show is that it was materially different from other Fox content. The product was not the same as what you heard in the Hannity slot. As was the case with Donald Trump, you don’t need to cheer the message, or believe it’s sincere, to recognize that this differentiation exists. For instance, the Washington Post this week cited “people familiar with” Rupert Murdoch’s thinking in saying Carlson’s ongoing eye-rolling about the war in Ukraine, and use of terms like “pimp” to describe Volodymyr Zelensky, had “drawn furious blowback from powerful Republicans who see U.S. support for Ukraine as a bulwark in a fight for freedom and democracy — some of whom had Murdoch’s ear.”
Removing Carlson from Fox makes the rest of conservative media more homogeneous. The constant policing of content in blue media accomplishes the same. When the American Prospect ran a feature about Carlson that merely had a sarcastic headline (“The Smuggest Man On Air”) and was only critical roughly every second or third paragraph, filling in the rest of the space with detached analysis of what made Carlson’s show successful (e.g. a willingness to “mock ruling elites”), the magazine was hit with the usual grab-bag of Scanners-style head-exploding from a handful of reporters. This immediately caused two Prospect editors to roll over, throw their writers overboard, and replace the mildly different piece with the usual wire-to-wire bloodcurdling diatribe against Carlson as a “neofascist” “threat to democracy.”
I like and respect editor David Dayen, but a sequence like this sends a message to every writer that you’d better come at topics in a certain way if you want to be bylined. Liberals in the Bush years used to mock the metronome predictability of Fox, but the same kind of thing has been going on what used to be my side of the aisle for so long, most mainstream media products are basically identical. Everyone with a noticeably different point of view gets moved out, even if they’re obvious audience assets, with Glenn Greenwald (pushed out of the Intercept for wanting to publish what turned out to be the correct angle on the Hunter Biden laptop story) and Lee Fang being notable examples.
It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is going. To paraphrase Mencken, you don’t have to think Carlson’s motivations were noble to see that his rhetoric on Ukraine stood out in the current TV environment like a wart on a bald head. The rest of the corporate press, be it left or right, will now be a parade of generals and security experts whose argument won’t be about whether or not the U.S. should be involved in Ukraine, but which party is most committed and whose strategy will lead to Putin’s defeat faster. We are moving back toward an era of two homogeneous messaging landscapes that will intersect on national security issues, with the beaten antiwar left a fading memory and the isolationist right fired, under indictment, or banned.
People like AOC can couch these moves in terms of prevention of violence all they want, but it’s just too conspicuous that what’s left of major commercial media also happens to be much engaged in the trumpeting of government messaging, to the point where the people reading the news are government officials. It was once considered healthy for the press to play to mass audiences and position itself as a skeptical thorn in the side of officialdom.
There is no institution like that left in American life. What we have instead is an increasingly pissed-off population that needs to look about eighty results down in every Google search to find its point of view represented. Who thinks that situation is going to hold?
Ukraine has lost its NATO-driven conflict with Russia. There is no need for the entire world to die as a result.
Any effort by Ukraine to recover its former territories which have been absorbed by Russia would, by definition, constitute a threat against the “very existence of the Russian State,” to quote Medvedev. “If you have a weapon in your hands,” Medvedev declared recently, referring to nuclear weapons, “and I, as a former president, know what it is, you must be prepared that your hand will not tremble in a certain situation to use it, no matter how monstrous and cruel it sounds.” “Therefore, all these stories that ‘the Russians will never do it,’ or vice versa, ‘the Russians keep scaring us with the use of nuclear weapons,’ are not worth a penny,” Medvedev said.
April 28, 2023![Nuclear mushroom Nuclear mushroom - Sputnik International, 1920, 28.04.2023](https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105173/51/1051735167_0:354:1019:927_1920x0_80_0_0_1dc1572ad45bb4fcc2554865ac9f7ca1.jpg.webp)
![- Sputnik International](https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_351f64a2b373743178e8bd6d8072830e.jpg.webp)
Scott Ritter
Columnist
Two US Congressmen who sit on a bureaucratic relic of the Cold War have introduced the “Ukraine Victory Resolution” in the House of Representatives calling for the United States to support an outright victory for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
After the presentation of the resolution, it must then be approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee and then put to a vote in Congress, both at the House of Representatives and the Senate level, before becoming law.
While the “Ukraine Victory Resolution” faces an uncertain future in a Congress where enthusiasm for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is waning, one should not count out the potential for the resolution becoming law, especially given the track record of its sponsors. Wilson, Cohen and McCaul last collaborated on the “Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act”, which was signed into law on May 9, 2022, by President Joe Biden. That law enhanced Biden’s authority to simplify bureaucratic barriers with regards to military equipment for Ukraine or other Eastern European countries affected by the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Since the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation, the Helsinki Commission has worked closely with the Ukrainian government to craft legislation that supports Ukrainian goals and objectives when it comes to its conflict with Russia.
To call the Helsinki Commission a de facto adjunct of the Ukrainian government would not be an exaggeration. Indeed, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, was the person chosen to make the official announcement regarding the presentation of the “Ukraine Victory Resolution” to the House of Representatives.
Pentagon Uses Ukraine as Testing Ground While Prepping for ‘Clear’ China Standoff
The text of the draft resolution “affirms that it is the policy of the United States to see Ukraine victorious against the invasion and restored to its internationally recognized 1991 borders.”
Wilson and Cohen both have stated that the territorial integrity of Ukraine must be preserved, meaning that the conflict in Ukraine could not be ended until the territories of Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Crimea are returned to Ukrainian sovereignty.
While the resolution introduced by Wilson and Cohen accurately reflects both current US policy objectives and Ukrainian government desires, it ignores two critical realities. First, it is Russia that is winning the conflict, not Ukraine, and as such any termination of the current conflict will reflect this hard truth.
Moreover, to tie both the US and Ukraine to unrealistic expectations creates obstacles to any possible negotiated end to the conflict, meaning that the conflict will drag on to its inevitable conclusion—a strategic Russian victory—in a manner which will only increase the human, material, and financial cost to Ukraine.
Indeed, as senior Russian officials such as former President Dmitri Medvedev have noted, if the crisis does not reach a negotiated end, Ukraine itself may cease to exist as a sovereign entity. The irony of a piece of US legislation purporting to defend Ukrainian sovereignty serving as the foundation of the death of Ukraine as a nation seems to have escaped the sponsors of the resolution.
But the resolution also lays the groundwork for the possibility—indeed, if the resolution accomplished its goal, probability—of a general nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Former Russian President Medvedev recently noted that, according to Russian policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons, such weapons “can be used in case of aggression against Russia with the use of other types of weapons that threaten the very existence of the state. This is, in essence, the use of nuclear weapons in response to such actions.”
Any effort by Ukraine to recover its former territories which have been absorbed by Russia would, by definition, constitute a threat against the “very existence of the Russian State,” to quote Medvedev. “If you have a weapon in your hands,” Medvedev declared recently, referring to nuclear weapons, “and I, as a former president, know what it is, you must be prepared that your hand will not tremble in a certain situation to use it, no matter how monstrous and cruel it sounds.”
“Therefore, all these stories that ‘the Russians will never do it,’ or vice versa, ‘the Russians keep scaring us with the use of nuclear weapons,’ are not worth a penny,” Medvedev said.
This is something Russia’s potential adversaries, including Congressmen Wilson, Cohen, and McCaul—and indeed every member of Congress who will be called upon to vote in support of the “Ukraine Victory Resolution” — should keep first and foremost in their mind.
US Resumes Large-Scale Production of Plutonium Pits for Nukes
A vote for the resolution is a vote for nuclear war with Russia. The resolution is a literal suicide pact with Ukraine. Hopefully the American people will wake up to this reality before it is too late, and let their representatives know that they chose life over death.
Ukraine has lost its NATO-driven conflict with Russia. There is no need for the entire world to die as a result.
And we are pretty certain that clouds have been used to spread diseases through chemtrails, it just makes sense.
“Yugoslav scenario. These shells not only kill but infect the environment and cause oncology in people living on these lands,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at the time, in reference to cancer and other deadly ailments. “By the way, it is naive to believe that only those against whom all this will be used will become victims. In Yugoslavia, NATO soldiers, in particular the Italians, were the first to suffer. Then they tried for a long time to get compensation from NATO for lost health. But their claims were denied,” she said. Zakharova then added, “When will they wake up in Ukraine?… Their benefactors poison them.”
BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, APR 27, 2023
The British military has confirmed that thousands of depleted uranium rounds are now in Ukraine, despite prior vehement Russian warnings not to follow through with the transfer.
“We have sent thousands of rounds of Challenger 2 ammunition to Ukraine, including depleted uranium armour-piercing rounds,” British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said while fielding a question from Scottish MP Kenny MacAskill.
![](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/ukshells.jpeg?itok=nqfvTuyR)
Heappey confirmed that the controversial munitions “are now under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU)” and that the UK Defense Ministry “does not monitor the locations from where DU rounds are fired by the AFU in Ukraine.”
The defense chief was also grilled by MPs over whether the UK is tracking the rates of depleted uranium rounds are being used against Russian forces, to which he responded, “For operational security reasons, we will not comment on Ukrainian usage rates for the rounds provided.”
As for the United States, the Bradley Fighting Vehicles which have already been sent to Kiev are capable of being outfitted with depleted uranium munitions, but the White House hasn’t revealed whether or not they are equipped with them.
When it was first revealed in March that Britain would send the armor-piercing tank rounds for Challenger II tanks to Ukraine, the reports triggered a fierce reaction from the Kremlin, with a strong-worded statement emphasizing that such a weapon will be treated as tantamount to using a nuclear dirty bomb.
“Yugoslav scenario. These shells not only kill but infect the environment and cause oncology in people living on these lands,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at the time, in reference to cancer and other deadly ailments. “By the way, it is naive to believe that only those against whom all this will be used will become victims. In Yugoslavia, NATO soldiers, in particular the Italians, were the first to suffer. Then they tried for a long time to get compensation from NATO for lost health. But their claims were denied,” she said. Zakharova then added, “When will they wake up in Ukraine?… Their benefactors poison them.”
During the US occupation of Iraq, use of depleted uranium by NATO allies was linked to cancer and birth defects among the Iraqi population.
Putin as a result of the UK move said that Russia announced he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Depleted uranium shells in Kiev’s hands are mini-Chernobyls — former prime minister
https://tass.com/world/1610555
April 27, 2023
“All those who wrote about Chernobyl yesterday while staying silent the day before about Britain’s transfer of depleted uranium shells to Ukraine are hypocrites,” Nikolay Azarov wrote on social media
MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Ukraine’s former prime minister (in 2010-2014) Nikolay Azarov has slammed as hypocrites those who on Wednesday wrote a lot about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster but at the same time completely ignored the transfer of depleted uranium shells from London to Kiev.
“All those who wrote about Chernobyl yesterday while staying silent the day before about Britain’s transfer of depleted uranium shells to Ukraine are hypocrites. Hundreds of mini-Chernobyls have quietly arrived in Ukraine, but no one spoke out against this. Everyone knows the terrible statistics of Yugoslavia, whose officials have repeatedly warned both the Ukrainians and the Kiev regime of the terrible consequences,” Azarov wrote on Thursday on his page in social media.
On Tuesday, Britain’s Minister of State for Defense James Heappey confirmed in written replies to questions from the Scottish Alba party’s MP Kenny MacAskill that London had sent to Kiev thousands of shells for Challenger 2 tanks, including those with depleted uranium. He added that London did not monitor their use and had no obligations to eliminate the consequences of their use after the end of the conflict.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that despite the fact that depleted uranium was not listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a radioactive element, there were confirmed facts and interviews with people who had suffered from the consequences of such projectiles in former Yugoslavia during NATO’s bombardments in 1999.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on March 21 that plans for supplies of depleted uranium shells showed the West’s intention to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. He noted that Russia would be forced to respond to such moves. It has hundreds of thousands of such munitions, but has not used them yet, he added.
A former US Army psychological warfare officer says that Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News because of the regime’s agenda to maintain an “uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population.”
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, APR 28, 2023
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
![](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/270423carlson1.jpg?itok=tb6CoFss)
The remarks were made by US counter-terror expert Scott Bennett.
Carlson and Fox News “parted ways” on Monday with speculation still raging as to the specific reason why the network canned its highest-rated and most popular host.
According to Bennett, Carlson posed too much of a threat to institutional power because he turned Americans into proper “researchers and thinkers”.
Carlson offered an “intellectualism, truthfulness, and an analytical depth that no other news personality has ever done in the history of the United States as far back as I can remember,” said Bennett.
Tucker needed to be “silenced” because he represented too big a threat to the “powers and principalities, institutions and agendas that seek an unenlightened uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population that do not question, do not research, do not analyze but simply digest and follow instructions,” according to Bennett.
“Tucker Carlson also exposed the fraud and money laundering racketeering crimes of FTX and the Democrat Party in Ukraine involving the United States government. He exposed the US biochemical labs in Ukraine and their connection to the Democrat Party, President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates, and other US government agencies and pharmaceutical companies,” Bennett told Sputnik.
The ex-host’s anti-regime rhetoric “could no longer be tolerated by the corrupt American media and political establishment,” said Bennett, adding that his exit signals “the death of American media”.
The former US army psyops officer suggested that Senator Chuck Schumer had threatened to utilize the CIA and the FBI to deploy secret government operations against Tucker to get him off air unless he was fired.
Schumer previously called for Carlson to be taken off air after he broadcast footage showing the January 6 ‘riot’ leaders were actually allowed into the Capitol and chaperoned around by authorities.
As we highlighted earlier, one of the reasons behind Tucker’s dismissal is a lawsuit fired by former show producer Abby Grossberg, who claims she was bullied and subjected to sexist and anti-semitic harassment.
However, Grossberg’s own lawyer revealed that she has never even met Carlson.
* * *
“Tucker Carlson also exposed the fraud and money laundering racketeering crimes of FTX and the Democrat Party in Ukraine involving the United States government. He exposed the US biochemical labs in Ukraine and their connection to the Democrat Party, President Barak Obama, Vice President Biden, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates, and other US government agencies and pharmaceutical companies.”
April 26, 2023
![Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson - Sputnik International, 1920, 26.04.2023](https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/04/1b/1082738841_0:0:1280:721_1920x0_80_0_0_7a7bdf357d2a1b334f1f5a60ffda58c0.jpg.webp)
CC BY-SA 2.0 / Gage Skidmore / Tucker Carlson
Svetlana Ekimenko
All materialsWrite to the author
Tucker Carlson posed a “threat” to those powers and institutions in the US that didn’t want Americans to be transformed into “researchers and thinkers” by his broadcasts, according to US counter-terror expert Scott Bennett.
Tucker Carlson’s ouster spells “the death of American media,” Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer told Sputnik.
With his raw honesty, Carlson has been a leading conservative voice for Americans, bringing to cable news an “intellectualism, truthfulness, and an analytical depth that no other news personality has ever done in the history of the United States as far back as I can remember,” Bennett stated.
As such, the seasoned journalist had become a tremendous threat to the “powers and principalities, institutions and agendas that seek an unenlightened uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population that do not question, do not research, do not analyze but simply digest and follow instructions,” and, accordingly, needed to be “silenced.”
Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News has generated a huge splash in the headlines, both, in the US, and beyond. While the 53-year-old news anchor himself has yet to comment on his exit from the network, the decision to part ways was reportedly made on Friday evening by Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch.
Prime-time host Tucker Carlson, who joined the network as a contributor in 2009, and had hosted his talk show “Tonight with Tucker Carlson” since 2016, had been a strong opposing figure, and built up a wall against the 1984 George Orwell-type idiocy that the US elite and corporations have been trying to degenerate Americans into, believes Bennett. He added:
“And it is for that reason the wall had to be detonated it had to be secretly exploded and this secret explosion was engineered by the Dominion Voting Machines – Fox News false lawsuit which sought to cover up the election fraud against Donald Trump… “
Indeed, Carlson’s ouster comes less than a week after Fox News agreed to pay $787 million in settlement money to Dominion Voting Systems as part of a defamation suit brought by the company in connection with former US President Donald Trump’s claims about the “rigged” 2020 election and the system’s software.
What’s Behind Tucker Carlson’s Ouster From Fox News?
“Tucker Carlson also exposed the fraud and money laundering racketeering crimes of FTX and the Democrat Party in Ukraine involving the United States government. He exposed the US biochemical labs in Ukraine and their connection to the Democrat Party, President Barak Obama, Vice President Biden, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates, and other US government agencies and pharmaceutical companies.”
Scott Bennett is convinced that for all of these reasons Tucker Carlson “could no longer be tolerated by the corrupt American media and political establishment.” Speculating that senator Chuck Schumer had threatened and, no doubt, initiated secret government operations against Fox News involving CIA, FBI, IRS, and other agencies if they would not fire Tucker Carlson, Bennett said that all this affirms that “voices of truth are hated and opposed by the voices of lies and deception.”
Tucker Carlson’s Fox News Ouster Reportedly Done at Direction of Rupert Murdoch
25 April, 02:17 GMT