Tuesday, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to comment on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D) mishandling of the coronavirus in his state. Cuomo has caught flack from both Democrats and Republicans for his executive order to move patients sick with COVID-19 to nursing homes — putting them close to those more vulnerable to the virus' effects — and the ensuing cover-up.

"CNN Newsroom" host Jim Sciutto asked Fauci, "You're a New Yorker yourself, though you don't live there right now. Andrew Cuomo is coming under criticism now for the big move back to long-term care facilities in the midst of this crisis here. He's argued that his state was following federal guidelines when he ordered those long-term care facilities to accept patients returning from hospitals. I wonder, can you clear that up. Was he actually following federal guidelines to do that?"

"You know, Jim, I can't," Fauci replied. "I mean, I'm sorry. I'm really — I'm honestly not trying to evade your question, but I'm not really sure of all the details of that, and I think if I make a statement, it probably could either be incorrect or taken out of context. So, I prefer not to comment on that."

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

Ecuador's National Electoral Council has suspended the recount in the first round of the presidential election requested by left-wing indigenous candidate Yaku Perez, who has alleged fraud denied him a place in the run-off.

The count was put on hold after the five-member council could not reach a majority in favor of Perez's request after holding a vote late Tuesday, with two for, one against, one abstention and another absent.

"This plenary session of the National Electoral Council, unfortunately, does not respond to the request, nor does it approve or deny the report presented in the technical area" on the request for a recount, council head Diana Atamaint said.

Italy recorded 336 more coronavirus deaths - the second highest rate in Europe.

Italy's new prime minister, Mario Draghi, has pledged to speed up the country's coronavirus vaccination program as he presented his government's priorities before a confidence vote in the upper house of parliament on Wednesday.

In his much-anticipated maiden speech, Draghi, who was sworn into office on Saturday, said the government's first duty was to "fight the pandemic by all means and safeguard the lives of citizens".

His promise came after Italy recorded 336 more coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, bringing the total to 94,171 - the highest in Europe after the UK - and amid concerns over rapidly spreading Covid-19 variants.

"The virus is everyone's enemy," Draghi said. "It is in memory of those who are no longer here that our commitment grows".

Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief, said the government must move fast to obtain and distribute the Covid-19 vaccine. Italy had administered more than 3m jabs as of Wednesday morning, according to health ministry figures, but progress has been hampered by delayed vaccine deliveries.

Conspiracies for good and for evil do exist now, as they have from time immemorial, Matthew Ehret writes. The only question is which intention do you want to devote your life towards?

If you are starting to feel like forces controlling the governments of the west are out to get you, then it is likely that you are either a paranoid nut job, or a stubborn realist.

Either way, it means that you have some major problems on your hands.

If you don't happen to find yourself among the tinfoil hat-wearing strata of conspiracy theorists waiting in a bunker for aliens to either strike down or save society from the shape shifting lizard people, but are rather contemplating how, in the 1960s, a shadow government took control of society over the dead bodies of many assassinated patriots, then certain conclusions tend to arise.

Three Elementary Realizations for Thinking People

The first conclusion you would likely arrive at is that the United States government was just put through the first coup in over 58 years (yes, what happened in 1963 was a coup). Although it is becoming a bit prohibitive to speak such words aloud in polite society, Nancy Pelosi's official biographer Molly Ball, recently penned a scandalous Time Magazine article entitled 'The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Elections' which admitted to this conspiracy saying:

"Even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information." (Lest you think that this was a subversion of democracy, Ball informs us that "they were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.")

"The CIA and the media are part of the same criminal conspiracy," wrote Douglas Valentine in his important book, The CIA As Organized Crime.

This is true. The corporate mainstream media are stenographers for the national security state's ongoing psychological operations aimed at the American people, just as they have done the same for an international audience.

We have long been subjected to this "information warfare," whose purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the American people and pacify them into victims of their own complicity, just as it was practiced long ago by the CIA in Vietnam and by The New York Times, CBS, etc. on the American people then and over the years as the American warfare state waged endless wars, coups, false flag operations, and assassinations at home and abroad.

Another way of putting this is to say for all practical purposes when it comes to matters that bear on important foreign and domestic matters, the CIA and the corporate mainstream media cannot be distinguished.

For those who read and study history, it has long been known that the CIA has placed their operatives throughout every agency of the U.S. government, as explained by Fletcher Prouty in The Secret Team; that CIA officers Cord Myer and Frank Wisner operated secret programs to get some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom among intellectuals, journalists, and writers to be their voices for unfreedom and censorship, as explained by Frances Stonor Saunders in The Cultural Cold War and Joel Whitney in Finks, among others; that Cord Myer was especially focused on and successful in "courting the Compatible Left" since right wingers were already in the Agency's pocket.

The Pentagon will provide US President Joe Biden and his administration several options to respond to the rocket attack on a US military base in Iraq's Erbil, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.

According to the US-led coalition, a barrage of 14 rockets was fired at the US base. Three hit the base, killing one civilian contractor and nine others were injured, the coalition said.

The civilian contractor was not a US citizen, something which the Pentagon was quick to note.

"It's necessary to take into account that the person who was killed was not a US citizen and the previous formula that an American killed would require a response," was not the case in Monday's attack, the official told Al Arabiya.

There is a new and intriguing document related to the Russian investigation out this week. Justthenews has released a previously undisclosed email from former FBI Director James Comey that raises additional questions about his role in using the now discredited Steele dossier as part of the FBI Russian investigation. The email on Jan. 12, 2017 email to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper falsely claims that Christopher Steele was found to be "reliable" but then states that the FBI could not "sufficiently corroborate the reporting."

The email went out the same day that Comey signed a FISA surveillance warrant application declaring that content from Christopher Steele's dossier had been "verified." We are still waiting for the results of the John Durham investigation but this email raised additional questions about Comey's role. Comey has testified that he would not have approved such surveillance if he knew then what he knew now about the Steele dossier.

A third dose of coronavirus vaccine may be needed to prevent serious cases of new variants of the disease, Bill Gates said Tuesday. The billionaire's comments come amid to the growing concern that current vaccines are less effective against the South African and Brazilian variants.

"The discussion now is do we just need to get a super high coverage of the current vaccine, or do we need a third dose that's just the same, or do we need a modified vaccine?" Gates told "CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell.

"All five of the companies that have U.S. vaccines are looking at making that modification and adding that in so that people who've already had two shots might need to get a third shot," he said. "I think it's reasonably likely that we will have a tuned vaccine just to make absolutely sure that as these variants hit the U.S. that they're not escaping from vaccine protection."

Facebook has made a stunning move to ban publishers and users in Australia from sharing or viewing any news articles on its platform in response to the Morrison government's proposed media bargaining laws.

The bargaining code, which passed through the House of Representatives on Wednesday night, will require social media companies to pay media outlets for using their content. The bill is expected to pass the Senate and become law as early as next week.

In a blog post on Thursday (AEDT) Facebook said that it had carried through on the threat made in September after being unable to find a solution in discussions with the Australian government.

Content on Facebook pages from news websites such as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, News Corp newspapers such as The Australian and The Herald Sun and all ABC content were made unavailable to users from early Thursday. Articles published by online youth publication Junkee Media and satirical news websites The Betoota Advocate and The Chaser were also removed. Some Facebook groups run by news outlets have no articles on them.

President Biden was slammed by conservatives on social media after saying, "We didn't have a vaccine," when he came into office on Jan. 20.

"It's one thing to have the vaccine," Biden told CNN's Anderson Cooper during a town hall event on Tuesday night. "Which we didn't have when we came into office. But a vaccinator, how do you get the vaccine into someone's arm."

Conservatives, including former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, quickly took issue with Biden's comment.

"Biden says there was no vaccine when he came into office," McEnany tweeted. "That is abjectly FALSE. President Trump brought about the fastest vaccine for a novel pathogen in history. How does Joe get away with this?"