NATO's self-described mission as an expression of the Transatlantic community's "common democratic values" has always provoked eye-rolling in Moscow. Now a former US ambassador to the alliance has confirmed Russian assumptions.

While Russia has always contended that the most important quality for European members is that they are willing to subjugate themselves to Washington's control, NATO styles itself as a protector and promoter of democracy and freedom. An alliance of like-minded nations dedicated to upholding 'Western values' on both sides of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, membership has been seen as a prerequisite for inclusion in the 'Western family' itself.

Alas, for NATO to exist, it needs an enemy, whether real or imagined, and Russia is the chosen adversary. This has created a bizarre situation where - due to the desire to join 'the West' - a number of states have signed up for the club despite having no ax to grind with Moscow.

In Russia, to be blunt, NATO is viewed as a vehicle to serve American geopolitical interests and allow Washington to extend its armed forces ever closer to Russian borders. Experts and officials in Moscow also like to point out that its other function is as a money-spinner, as it ties most European countries to the US military-industrial complex.

I've become convinced the next major event that'll be used to further centralize power and escalate domestic authoritarianism will center around U.S.-China tensions. We haven't witnessed this "event" yet, but there's a good chance it'll occur within the next year or two. Currently, the front runner appears to be a major aggressive move by China into Hong Kong, but it could be anything really. Taiwan, the South China Sea, currency, economic or cyber warfare; the flash points are numerous and growing by the day. Something is going to snap and when it does we better be prepared to not act like mindless imbeciles for the fourth time this century.

When that day arrives, and it's likely not too far off, certain factions will try to sell you on the monstrous idea that we must become more like China to defeat China. We'll be told we need more centralization, more authoritarianism, and less freedom and civil liberties or China will win. Such talk is nonsense and the wise way to respond is to reject the worst aspects of the Chinese system and head the other way.

- From my 2019 piece: Two Paths Forward with China - The Good and The Bad

As the clownish farce that is Russiagate slinks back into the psyop dumpster from which it emerged, an even more destructive narrative has metastasized following the U.S. government's incompetent response to covid-19.

It was clear to me from the start that Russiagate was a nonsensical narrative wildly embraced by a variety of powerful people in the wake of Trump's election merely to serve their own ends. For establishment Democrats, it was a way to pretend Hillary Clinton didn't actually lose because she was a wretched status quo candidate with a destructive track record, but she lost due to "foreign meddling." This allowed those involved in her campaign to deflect blame, but it also short-circuited any discussion of the merits of populism and widespread voter dissatisfaction (within both parties) percolating throughout the land. It was a fairytale invented by people intentionally putting their heads in the sand in order to avoid confrontation with political reality and to keep their cushy gravy-train of entrenched corruption going.

How do you measure success in dealing with an illness for which there is no cure?

This is the question we need to ask ourselves before judging which country's approach has been most successful in dealing with the coronavirus. The fact that there is no silver bullet, no vaccine, does not change the fact that leaders must seek the best possible way forward by crafting a social policy that helps to achieve their goals. In my opinion, most of the European countries and the United States have imposed a social policy that is the least likely to help them achieve the objectives that they should be pursuing. In other words, while the "containment" strategy of self isolation and social distancing might temporarily prevent the spreading of the virus (and prevent the health care system from collapsing), the infection will undoubtedly reemerge when the lockdown is lifted causing a sharp uptick in the cases and deaths. This is the problem that many countries, including the US, now face. They want loosen the current restrictions, but additional easing unavoidably triggers a surge in new cases. So, what is to be done?

With Joe Biden accused of sexual assault, Democrats and the mainstream media are being exposed as hypocrites willing to compromise their values, cautiously calling for a probe after ignoring the story for too long.

The editorial board at the New York Times actually believes the accusations put forth by Tara Reade against Biden should be investigated — with a couple caveats. They should be investigated by the Democratic National Committee with the cooperation of Biden's presidential campaign, insisting that the "stakes are too high" for the matter to be "investigated by and adjudicated in the media. Mr. Biden is seeking the highest office."

The New York Times even compares their stance on Reade's accusations with previous calls by the paper for accusations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, to be looked into. The only problem is in the two Kavanaugh-related pieces the editorial boards links to, one is a takedown of the Republican Party and its connections to sexual assault and the other is a call for Kavanaugh's accuser to testify publicly, which she eventually did.

As we've recently observed, Washington's push to oust Maduro is by no means over, even if seemingly less intensified as well and central to media coverage. Currently for example, there's some level of build-up of US naval ships in the Caribbean ordered by the administration off Venezuela's coast for what the White House had described early last month as "counter-narcotics operations".

And now the Associated Press has unearthed the stunning details of a prior failed coup attempt that seem straight out of a Hollywood script, given it involved a plot centered on about 300 "heavily armed volunteers" who unsuccessfully tried to topple Nicolas Maduro in a "private coup" allegedly funded by US billionaires.

The American overseer of the whole operation was a former Green Beret who ran secret training camps in neighboring Colombia, with the aim to infiltrate the group into Venezuela in order to fuel momentum for a broader 'armed popular uprising' à la covert CIA-style Syria regime change ops.

The details are as follows according to the AP:

The plan was simple, but perilous. Some 300 heavily armed volunteers would sneak into Venezuela from the northern tip of South America. Along the way, they would raid military bases in the socialist country and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicolás Maduro's arrest.

What could go wrong? As it turns out, pretty much everything.

The ringleader of the plot is now jailed in the U.S. on narcotics charges. Authorities in the U.S. and Colombia are asking questions about the role of his muscular American adviser, a former Green Beret. And dozens of desperate combatants who flocked to secret training camps in Colombia said they have been left to fend for themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On April 27, the Wall Street Journal reported about the creation of a "Manhattan Project" for Covid-19. A "secret group", consisting in a dozen scientists and a few billionaires, was working "to cull the world's most promising research on the pandemic" to then advise the White House in the best course of action.

As Rob Copeland wrote for the journal, the group is led by a 33-year-old physician-turned-venture-capitalist named Tom Cahill, a graduate from Duke University with extensive - maybe too extensive - contacts in the business world, as we will explore below. The "lockdown-era Manhattan Project", as the group describes its own endeavor, is all about "distilling unorthodox ideas" from around the globe. As we can remember, the MP created the atomic bomb during WW II.

Cahill's "secret group" is already influencing the Trump administration, which is taking advice from its 17-page memo, also made available by the journal. In other example of its influence, by the end of March Dr. Cahill made a phone call to Mike Pence's aid, Nick Ayers, who managed to accelerate a lucrative FDA permission for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals - working on a potential vaccine for COVID-19 - to move its production to Ireland, where taxes and licenses are more lax.

Other policies included in the memo regard mandatory smartphone apps that will require people to report about their health and potential symptoms to a government agency on a daily basis.

Two years ago, I investigated an alleged laboratory accident at the Lugar Center, the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia's capital Tbilisi, which had resulted in the death of two Filipinos working in the laboratory. The death cases were hidden by the local authorities but I recorded on camera witnesses who testified about this tragic incident.

However, what then seemed to me to be a local issue, turned out to be part of a bigger story. The Lugar Center in Georgia is just one of the many Pentagon biolaboratories in 25 countries across the world. They are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program - Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa. Much of their work is classified and includes projects on bio-agents and pathogens with pandemic potential.

If you've spent any time around the conspiracy realists who understand the true nature of the central banking fraud, the political fraud, the war on terror fraud and all of the other deceptions that are sold to the public by their misleaders, you've no doubt heard some iteration of the following remark:

"As long as Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom have their football and their cheeseburgers, nothing's ever going to change."

The implication is that if we can halt the flow of mindless entertainment that distracts the masses and the chemically-processed garbage that keeps them fat and sluggish, we could have a revolution by the morning.

Be careful what you wish for.

The sports were the first to go. (In fact, the cancellation of the NBA season was the moment I realized they were going to go all the way with the plandemic psyop.)

And now, in case you hadn't noticed, the cheeseburgers are disappearing.

The latest news is that McDonald's is now taking direct control over how much beef and pork each franchisee will receive. This comes on the back of ominous statements from major McDonald's suppliers like Tyson Foods, whose chairman is now warning that "millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain" as the plandemic starts to cripple food processing plants.

Now, there are no doubt many people who are relieved to hear that McDonald's may be forced to limit the sales of its chemical-laden, poisonous garbage "food products" (and, trust me, I'm one of them). And there are no doubt many who are relieved to hear of the impending collapse of the factory food processing system that has so utterly disconnected us from the real sources of our food.

But, once again, I must warn you to be careful what you wish for. What is happening right now is not cosmic revenge for the poisoning of the public with toxic garbage that the factory food processors and fast food purveyors have been engaging in for decades; it is actually the next step in the complete reengineering of the food supply and the fundamental transformation of the human experience that such a reengineering entails.

First, we have to understand that this is no mere American phenomenon. It is happening in Canada. And the UK. And Europe. And China. And Japan.

Not a muscle in his face twitched as he mechanically read the text before him. Yizkor Am Yisrael - let the people of Israel remember. A spotless white shirt, tie and green beret - the Israel Defense Forces' dress uniform. Not a muscle twitched when he read, "And all who were killed within the country and outside it by murderers." Nor did a muscle in his face twitch when he read, "And mourn the radiance of their youth and their wonderful heroism."

Not a muscle twitched in the face of Nahal Brigade commander Col. Yisrael Shomer when he read the Yizkor prayer on Memorial Day eve at the Western Wall plaza. What was going through his head at that moment? Did he think for even a moment about his own victim, whom he executed by shooting him in the back as he fled? Did he think about the "radiance of youth," and "wonderful heroism" of the teenager he killed for nothing?

Did he think about Mohammad Kosba, a 17-year-old child of refugees, whose two brothers had been killed by IDF soldiers and a third one wounded, and who threw a stone at the brigade commander's car and then tried to run for his life?

A WHO team is convinced the outbreak's origins are in Wuhan and that it is a naturally occurring, not a manufactured, virus.

China has refused repeated requests by the World Health Organisation to take part in investigations into the origins of COVID-19, the WHO representative in China has told Sky News. Dr Gauden Galea said:

"We know that some national investigation is happening but at this stage we have not been invited to join. WHO is making requests of the health commission and of the authorities. The origins of virus are very important, the animal-human interface is extremely important and needs to be studied. The priority is we need to know as much as possible to prevent the reoccurrence."

Asked by Sky News whether there was a good reason not to include the WHO, Dr Galea replied: "From our point of view, no."