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US intelligence agencies issue 'dire warning over climate change' - what's in it for them?


Sputnik
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 21:39 UTC
africa raft
© AP Photo / Maura Ajak
In a 27-page report, all 18 US intelligence agencies issued their first-ever collaborative warning over the threat posed by climate change, to the US and to global security.

The report's key takeaways are that climate change will "exacerbate risks to US national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to the challenge." US intelligence agencies also believe that developing countries will face the most severe ramifications of climate change due to their inability to finance necessary safeguards, which could create "additional demands on US diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military resources."


Comment: The US has demonstrated that it cares for developing nations only in as much as how it can use them for its own benefit, however, it is true that if host nations were to suffer additional difficulties due to climatic stress, it's likely they would be less accommodating to their American 'guests'.

As an aside, developing nations are less reliant than the pampered West on supply chains and have honed their survival skills so, in some ways, they could fare much better.


Comment: US intel agencies aren't known to share information for altruistic reasons, so whilst its quite clear that Earth Changes are afoot, and that they have nothing to do with CO2 emissions, it's likely that this announcement is intended to further a number of agendas, including but not limited to: budget increases; hastening the regressive and tyrannical New Green/Build Back Better/Great Reset agendas; diverting blame from the economy destroying lockdowns and the rampant corruption in business and politics; and containing China: Also check out SOTT radio's:


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Attention

The world according to President Putin

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 22:13 UTC
Russian president, in Sochi, lays down the law in favor of conservatism - says the woke West is in decline.
Vladimir Putin at Valdai.
© Daily Sabah
Vladimir Putin at Valdai.
The plenary session is the traditional highlight of the annual, must-follow Valdai Club discussions - one of Eurasia's premier intellectual gatherings.

Vladimir Putin is a frequent keynote speaker. In Sochi this year, as I related in a previous column, the overarching theme was "global shake-up in the 21st century: the individual, values and the state."

Putin addressed it head on, in what can already be considered one of the most important geopolitical speeches in recent memory (a so-far incomplete transcript can be found here) - certainly his strongest moment in the limelight. That was followed by a comprehensive Q&A session (starting at 4:39:00).

Predictably, assorted Atlanticists, neocons and liberal interventionists will be apoplectic. That's irrelevant. For impartial observers, especially across the Global South, what matters is to pay very close attention to how Putin shared his worldview - including some very candid moments.

Right at the start, he evoked the two Chinese characters that depict "crisis" (as in "danger") and "opportunity," melding them with a Russian saying: "Fight difficulties with your mind. Fight dangers with your experience."

This elegant, oblique reference to the Russia-China strategic partnership led to a concise appraisal of the current chessboard:
The re-alignment of the balance of power presupposes a redistribution of shares in favor of rising and developing countries that until now felt left out. To put it bluntly, the Western domination of international affairs, which began several centuries ago and, for a short period, was almost absolute in the late 20th century, is giving way to a much more diverse system.
That opened the way to another oblique characterization of hybrid warfare as the new modus operandi:
Previously, a war lost by one side meant victory for the other side, which took responsibility for what was happening. The defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War, for example, did not make Vietnam a "black hole." On the contrary, a successfully developing state arose there, which, admittedly, relied on the support of a strong ally. Things are different now: No matter who takes the upper hand, the war does not stop, but just changes form. As a rule, the hypothetical winner is reluctant or unable to ensure peaceful post-war recovery, and only worsens the chaos and the vacuum posing a danger to the world.
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Syringe

Lithuania vaccinated ~75% of its adults and instituted a very strict vaccine pass program: Rates are still rising, but civil liberties are vanishing

Alex Berenson
alexberenson.substack.com
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 20:43 UTC
lithuania covid
© Centre of Registers/Screengrab
Covid-19 map of Lithuania from May of 2020
You'll never BELIEVE what happened next. (Or maybe you will.)

For months, Lithuania - once the home of peaceful and surprisingly effective resistance to Soviet tyranny - has engaged in increasingly strict medical fascism.

Adults who refuse the Covid vaccine are essentially barred from work, shopping, and public life. Even food shopping and visits to doctors are difficult. Violators face hefty fines.

A Lithuanian who goes by "gluboco" has catalogued the restrictions:

Comment: Twitter user Gluboco Lietuva has documented the precipitous decline in Lithuania's civil liberties in a long, disturbing thread beginning here:


and ending here:


The complete thread may be read here.

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Fire

CNN torched by real journalists for 'embarrassing' statement on Joe Rogan: Sounds like an 'advocacy group,' not a news network

Joseph Wulfsohn
Fox News
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 20:31 UTC
Joe Rogan and Sanjay Gupta
© Getty Images
Joe Rogan and Sanjay Gupta
'You don't have to endorse Rogan to abhor CNN's coverage of this topic,' WaPo media critic Erik Wemple wrote

CNN has renewed criticism of its journalistic ethics after issuing a blistering statement in response to podcast giant Joe Rogan.

Last week, CNN remained silent as Rogan accused the liberal network of "lying" over its coverage of his use of ivermectin after he announced he tested positive for COVID, a treatment its anchors repeatedly characterized as "horse dewormer" and a "livestock drug" despite the common human form of ivermectin having been prescribed to Rogan by a doctor.

Rogan intensely grilled CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta during his appearance on The Joe Rogan Podcast. Rogan forced Gupta to admit his colleagues should not have said such claims about his use of ivermectin.

CNN was widely panned for pushing its false narrative about Rogan and Gupta was also criticized for his attempt to spin the disastrous interview.

Comment: The clip in question:



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Passport

Public health or private wealth? How digital vaccine passports pave way for unprecedented surveillance capitalism

Jeremy Loffredo, Max Blumenthal
The Grayzone
Tue, 19 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
Gates/Davos
© Unknown
Bill Gates • Davos
The titans of global capitalism are exploiting the Covid-19 crisis to institute social credit-style digital ID systems across the West.

The death by starvation of Etwariya Devi, a 67-year-old widow from the rural Indian state of Jharkhand, might have passed without notice had it not been part of a more widespread trend.

Like 1.3 billion of her fellow Indians, Devi had been pushed to enroll in a biometric digital ID system called Aadhaar in order to access public services, including her monthly allotment of 25kg of rice. When her fingerprint failed to register with the shoddy system, Devi was denied her food ration. Throughout the course of the following three months in 2017, she was repeatedly refused food until she succumbed to hunger, alone in her home.

Premani Kumar, a 64-year-old woman also from Jharkhand, met the same demise as Devi, dying of hunger and exhaustion the same year after the Aadhaar system transferred her pension payments to another person without her permission, while cutting off her monthly food rations.

A similarly cruel fate was reserved for Santoshi Kumari, an 11-year-old girl, also from Jharkhand, who reportedly died begging for rice after her family's ration card was canceled because it had not been linked to their Aadhaar digital ID.

These three heart-rending casualties were among a spate of deaths in rural India in 2017 which came as a direct result of the Aadhaar digital ID system. With over one billion Indians in its database, Aadhaar is the largest biometric digital ID program ever constructed. Besides serving as a portal to government services, it tracks users' movements between cities, their employment status, and purchasing records. It is a de facto social credit system that serves as the key entry point for accessing services in India.

Comment: Authors offer a jaw-dropping unlayering of 'the march toward' and 'trajectory of' the Mark of the Beast. We must not remain naive.

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Folder

Biden delays release of JFK assassination records, blaming COVID-19 pandemic

Jesse O'Neill
New York Post
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 01:09 UTC
Biden
© Evan Vucci/AP
US President Joe Biden
The US will "unfortunately" continue to delay the public release of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and officials say the COVID-19 pandemic is to blame.

The move was announced in a memo signed by President Joe Biden and released by the White House Friday. Biden wrote:
"Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure."
In 1992, Congress ruled that
"all Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy . . . should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination."
The act allowed the government to postpone the release to "protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations," according to the memo.

This year, the National Archives and Records Administration ruled that "unfortunately, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the agencies," and NARA needed additional time to research the material and "maximize the amount of information released," the memo said.


Comment: Half a century?


Comment: The truth surrounding Kennedy's demise has a power of its own, one this administration would rather keep under lock and key for as long as possible. To be compared with JFK is the last thing Biden might want.

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Syringe

Infection rates for vaccinated at double that of unvaccinated, UKHSA suggests vaccines may hobble the immune response on infection

Will Jones
The Daily Sceptic
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 07:00 UTC
Vac effectiveness chart
Another week, another Vaccine Surveillance report (now published by the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the successor to Public Health England), and with it more worrying news on the vaccine front.

Infection rates in the double-vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated continue to rise, meaning unadjusted vaccine effectiveness continues to decline. Infection rates are now higher in the double-vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated by 124% in those in their 40s, 103% in those in their 50s and 60s and 101% in those in their 70s, corresponding to unadjusted vaccine effectiveness estimates of minus-124%, minus-103% and minus-101% respectively. For those over 80 the unadjusted vaccine effectiveness is minus-34% while for those in their 30s it is minus-27%. For 18-29 year-olds it is 25%, so still positive but low, while for under-18s it is 90%, the only age group showing high efficacy.

Vaccine effectiveness against emergency hospital admission and death continues to hold up, though with some indication of gradual slide, particularly in older age groups (see below). (For definitions and limitations, see here.)

Comment: While not yet a 'game changer' (since the game is way ahead of us), the reality of current statistics shows a remarkable hole in the pro-vaccination narrative.

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Pi

The decay of science in the age of lockdowns

Martin Kulldorff
Brownstone Institute
Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
globes
© shutterstock
Science is about rational disagreement, the questioning and testing of orthodoxy and the constant search for truth. With something like lockdown - an untested policy that affects millions - rigorous debate and the basics of verification/falsification are more important than ever. Academics backing lockdown (or any major theory) ought to welcome challenges, knowing - as scientists do - that robust challenge is the way to identify error, improve policy and save lives.

But with lockdown, science is in danger of being suppressed by politics. Lockdown moved instantly from untested theory to unchallengeable orthodoxy: where dissenters face personal attack. Understandable on social media perhaps, but it has now crept into the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in a recent article about the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

The GBD, which I wrote, together with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya at Stanford and Dr. Sunetra Gupta at Oxford, argues for focused protection. Rather than a blanket lockdown which inflicts so much harm on society, we wanted better protection of those most at risk - mindful that Covid typically poses only a mild risk to the young. For saying so, we are smeared as 'the new merchants of doubt' - as if scepticism and challenge is regarded by the BMJ as something to be condemned.

The error-strewn attacks in BMJ demonstrate what awaits academics who do challenge prevailing views.
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Arrow Up

Biden administration said it left 100 Americans in Afghanistan, now admit it is far more

Adam Kredo
The Washington Free Beacon
Fri, 22 Oct 2021 04:33 UTC
Psaki
© Getty Images
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
The Biden administration is in touch with nearly 400 Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan, a figure that far exceeds the administration's claims that about 100 Americans were left in the nation following the United States' hurried exit from Kabul, according to a senior congressional source who was briefed Thursday by the State Department.

With Afghanistan in the administration's rear-view mirror, U.S. officials are providing exact figures on the number of Americans who are still stranded and want to leave — although they are doing so in private, off-the-record forums — according to two senior congressional aides, who relayed the contents of the non-public call to the Washington Free Beacon.

The United States is in touch with 363 Americans who are stuck in war-torn Afghanistan and around 176 U.S. permanent residents who are asking to be evacuated immediately, Biden administration officials said on the call with congressional staff, according to the source, who requested anonymity to discuss non-public information. These figures demonstrate that senior Biden administration officials routinely misrepresented the number of stranded Americans to the public and Congress for nearly two months.
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Arrow Down

US officials walk back Biden's remarks on Taiwan, say 'strategic ambiguity' policy has not changed

Owen Churchill
South China Morning Post
Sat, 23 Oct 2021 05:14 UTC
Psaki
© Youtube/creenshot/White House
White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki
US officials scrambled on Friday to clarify that Washington's policy toward Taiwan had not changed, after an apparent gaffe by US President Joe Biden Thursday night when he said on CNN that the United States would come to the island's defence in the event of an attack by China.

"There is no change in our policy," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing, as she fielded numerous questions about whether Biden's comments signaled an end to Washington's long-held position of "strategic ambiguity".

Asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper whether the US would come to Taiwan's defence if mainland forces attacked, Biden said: "Yes, we have a commitment to do that."

The US does not maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but is required by the Taiwan Relations Act to support the self-governed island's efforts to defend itself, including through arms sales. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province, destined for eventual reunification with the mainland, by force if necessary.

The Taiwan Relations Act does not, however, include a commitment to intervene militarily if China seeks to annex Taiwan by force. The US has for decades followed a policy of "strategic ambiguity", in which it does not indicate whether it would take military action in Taiwan's defence.

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