After graduating from Columbia University with a chemical engineering degree, my grandfather went on to work for Pfizer for almost two decades, culminating his career as the company's Global Director of New Products. I was rather proud of this fact growing up — it felt as if this father figure, who raised me for several years during my childhood, had somehow played a role in saving lives. But in recent years, my perspective on Pfizer — and other companies in its class — has shifted. Blame it on the insidious big pharma corruption laid bare by whistleblowers in recent years. Blame it on the endless string of big pharma lawsuits revealing fraud, deception, and cover-ups. Blame it on the fact that I witnessed some of their most profitable drugs ruin the lives of those I love most. All I know is, that pride I once felt has been overshadowed by a sticky skepticism I just can't seem to shake.

In 1973, my grandpa and his colleagues celebrated as Pfizer crossed a milestone: the one-billion-dollar sales mark. These days, Pfizer rakes in $81 billion a year, making it the 28th most valuable company in the world. Johnson & Johnson ranks 15th, with $93.77 billion. To put things into perspective, that makes said companies wealthier than most countries in the world. And thanks to those astronomical profit margins, the Pharmaceuticals and Health Products industry is able to spend more on lobbying than any other industry in America.

While big pharma lobbying can take several different forms, these companies tend to target their contributions to senior legislators in Congress — you know, the ones they need to keep in their corner, because they have the power to draft healthcare laws. Pfizer has outspent its peers in six of the last eight election cycles, coughing up almost $9.7 million. During the 2016 election, pharmaceutical companies gave more than $7 million to 97 senators at an average of $75,000 per member. They also contributed $6.3 million to president Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. The question is: what did big pharma get in return?

Today on MindMatters we are joined by Gordon M. Hahn, Russia analyst and author of essential books on Russia's revolution from above in the 90s, Russian jihadism, the history of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and his latest: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin. While many have observed the ebb and flow of Russian relations with the West - from periods of Westernization and openness, to anti-Western revivals of Russian traditionalism - Hahn's is the first systematic analysis of Russia's security culture and vigilance norm in the context of relations with the West.

The West is an integral part of Russian identity, yet it has also been the source of invasion and political interference on and off for over 400 years. These threats have formed the Russian security vigilance norm: vigilance against possible military threats, fear of internal division and instability, and strong responses against foreign collusion with internal dissidents. To understand modern Russia, you have to understand its history - not just the pathological aberration of the Communist era.


Running Time: 01:48:39

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Over the last few years, winter has continued to gain ground over spring, and this time is no exception.

A late winter storm blasted the northeastern United States with high winds and snow, sending temperatures plummeting and making travel hazardous. The Ohio River Valley experienced the heaviest snowfall that blanketed parts of Nashville, Tennessee, and Cincinnati. Parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, North Dakota, and California also reported unseasonable snow throughout the month. Moreover, sudden temperature drop and blinding snow showers caused a 60 vehicle pile-up on Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, causing the death of 6.

Much of the UK remained in sub-zero conditions later this month due to a sudden blast of arctic air that brought snowfalls as far as south London. Travel and power experienced disruptions in the northern parts of the county.

Untimely snow also reached parts of Greece and Turkey several times this month, including on the first day of spring. Heavy snowfalls disrupted transportation and power in Istambul throughout mid-march, while a village in the eastern province of Muş was covered by unusual levels of snow.

Unprecedented floods across much of Australia's east coast triggered mass evacuations and destroyed hundreds of homes. Tens of thousands fled Sydney as heavy floods lashed overnight. Some suburbs exceed March's mean rainfall. While many areas in northern and eastern parts of New South Wales were recovering from the widespread flooding that began in late February, heavy rain triggered a second destructive flood late this month after a levee along the Wilsons River in Lismore breached once again.

Three months after deadly floods claimed dozens of lives in Malaysia, heavy rainfall affected more than a hundred houses in Kampung Periuk and Kampung Pasir Baru. In Indonesia, floods and landslides affected more than 30,000, and almost 10,000 were displaced.

Flooding also caused severe damage in areas of Cotopaxi Province in Ecuador. Dozens of families were evacuated, and thousands were isolated after overflowing rivers destroyed main bridges. Meanwhile, in Petropolis, Brazil, a month's worth of rain fell in a matter of hours causing damage to 100 homes, mostly due to landslides.

All this and more in our SOTT Earth Changes Summary for March 2022:

Covid restrictions are continuing to drop around the planet right now, much to the chagrin of the Covid Karens who are refusing to let up on the mask-wearing and social distancing. People in countries which are stubbornly refusing to drop restrictions may do best to just hang on - since the world seems to basically be in lock-step on this, it probably won't be long before they're dropped everywhere.

Join us on this episode of Objective:Health as we look into the mass dropping of Covid restrictions. How long before they're back?


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Running Time: 00:23:11

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[...] Just recently I came across perhaps the clearest and most reasonable account of what has been going on in Ukraine. Its importance comes due to the fact that its author, Jacques Baud, a retired colonel in the Swiss intelligence service, was variously a highly placed, major participant in NATO training operations in Ukraine. Over the years, he also had extensive dealings with his Russian counterparts. His long essay first appeared (in French) at the respected Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement. A literal translation appeared at The Postil (April 1, 2022). I have gone back to the original French and edited the article down some and rendered it, I hope, in more idiomatic English. I do not think in editing it I have damaged Baud's fascinating account. For in a real sense, what he has done is "to let the cat out of the bag." — Boyd D. Cathay



The Military Situation In The Ukraine

by Jacques Baud

March 2022

Part One: The Road To War

For years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I have worked for peace and risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying war, but of understanding what led us to it.

Let's try to examine the roots of the Ukrainian conflict. It starts with those who for the last eight years have been talking about "separatists" or "independentists" from Donbass. This is a misnomer. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in May 2014, were not referendums of "independence" (независимость), as some unscrupulous journalists have claimed, but referendums of "self-determination" or "autonomy" (самостоятельность). The qualifier "pro-Russian" suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term "Russian speakers" would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.

"In war, truth is the first casualty." This quote has been attributed to Aeschylus, a 6th BCE Greek tragedian noted for his "copious use of imagery, mythic allusion, grand language, wordplay and riddles." It is only fitting, therefore, that the man who first gave word to the concept of modern-day war-time propaganda would see his quote come to life in the present-day Ukraine. The Kiev government and their Western information warfare advisers may have coopted all of Aeschylus' playwright devices to craft a modern-day tragedy in the Ukrainian town of Bucha that exemplifies the notion of the lie as not just a byproduct, but also a weapon of war.

The main source of the Bucha tragedy reports is a videotape, taken by the Ukrainian National Police, of one of their convoys driving through a street in the town. A dozen or so corpses litter the roadway, many of them appearing to have been bound. This video has gone viral, producing a pandemic of anguish and anger that has swept over much of the world, capturing the attention of heads of state and the head of the Catholic Church alike, resulting in a tidal wave of condemnation and outrage directed at Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The cause-and-effect relationship between the video and the global backlash is clear - the former could not exist without the latter.

Since the US-engineered 2013-14 coup in Ukraine, American forces have taught Ukrainians, including neo-Nazi units, how to fight in urban and other civilian areas. Weaponizing Ukraine is part of Washington's quest for what the Pentagon calls "full spectrum dominance."

"[I]f you can learn all modalities of war, then you can be the god of war," so said a Ukrainian artillery commander in 2016 while receiving training from the US Army.

The unnamed commander was quoted by Lt. Claire Vanderberg, a mortar platoon leader training soldiers as part of the Pentagon's Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine. The training has taken place at the absurdly named International Peacekeeping and Security Center, which sits close to the border with Poland near the Ukrainian town of Yavoriv. Western media reported Russia's recent cruise missile attack on the base, but chose not to mention what has taken place inside.

The relationship described above is a snapshot of a decades-long US-NATO effort to not only pull Ukraine from Russia's orbit, but to actively weaponize the country against Moscow.

Another week in the war in Ukraine, another atrocity falsely attributed to Russia - this time in Bucha, from where Russian forces recently vacated in order to regroup in the Donbass. To listen to the Zelensky regime, the Russians were chased out of the Kiev region, vindictively massacring civilians along the way - a scenario completely at odds with Russian conduct and strategy in Ukraine thus far.

Beyond the wall of propaganda about what Russia is trying to achieve in Ukraine, what really matters for all is the impact US-led sanctions will have on our daily bread. An ongoing trend of 'de-dollarization' has recently undergone a 'phase shift' thanks to the Western Powers' cack-handed attempts to strangle the Russian economy, which have spurred the world's most resource-rich countries to bypass Western financial domination.

This week on NewsReal, Joe and Niall bust the latest viral nonsense about 'Russian war crimes', explain what exactly 'gas-for-rubles' means under the West's farcical anti-Russia sanctions regime, and cite recent examples of major intra-BRICS trade deals that point to a quickening in the global trend of 'de-dollarization'.


Running Time: 01:59:34

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"All this is a digression. The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men. How does one man assert his power over another? ...By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? — George Orwell, "1984"

"We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld, or CNN." — B.W. Powe

COVID-19 has magically disappeared.

After more than two years of non-stop bombardment with Covid "news", there has been none at all in mainstream headlines for over a week. The media giveth and the media taketh away.

Through the immaculate erasure of the 'Covid Crisis,' those responsible for these harms are attempting to make us forget what they did to us, our families, and the permanent damage they caused to society.

Think back to what life was like two years ago and imagine if someone told you that a "health emergency" would require a crackdown on all social and economic life.

Many see through the destructive thoughts, emotions and policies of Leftist political dogma - thanks in large part to the actions and behaviors of their acolytes in academia, the media and other institutions. But few have as direct experience of it - and the wit and guts to call it out for what it is and share that understanding of it with stark clarity and aplomb - as today's guest. After being "softly" ejected from his position at New York University for his critical tweets of the deleterious SJW culture he was witnessing, Prof. Michael Rectenwald steeled himself to examine even further the phenomenon he was witnessing and became a victim of.

With his books Springtime For Snowflakes and Google Archipelago, and his prolific output of essays and articles, Michael not only documents his own personal journey through various intellectual currents and his own higher values, but also examines how these themes overlap with Big Digital and macro developments such as the now infamous and imminent Great Reset. This week on MindMatters we get to discuss some of the most important issues facing Western society and culture today with one of the strongest advocates for personal and political sanity to grace the stage.

An added bonus, we celebrate the release of the new edition of Dr. Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology, edited by MindMatters' Harrison Koehli, with a foreword by Prof. Rectenwald, in which he describes how ponerology helped explain his own experience of Leftist totalitarianism, and why the book's explanatory power is so compelling and crucial for better understanding our world.


Running Time: 01:35:38

Download: MP3 — 131 MB