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“Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”

-- Roger Zelazny

News and Opinion

Biden catapults the propaganda (with an assist from the media):

Biden warns world would face ‘Armageddon’ if Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine

Joe Biden has warned the world could face “Armageddon” if Vladimir Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon to try to win the war in Ukraine.

The US president made his most outspoken remarks to date about the threat of nuclear war, at a Democratic fundraiser in New York, saying it was the closest the world had come to nuclear catastrophe for sixty years.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” he said.

Zelensky Calls For NUCLEAR First Strikes Against Russia

Jeffrey Sachs: end Ukraine proxy war or face "armageddon"

Biden: We’re Trying To Figure Out How Putin Can Exit This War

The president of the United States made headlines the other day by just casually mentioning “Armageddon” as a possible outcome of the rapidly escalating war in Ukraine.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” President Biden said, adding the false claim that Vladimir Putin “talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons” in this conflict.

“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the threat of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” the president said in the same speech. “We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?”

As though the US government itself has not played a major role in both provoking and sustaining this extremely dangerous conflict.

“These are questions that Biden should ask himself,” World Socialist Website’s David North writes of Biden’s musings. “Having instigated the US-NATO proxy war, provided Ukraine with unlimited weapons and money, pledged the reconquest of Crimea, and called for regime change in Russia, what is Biden’s ‘off ramp’? How can he deescalate ‘where he does not only lose face but significant power?'”

Indeed it is simply a well-documented fact that the US has been aggressively pushing toward this conflict since it backed a coup in Ukraine in 2014, and really since 2008 when NATO membership for Ukraine was placed on the table and continually promoted by the United States right up until shortly before Russia’s February invasion. Which is why all the way back in 2015 John Mearsheimer was explicitly warning that “the west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”

There’s also an abundance of evidence that the western empire actively sabotaged a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv in the early days of the war, which would have given Putin precisely the “off-ramp” which Biden feigns concern about with Bambi-eyed innocence.

It’s also entirely self-evident that the only reason this war is even happening is because the US and its allies are pouring tens of billions of dollars worth of weaponry into this conflict which are being used by CIA-trained fighters who are aided by US intelligence and by an alarming number of US special operations and intelligence forces with boots on the ground in Ukraine.

So when Biden says “We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp,” one is easily reminded of the “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this” hot dog car sketch from I Think You Should Leave.

Empire apologists always pretend this is just a war between Russia and Ukraine like there isn’t a gigantic globe-spanning third party who’s been actively stoking this conflict for many years and has moved mountains to keep this war going. We see it every day, like just recently when Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin was asked for ideas on how this war can end.

“The way out of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine,” Marin said.

Actor Mark Ruffalo shared Marin’s comments on Twitter, saying “It’s so simple. Russia, leave Ukraine and it’s over. World peace. Ukraine can’t leave Ukraine. Russia can always go back to Russia.”

This is a constant throughout mainstream discourse about this war: this is solely a conflict between the righteous defender Ukraine and the evil invader Russia, and exactly zero other world powers at all. Russia is the sole aggressor involved in this war, so all Russia needs to do is stop aggressing and it will end. Pay no attention to the mountains of aggression the US and its client states have poured into sparking and sustaining this war. Pay no attention to that empire behind the curtain.

“So simple,” Ruffalo says.

If the political/media class always talks about a major world event without ever mentioning the empire-sized elephant in the room, there’s a good change we are being propagandized by that empire.

Putin warns Ukraine of harsh response to any attack

Pulled from amongst the propaganda at the Guardian:

Vladimir Putin calls blast on Crimea-Russia bridge an ‘act of terror’

Vladimir Putin has blamed Ukraine directly for the blast at a vital bridge linking Russia and Crimea, describing the weekend attack as “act of terror” carried out by “Ukrainian secret services” amid growing expectation that the Kremlin plans an imminent and harsh escalation of its war.

“There is no doubt. This is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure,” the Russian president said in a video released on Sunday night on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel about the explosion on the Kerch bridge, which occurred on Saturday. “This was devised, carried out and ordered by the Ukrainian special services.”

Putin spoke after meeting Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s investigative committee, who was presenting findings into the explosion and fire on the bridge. Bastrykin said he had opened a criminal case into an “act of terrorism” adding: “We have already established the route of the truck” which he said included transit through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar (a region in southern Russia) and other places.

His remarks set the scene for an expected response by Moscow, with Putin convening his national security council on Monday to discuss the blast that hit the structure linking Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland.

The blast on the bridge over the Kerch strait, a key supply route for Moscow’s forces in southern Ukraine, had prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials on Saturday but no claim of responsibility. The bridge is also a major artery for the port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea fleet is based.

Russia sends strong message, will they listen?

Noam Chomsky & Vijay Prashad: U.S. Must Stop Undermining Negotiations with Russia to End Ukraine War

Ukraine Passes 2023 Budget in Secret, Expects US To Cover Deficit

Ukraine’s Rada approved a draft budget for 2023 in a closed session. The spending plan has a $30 billion deficit which Kiev largely expects to be covered by Washington. The White House has sent Ukraine tens of billions in aid since Russia invaded in February. ...

Last month, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal noted the government expected a $38 billion deficit. He said the US would provide $18 billion and the European Union and International Monetary Fund would combine to give $12 billion.

Over the past seven months, the White House has spent nearly $70 billion on the war in Ukraine. The US spending on the war includes direct assistance to fund the government in Kiev and weapons transfers.

Thank you Dr Jay Tharappel pic.twitter.com/eJJ8Mqi9LI

— tim anderson (@timand2037) October 7, 2022

‘We impose these things and then that’s it’: McGovern tears into US sanctions policy

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said in a hearing Tuesday that Congress does not “methodically and thoughtfully” review whether U.S. sanctions are really having their intended effect.

“We impose these things and then that’s it,” said McGovern, who has long led efforts to sanction human rights abusers. “And then there are all kinds of political forces that make it very difficult to revisit these things.”

McGovern also contended that broad sanctions are ineffective, serving no purpose “except punishing people into ever-deepening misery and fueling anti-American sentiment” while encouraging countries to stop using the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.

The comments came during a wide-ranging congressional hearing on the humanitarian impacts of sanctions. Noting the deadly effects of U.S. sanctions in countries like Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria, and Iran, experts suggested a range of reforms that could make the measures less costly for civilian populations.

FAIR dissects the media propaganda machine, and virtually the entirety of U.S. mainstream media have discredited themselves.

US Media’s Intellectual No-Fly-Zone on US Culpability in Nord Stream Attack

Multiple explosions last week off the coast of Poland damaged both the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, shutting down one and preventing the other from going online. The pipelines, intended to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany, are critical infrastructure for Europe’s energy markets.

The explosions triggered a lopsided “whodunnit” in US media, with commentators almost universally fingering Russia as the culprit, despite the lack of a plausible motive. Official US opposition to the pipeline has been well-established over the years, giving Washington ample motive to destroy the pipelines, but most newsrooms uniformly suppressed this history, and attacked those who raised it.

After the explosions, much of the press dutifully parroted the Western official line. The Washington Post (9/27/22) quickly produced an account: “European Leaders Blame Russian ‘Sabotage’ After Nord Stream Explosions,” citing nothing but EU officials who claimed that while they had no evidence of Russian involvement, “only Russia had the motivation, the submersible equipment and the capability.”

Much of the media cast their suspicions towards Russia, including Bloomberg (9/27/22), Vox (9/29/22), Associated Press (9/30/22) and much of cable news. With few exceptions, speculation on US involvement has seemingly been deemed an intellectual no-fly-zone.

The idea that only Russia had the means and motivation is clearly false on both counts. Washington has made it clear for years that it doesn’t want the pipeline, and has taken active measures to stop it from coming online. As for the means, it’s patently absurd to suggest that the US doesn’t have the capability to lay explosives in 200 feet of water.

Even Max Boot, who agreed in his Washington Post column (9/29/22) that only Russia had the means and motive, contradictorily acknowledged that “the means are easy.”

Any serious coverage of the Nord Stream attack should acknowledge that opposition to the pipeline has been a centerpiece of the US grand strategy in Europe. The long-term goal has been to keep Russia isolated and disjointed from Europe, and to keep the countries of Europe tied to US markets. Ever since German and Russian energy companies signed a deal to begin development on Nord Stream 2, the entire machinery of Washington has been working overtime to scuttle it.

A 2019 Pentagon-funded study from the RAND Corporation on how best to exploit “Russia’s economic, political and military vulnerabilities and anxieties” included a recommendation to “Reduce [Russian] Natural Gas Exports and Hinder Pipeline Expansions.” The study noted that a “first step would involve stopping Nord Stream 2,” and that natural gas “from the United States and Australia could provide a substitute.”

This RAND study also prophetically recommended “providing more US military equipment and advice” to Ukraine in order to “lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it,” even though it acknowledged that “Russia might respond by mounting a new offensive and seizing more Ukrainian territory.”

The Obama administration opposed the pipeline. As part of the major sanctions package against Russia in 2017, the Trump administration began sanctioning any company doing work on the pipeline. The move generated outrage in Germany, where many saw it as an attempt to meddle with European markets. In 2019, the US implemented more sanctions on the project.

Upon coming into office, President Joe Biden made opposition to the pipeline one of his administration’s top priorities. During his confirmation hearings in 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told Congress he was “determined to do whatever I can to prevent” Nord Stream 2 from being completed. Months later, the State Department reiterated that “any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks US sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline.”

In July 2021, the sanctions were relaxed only after contentious negotiations with the German government. The New York Times (7/21/21) reported that the administration and Germany still had “profound disagreements” about the project.

As Russia was gathering troops at Ukraine’s border at the beginning of this year, US administration officials issued threats against the pipeline’s operation in the event of a Russian invasion. In January, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland — one of the main players during the 2014 Maidan Coup in Ukraine and wife of Robert Kagan, the founder of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century — issued a stern warning against the pipeline. “If Russia invades, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 Will. Not. Move. Forward.”

In February, Joe Biden himself told reporters, “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” After a reporter asked how the US planned to end a project that was under German control, Biden responded, “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”

On February 22, after Russian troops were given orders to enter the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, Germany suspended the pipeline, in a move that was called “remarkable” at the time (New York Times, 2/22/22).

In sharp contrast to the US’s antagonism, Russia has taken the opposite approach to the pipeline it spent billions of dollars to complete. As recently as three weeks ago, Putin expressed willingness to supply more gas if the EU would lift the sanctions against the newer pipeline. He said: “If things are so bad, just go ahead and lift sanctions against Nord Stream 2, with its 55 billion cubic meters per year — all they have to do is press the button and they will get going.” Diplomatic sources told the Cradle (9/29/22) that Russia and Germany were in talks about both NS1 and NS2 on the day of the explosion.

The day after the attack, German government sources leaked to the German daily Der Spiegel (9/28/22) that weeks earlier, the CIA warned Germany of a potential attack on the pipeline. However, sources told CNN (9/29/22) that the warnings were “vague” and that “it was not clear from the warnings who might be responsible for any attacks on the pipelines, or when they might occur.” A high-level source in German intelligence told the Cradle (9/29/22) that they were “furious” because “they were not in the loop.”

After the attack, Blinken called the bombing a “tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy,” and said that this “offers tremendous strategic opportunity for years to come.” On the other hand, Russia has already announced plans to begin repairing the pipeline.

So contrary to what nearly the US entire media establishment has presented, the US has had ample motive to destroy the pipeline, and is actively celebrating its demise.

One event that fueled speculation of US involvement was a tweet from a Polish member of the European Parliament, Radek Sikorski—a one-time Polish Defense minister as well as a former American Enterprise Institute fellow, who was named one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” in 2012 by Foreign Policy (11/26/12).

Sikorski tweeted out a picture of the methane leak in the ocean, along with the caption, “As we say in Polish, a small thing, but so much joy.” He later tweeted, “Thank you, USA,” with the same picture.

He later tweeted against the pipeline, noting that “Nord Stream’s only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity.” An hour later he elaborated:

Now $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine. Someone…did a special maintenance operation.

The last line was a joke about how Russia classifies its invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.”

After these tweets received attention from those who suspected US responsibility, Sikorski deleted them. Business Insider (9/30/22) dishonestly wrote that these latter tweets were actually an “attempt to clarify that the original tweet was a criticism of US support for the pipeline being built in the first place.” Any honest reading of the tweets demonstrates that the opposite is true; presumably this is why Insider didn’t link to any specific text.

The Washington Post (9/28/22) also offered a twisted interpretation of Sikorski’s tweets:

His meaning wasn’t entirely clear; it seems possible he was crediting the United States with rendering the pipelines moot by pressuring Europe not to take Russian natural gas. In later tweets, he seemed actually to point to Russian sabotage.

For the latter claim, the Post cited Sikorski’s joke about the “special maintenance operation,” but the full tweet shows that this is a preposterous interpretation.

While certainly not a smoking gun, such a high-profile accusation (or expression of gratitude, such as it was) raises eyebrows, especially given Poland’s strenuous opposition to the pipeline, and the recent completion of a Norway/Poland pipeline designed to “cut dependency on Russia.” The circumstances are even more suspicious, given that Sikorski is the husband of the fervently anti-Russian staff writer at The Atlantic Anne Applebaum, who has been a key media figure advancing the pro-NATO narrative in the West.

Applebaum even sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (a position she once shared with Victoria Nuland before Nuland moved into the Biden administration), a government-funded conduit for US regime change and destabilization projects that was an important driving force behind the 2014 coup that replaced Ukraine’s pro-Russian government with a Pro-Western one. Since then, the NED has funded English-language Ukrainian media like the Kyiv Independent, which, along with commentators like Applebaum herself, are now shaping coverage of the current war for Western audiences.

The fact that someone as connected as Sikorski would find it appropriate to publicly thank the US for the attack certainly deserves scrutiny. Some US media brought up the tweet, but dismissed it as unimportant (The Hill, 9/30/22).

US media have all but ignored the critical context above. If a case like that existed for the Russia-did-it theory, you can be sure that it would have been spelled out in detail by everyone. But instead, US media direct attention away from the obvious and are left to grasp at straws to find a potential Russian motive. In fact, many outlets readily acknowledged that there was no obvious motive for Russia to bomb its own pipeline. For example, the New York Times (9/28/22) wrote:

It is unclear why Moscow would seek to damage installations that cost Gazprom billions of dollars to build and maintain. The leaks are expected to delay any possibility of receiving revenue from fuel going through the pipes.

Vox (9/28/22) reported that “experts emphasized…it may be hard to fully know Moscow’s motivation.” NPR (9/28/22) also couldn’t readily answer “the question as to why Russia would attack its own pipelines.”

Having admitted that Russia has no readily apparent motive, establishment media are left to stretch. They presented a couple of theories for Putin’s potential motivation, but neither holds up to scrutiny. One, per the Times (9/28/22), is that the leaks “may help Russia by pushing energy prices higher,” since “the natural gas market is spooked.” But this logic makes little sense, as Russia has been pushing for Europe to open the Nord Stream 2 pipeline since it was completed. Higher natural gas prices do Russia little good if it’s unable to deliver its gas to market.

The Times (9/28/22) put forth another theory: that Putin is just teaching the West some kind of lesson:

The ruptures could also be a reminder from Moscow that if European countries keep up their support for Ukraine, they risk sabotage to vital energy infrastructure.

The Washington Post (9/27/22), speaking to “security officials,” cited similar theories:

One official said it might have been a message to NATO: “We are close.” Another said that it could be a threat to other, non-Russian energy infrastructure.

Business Insider (10/4/22) published a piece hysterically titled: “The Sabotage of Gas Pipelines Were a ‘Warning Shot’ From Putin to the West, and Should Brace for More Subterfuge, Russia Experts Warn.”
CNN (9/29/22) also found a US official to tell them that “Moscow would likely view [attacking the pipeline] as worth the price if it helped raise the costs of supporting Ukraine for Europe,” and that “sabotaging the pipelines could ‘show what Russia is capable of.’” Vox (9/28/22) found some “experts” to tell them the same story.

But the reality is that Russia has done its utmost to discourage NATO from further involvement in the war. A Russian attack on the pipeline would all but guarantee greater NATO involvement in Ukraine. Antagonizing Germany to teach the rest of Europe a lesson—which would only work if Russia was understood to be behind the sabotage—would be the opposite of Russia’s interests. This argument amounts to little more than “Putin is evil and hates Europe.”

As FAIR (3/30/22) has previously written, this cartoon narrative of Putin as Hitler allows for all logic and reasoning to fall by the wayside. The US behavior with regards to the pipeline is objectively more compelling than the case against Russia, yet the media have dismissed it out of hand.

One of the cracks in the uniform coverage was a segment on Bloomberg TV (10/3/22). Host Tom Keene brought on Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, who was recently the head of the Lancet’s investigation (9/14/22) into the origin of Covid-19. During the interview, Sachs stated that he “would bet [the attack] was a US action, perhaps US and Poland.”

Keene immediately stopped him and demanded that he lay out evidence for the claim. Sachs cited radar evidence that US helicopters, normally based in Gdansk, had been hovering within the area of the explosion shortly before the attack. This is certainly not a smoking gun, given Western intelligence claims that Russian ships were observed in the area during this same timeframe, though it does add to the case for US responsibility. He also cited the threatening statements from Biden and Blinken as reasons for his suspicion.

Sachs acknowledged the propaganda system in which he was operating:

I know it runs counter to our narrative, you‘re not allowed to say these things in the West, but the fact of the matter is, all over the world when I talk to people, they think the US did it…. Even reporters on our papers that are involved tell me, “Of course [the US is responsible],” but it doesn’t show up in our media.

This was the only time FAIR saw an anchor push back and ask for evidence for guests’ speculation of responsibility—speculation that was usually pointed toward Russia.

As illustration of the weirdness that is the US elite’s opportunistic relationship with Russia, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson (9/27/22), the white nationalist who hosts the most popular evening talk show in America, was one of the only media figures to go against the dominant narrative. Carlson certainly overstated the case for US involvement in the pipeline attack, but he asked questions no one else in corporate media would touch.

But rather than dissect Carlson’s case factually, most other media relied purely on redbaiting. The Washington Post (9/29/22) wrote Carlson’s name in Cyrillic —”Russian TV Is Very Excited About Такер Карлсон’s Nord Stream Theory”—to play into the McCarthyite fearmongering of the New Cold War.

The Post brought up the threatening statements from Nuland and Biden, and even the tweet from Sikorski, but only to dismiss them, because they weren’t a “smoking gun.” Of course, the Post refused to acknowledge that the quotes from administration officials demonstrated a clear opposition to the pipeline, and thus an obvious motive for the attack.

Despite the fact that Carlson repeatedly claimed that “we don’t know what happened,” the Post declared that “he delivered his speculation as if it were fact and invited his viewers to do the same.” While this is a fair assessment of the tone if not the text of the segment, the Post had nothing to say about the certainty with which others in the media accused Russia.

The Post’s reporting was picked up by MSNBC Katie Phang (10/1/22), who, also eschewing actual investigation, asked her guest, “How dangerous is it for an American media personality with the kind of reach that Tucker Calrson has to be out there spouting a talking point that ends up on Russian state TV?”

The Associated Press (9/30/22) wrote a widely republished story, headlined “Russians Push Baseless Theory Blaming US for Burst Pipeline,” that called the idea the US was responsible for the attacks a “baseless conspiracy theory.”

Like the other coverage, the AP didn’t evaluate any of the evidence, but called the theory “disinformation” designed to “undermine Ukraine’s allies” and, importantly, painted such speculation as beyond legitimate discussion:

The suggestion that the US caused the damage was circulating on online forums popular with American conservatives and followers of QAnon, a conspiracy theory movement which asserts that Trump is fighting a battle against a Satanic child-trafficking sect that controls world events.

Bloomberg (reprinted in the Washington Post, 9/27/22) acknowledged Biden’s threats against the pipeline, but writer Javier Blas dismissed them without actually explaining why:

Conspiracy theorists always see the hand of the CIA in everything. But that’s nonsense. The clear beneficiary of shutting down the Nord Stream pipelines for good is Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yes, the “clear beneficiary” of the destruction of the main method Russia could sell billions of dollars worth of natural gas to Europe was…the Russian president. It doesn’t make more sense if you read the whole article.

The US press produced an overwhelming chorus of articles (e.g., Business Insider, 9/30/22; Vox, 2/28/22; Newsweek, 10/3/22) that deployed the term “conspiracy theory” to discredit the idea of US culpability. Not one of these pieces adequately explored the credible reasons for the suspicion, simply ignoring the body of evidence presented above.

The Brookings Institution (where Robert Kagan works) published a long article (10/3/22), complete with graphs and charts, that warned of the dangers of podcasters spreading the idea that the US was culpable in the attacks. It dismissed this possibility on the strength of a link to the New York Times (9/28/22), used to substantiate a claim that “experts broadly agree that Russia is the key suspect.” It did not do any investigation of its own.

This use of the term “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theorist,” along with the mention of QAnon, has the effect of associating speculation of US involvement in the attack with a class of people that have largely been discredited (with good reason) in the public mind. Once this link has been made, evaluating the evidence is no longer required. It’s a lazy rhetorical trick to marginalize dissent.

In his book Conspiracy Theory in America, scholar Lance Dehaven Smith examined the way the term is deployed in establishment media:

What they actually have in mind are suspicions that simply deviate from conventional opinion about the norms and integrity of US officials. In practice, it is not the form or the object of conspiracy theories, or even the absence of official confirmation, that differentiates them from other (acceptable) beliefs; it is their nonconformity with prevailing opinion.

Writer Caitlin Johnstone (10/4/22) put it succinctly in a piece on the hysteria surrounding the pipeline attacks: “It’s Only a ‘Conspiracy Theory’ When It Accuses the US Government.” She wrote:

Over and over again we see the pejorative “conspiracy theory” applied to accusations against one nation but not the other, despite the fact that it’s the exact same accusation. They are both conspiracy theories per definition: They’re theories about an alleged conspiracy to sabotage Russian pipelines. But the Western political/media class consistently applies that label to one and never the other.

At a meeting of the UN Security Council—hastily called by Russia in the wake of the attacks—US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the Russian accusations “conspiracy theories,” then went on to accuse Russia of attacking its own pipeline. Reporting on the Security Council meeting, CNN (11/29/22) showed its own conspiratorial thinking, citing US officials who called the meeting itself “suspicious,” because “typically, the official said, Russia isn’t organized enough to move so quickly, suggesting that the maneuver was pre-planned.”

Of course there are irresponsible, popular conspiracy theories that fail to hold up to scrutiny, and are in fact quite dangerous. The QAnon theory that the world’s elite are harvesting a substance called adrenochrome from trafficked children to gain special abilities and extend their life is absurd. The 2020 election spawned many disproven theories about a stolen Trump victory that ended up leading to the deadly riot at the Capitol on January 6. But just as the existence of websites that fabricate pseudo-news reports for profit gave Donald Trump a label to dismiss any journalism he didn’t like as “fake news,” so to are such fanciful theories based on leaps of logic used to disparage well-documented efforts to peer behind the scenes of US official policy.

To be sure, we still don’t know for certain who was behind the pipeline bombing, but there is a solid prima facie case for US culpability. The explosion is a watershed moment in the escalation toward a direct confrontation between nuclear powers. Media malfeasance on this topic doesn’t just threaten the credibility of the press, but literally imperils the whole of human civilization.

Chris Hedges speaks out for Julian Assange at DOJ

Transcript here.

Heh, Biden and the Dems are running scared:

Inconvenience fee: how Biden is taking on companies’ sneaky charges

They are one of the banes of modern life: “junk fees”. And they are paid for a vast list of things from terminating cellphone contracts early, to checking baggage on an airplane and getting an overdraft on a bank account. What’s worse, is many of these fees are hard to find, or hidden until it’s time to pay, and they impact poor people the most.

But Joe Biden – in a little publicized initiative – is seeking to tackle these hidden costs and has made eliminating, or at least drastically reducing them, one of the key planks of his economic plans.

At a recent meeting of the White House competition council meeting, the third of its kind since its creation in 2021, these added fees across all industries were top of the agenda.

“What we’re talking about today is something that’s weighing down family budgets: unnecessary hidden fees, known in the parlance as ‘junk fees’, are hitting families at a time when they can’t afford it. They shouldn’t be paying it anyway, in my view – but at a time when they can’t afford it,” the US president said.

Present at the meeting was Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), a US government agency responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector.

Wow, even Trump isn't stupid enough to say something like that in an interview:

‘I’d eat an Indian’: rivals seize on unearthed Bolsonaro cannibalism boast

It was a shocking statement, even for a politician who has glorified torturers and called for rivals to be shot. “I’d eat an Indian, no problem at all,” Jair Bolsonaro bragged to a foreign journalist in 2016, as he described a trip to an Indigenous community where he had purportedly been offered the chance to consume human flesh.

Indigenous leaders have rejected Bolsonaro’s boast as yet another lie from Brazil’s far-right president. The Yanomami people from the territory Bolsonaro claims to have visited say they have never engaged in such acts.

However, footage of Bolsonaro’s cannibalism comments – first broadcast on his official YouTube channel six years ago – has gone viral on social media and been seized on by Brazil’s opposition as further proof of the president’s depravity. ...

In its efforts to re-elect Lula, Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, his campaign has dug deep into Bolsonaro’s extensive back catalogue of callous and inflammatory pronouncements. One recent Lula advert shows Bolsonaro shoving a female politician and calling her a “bitch”. In another scene the rightwinger mocks Covid victims and pretends to be gasping for air.

But Friday’s campaign ad was perhaps the most shocking to date.

'Straight Up Fraud': Data Confirms Private Insurers Use Medicare Advantage to Steal Billions

Insurance giants are exploiting Medicare Advantage—a corporate-managed program that threatens to result in the complete privatization of traditional Medicare—to capture billions of dollars in extra profits, Saturday reporting by The New York Times confirmed.

The newspaper's analysis of dozens of lawsuits, inspector general reports, and watchdog investigations found that overbilling by Medicare Advantage (MA) providers is so pervasive it exceeds the budgets of entire federal agencies, prompting journalist Ryan Cooper to call the program "a straight up fraud scheme."

Nearly half of Medicare's 60 million beneficiaries are now enrolled in MA plans managed by for-profit insurance companies, and it is expected that most of the nation's seniors will be ensnared in the private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare by next year. Six weeks ago, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched an inquiry into "potentially deceptive" marketing tactics used by MA providers to "take advantage" of vulnerable individuals.

As the table below shows, almost every major player in the industry has been accused of fraud by a whistleblower or the U.S. government. In addition, the vast majority are engaged in rampant upcoding, or exaggerating patients' illnesses in order to reap more money from taxpayers—something they do while refusing to provide necessary care for tens of thousands each year.

Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which has has no connection with Kaiser Permanente, wrote on social media that "the move to privatize Medicare" has "been very profitable, in part because insurers are good at making their patients seem sicker."

Journalist Natalie Shure concurred, tweeting: "Privatized Medicare plans cherry pick healthier enrollees, fudge medical records to make them look as sick as possible, coax doctors into tacking on extra sham diagnoses to bill for, and pay themselves a profit on top of it. Medicare Advantage shouldn't exist."

"For all its faults, Medicare is a (nearly) universal program for 65+, with overhead hovering around 2%—far lower than its private counterparts," Shure added. "What inefficiencies did anyone think MA would be solving exactly[?]" she asked.

According to the Times, MA was created by congressional Republicans "two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost."

Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, argued that the notion that private insurers would "provide more benefit for less money" than traditional Medicare "while taking a profit" is insane on its face.

"They innovate on other margins, namely by bending and breaking rules that determine how much money Medicare gives them, as such things are hard to detect," said Bruenig, "and we are now stuck in an endless cat and mouse enforcement game with them."

As the Times reported:

The government pays Medicare Advantage insurers a set amount for each person who enrolls, with higher rates for sicker patients. And the insurers, among the largest and most prosperous American companies, have developed elaborate systems to make their patients appear as sick as possible, often without providing additional treatment, according to the lawsuits.

As a result, a program devised to help lower health care spending has instead become substantially more costly than the traditional government program it was meant to improve.

[...]

The government now spends nearly as much on Medicare Advantage's 29 million beneficiaries as on the Army and Navy combined. It's enough money that even a small increase in the average patient's bill adds up: The additional diagnoses led to $12 billion in overpayments in 2020, according to an estimate from the group that advises Medicare on payment policies—enough to cover hearing and vision care for every American over 65.

Another estimate, from a former top government health official, suggested the overpayments in 2020 were double that, more than $25 billion.

Citing a KFF study which found that companies typically rake in twice as much gross profit from MA plans as from other types of insurance, the Times pointed out that the growing privatization of Medicare is "strikingly lucrative."

MA plans "can limit patients' choice of doctors, and sometimes require jumping through more hoops before getting certain types of expensive care," the newspaper noted. "But they often have lower premiums or perks like dental benefits—extras that draw beneficiaries to the programs. The more the plans are overpaid by Medicare, the more generous to customers they can afford to be."

The MA program has grown in popularity, including in Democratic strongholds, over the course of four presidential administrations. Meanwhile, regulatory and legislative efforts to rein in abuses have failed to gain traction.

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), some of whom move between the agency and industry, have not been aggressive "even as the overpayments have been described in inspector general investigations, academic research, Government Accountability Office studies, MedPAC reports, and numerous news articles," the Times reported. "Congress gave the agency the power to reduce the insurers' rates in response to evidence of systematic overbilling, but CMS has never chosen to do so."

Ted Doolittle, who served as a senior official for CMS' Center for Program Integrity from 2011 to 2014, said that "it was clear that there was some resistance coming from inside" the agency. "There was foot dragging."

Almost 80% percent of U.S. House members, many of whom are bankrolled by the insurance industry, signed a letter earlier this year indicating their readiness "to protect the program from policies that would undermine" its stability.

David Moore, co-founder of Sludge, an independent news outlet focused on the corrupting influence of corporate cash on politics, observed on social media that "members of the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee could publicly on whether they think oversight of the insurance industry has been adequate."

However, Moore pointed out, committee Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) "has received $3.1 million from the insurance industry, the most in the House."

As the Times noted, "Some critics say the lack of oversight has encouraged the industry to compete over who can most effectively game the system rather than who can provide the best care."

"Medicare Advantage overpayments are a political third rail," Richard Gilfillan, a former hospital and insurance executive and a former top regulator at Medicare, told the newspaper. "The big healthcare plans know it's wrong, and they know how to fix it, but they're making too much money to stop."

"There's a risk" that the increased scrutiny of MA providers "blows over because the program's beneficiaries continue to have access to doctors and hospitals," Joseph Ross, a primary care physician and health policy researcher at the Yale School of Medicine, wrote on Twitter. "But by exploiting and overbilling Medicare, these companies profit off the public."

"Think of how this money could have been better spent," said Ross. "The overbilling alone could have provided hearing and vision care to ALL Medicare beneficiaries, or been used to fund any of these agency's budgets."

Despite mounting evidence of widespread fraud in MA plans, the Biden administration announced in April that MA insurers will receive one of the largest payment increases in the program's history in 2023, eliciting pushback from several congressional Democrats led by Rep. Katie Porter of California.

Advocates Tell Canada's High Court to End Asylum Deal With US Over Safety Concerns

Immigrant rights advocates on Thursday called on the Supreme Court of Canada to terminate an agreement between the country and the U.S. which allows Canadian officials to turn refugees away if they attempt to enter the country at its southern border, arguing that Canada cannot send people in need of protection to the U.S. without potentially violating its human rights obligations.

Since 2004 Canada and the U.S. have observed the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) over the objections of rights groups. The pact states that asylum seekers who enter Canada from the U.S. at official border crossings will be sent back to the U.S., and vice versa, with both countries presumed to follow international refugee laws.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada, and the Canadian Council of Churches argued in court on Thursday that the agreement "is built on a false premise," even with a Democratic president in office.

"The United States is not a safe place for refugee claimants escaping persecution," said Aleks Dughman Manzur, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, in a statement. "Despite the change in administration in the U.S., people sent back to the U.S. under the STCA continue to be at high risk of detention in abhorrent conditions. And some, including people facing gender-based persecution, are unfairly denied protection in the U.S. and sent back into danger in their countries of origin—a clear violation of their basic human rights." ...

Advocates have previously called on Canada to terminate the STCA in 2007 and 2017. The latest call comes two years after a report by Human Rights Watch showed that the U.S. has for years sent asylum seekers back to their home country of El Salvador, and after the U.S. sent dozens of refugees back to Cameroon despite the danger of arbitrary detention, torture, and violence that they faced there.

The Biden administration has also unlawfully detained tens of thousands of asylum seekers, many of whom have reported sexual, physical, and verbal abuse; solitary confinement; medical neglect; and denial of basic necessities.

"The Canadian government cannot escape responsibility for the predictable outcomes of deflecting asylum seekers into this system, even though it studiously avoids monitoring the safety of the U.S. asylum system," wrote law professors Efrat Arbel and Audrey Macklin on Wednesday in the Vancouver Sun.

DISTURBING Body Cam Video Shows 17-Yr-Old SHOT By Police While Sitting In Car, Eating Hamburger

Texas police fires officer who shot a teen sitting in his car in a fast food parking lot

A Texas police force has fired an officer who shot and wounded a teenager sitting in his car eating a hamburger.

The San Antonio police department fired James Brennand after he shot Erik Cantu, 17, on 2 October in a fast-food restaurant parking lot, the agency’s training commander, said in a video statement released Wednesday. ...

A Texas prosecutor said in a statement Friday that he has not seen enough evidence to file charges against the teenager, who, after Brennand approached him, backed up his car and struck the dismissed officer with an open door.

“While Sunday’s shooting of an unarmed teenager by a then-San Antonio police officer remains under investigation, the facts and evidence we have received so far led us to reject the charges against Erik Cantu for further investigation,” district attorney Joe Gonzales said.

Brennand had been on the police force for seven months when he violated both his training as well as agency procedures after approaching Cantu’s car, according to Campos.

Indigenous Peoples' Day: Singer Buffy Sainte-Marie Calls for Repeal of Doctrine of Discovery

Record Deforestation in Amazon Shows Stakes of Brazil Election

Conservationists and climate campaigners on Friday renewed criticism of Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolosnaro—who faces a runoff later this month—after government data revealed deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest broke yet another record last month.

According to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 1,455 square kilometers or about 562 square miles were lost, up 48% from the same month last year and the greatest loss of forest for any September since record-keeping began.

"Friday's preliminary figures also pushed deforestation in the region to a record high for the first nine months of the year, according to INPE, with 8,590 square kilometers cleared from January to September, equal to an area 11 times the size of New York City and up 22.6% from last year," Reuters noted.

Mariana Napolitano, WWF-Brazil's science manager, told the news agency that rising deforestation had "pretty relevant impacts not only for the biome, but also for the weather and the region's rainfall regime, as well as economic impacts for those who live in the Amazon and Brazil as a whole."

The new deforestation numbers come in the lead-up to the October 30 runoff election between Bolsonaro and leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who nearly won in the first round of voting last weekend.

"This is a very dangerous moment," Marcio Astrini, head of the Climate Observatory, told The Guardian. "The Bolsonaro government is a forest-destroying machine."

The watchdog group's leader suggested that illegal loggers and ranchers are working to clear parts of the Amazon—the majority of which is in Brazil— before Bolsonaro's potential defeat. He said that "they can see that their president could lose the election so they're taking advantage of this final stretch of Bolsonaro to tear down everything they possibly can."

If Bolsonaro's government "is given another four years, the Amazon's future will be uncertain," Astrini added. "What's at stake here is either us continuing to have any hope that the Amazon can be kept from collapsing—or definitively surrendering it to environmental criminals."

North American gray whale counts dwindling for the last two years

US researchers say the number of gray whales off western North America has continued to dwindle during the last two years, a decline that resembles previous population swings over the past several decades but is still generating worry.

According to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries assessment released Friday, the most recent count put the population at 16,650 whales – down 38% from its peak during the 2015-16 period. The whales also produced the fewest calves since scientists began counting the births in 1994.

An increase in the number of whales washing up on west coast beaches prompted the fisheries agency to declare an “unusual mortality event”, or UME, in 2019. Researchers are still investigating the die-off, but they say factors likely include climate change, its effects on sea ice and the location as well as availability of prey. Many – but not all – of the whales that washed up appeared malnourished, the assessment said.

According to the Noaa, some of the stranded whales died from other causes such as being hit by ships or getting hunted by killer whales. The amount of stranded whales peaked in 2019, only to then decrease in the following years, suggesting that most of the population decline likely happened in the years shortly after the declaration of the UME.

“There is no one thing that we can point to that explains all of the strandings,” said Deborah Fauquier, a veterinary medical officer in Noaa Fisheries’ Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. “There appears to be multiple factors that we are still working to understand.”

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Biden's Fearmongers About A Russian Nuclear Threat That No One Has Made

Opposing Armageddon To Trigger The Libs: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Trump DEMANDS Ukraine Peace Deal To Avoid WW3

Ukraine SitRep - Recent Incidents Of Concern For All Sides

Michael Hudson: A roadmap to escape the west’s stranglehold

Britain’s Covert War in Yemen

HANDS OFF ASSANGE - Washington DC Event

'End the War on Journalism and Free Assange': Thousands Demand Release of WikiLeaks Founder

Central American Anti-Corruption Activists Are Facing Criminal Prosecution

What You Don’t Have and Why

Britain is slowly waking up to the truth: Brexit has left us poorer, adrift and alone

Beam me down: can solar power from space help solve our energy needs?

“Nobody Cares About Ukraine” Admits NATO Advisor

Biden Actually NOT Releasing Marijuana Prisoners From Prison

Jackson, Mississippi Turning Into A Third World Hellhole

Joe Rogan: It Makes NO SENSE To Trust Government With Regulating Internet.

A Little Night Music

Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher

Jackie Wilson - That's Why I Love You So

Jackie Wilson - Reet petite

Jackie Wilson - You Got Me Walking

Jackie Wilson - Lonely Teardrops

Jackie Wilson - She's So Fine

Jackie Wilson - You Don't Know Me

Jackie Wilson, Count Basie - For Your Precious Love

Jackie Wilson - That's Why