Category Archives: Propaganda

The Empire of Lies Strikes Back… Extraordinary Cover-Up of Nord Stream Terrorism, by The Strategic Culture Editorial Board

The U.S. government launched a incredibly flimsy story from a select few house organs to divert attention from Seymour Hersh’s story. From The Strategic Culture Editorial Board at strategic-culture.org:

Western news outlets pompously claim to be pinnacles of journalism and defenders of public interest and democracy. They are nothing but the propaganda ministry for Washington – the Empire of Lies.

The New York Times and other Western news media ran with clumsy and blatantly diversionary claims this week, which in the end only serve to draw even more attention to the guilt of the United States in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

Not only is the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden even more indictable over the criminal act; the absurd cover-up attempt this week exposes the Western media as nothing but a ministry of propaganda masquerading as journalism.

Four weeks ago, the eminent independent American journalist, Seymour Hersh, published a blockbuster investigative report that revealed how President Biden and senior White House staff ordered the explosive detonation of the natural gas pipelines connecting Russia to the European Union via the Baltic Sea and Germany. The legendary Hersh has an impeccable record of groundbreaking stories, from the My Lai massacre committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam in 1968 to the Abu Ghraib prison torture in Iraq under American occupation to the operation of ratlines to funnel weapons and mercenaries from Libya to Syria to fight Washington’s proxy war for regime change in Damascus.

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When it comes to Nordstream and F-16s the U.S. Opts For Ham Handed Political Gestures, by Larry Johnson

The crew and passengers of the S.S. Minnow, the ill fated boat in Gilligan’s Island, blew up the Nordstream pipelines. From Larry Johnson at sonar21.com:

In theory, a covert operation is supposed to be elegant, sophisticated and smart. But that is not the case with the United States these days. Ham-fisted and clumsy are more apt descriptors.

Yesterday’s simultaneous release of a new account of who destroyed the Nordstream pipeline in the New York Times, Die Zeit and a London paper placing the blame on shadowy pro-Ukrainians was not a coincidence. This was a coordinated information operation and the media reaction to this news is quite telling. The same news outlets that strenuously ignored Sy Hersh’s explosive, detailed revelation that it was a U.S. operation with help from Norway stumbled over themselves to breathlessly report that an unidentified pro-Ukrainian group was the guilty party.

Die Zeit provided the most hilarity with their fantastic tale of six people on a private yacht carrying out the deed. Looks to me like Die Zeit was channeling a Gilligan’s Island episode. We had Ginger and Mary Ann, accompanied by the Professor, the Skipper, Thurston Howell and Gilligan. They set to sea with a 1000 pounds of high explosive and used their snorkel gear to plant the charge. I bet you it was Ginger and Mary Ann who planted the bomb, of course, was built by the crafty Professor.

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A Handy January 6 Fact Sheet, by Julie Kelly

The facts certainly don’t support the “insurrection” story. From Julie Kelly at amgreatness.com:

In another example of Washington’s inexorable slide into banana republic territory, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to call for the removal of an American journalist. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anchor treat the American people, and American democracy, with such disdain,” Schumer said during his seven-minute authoritarian tirade. “And he’s going to come back tonight with another segment. Fox News should tell him not to. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch—tell Mr. Carlson not to run a second segment of lies. You know it’s a lie.”

Schumer later reiterated his demand to a group of journalists who, rather than denounce one of the most powerful government officials in the country attempting to silence an influential member of the media, dutifully reported Schumer’s bleating without question.

Republican senators including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) joined the fray, echoing Schumer’s faux concerns over “national security.”

Clearly, it’s panic time. The White House, Congress, and the Democratic Party propaganda arm that is the corporate media realize their carefully engineered narrative about January 6 is imploding in real time. Which is why they’re accusing Carlson of “whitewashing” and “rewriting” the events of January 6. Anything less than total fealty to regime-approved talking points about what happened before and after that day now is considered a “threat to democracy.”

But facts are facts. And no amount of pearl-clutching by the hags on “The View” or threats made by U.S. senators can alter the reality of January 6. Between video recordings, witness testimony, court filings, and news reporting, the undeniable truth about January 6 cannot be willfully wished away even by the most skilled spinmeisters.

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In Nord Stream attack, US officials use proxy media to blame proxy Ukraine, by Aaron Maté

It looks like the new “scoop” about the Nordstream sabotage will have a shelf life of less than a week. From Aaron Maté at mate.substack.com:

One month after Seymour Hersh reported that the US blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, US officials find a scapegoat in Ukraine and stenographers in the New York Times.

(Photo by Swedish Coast Guard via Getty Images)

Nearly six months after the Nord Stream pipelines exploded and one month after Seymour Hersh reported that the Biden administration was responsible, US officials have unveiled their defense. According to the New York Times, anonymous government sources claim that “newly collected intelligence” now “suggests” that the Nord Stream bomber was in fact a “pro-Ukrainian group.”

The only confirmed “intelligence” about this supposed “group” is that US officials have none to offer about them.

“U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations,” The Times reports. The supposed “newly collected” information “does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation.” Despite knowing nothing about them, the Times’ sources nonetheless speculate that “the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two.” They also leave open “the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services.” (emphasis added)

When no evidence is produced, anything is of course “possible.” But the Times’ sources are oddly certain on one critical matter: “U.S. officials said no American or British nationals were involved.” Also, there is “no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.”

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Ukraine’s Endgame, by James W. Carden

Best case for Ukraine it ends up another U.S. dependency, a relationship from which the U.S. will gain nothing. From James W. Carden at theamericanconservative.com:

The Biden administration is setting the Ukrainians up for a state of permanent dependency.

The one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion today, and President Joe Biden’s surprise five hour trip to Kiev on Monday, should be occasion to raise some uncomfortable, indeed, unpopular questions, as to what exactly Ukraine—a beneficiary of, among many other things, over $100 billion in U.S. aid—has been seeking to achieve in the nine years since the Maidan revolution.

From the time Ukraine declared independence on August 24, 1991, until the Maidan coup of February 2014, Ukraine was essentially a binational kleptocracy that used its position as a buffer state, particularly in its role as a transit hub for Russian natural gas to Europe, to the advantage of its kleptocratic elite—a coterie of deeply compromised politicians and former Soviet-era functionaries-turned-oligarchs.

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The tension between the Russian East and Galician West came to a head during the Maidan protests when then-president Viktor Yanukovych, a politician from eastern Ukraine, sought to leverage Ukraine’s unique geographic position during the country’s E.U. accession bid—a bid against which Russia, with long and deep economic ties to Ukraine, furiously objected.

Yanukovych squeezed both sides, and in the end, the economic deal offered by the E.U. paled in comparison to the one offered by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. And so, Yanukovych, avaricious, yes, but also wary of upsetting his restive neighbor to the East, went with the deal, worth some $15 billion, offered by the Russians.

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Covid ‘Not Deadly Enough’ to Justify Risk of Fast-Track Vaccines, Chris Whitty Told Government, by Will Jones

In one twelve-day period, common sense was stood completely on its head in Britain and around the world. From Will Jones at dailyskeptic.org:

COVID-19 was not dangerous enough to justify cutting short vaccine trials as the vaccine had to be “very safe”, Chris Whitty advised the Government in the early weeks of the outbreak, it has emerged.

Writing on WhatsApp on February 29th 2020, the Chief Medical Officer told Government figures: “For a disease with a low (for the sake of argument 1%) mortality a vaccine has to be very safe so the safety studies can’t be shortcut. So important for the long run.”

The estimate of 1% turned out to be an overestimate, as the infection fatality rate in Europe and the Americas was found to be 0.3-0.4%.

Chief Scientist Patrick Vallance agreed with this advice and wrote that existing drugs should be relied on instead: “Agree, existing drugs best things to try for this outbreak. Accelerate vaccine testing where we have good candidates for future, and prepare for manufacturing capacity for longer term.”

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As Bakhmut Falls, US May Turn From Ukraine, Starting With Pipeline Story, by Joe Lauria

If the U.S. can blame Ukraine for the Nordstream pipelines sabotage, it may be able to start backing away from Ukraine. From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

If the Donbass city of Bakhmut falls to the Russians the U.S. may need to save face in order to reverse course in Ukraine, writes Joe Lauria.

On its face, The New York Times article yesterday, “Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say,” appears intended to exonerate both the U.S. and Ukrainian governments from any involvement in the destruction last September of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany.  

The thrust of the Times article is that Ukrainians unaffiliated with the Kiev government were the ones who did it, according to the newspapers often cited, unnamed “U.S. officials.” 

But a closer examination of the piece reveals layers of nuance that do not dismiss that the Ukrainian government may have had something to do with the sabotage after all. 

The story quotes anonymous European officials who say a state had to be involved in the sophisticated underwater operation.  The Times goes out of it way to say more than once that that state was not the United States.  And while the second paragraph of the story says categorically that the state is not Ukraine either, the article then leaves the door open to possible Ukrainian government involvement:

“U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains. They have said that there are no firm conclusions about it, leaving open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services. [Emphasis mine.]

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Wall Street Journal: “US Is Not Yet Ready for Great Power Conflict” Yet Still Plots Against China, by Yves Smith

The U.S. hasn’t won a war since WWII against second string opponents. China is first string, but there are U.S. neocons who are pushing for war. From Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com:

A vivid scene came in my first year Harvard MBA course, Business, Government and the International Economy, taught in my section by George C. Lodge, son of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. George Lodge said he still remembered the day in 1968 when he realized there were limits to US power, that we could not fight a war on poverty, send a man to the moon, and fight a ground war in Asia at the same time.

The lack of that insight still seems widespread inside the Beltway, with belief in American omnipotence renewed by the fall of the USSR and then the further decline of Russia in the 1990s. A story initially published with a page-wide banner headline, The US is Not Yet Ready for the Era of “Great Power’ Conflict With China and Russia, curiously omits that it is the US that has been fomenting these clashes. And even though the URL banner on the article proper reads, The US is Not Yet Ready for the Era of “Great Power’ Conflict with China and Russia, the piece treats Russia dismissively, in passing, and treats escalating with China as a perfectly reasonable thing to do, not just now. We’ll turn to Russia in due course, particularly in light of Ukraine deciding Monday to try to break into the Bakhmut cauldron.

If you read the article carefully, you’ll see the reverse, that any meaningful improvement in US preparedness against China is based on hopium, like the US developing, manufacturing, and deploying new weapons that are on the drawing board or in early stages. Similarly, it fails to admit a huge weakness in the US dealing with China: that our Navy is badly overinvested in the floating pork known as aircraft carriers. Informed observers like Scott Ritter have said China has the capability to take them out without too much difficulty if they get within menacing range. Sinking only one aircraft carrier would result in roughly 6000 deaths, a humiliation the US would not tolerate. Ritter has long worried that our response would be to fire a tactical nuke at the Chinese hinterlands. Ritter is certain that China would immediately light up the entire US West Coast.

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Secret Surveillance Video Dismantles January 6 Narrative, by Julie Kelly

This is a good summary of the surveillance video that’s been released so far, and it takes a lot less time to read than watching the video would take. From Julie Kelly at amgreatness.com:

Clips aired during Tucker Carlson’s show on Monday night demonstrate how the January 6 select committee doctored surveillance video.

ox News host Tucker Carlson aired the first set of previously-unseen surveillance video captured by Capitol police security cameras on January 6, 2021 that undermines several aspects of the reigning narrative about what happened that day.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last month gave Carlson’s team “unfettered” access to 41,000 hours of footage the government kept hidden from the American public and individuals charged in the Justice Department’s unprecedented and ongoing investigation into the events of January 6. Capitol Police and the Justice Department designated the recordings as “highly sensitive” material in March 2021; the trove remains under tight protective orders and defendants must agree to strict rules before gaining access to clips entered as evidence against them.

Capitol Police turned over to the FBI roughly 14,000 hours of video covering the hours of noon and 8:00 p.m. on January 6 but the full 24-hour reel has been in the hands of House Democrats for two years—reportedly the footage that Carlson’s team was authorized to view.

Carlson exposed falsehoods that bolster key animating aspects of January 6 including the movements of Jacob Chansley; the activity of still-uncharged agitator Ray Epps; the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; alleged “reconnaissance tours” conducted by House Republicans the day before; the “escape” of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); and the overall deceptiveness of the January 6 Select Committee. “Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection,” Carlson explained. “In fact, it demolishes that claim. And that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it.”

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The “Meritocracy” Was Created by and for the Progressive Ruling Class, by Ryan McMaken

The meritocracy has nothing to do with actual merit. From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:

The American Left has decided that the so-called meritocracy is a bad thing. In a typical example from the Los Angeles Times this week, Nicholas Goldberg points to a number of issues exploring how merit is not actually the key to power and riches in America:

The United States is supposed to be a meritocracy. The story goes that if you work hard and play by the rules, especially with regard to education, you can compete, rise and succeed here. . . . But Americans are realizing that’s not always the case. The playing field just isn’t level.

Goldberg claims that the much-lauded meritocracy is less about merit and more about controlling access to elite institutions. It’s hard to argue with some of this. It’s easy to see the lie behind the claims of meritocracy when we look to the very top of the artificial hierarchy. It’s likely not a mere coincidence people like George W. Bush and Al Gore—a son of a US president and a son of a US senator, respectively—went to elite Ivy League schools. All of Al Gore’s four children, and one of Bush’s, went to Harvard. To think that these seven people got into these schools because they had more “merit” than all the rejected applicants requires gargantuan levels of credulousness.

Much of the Left’s rhetoric against the meritocracy has been in the service of justifying racial preferences and standardized testing in university admissions. Defenders of the status quo have subsequently fallen all over themselves to support the supposed meritocracy of the government-university complex. For example, Victor Davis Hansen, in a meandering and unconvincing article, recently attempted to blame the United States’ repeated foreign policy failures on an alleged decline of meritocracy. Meanwhile, Alan Dershowitz insists that today’s law schools are full of mediocrities—unlike when he and his friends filled elite universities with untrammeled brilliance.

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