#Russia coronavirus vaccine

[justinspoliticalcorner]

S.V. Dáte at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — A prolific conspiracy theorist who has embraced the QAnon cult and already has a 60-name enemies list of President Donald Trump’s critics goes before U.S. senators Thursday to determine whether he will take charge of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. Kash Patel, who has spread Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him and the debunked claim that the FBI instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, violent assault on the Capitol, will soon be running that agency — unless four Republican senators defy Trump and vote him down. “What makes Patel dangerous is his willingness to harness and deploy government resources,” said Amanda Carpenter, a former Republican Senate aide and now a researcher with the Protect Democracy nonprofit. “When the government gets power like this, it rarely is only used for its publicly intended purpose.” Patel, if confirmed, would represent a radical departure from the type of nominee presidents of both parties have sought to put in charge of the FBI since a Senate investigation in the 1970s found rampant abuses by J. Edgar Hoover, who had run the agency and its predecessor entity from 1924 until his death in 1972 as a personal fiefdom by investigating his critics for the purpose of holding leverage.

Trump, who has shown little interest in following good government norms since his election in 2016, has now twice cut short the 10-year term that was established for an FBI director specifically so the agency could not be beholden to a single president. In early 2017, Trump fired then-Director James Comey after he refused to pledge Trump his loyalty.

[...]

Discrediting The Russia Probe

Unlike many Trump acolytes who came up in Republican politics, Patel, 44, began his career as a public defender in state and federal courts in Miami before moving to the Justice Department during Obama’s tenure. His rise in Trump’s circle began when he moved to work under Devin Nunes, a California congressman at the time who was the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Trump was obsessed with undermining the intelligence community’s assessment, shared by a separate investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, that Putin had helped Trump win the 2016 election. Patel authored a report trying to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, winning great acclaim in pro-Trump media. It became the go-to document for those pushing Trump’s false claim that it was all a “hoax.”

From there, Patel went to work in Trump’s White House as a staffer for the National Security Council until the final months of that first term, when he became chief of staff in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and, ultimately, chief of staff for the acting secretary of defense. Trump tried to install Patel as deputy CIA director as part of his machinations to remain in power despite having lost reelection, but backed down when agency Director Gina Haspel said she would resign in protest. Between the end of the first Trump term and the start of the second, Patel enthusiastically joined in the pro-Trump movement’s grift machine, cashing in on appearances and merchandise exploiting the seemingly limitless demand for all things Trump. He produced a podcast for the conspiracy theory-promoting news site Epoch Times. He traveled the country for revival-style meetings of believers of QAnon, a fringe cult that sees Trump as a messianic figure destined to rid the government of those who secretly murder children to drink their blood.

[...] He helped produce a recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner” made by inmates of the District of Columbia jail accused and, in some cases, already convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, which Trump then participated in and which was then sold commercially. Trump subsequently played the song at his rallies while he would stand at attention. He even helped market pills that claim — with zero evidence of efficacy — to undo the effects of COVID-19 vaccines. “Spike the Vax, order this homerun kit to rid your body of the harms of the vax,” Patel wrote in a social media post, linking to “Warrior Essentials” website [...]

So Many Enemies

No FBI nominee in history has come to the job with such a comical assortment of statements and money-making schemes. Yet, If Patel’s nomination fails, it could well be because of the adult book he published in 2023, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.” Hoover famously sought out “subversives” and “communists” to target in his decades in power. Patel, in contrast, has based his dividing line between friend and foe much more simply: how an individual has treated Trump and, relatedly, Patel himself.

“Deep state” is a phrase popularized by Bannon to describe individuals in the federal government who are not personally loyal to Trump, and, in his book, Patel printed an appendix naming 60 of them. “This list only includes current and former executive branch officials and is not exhaustive. It does not, for example, include other corrupt actors of the first order such as Congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, members of Fusion GPS or Perkins Coie, Christopher Steele, Paul Ryan, the entire fake news mafia press corps, etc.,” he wrote. Some names are unsurprising — Democratic leaders who have criticized Trump over the years like former President Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris. Prosecutors who investigated Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, and his subsequent retention of secret documents made the list, as did those who took part in the FBI’s earlier investigation into Trump’s acceptance of Russian assistance to help win the 2016 election.

Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, is on the list, as is Alexander Vindman, the NSC whistleblower who revealed Trump’s attempt to coerce Ukraine into investigating then-candidate Biden. Wray, who resigned rather than force Trump to fire him, is on Patel’s list, as are Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch. CIA Director Haspel, whose threatened resignation made Trump reconsider his attempt to make Patel her deputy, is now on Patel’s enemies list. Also on the list, though, are Trump administration officials whose only offense appears to have been refusing to go along with his scheme to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election. Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Pat Philbin, are both included. They advised Trump against taking illegal actions in the final weeks of his first term and, prior to that, opposed Trump’s effort to install a pliant attorney general who was willing to help spread his lies about a stolen election.

Kash Patel will be grilled in the Senate today, and he’ll face questions over his enemies list and QAnon support, among other issues, such as January 6th.

[dosesofcommonsense]

From BioClandestine on Telegram

If Trump wins 2024, he will halt all funding for Ukraine, negotiate an end to conflict with Putin, thus preventing WW3.

The reason Biden and the Deep State cannot negotiate with Putin, is because Putin wants their heads for crimes against humanity, namely for manufacturing C19.

This is not speculation on my part. Russian MIL literally listed Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Soros, as being the main ideologists behind the plot to manufacture coronavirus strains in Ukraine, with US DoD funding, and there is an open source paper trail to back it up. You can debate on whether or not you believe them, but the reality is, Putin wants the “Western Elites” and Xi agrees with him.

It’s not hyperbolic to say that this is life or death for the Deep State actors. If Trump wins and negotiates a settlement with Putin, Russian MIL have already been demanding for activation of Articles V and VI of the Biological Weapons Treaty, which would result in a Security Council investigation and international military tribunals. That’s what Russian MIL have been demanding at the UN for nearly 2 years now. And that’s just the biological stuff, not even accounting for the whole 2014 coup, shelling the Donbas, funding and supporting Ukraine in 2022, Nord Stream, etc.

What do you think Trump is going to say? No? Trump wants to prosecute the exact same people for crimes against humanity! Putin is literally demanding that all of Trump’s enemies trying to imprison him, must be prosecuted by military tribunal… How could Trump say no to that?! He’d be killing multiple birds with one stone. And Trump’s DOJ wouldn’t have to do the prosecuting. It would be a coalition of military judges from different countries around the world. It would be far more legitimate and no way could the Dems cry “partisanship”. It’s international law.

Y’all might think it’s crazy, but this is the trajectory we are headed on if Trump wins, which is why the Biden regime are going to do everything in their power to prevent Trump from winning. If they fail, they will be treated as international war criminals, and will face the ultimate penalty.

Extinction Level Event (for the deep state, for globalism, for all their synvophants in levels of government and the MSM).

Let’s say Russia and China are lying, and the US did not manufacture C19.

Then why would Fauci, Collins, and the US government, put so much effort into covering up the lab origins?

Why are the US and their allies the only ones NOT interested in who caused a global pandemic?

Why did government health agencies and Big Tech censor scientists and journalists who pointed out its lab origins? If someone else created this virus, why are the US government so invested in covering up who is responsible? Over a million Americans died, shouldn’t they be tirelessly trying to find out who killed all those people?

Who benefited from the pandemic? American Pharmaceutical companies, that began the vaccine development BEFORE the pandemic. Who funds the MSM and Deep State politicians? Big Pharma.

If Russia and China are lying, why is it that the US veto every request at the UN Security Council for a joint investigation into the origins of C19?

There are two options. Elements within the US are responsible, or, a different entity is responsible and the US government went out of their way to cover it up.

The paper trail confirms it’s the former, but either way, heads must roll.

[prasad213]

Wholesale pharmacy in India

Vaccinating people continues to be a challenge all over the world. The major reason is the shortage of vaccines as production has slowed down. Many developing countries still rely on generic medicine exporters in India as a world leader to meet their shortages. India still produces nearly 50% of the required vaccines.

Lotus International is a wholesale pharmacy in India which is helping the global pharma industry to continue with its immunization programs.

Overview of vaccines from India

All children in this world require affordable vaccinations to remain healthy and immunized. They are required to avoid other health-related problems. Vaccinations are still being given for hepatitis B, rubella, diphtheria, measles, mumps and tetanus. Viral diseases like Chikungunya, Zika, hepatitis B, rotavirus and typhoid also require to be stopped. The other vaccines are now being given full attention with cell-based and genetic technologies.

In the last two years, the injections were being made to stop coronavirus. However now the focus is shifting back to developing other inoculations. As a wholesale pharmacy in India, Lotus international has already scaled its production capacity to meet the shortages. The country has several big and small manufacturing companies to produce different injections. As licenses are being renewed they will be sent across to different countries.

India’s strong track record as a vaccine supplier

For a long time, it has been possible for generic medicine exporters in India to deliver cheap medicines. When the AIDS epidemic crossed its limits in Africa, Indian medicines were more popular. They were not only cheap but also effective for the growing number of patients.

The other compelling reasons for India to be a leader are:

Valued R & D center with the manufacturing units. These are the hubs where innovations and experiments are conducted.

Many world pharma companies outsource their needs to Indian companies.

Quality has never been questioned in the world markets.

By sending the latest COVID-19 vaccines, Indian companies have proved they can be relied upon to make emergency vaccines.

High volumes with low costs have been the mantra for successful formulas to work in India’s favor.

The wholesale pharmacy in India has been able to donate vaccines to countries to compete with Russia and China.

Why does Lotus International continue to manufacture and supply?

As a wholesale pharmacy in India, we continue to make antiviral medicines for the domestic and international requirements. Arresting viral infections that can be life-threatening is critical as they rapidly grow. Primarily, our vaccines continue to help people in remaining healthy. As travel and restrictions are lifted our production goes full scale.

We are already supplying bulk orders of Baraclude, Cymevene, Genvir and Fortovase. Our production capacity to make anti-cancer, anti-diabetic agents, growth hormones, weight loss and hair loss products are very popular.

Lotus International is one of the leading suppliers of vaccines and other generic drugs in the world. We are ISO 9001:2015 certified company and government-recognized export house. No matter in which time zone, your pharma business is located, we can send supplies.

[arrhakis]

(via The Fascist Transmigration - The Insidious Reborn Of Fasci… | Flickr)

The Fascist Transmigration - The Insidious Reborn Of Fascism by Daniel Arrhakis (2024)

This article, one of the first made for the Accademia Degli Incogniti, a page (or movement if you can call it that) that I created to Combat Fascism and the Nationalist Far Right that is spreading voraciously around the world but especially in Europe and Portugal .

You may follow these pages or movements in :

Accademia Degli Incogniti 🎨🍀🙏 (@AcademIncogniti) / X x.com/AcademIncogniti

Accademia Degli Incogniti

Facebook www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566439515831

The Fascist Transmigration - The Insidious Reborn Of Fascism

The Fascist Transmigration is one of the terms used by us to understand the rebirth of Fascism in Europe and the World.

When talking about transmigration, it is the movement of a soul to another body after death (related to reincarnation). We can thus speak of the transmigration of fascism (Reborn of Fascism) and fascist theories after the end of the Second World War, which was thought to have ended!

But in truth it was not like that, it survived and remained hidden in many ways, some more subtle than others: through the manifestation of racism (Especially in Europe and the USA), in totalitarianism (Like in Russia), in silent genocides, in chauvinism, in homophobia , misogyny, xenophobia, religious intolerance, propaganda and hate speech (especially on social media).

Fascism was not dead, but latent in society in insidious forms of social discrimination and just as in the past when The Great Depression and the subsequent Economic Depression, which caused significant social unrest around the world, led to the great wave of fascism . The same has happened in our times.

Liberal democracies emerged discredited from the Great Depression. Democratic institutions and mechanisms seemed powerless in the face of the economic and social crisis that took hold over a long period of time. There were several extremist solutions that came to power in Europe throughout the 1930s.

Again in our days, the popularity of fascist and nationalist ideas, like that of so many other far-right forces in Europe, soared after the 2015 migration crisis, when several European countries – including Sweden – decided to open their doors to refugees fleeing the wars in Syria and Yemen.

But already before, the 2008 financial crisis, popularly called the subprime crisis, had been one of the worst global economic disasters in recent years.

Originated in the USA, it began with the burst of the mortgage bubble in the financial market and spread to the rest of the world, with catastrophic and lasting effects.

The election of Donald Trump and his politics in 2017, which according to Henrique Araujo Aragusuku (2024) "mobilized socio-psychological elements that go back to the analyzes of the emergence of historical fascism, such as identification with an idealized and transcendent figure, submission to an authority or cause superiority and aggressiveness directed towards out-group threats", was another major factor, if not one of the most important.

The final blow was the The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with major social, economic, cultural and political impacts, gave definitive leverage to the anti-vaccine movements and of political extremism.

But this was just the beginning, as we will analyze throughout our page.

[misfitwashere]

September 21, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 22, 2024

On Thursday, September 19, the day after the Federal Reserve began to lower interest rates two and a half years after it began to raise them to get inflation under control, President Joe Biden spoke to the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., a nonprofit, nonpartisan forum where leaders from around the world can speak to larger questions about the global economy. 

Biden noted the interest rate cut and identified it as an important signal from the Federal Reserve to the nation that inflation, which at its post-pandemic peak was 9.1%, has come down close to the Fed’s target rate of 2%. He described it as “a declaration of progress…a signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.”

But Biden told the audience he was “not here to take a victory lap.” Instead, he wanted to “speak about…how far we’ve come, how we got here, and, most importantly, the foundation that I believe [we’ve] built for a more prosperous and equitable future in America.” He wanted, he said, to make the country realize how much progress we’ve made, because if we don’t, the negative economic mindset he attributes to the pandemic will “dominate our economic outlook,” and we will miss “the immense opportunities in front of us right now.” 

Biden reminded the audience that when he and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in January 2021, having “inherited the worst pandemic in a century and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” they found “there was no real plan in place—no plan to deal with the pandemic, no plan to get the economy back on its feet. Nothing—virtually nothing.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the U.S. wouldn’t see a full economic recovery until at least 2025.

But, Biden said, he “came into office determined not only to deliver immediate economic relief for the American people but to transform the way our economy works over the long term; to write a new economic playbook,” investing in ordinary Americans and promoting fair competition.

Immediately, Biden and the Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan—without a single Republican vote—to launch “one of the most sophisticated logistical operations in American history” to get coronavirus vaccines into every person in America. Without addressing the pandemic, there could be no economic recovery, he said. The American Rescue Plan also “delivered immediate economic relief for those who needed it the most,” preventing “a wave of evictions, bankruptcies, and delinquencies and defaults” like those that had followed economic crises in the past and had “weakened the recovery and left working families permanently further behind,” a process Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called “economic scarring.”

The economic crash had tanked local and state tax revenues, so the administration funded state and local governments to keep teachers and first responders working, small businesses open, and more housing being built. It expanded the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in half. The American Rescue Plan included the Butch Lewis Act, which protected the pensions of millions of union workers and retirees.

During the pandemic, factories shut down, and supply chains—from shipping to port operations to trucking networks—were tangled. The reopening of the global economy sent inflation skyrocketing, and then Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine sent food and oil prices even higher. 

Biden reminded the members of the Economic Club of the massive cargo ships stuck outside the Port of Los Angeles before the 2021 holidays, and the shortage of baby formula, and explained that his administration brought together business and labor to repair supply chains and “unclog our ports, trucking networks, and shipping lines.” (Although Biden didn’t note it, Republicans in 2021 suggested that the “reckless spending” of the American Rescue Plan meant that Christmas would be “ruined,” but the administration worked to smooth out the tangles and by July 2024 the Port of Los Angeles saw record-breaking volume passing through it, up 37% from July 2023.) Biden also released oil reserves to stabilize global markets and increased energy production to record highs. Together, these measures began to ease inflation. 

Nonetheless, Biden said, critics claimed that the economic supports of the American Rescue Plan would make people leave the labor market—remember “The Great Resignation”?—and that it would take significant unemployment to lower prices. But rather than backing off, Biden and Harris seized the moment to invest in the United States. They wrestled the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through Congress to rebuild roads, bridges, ports, airports, trains, and buses; to remove lead pipes from schools and homes; and to provide affordable high-speed internet access to every American. 

The administration insisted that U.S. contracts must use U.S. workers and U.S. products. With the CHIPS and Science Act, it brought back semiconductor chip manufacturing to the U.S., and private companies from around the world are investing tens of billions of dollars in new chip factories in the U.S. that are already employing construction workers and will soon employ factory workers. Factory construction is at a record high now, and the Biden-Harris administration created more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs.

Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act that will help cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and is creating hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. That law also permits Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving taxpayers an estimated $160 billion over the next decade. 

With inflation under control and a record 16 million jobs created, the administration’s policies proved, Biden said, that it’s possible to bring down inflation while also safeguarding jobs and wages for American workers and promoting economic growth. A record nineteen million people have applied to start new businesses. More Americans have health insurance than ever before. The racial wealth gap is the smallest in 20 years. And rather than creating a recession, these measures kept economic growth above 3% last year. The stock market is at record highs.

Biden contrasted his economic policies, based in the idea that the economy grows from the middle out and the bottom up, with those of former president Trump, whose policies of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are based in the idea that the economy grows best when markets drive it and that concentrating wealth at the top of society permits individuals to invest more efficiently than the government can. Biden noted that, in contrast to his own approach, Trump’s policies killed manufacturing jobs and saw very little factory construction, while creating the largest budget deficit in American history. 

Biden listed these comparisons to make the point that, as he said, “[f]or the past 40 years, too many leaders have sworn by an economic theory that has not worked very well at all: trickle-down economics. Cut taxes for the very wealthy…and hope the benefits trickle down. Well, guess what?  Not a whole lot trickled down to my dad’s kitchen table. It’s clear, especially under my predecessor, that trickle-down economics failed.  And he’s promised it again—trickle-down economics—but it will fail again.” He noted, as former president Bill Clinton pointed out at the Democratic National Convention, that since 1989 the U.S. has created about 51 million jobs, and 50 million of them have come under Democratic presidents.

“I’m a capitalist,” Biden said, “[b]ut I believe capitalism is the greatest force to grow the economy for everybody.” He called for more affordable housing, affordable childcare, and lower healthcare costs, noting that those policies will increase economic growth. He called for higher taxes on the very wealthy to pay for those pro-growth policies and to cut the deficit.

And then Biden brought the economic discussion back to his argument before the State Department in 2021, just after he took office. He told the audience at the Economic Club that we have such a dynamic system, and foreign companies are willing to invest here, because of the stability provided in the U.S. by the rule of law. Indeed, it is the rule of law that protects investments and capital, as evidenced by the fact that autocrats stash their money not in their own countries or other dictatorships, but in liberal democracies where investments cannot be taken away or legal protections changed on a dictator’s whim.

After listing the extraordinary economic successes of the past three and a half years, Biden told the audience: “American business, our economic dynamism can’t succeed…without a stability and security that makes us the envy of the world.” 

–-

[crimsonpublishers-medical]

Natural Patterns and Magnetic and Mental Processes of Coronavirus Activation and Neutralization- Crimson Publishers

Natural Patterns and Magnetic and Mental Processes of Coronavirus Activation and Neutralization- Crimson Publishers

For twenty years, humanity has seen the third attempt at the transition of coronavirus to humans. The vaccine has been found, but coronavirus transitions will not stop even with the improvement of medicine. Nobel laureate in medicine Professor Luc Montagnier argues that vaccines may not live up to humanity’s hopes of getting rid of COVID-19. Collective immunity for coronavirus has not been developed, repeated infections are more and more common, beds of seriously ill people are not empty, and mortality is running high, no one knows what will happen to all of us. In Israel, where vaccination has long been compulsory, and over 60% of the population, including underage children, have been vaccinated, the incidence is not just declining, but still breaking all records. So, the maximum number of cases here was revealed on September 1 - 16,629, which almost caught up with Russia (18,368 confirmed on the same September 1) with our percentage of vaccinated 26.1% of the number of citizens. At the end of September 2021, morbidity and mortality increase, because it is a system. Based on existing monthly pneumonia mortality statistics over the past 15 years, there are three waves each year. Since September 22, there has been a surge of pneumonia, ARI, and even non-communicable diseases. The second wave comes at the end of December - January, it is usually three times larger than the first. Then around March-April there is a third wave. These three waves exist steadily from year to year, their amplitudes can change, then one will be higher, then the other, they are not absolutely hard on schedule, but they are reproduced regularly in other countries. The first wave of the Spanish pandemic covered the world just at the end of September 1918. The coronavirus was the same. The first wave in America is September 2019, an unexplained surge of pneumonia with a rather high mortality rate, which was written off for smoking e-cigarettes and called “vape.” Now they decided to watch the surviving tests of patients, and there - COVID-19. In Europe, it was the same.

For more open access journals in crimson publishers Please click on link: https://crimsonpublishers.com

For more articles on Research in Medical & Engineering Sciences Please click on link: https://crimsonpublishers.com/rmes/

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Darcy at CNN:

Vladimir Putin’s information war in U.S. media paid off this weekend with a key victory halfway around the world. [...] As a Republican, Johnson is in a tough spot, politically speaking. While the Republican Party was once vehemently hawkish toward Russia, viewing the post-Soviet country as its chief adversary on the international stage, it has softened considerably in recent years and much of the party actively opposes sending additional dollars to Ukraine to continue fighting Russia. It was little more than a decade ago when Mitt Romney, then the party’s standard-bearer, famously declared Russia to be “our number one geopolitical foe.” In the years since, the party has dramatically changed its tune on Russia. A CNN poll conducted last summer found that��a staggering 71% of Republicans do not support additional aid to thwart Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Much of the GOP’s softening toward Russia is owed to a near-total reversal in rhetoric from right-wing media personalities and outlets, prompted in large part by Donald Trump’s ascension to power in GOP politics. While the biggest players in right-wing media once fervently championed the foreign policy doctrines of the neo-conservatives, they now follow in the footsteps of Trump and vehemently reject the views once held by the George W. Bush administration. This transition is perhaps best exemplified by Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host was once sharply critical of Putin, characterizing him in no uncertain terms as a cruel “dictator.” But in recent years, Carlson has reversed his stance, flooding the right-wing information space — which he once reigned as king over — with pro-Putin rhetoric that effectively amounts to Russian propaganda. Carlson’s stance was put on display in stark fashion recently when he traveled to Moscow to conduct a widely denounced softball chat with Putin and then proceeded to record a series of propaganda videos touting Russia’s supposed greatness.

While figures like Carlson have promoted Russia and Putin, they have simultaneously trashed Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelensky, promoting conspiracy theories that the country interfered in the 2016 election and was hiding biological weapons labs. Carlson, for example, has likened Zelensky to vermin and vigorously spoken out against U.S. support for Ukraine. Right-wing commentators like Carlson have questioned why taxpayer dollars are being spent to help Ukraine defend its borders when the U.S. struggles to secure its own southern border (though a recent bipartisan bill intended to tackle both issues was rejected by hardline Republicans.)

[...] “The GOP’s shift away from support for Ukraine shows how in the Republican Party, everything flows downstream from the obsessions and priorities of right-wing propagandists,” Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the progressive watchdog Media Matters, told me Tuesday. “Tucker Carlson and his ilk wanted to back Putin’s invasion, their relentless lies won over the party’s base, and ultimately its elected officials have adopted their position.” “We’ve seen this same pattern time and again: Fox News and the like take basic concepts like ‘it’s a good idea to get vaccinated against the coronavirus’ and ‘the January 6 insurrection was bad’ and turn them on their heads — and Republican elites inevitably follow,” Gertz added. “Governing based on what gets ratings for B.S. artists is no way to run a country.”

CNN's Oliver Darcy wrote in the Reliable Sources newsletter that the right-wing media's anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin disinformation campaign has had fatal consequences in the fight against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Republican Party and much of the right-wing commentariat were once resolutely anti-Russia; however, beginning in the 2010s that began with Vladimir Putin's enactment of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and then Russian asset Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and eventual "Presidency", the GOP shifted from anti-Russia to pro-Russia (and consequently anti-Ukraine).

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sweney at The Guardian:

The Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he regrets bowing to what he claims was pressure from the US government to censor posts about Covid on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic. Zuckerberg said senior White House officials in Joe Biden’s administration “repeatedly pressured” Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to “censor certain Covid-19 content” during the pandemic.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humour and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said in a letter to Jim Jordan, the head of the US House of Representatives judiciary committee. “I believe the government pressure was wrong.” During the pandemic, Facebook added misinformation alerts to users when they commented on or liked posts that were judged to contain false information about Covid.

The company also deleted posts criticising Covid vaccines, and suggestions the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory. In the 2020 US presidential election campaign, Biden accused social media platforms such as Facebook of “killing people” by allowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform. [...] Zuckerberg also said that Facebook “temporarily demoted” a story about the contents of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the president’s son, after a warning from the FBI that Russia was preparing a disinformation campaign against the Bidens. Zuckerberg wrote that it has since become clear that the story was not disinformation, and “in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story”.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg says that he regrets bowing to White House pressure to censor posts about COVID-19 on Instagram and Facebook during the pandemic that contained misinformation about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and conspiracy theories about COVID. Zuckerberg also touched on the Hunter Biden laptop story being initially a Russian disinformation campaign.

See Also:

Vox: Mark Zuckerberg’s letter about Facebook censorship is not what it seems

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Smith at The Guardian:

Robert Kennedy Jr, a longshot independent candidate for US president, has sought to woo Libertarian party voters by casting rivals Donald Trump and Joe Biden as enemies of individual freedom. Kennedy, 70, brought Libertarians to their feet by promising to pardon government whistleblower Edward Snowden, currently exiled in Russia, and drop espionage charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder battling US attempts to extradite him from Britain. Founded in 1971, the Libertarian party is committed to limiting the size and scope of government, and gained 1.2% of the national vote in the 2020 presidential election. But with this year’s race looking tight, Kennedy, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and environmental advocate, and Trump, the Republican nominee, are chasing votes at its convention in Washington.

Early in a 45-minute speech, Kennedy made light of the recent revelation that he had a brainworm more than a decade ago. Accusing past leaders of repeatedly encroaching on personal liberties, up to and including the coronavirus pandemic, he said to applause: “Maybe a brainworm ate that part of memory, but I don’t recall any part of the United States constitution where there is an exemption for pandemics.” Addressing a few hundred delegates, Kennedy accused Trump of allowing the government to abuse individual liberty during the pandemic. He said: “I think he had the right instinct when he came into office. He was initially very reluctant to impose lockdowns, but then he got rolled by his bureaucrats. He caved in and many of our most fundamental rights disappeared practically overnight.”

Kennedy earned further applause when he asserted: “All of our constitutional rights were ploughed under. They closed all the churches but they kept open the Walmarts and the liquor stores.” He accused Trump of closing down 3.3m businesses. “President Trump said he was going to run America like a business, and he came in and he gave the keys to all of our businesses to a 50-year bureaucrat who’d never been elected to anything and had no accountability,” he said. Kennedy touched a nerve in his audience when he turned to the espionage charges against Assange, who this week won the right to bring a fresh appeal against his extradition, and National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Snowden. Each line was greeted with cheers and applause as he spoke.

“President Trump also assaulted the first amendment and failed to defend press freedom when he continued President [Barack] Obama’s persecution and prosecution of Julian Assange,” he said. “Assange should be celebrated as a hero. He did exactly what journalists are supposed to do, which is to expose government corruption. We shouldn’t put him in prison; we should have a monument to him here in Washington DC. “The same is true of Edward Snowden … He’s a hero, not a criminal, and I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to do what President Trump should have done. On my first day in office, I’m going to pardon Edward Snowden and I’m going to drop charges – all charges – against Julian Assange.” The room erupted in roars of approval.

[...] He took aim at the current president, too, saying: “When President Trump left office, the assault on the constitution intensified. President Biden violated a freedom so fundamental that James Madison didn’t even think to put it in the Bill of Rights.” Kennedy accused Biden of “a programme of coercion and information control” during the pandemic, repeating unfounded claims that Biden colluded with the FBI to coerce social media sites to allow government agencies to carry out “an obscene orgy of federal censorship”. He said it went from “medical misinformation” to “an entire censorship industrial complex” that also suppresses critics of the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at the Libertarian National Convention Friday, Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hit at both Donald Trump and Joe Biden for their un-libertarian-like ways but moreso the former.

[thedelulus]

Journalistic Expectations 20

Part I.

News 1 - "Targeted vaccinations” to begin in December and January, leading to widespread vaccination by April, says HHS secretary

a. Organizing knowledge - The details provided are clear and concise. Truthfulness - Used quotes from US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Public interest - Informing citizens that they can get vaccines. Proportional and relevant news - It informs about the availability of vaccines. Balancing privacy and the right to know - The vaccination plans focus on the citizens for their health. b. Relevance to the audience - It was relevant at that time since there were no vaccines open yet. Clear and concise - It provided just the right amount of information needed. Credibility - Used quotes from US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. c. I believe that it is alright already as it just informs about the availability of the vaccine. source: CNN. (2020, November 12). “Targeted vaccinations” to begin in December and January, leading to widespread vaccination by April, says HHS secretary (L. Mascarenhas, Ed.). CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-11-12-20-intl/h_a09858976c12dde08c1bb4f8db1b71d4

News 2 - Her face bloodied, Norwegian ski jumper Silje Opseth recovers from fall to set new world record

a. Organizing knowledge - The details provided are clear and concise. Public interest - Informing citizens about a new record beated. Proportional and relevant news - An update in women's ski jumping record. b. Clear and concise - It provided just the right amount of information needed. Ski interest - It caught the attention of people who are interested in ski jumping. Visual aids - The photo attached of her in the news. Emotional impact - The title of the story shows the shattered pieces of the journey to achieve this. c. The article could use quotes from other participants or coaches to provide better credibility.

source: Church, B. (2024, March 18). Her face bloodied, Norwegian ski jumper Silje Opseth recovers from fall to set new world record. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/sport/silje-opseth-ski-jumper-world-record-spt-intl/index.html

News 3 - Analysis: How the war in Ukraine has cost Russia dearly a. Organizing knowledge - The details provided are clear and concise. Truthfulness - The information is factual. Public interest - Informing citizens about the military plan. Independence - It is not biased by the writer. Proportional and relevant news - An update about the invasion. Balancing privacy and the right to know - The public should know about the invasion. b. Clear and concise - It provided just the right amount of information needed. Update - It updated the situation happening in both areas. Insight - It provided insights about their plans of invasion. c. The article could use quotes from victims of the war to provide better credibility. This may provide insights into their perspectives that were affected by the war, making the story more credible.

source: CNN. (2024, February 24). Analysis: How the war in Ukraine has cost Russia dearly (M. Chance, Ed.). CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-02-24-24/h_69e1b0ff3f493be7388e06087462cc9a

Part II.