Commemorating Biden's First (Official) Bombing

Purging Inconvenient Facts in Coverage of Biden’s ‘First’ Air Attacks 

by Gregory Shupak - FAIR

 

March 4, 2021

 

When the Biden administration bombed Syria on February 25, the attack killed “at least 22,” most of them members of Iraqi militias, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring organization opposed to the Syrian government. 

 

 

The US said the bombing was retaliation for three rocket attacks on US bases in Iraq that it claims were carried out by groups allied with Iran (NBC, 2/25/21). In one of the attacks, rockets fired at Erbil airport killed a military contractor and an Iraqi civilian.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Jeremy Kuzmarov March 4th, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

March 4, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, February 28th and March 1st, 2021

 

The last day of February marks a dark anniversary for the people of Haiti. In the wee hours of February 29th, 2004 a crime was committed against the nation; a usurping of the will of the people, and undermining of its future democracy. 

 

On that balmy tropical night commandos from a tripartite coalition of nations, all officially friends of Haiti, would penetrate the Presidential Palace in Port au Prince, kidnap head of state, Jean-Bertrand Aristide and spirit him away across the Atlantic.

 

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, prolific essayist, and author whose book titles include: ‘Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada’, ‘A Propaganda System — How Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation’, and his latest, ‘House of Mirrors — Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy’.

 

Listen. Hear.

 

Engler’s articles appear at Ricochet, The Palestine Chronicle, and GorillaRadioBlog.Blogspot.com among other places, and at his site, YvesEngler.com where I found his latest, ‘Haitian official stashes wealth in Montréal’.

 

Yves is too a co-founding member of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute which is marking the death of Haitian democracy with an online discussion of the documentary film, Haiti Betrayed, “a powerful indictment of Canada’s role in the 2004 coup and subsequent policy in the country.”

 

Yves Engler in the first half.

 

And; nearing the half-way point of the first 100 days of the Biden administration the new president has wielded the immediate, if transitory, authority of Executive Orders with abandon; issuing more than 50 edicts, nearly half being repudiations of his predecessor’s policies. Biden recently waved off criticism of the unilateral nature of his early days in office saying, “I’m not making new law; I’m eliminating bad policy.” He would also no doubt deny unraveling Mr. Trump’s legacy has anything to do with bad blood, or revenging the particularly nasty personal attacks against him and his family during the presidential campaign.

 

Jeremy Kuzmarov is a journalist and author who serves too as Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He’s the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including: ‘Obama’s Unending Wars’, and ‘The Russians Are Coming, Again’ co-authored with John Marciano.

 

His latest at CovertAction is the fifth installment in the series, ‘Biden’s Foreign Policy History and What it Portends for his Presidency’, ‘Escalating the new Cold War with Russia via Ukraine: Biden’s Unprincipled Stands Involving Covert Operations, Blackmail, Corruption, Nepotism and State Terrorism’.

 

Jeremy Kuzmarov and scratching the tender underbelly of long-time 

Washington swamp denizen, Joe Biden in the second half.

 

But first, Yves Engler and chronicling Canada’s role in the Haiti’s betrayal.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

 

Part 5 in the Biden Series: A History of Deceit and Corruption

Escalating the new Cold War with Russia via Ukraine: Biden’s Unprincipled Stands Involving Covert Operations, Blackmail, Corruption, Nepotism and State Terrorism

by Jeremy Kuzmarov - CovertAction Magazine

 

February 20, 2021

 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And even a liar like Donald Trump can sometimes tell the truth.

 

During the 2020 election campaign, Trump accused Biden of corruption with regard to secret deals involving the Ukraine and China, in which the Vice President venally leveraged the power of his office and title to enrich himself and his son in clear violation of the law. In that charge, Trump was absolutely right. But he did not know the half of it. 

 

Bloomberg and the Cost of Doing Bulls#it Business Reporting

BLOOMBERG ADMITS LYING ABOUT ROSNEFT IN MOSCOW COURT, PAYS FINE – REUTERS TO CONTINUE LYING FROM NEW YORK

by John Helmer, Moscow 

@bears_with

February 25, 2021

Last week in a Moscow court, Michael Bloomberg’s (lead image, right) organisation of New York City did something it has never done before. It admitted it has been publishing lies about Russia. It also paid a penalty of Rb12,600 ($170.25). 

 

Bloomberg even promised that in future its reporting on Russia will “be guided in its work by recognised editorial standards of truthfulness, accuracy and objectivity of published information in accordance with its internal code of journalistic standards and ethics [and] best practices in the news industry.”

 

Indians Standing By Their Farmers

India’s Farm Protests: “If We Don’t Stand By Them, Who Will?” 

by Anustup Roy - CounterPunch

 
February 25, 2021

“The company people are certainly irritated with the protest happening here. It has badly affected transportation and the business is running poorly,” says 22-year-old Nizamuddin Ali, a security supervisor at a home appliances factory in the Kundli industrial area. 

 

PHOTO • ANUSTUP ROY.

 

He lives about six kilometres from the farmers’ protest site at Singhu, on the Haryana-Delhi border. (Kundli is an old village, now a municipal council, in Haryana’s Sonipat district).

 

Nukes in Space: Mars Rover Sets the Pace

Plutonium—the most lethal of all radioactive substances—in space

by Karl Grossman - Nation of Change

 

February 24, 2021

“A ‘1-in-960 chance’ of a deadly plutonium release is a real concern—gamblers in Las Vegas would be happy with those odds.” 

 

With all the media hoopla last week about the Perseverance rover, frequently unreported was that its energy source is plutonium—considered the most lethal of all radioactive substances—and nowhere in media that NASA projected 1-in-960 odds of the plutonium being released in an accident on the mission. 

 

How Canada Facilitates the Lifestyles of Haiti's Rich and Infamous

Haitian official stashes wealth in Montréal 

by Yves Engler

 

February 23, 2021

Recent media reports of a Haitian official stashing wealth in Montréal property ignore a key element of the story: Canada’s contribution to enabling Haitian corruption.

Senator Rony Célestin & a new $4,25 million Montreal mansion

As a neo-Duvalierist regime becomes ever more dictatorial it’s also worth revisiting Canada’s history in facilitating fraud and money laundering in the hemisphere’s most impoverished nation.

 

Shadow Bands: Twitter's Subtle Degrees of Censorship

Twitter Deletes Dozens of Russian Accounts for “Undermining Faith in NATO”

by Alan Macleod - MintPress News

February 24, 2021 

 

A propaganda system is far more effective — and dangerous — when those inside are unaware of it and believe themselves to be free from influence.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., listens as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies 

during Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Nov. 17, 2020. Bill Clark | Pool via AP

 

Social media giant Twitter announced yesterday that it has deleted 373 accounts it claims were linked to Russia, Iran, and Armenia. In a blog post entitled “Disclosing networks of state-linked information operations,” it claimed that it had taken the decision to remove 69 Russian accounts primarily because they were “undermining faith in the NATO alliance and its stability.”

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Rebecca Gordon, Dave Lindorff February 25th, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

February 25, 2021

 

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition recorded on the dates, February 15th and 17th, 2021.

 

And welcome to human civilization’s last minute and a half or so of existence. At least that’s according to some of the World’s foremost brainiacs, the folks over at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and their famous Doomsday Clock. 

It’s been a grand run though, these last 10,000 odd years; but as the saying goes, “all good things must come to an end.” Pity too, because as recently as the turn of the new century, that clock had gone retrograde, granting us a full nine minutes grace. 

But now, just twenty years into George Bush’s “generational war” it looks like we may run out of generations before finishing it. 

My, how the time has flown!

 

Listen. Hear.

Rebecca Gordon is an educator in philosophy at the University of San Francisco and for it’s Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good. She is too author of the books, ‘Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States’, and ‘American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes, and a frequent contributor to LA Progressive, Responsible Statecraft, and The Nation Magazine’s TomDispatch column, where I found her recent article, ‘The Fire Next Time: Climate Change, the Bomb, or the Flame of Hope?‘.

Rebecca Gordon in the first half.

And; while it’s all fine and good to dance to the departure of the Orange Menace, a sober look at the wreckage he wrought, and what Dragon’s Teeth remain is necessary. That justice is still not seen to have been done in either the election, or in addressing who directed the mobs attacking the Capitol afterward both undermines the legitimacy of American democracy now, and sully its prospects for the future.

Dave Lindorff is an award-winning journalist, author, and founding member of the media collective, ThisCantBeHappening.net. Lindorff’s book titles include, ‘The Case for Impeachment: Legal Arguments for Removing President George W. Bush from Office’ and ‘This Can’t Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy.’ Dave has charted the ruinously slow departure of the 45th president both at This Can’t Be Happening and here at Gorilla Radio.

Dave Lindorff and King Trump’s fourth act in the second half.

 

But first, Rebecca Gordon and counting down 100 seconds to a diminished tomorrow.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

 

State of U.S. Covid Origins Investigation

Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

by U.S. State Department - Office of the Spokesperson

January 15, 2021

For more than a year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin, choosing instead to devote enormous resources to deceit and disinformation.

 

The U.S. government does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus—known as SARS-CoV-2—was transmitted initially to humans. We have not determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China. 

 

The Last Conscious Western Nation: Maintaining Iceland

Icelanders: Most Peaceful and Politically Conscious of People

by Ron Ridenour - This Can't Be Happening

 

February 19, 2021

 

Shots were fired at a politician’s property recently for the first time in Icelandic folk’s memory. During the weekend of January 21-2, bullets from a .22 pistol were fired into Reykjavik Mayor Dagur B Eggertsson’s car and his office. He was not present in either occasion.

 

Iceland nature. Creative Commons Photo.

 

Will this be maintainable?

 

Nukes in Space: Is Life on Mars More Important Than That on Earth?

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine reports on space nuclear propulsion

by Karl Grossman - Nation of Change

 

February 17, 2021

 

National Academies report urges nuclear-powered rockets for trips to Mars and lays out "synergies" in space nuclear activities between NASA and the U.S. military.

 

A report advocating rocket propulsion by nuclear power for U.S. missions to Mars, written by a committee packed with individuals deeply involved in nuclear power, was issued last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

 

School Openings: "Preparing the way for a deadly third wave of the pandemic"

Ontario reopens all schools, delays March break ignoring warnings of a third COVID-19 wave

by Jake Silver - WSWS

 

February 19th, 2021

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce, (pictured below) delivered a tirade of lies at a press conference last week to cover over the deadly implications of the province’s school reopening policy.

 

 

His remarks came in the run-up to Tuesday’s return to in-class learning in the only remaining parts of the province with predominantly online instruction—Metro Toronto and the neighbouring Peel and York regions. All three areas continue to be hotspots for the spread of COVID-19.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Vandana K., John Helmer February 18th, 2021

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

February 18, 2021

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition recorded on the dates, February 7th and 8th, 2021.

 

Last November, India’s farmers came in protest by the tens of thousands to the gates of the capital demanding newly drafted laws the Modi government insists are necessary to “modernize” agriculture be struck down. 

 

The ongoing vigil, beset by state violence, media disinformation, and a shutdown of internet and phone coverage not only persists, but its demands are enjoined by unions, celebrities, and millions of citizens alike. So far, neither side seems ready to give ground.

 

Vandana K is a Delhi-based independent journalist and producer who writes on the intersections of environment, gender, youth and indigenous communities with a focus on climate change. 

 

 

Listen. Hear.

 

She’s also covered India’s agriculture beat for nearly two years. Vandana’s articles can be found at Deutsche Welle, Resurgence & Ecologist, The Wire, and Canada’s Media Co-Op, where her recent piece, ‘The fight over agriculture in India, and how Punjabis in Canada are supporting farmers’ appears.

 

 

Vandana K. in the first half.

And; though the global corona virus pandemic has altered, perhaps irrevocably, how we all live, what hasn’t changed is the seemingly inherent human compulsion to dominate. Around the World, despots and tyrants both great and small have utilized this moment of vulnerability to reap fantastic financial profit, and to run roughshod over rights and freedoms.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ ‘Skripal in Prison’, and ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’. His latest, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller‘ is the chronicle of his legal battles with authorities to estop its ban on his leaving Australia, or allowing his wife join him there.

Helmer writes: “Right now this is a story with urgent parallels in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Spain, and France – in every country where democratic resistance to abuse of power in the pandemic has run into identical tactics of lawlessness, and suffered the same fate.”

 

 

John Helmer and an antidote to government abusing Covid-19 powers in the second half.

 

But first, Vandana K. and India’s farmers’ fight, from there and here.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

The Elusive Zoonotic Origins of COVID-19 Virus

Why China and the WHO Will Never Find a Zoonotic Origin For the COVID-19 Pandemic Virus

by Jonathan Latham, PhD and Allison Wilson, PhD - Independent Science News

February 16, 2021

In China there is a popular joke about the southern city of Guangzhou (Canton). A visiting space alien, curious to learn about Chinese customs, tours its various provinces. Arriving in Guangzhou the alien asks the locals what their interests are. The Cantonese oblige their guest by putting the alien in a soup pot and eating it. This joke hinges on the Cantonese fondness for cooking with unusual species, many obtained from far away.

This feature of Canton’s cuisine was implicated in the original SARS (Severe Acquired Respiratory Syndrome) pandemic of 2002-04, which began in Guangzhou. It is thought that the virus arrived there with palm civets imported for speciality dishes (Wang et al., 2005).

 

Tickling Midnight: Biden's Cold-Warriors Playing with End Times

Who's the US to demand that Russia free anyone? - Back to Cold War 2.0 with Biden and His ‘Diplomacy-Favoring’ Secretary of State Blinken

by Dave Lindorff - This Can't Be Happening

February 3, 2021 

A fawning liberal media and a passel of well-endowed ‘peace’ organizations like Plowshares and Council for a Livable World and self-described “progressive” organizations like MoveOn have beenhailing Biden’s cabinet picks, many of them veterans of the Obama administration, claiming they will steer the US in a new direction under which diplomacy, not bluster and military threats, will be the default policy.

 

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist ‘Doomstay’ clock is at 100 seconds to midnight,
suggesting that renewing the SALT agreement by Feb 5 would be in the interest
of both the US and Russia.

 

And yet right out of the box we see the Biden administration “demanding” that Russia release Putin critic and political challenger Alexey Navalny from a just-ordered 32-month sentence reportedly for jumping bail and leaving the country? Is that supposed to be diplomacy? Is Moscow likely to cave in to such an imperious demand? Is the US prepared to act in some fashion to enforce its demand?

 

Civilizational Soup: Last menu Item at the Terminal Capitalism Cafe

‘A Ghastly Future’? Israeli Apartheid, Biden, Starmer, Assange And Mass Extinction 

by Media Lens

January 20, 2021

Back in 2017, before WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was silenced by Twitter, he used the platform to highlight an immutable truth:

‘The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security not national security.’

 

 

Power hates being exposed. It hates having its inner machinations, its selfish priorities and ugly operations opened up to public scrutiny.

 

The Flame of Hope, or Dousing the 100 Second Fuse: Racing Climate Change, the Bomb, & Human Cupidity

The Fire Next Time: Climate Change, the Bomb, or the Flame of Hope?

by Rebecca Gordon - TomDispatch

 

February 9, 2021

 

If you live in California, you’re likely to be consumed on occasion by thoughts of fire. That’s not surprising, given that, in last year alone, actual fires consumed over four and a quarter million acres of the state, taking with them 10,488 structures, 33 human lives, and who knows how many animals. 

 

California Fires 2018 - photo: Forest Service 

By the end of this January, a month never before even considered part of the “fire” season, 10 wildfires had already burned through 2,337 more acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

 

Moving On: Dismissing Witnesses to Historic Attack on Capitol

Democratic cowardice leaves Trump’s Republican conspirators unscathed

by Joseph Kishore - WSWS

 

February 13, 2021

The defense team for Donald Trump in his impeachment trial before the Senate rested its case after only two-and-a-half hours Friday afternoon. The Senate proceeded to questions for the two legal sides, which are expected to conclude today. This will be followed by a vote on the charges, which will likely fall well short of the 67 votes required for conviction.

 

See: Trump and the Danger of Fascism in America Series at WSWS

 

Trump’s defense doubled down on the arguments it had advanced throughout. His lawyers claimed that Trump was merely exercising his First Amendment right to free speech when he spoke at a rally before the January 6 insurrection. They asserted that in calling on the fascistic mob to “fight like hell” prior to the storming of the Capitol, his only intention was to encourage a peaceful protest. They said that the fact that the coup attempt was the outcome of extended planning somehow exonerated Trump of responsibility for inciting it.

 

Victoria Nuland: Queen of the Chicken Hawks Comes Home to Roost

Queen of Chicken Hawks: Victoria Nuland Had A Hand in Every US Intervention in the Past 30 Years

by Rick Sterling  - MintPress News

 

February 11, 2021

As the Senate prepares to confirm Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, a reflection of her last 30 years in government shows how she was connected to nearly every foreign policy disaster undertaken by the United States.

 

President Joe Biden’s nomination of Victoria Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the third-highest position at the State Department, is a dangerous sign. Nuland exemplifies the neoconservatives who have led American foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years, all while evading any shred of accountability.