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US: The New Real Hoaxes?

US: The New Real Hoaxes?

Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

The investigative reporting by these two organizations…

Published

1 year ago

on

US: The New Real Hoaxes?

Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

  • The investigative reporting by these two organizations [the New York Times and the Washington Post] was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.

  • For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer -- for fraud.

  • The real hoax appears to have been the CCP's ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.

  • Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.

  • Also not allowed during the January 6th hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.

  • One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for "troops needed" for January 6. Kellogg wrote: "I was in the room."

  • The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution's separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power.

  • Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system?

Recently former US President Donald Trump challenged the award of Pulitzer Prizes to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their investigative reporting on alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

The investigative reporting by these two organizations was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.

You have to hand it to them for this so-called "great reporting": the Pulitzer Committee sure did.

We now know, of course, the grand conspiracy pushed by these papers is nothing more than thoroughly debunked disinformation. For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer -- for fraud.

The intractability of the Pulitzer Committee is only the latest example of why so many Americans have been losing trust in their institutions, both public and private. Rather than admitting that these awards were a mistake, and that much of the reporting was not investigative reporting, but merely a recitation of fabrications put forward by political hacks for campaign purposes, the Pulitzer Committee announced that it will stand by its initial decision, facts be dammed.

The Russia hoax is emblematic of the model built by the anti-Trump, anti-America First, anti-populist movement that the American people have experienced for the last six years. It embodies many of the characteristics that have frustrated Americans. It is a combination of influential forces -- media, social media, political players, and government -- that put forward information detrimental to one -- oddly always the same -- political viewpoint. In this instance, populists -- believers in the rights, wisdom or virtues of the common people, according to Merriam Webster -- who might embrace the concept of personal freedom espoused by the Constitution, a free market economy, economic growth, energy independence, school choice, equal application of the law and decentralized governance.

Much of the material used to foster the Russia hoax originated from the discredited "Steele Dossier," pedaled by former British spy Christopher Steele, funded by Clinton-linked opposition research firm FusionGPS, and pushed by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman. This discredited information was shared widely -- and often, it seems, with prior knowledge of its falseness -- through the mainstream media and social media when it was leaked to the press early in 2017 just before Donald Trump was sworn in as president. The material contributed to the launching of the Mueller "Russiagate" investigation, which cast a shadow over the first two years of the Trump administration. Government officials were involved as CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and DNI James Clapper all lent their credibility to the supposed authenticity or seriousness of the Russian materials. All of this did tremendous damage to the effectiveness of the Trump administration, as it sought to govern, by putting it under a cloud of suspicion and illegitimacy from the outset.

This, however, was not the only example. Consider the disrupted kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in her key swing state for presidential elections. "The FBI got walloped [in April]", according to the New York Post, " when a Michigan jury concluded that the bureau had entrapped two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Those men and others were arrested a few weeks before the 2020 election in a high-profile, FBI-fabricated case...."

The media, however, for the most part portrayed the kidnapping plot as the work of domestic terrorists, with the implied inference being they were right-wing Trump supporters. Whitmer went so far as to accuse Trump of being complicit in the plan, even though it emerged that these alleged plotters had also supposedly wanted to hang Trump. The FBI, it was later shown, had been heavily involved in the plot through informants and individuals it had placed in the group. By the time the case came to trial after the election, Biden had won Michigan's electoral votes and the damage had been done.

Consider, also, the COVID pandemic. The "facts" at the time were supposedly that it came from "nature" and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government had supposedly known nothing about its human-to-human transmissibility, even though it had "made whistleblowers disappear and refused to hand over virus samples so the West could make a vaccine."

The CCP, early on, was portrayed as a constructive player in controlling the spread of the virus, even as it was recalling and hoarding all of its Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This fiction was reinforced by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the World Health Organization, and other prominent participants – apart from Taiwan, which futilely tried to warn the WHO of the coronavirus's fierce human-to-human transmissibility, only to be dismissed.

The mainstream media and social media also quickly began parroting the "official" story line. Social media companies suspended the accounts of whoever might have had a different opinion and some were even canceled.

For the 10 months leading up to the November 2020 election, the narrative was set: COVID-19 was a naturally occurring virus and the CCP was in the clear. Imagine how different the 2020 presidential election might have been if the debate was how the world would have held the CCP accountable for the leak and coverup of COVID from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Now in 2022, a lab-leak is considered the most "likely cause" of the coronavirus, but again the political damage, and a gigantic amount of non-political damage, has already been done. The real hoax appears to have been the CCP's ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.

Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.

Discussion of Hunter Biden's laptop with its reportedly incriminating information about the Biden family business dealings with the CCP, Russia, and other actors in what appeared to be a model of pay-for-play, was instantly shut down. Fifty-one former government intelligence officials , who we now know were perfectly well aware that the laptop was real – the FBI had been holding it for months -- wrote a letter describing the contents of the laptop as having "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" designed to damage Joe Biden.

NPR famously downplayed the story, and once again, if you used social media to post information originally reported by the New York Post, you were canceled.

A year and a half after the election, the facts were finally "officially" accepted: Well, what do you know, it really was Hunter Biden's laptop and the material on it "is real!"

Once again, the leadership at the FBI, the media, social media, and former government officials had developed a hoax to damage their political opposition and the people who supported it.

Finally, there is the January 6th Committee, a one-sided investigative body, sometimes called "the third (attempted) impeachment." The Committee appears to have been put in place to stop Trump from running for office again. Before the proceeding even began, its outcome was predetermined: Trump was to be found guilty of -- something. As Stalin secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria used to say during Soviet Russia's reign of terror, "Find me the man and I'll find you the crime." So the US show trial commenced.

Even its start was ominous. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in an unprecedented move, vetoed the committee appointments of Representatives Jim Banks and Jim Jordan. This rebuff led House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to pull his five Republican candidates from participating. Pelosi, it appeared, wanted only anti-Trump folks to serve on the Committee. Also not allowed during the January 6 hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.

One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for "troops needed" for January 6. Kellogg wrote:, "I was in the room:"

"Great OpEd. Reinforces my earlier comment on 6 Jan Cmte. Has quote from DOD IG Report regarding 3 Jan 2021 meeting with Actg Def Secy Miller/CJCS Milley in the Oval on the 6 Jan NG request by POTUS on troops needed. I was in the room."

While purportedly examining in detail every decision and action by Trump and his team, the Committee refuses to question Pelosi, among the leading figures responsible for the security of the Capitol. She reportedly "turned down" requests for greater security. According to the Federalist:

"Four days after the riot, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned his post in the aftermath, told The Washington Post his request for pre-emptive reinforcement from the National Guard ahead of Jan. 6 was turned down. Sund said House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, overseen by Pelosi, thought the guard's deployment was bad "optics" two days before the raid.... Despite the Associated Press and Washington Post's best efforts to run interference for the speaker, suddenly exonerating her of duties overseeing Capitol security, the riot on Jan. 6 was a security failure Pelosi owns. If the "speaker trusts security professionals to make security decisions," then why, as the police breach unfolded, did Irving feel compelled to seek the speaker's approval to dispatch the National Guard, as The New York Times reported? How could Pelosi also order the extended shut down of the Capitol to visitors, citing coronavirus, and install metal detectors in the House chamber?"

The Committee has not evaluated the performance of the Capitol Police or other law enforcement agencies, but it has targeted the "private records of individuals with no connection to the violence."

The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution's separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power. The Committee's narrative is clear: Donald Trump is responsible for the events of January 6, now let us manufacture the evidence to prove it.

This article has not even delved into the 28 states that "changed voting rules to boost mail-in ballots." Some States apparently omitted both state law and the need for states' legislatures to be the sole arbiters of election law, as required by the Constitution; the $400 million spent by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; the 2000-plus "mules" and the algorithms that sent conservative emails to spam while emails with liberal content went through to the addressees.

Is it any wonder that many Americans have lost faith in their institutions and leaders? Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system? The media, social media, government officials and others have been complicit in undermining our rule of law and possibly even subverting an election.

*  *  *

Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/12/2022 - 23:55

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International

US Troops In Iraq Under Fresh Drone Attacks After Iran Said “Time Is Up”

US Troops In Iraq Under Fresh Drone Attacks After Iran Said "Time Is Up"

The US military thwarted a drone attack on its troops stationed at…

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31 mins ago

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October 18, 2023

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US Troops In Iraq Under Fresh Drone Attacks After Iran Said "Time Is Up"

The US military thwarted a drone attack on its troops stationed at Iraq's Ain Al-Asad base on Wednesday, according to two officials who spoke to Reuters.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack in the immediate aftermath, however, Iran-aligned Shia paramilitary factions are widely suspected. They have warned that the spiraling war in Gaza could make US troops "legitimate military targets."

Via AP

The attack came hours after the bombing of al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which reportedly killed between 200 and 300 people, widely blamed on Israel amid its ongoing air campaign. But President Biden on Wednesday in Tel Aviv said the US agrees with Israel's assessment that it was an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

One Iraqi faction did appear to indirectly own up the drone attack in the following:

"Our missiles, drones, and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle," Ahmad "Abu Hussein" al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement last Wednesday. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.

This has put the whole region on edge, and with hundreds of US troops still in Iraq but also occupying northeast Syria, fresh attacks on their positions by Iranian-linked factions could be unleashed.

There was a follow-up drone attack, Reuters reports: 

Later on Wednesday another drone attack targeting the al-Harir air base, which houses U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, was also foiled, an Iraqi security official and a Western diplomat said.

A little known group called Tashkil al-Waritheen, or the Inheritor, claimed responsibility for the attack on al-Harir.

On Tuesday, Iran's embassy in Damascus cryptically tweeted out the message "Time is up" - in a statement which portends a greater regional uprising aimed at the US and Israel. Indeed this is already happening to some degree especially inside Jordan and Lebanon.

But the potential for significant battles could be brewing in Syria and Iraq. Likely the Pentagon has these bases on high alert. In Syria, the Assad government has long sought ways to force the US occupation's exit. Turkey too wants to see the US bases gone especially due to Washington's backing of the Syrian Kurds.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/18/2023 - 17:40

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International

UBC Okanagan researchers hope to prevent catastrophes with next-generation sensors

As the wind and rain pound the blades of a wind turbine, UBC Okanagan researchers carefully monitor screens, hundreds of kilometres away analyzing if the…

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October 18, 2023

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As the wind and rain pound the blades of a wind turbine, UBC Okanagan researchers carefully monitor screens, hundreds of kilometres away analyzing if the blade’s coatings can withstand the onslaught.

Credit: UBCO

As the wind and rain pound the blades of a wind turbine, UBC Okanagan researchers carefully monitor screens, hundreds of kilometres away analyzing if the blade’s coatings can withstand the onslaught.

While this was only a test in a lab, the researchers are working to improve the way structures such as turbines, helicopter propellers and even bridges are monitored for wear and tear from the weather.

A changing climate is increasing the need for better erosion-corrosion monitoring in a wide range of industries from aviation to marine transportation and from renewable energy generation to construction, explains UBC Okanagan doctoral student Vishal Balasubramanian.

In many industries, wear-resistant coatings are used to protect a structure from erosive wear. However, these coatings have a limited service life and can wear out with time. As a result, these coated structures are periodically inspected for abrasion and breaches, which are then fixed by recoating the damaged areas.

Currently, these inspections are done manually using a probe, and Balasubramanian—one of several researchers working in UBC’s Okanagan Microelectronics and Gigahertz Applications (OMEGA) lab—is working to develop sensors that can be embedded directly into the coatings. This could take away any chance of human-caused errors and drastically reduce the inspection time. By integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) into these embedded sensors the researchers can monitor in real-time the wear and tear of protective mechanical coatings designed to prevent catastrophic failures.

“By leveraging AI technologies into our microwave resonator sensors, we’re able to detect not only surface-level coating erosion but we can also distinguish when an individual layer is being eroded within a multi-layer coating,” explains Balasubramanian, lead author of the research recently published in Nature Communications.

Some studies suggest that metal corrosion in the United States has a cost of nearly $300 billion a year; more than three per cent of that country’s gross domestic product.

But it’s not just about money.

Erosion can cause irreversible damage to the exterior surfaces of bridges, aircraft, cars and naval infrastructure, explains Balasubramanian. History has a long list of disasters where erosion was identified as the primary reason for structural failures that have led to the loss of thousands of lives—including the 2018 Genoa bridge collapse in Italy, the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India and the 2000 Carlsbad gas pipeline fire in Texas.

“Being able to proactively monitor and address equipment degradation—especially in harsh environments—can undoubtedly safeguard important infrastructure and reduce the effect on human life,” says Dr. Mohammad Zarifi, an Associate Professor in UBCO’s School of Engineering and principal investigator at the OMEGA Lab. “For several years, we’ve been developing microwave-based sensors for ice detection and the addition of newer technologies like AI and AR can improve these sensors’ effectiveness exponentially.”

The newly developed sensors can detect and locate the eroding layer in multi-layered coatings and can also detect the total wear depth of protective coatings. This information is collected and can provide a detailed understanding for engineers and stakeholders of the potential damage and danger of failures.

In the lab, the differential network device interface system was tested at varying temperatures—extreme hot and cold—and different levels of humidity and UV exposure to mimic several harsh environments. The developed system was tested with different types of coatings and its response was monitored in four different types of experimental setups that performed the desired environmental parameter variations.

“We tested our sensors under some of the harshest environments including various temperatures, humidity and UV exposures,” says Balasubramanian. “We continue to push the limits of what these sensors are able to withstand in order to stay ahead of what’s transpiring around the world.”

For his work, Balasubramanian was recently recognized with an Award for Excellence in Microsystems CAD Tool & Design Methodology by CMC Microsystems and sponsored by COMSOL. The award recognizes a graduate student who demonstrates a novel design technology advancement with the most potential for applicable improvements to microsystems manufacture and deployment.

The research was supported by funding from the Department of National Defence of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-40636-9

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Non-destructive erosive wear monitoring of multi-layer coatings using AI-enabled differential split ring resonator based system

Article Publication Date

15-Aug-2023

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International

‘Back To The Future’ Morphs Into Dystopia

‘Back To The Future’ Morphs Into Dystopia

Authored by Austin Padgett via The Mises Institute,

It is 2023, eight years after 2015, the year…

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October 18, 2023

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'Back To The Future' Morphs Into Dystopia

Authored by Austin Padgett via The Mises Institute,

It is 2023, eight years after 2015, the year of flying cars and climate-controlled clothing that Marty McFly traveled to in a time machine. In our own world, the ruling elite wants to ban cars to control the climate.

How did we get here? What caused the discrepancy between our vision of a more advanced future and the reality we face now?

We had reason to expect it.

From 1860–1970, the United States grew at an average of over 5 percent per year. But starting in the 1970s, and for the last five decades since then, America has experienced an average GDP growth rate of 2.7 percent. Had the previous growth rate continued, the economy would be at least 65 percent larger than it is today. The current GDP would be an additional $15 trillion, or $45,000 per capita.

The gap in unrealized potential is massive and accounts for the discrepancy between our past visions of the future and our current reality. If people knew about the future that was stolen from them, they would be outraged. The loss of a potential that was never known usually cannot affect people, but there is a growing sense that something doesn’t add up.

In the new reality of anemic growth, a strange mix of cutting-edge technology and crumbling infrastructure is emerging. This is mirrored in contemporary science fiction, which is more likely to depict a dystopian future than one like that envisioned by The Jetsons or a Jules Verne novel. How did this happen? What sent us so wildly off the path set by previous achievements?

There is a common political narrative that the “laissez-faire” push to deregulate and cut taxes under Reagan in the 1980s resulted in a consolidation of wealth and corporate power that led to our current malaise. The main problem with this narrative is that there was no recent laissez-faire moment. Regulation and public spending continued to increase through the 1980s. When the government couldn’t raise taxes high enough to keep up with spending, it just inflated the money supply, a strategy that became easier when the gold standard was fully abandoned in 1971.

Starting in the late 1960s, the number of pages published in the Federal Register exploded (figure 1). The number of pages of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is thought to reflect the overall regulatory burden, has increased by a factor of 10, from twenty thousand to over two hundred thousand pages (figure 2).

Figure 1: Total pages published in the Federal Register (1936–2022)

Source: Regulatory Studies Center.

Figure 2: Total pages published in the Code of Federal Regulations (1950–2021)

Source: Regulatory Studies Center.

The longest period of low growth in our history is also characterized by the expansion of the regulatory state. Corporate consolidation skyrocketed in the same period. In 1970, the top four companies in any given industry made up on average 20 percent of the market share. Today, the top four companies in any given industry control roughly 80 percent. Regulatory monopolies create single points from which special interests can control whole markets and enrich the wealthiest people. They are fully endorsed by the elite institutions yet sold through the pretense of keeping vulnerable consumers safe from asymmetries of power.

People who legitimately care about the poor or the environment should not support these federal agencies. The viewpoint that regulations lead to improved standards puts the cart before the horse. If the US regulation of the maximum amount of pesticide residue allowed on produce were imposed on a developing country, that country’s agricultural production would be wiped out overnight.

Reducing the use of chemicals, when done correctly, saves resources and improves soil quality and yield, but it also requires a great deal of knowledge and technology. Without being able to know exactly when insects will arrive, it may be necessary to spray every day for weeks to minimize the chance of catastrophic failure. Without knowing how to implement a system of crop rotation correctly, the soil will likely degrade over time. Without testing, mapping out, and integrating the soil into the tractor’s spray system, it won’t be possible to limit fertilizer use to the areas that need it.

The regulatory strictness of a country tends to vary directly with its level of economic development because mandates require infrastructure. Eventually, tractor components that can identify and kill weeds with an electric current will largely eliminate the demand for herbicides. A law will then be passed, with much self-congratulation, that bans herbicides, reinforcing the advantages of the bigger players and creating new barriers for the smaller.

Mining deaths dropped dramatically with the advent of electrical lighting and ventilation technology. The decline was not affected in any observable way after the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) because the government only legally codifies standards after the relevant technology and knowledge has entered the market. They do, however, take credit for the improvement and write the standards in a way that favors the specific practice of a particular industry association or corporate cartel.

This preference often takes the form of regulations that favor scale, which is why local food supplies have shrunk while centralized supply chains run by a few companies have come to dominate the market. It is ironic that regulators claim to be protecting consumers: surveys show that 96 percent of consumers think locally produced food is “the freshest, healthiest and most nutritious food.”

Regulatory restrictions slow the rate of innovation by creating barriers to market entry but also by protecting corporations that operate within the confines of the regulatory standards from legal liability for harming consumers or the environment.

Regulatory capture was described by Lao Tzu 2,500 years ago in China.

“In the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitive enactments increases the poverty of the people” and “the more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are.”

Such policies drastically increase income inequality, not to keep you safe but so that special interests can bring back mercantilism by controlling markets as guilds once did.

The resulting lack of options facilitates technocratic control of society. Nothing would hurt the average billionaire more than to see the average American stop falling for this ruse.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/18/2023 - 17:20

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