Blog

Former Iranian State Media Editor Now Works for ‘Nonpartisan’ US Media Bias Group That Rates Conservative Publishers as Untrustworthy Compared With ‘Reliable’ Liberal Outlets

A former paid scribe for an Iranian state-affiliated newspaper now works for a U.S. media watchdog group that produces a controversial “media bias” chart that consistently rates liberal outlets as more reliable than conservative ones, the Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman reports. Universities like Cornell and journalism nonprofits like Poynter have cited and praised the media bias ratings of this organization, Ad Fontes Media, like it’s a neutral third party.

Meet Meisam Zamanabadi, an Ad Fontes Media analyst who was raised in Iran and served as an editor at Hamshahri, an Iranian newspaper owned and operated by Tehran’s municipal government that has been associated with hardline politicians and drew international condemnation after holding a Holocaust denial cartoon contest in 2006. Posts from his blog indicate that Zamanabadi worked at the paper in 2008 and 2009, when Iranian parliament speaker and chief regime negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf served as mayor of Tehran.

Zamanabadi now resides in California and works for Ad Fontes, the Colorado-based “public benefit corporation” behind the Media Bias Chart, which evaluates U.S. news outlets by political leaning and trustworthiness. The chart “consistently rates left-wing sources as more reliable and often less biased than their conservative counterparts,” writes Goodman. Socialist magazine Jacobin, for example, enjoys a higher “reliability” rating than long-established, edited publications such as National Review, the New York Post, and the Free Beacon. On television, the chart says Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters are less reliable than their MS Now counterparts Chris Hayes and Jen Psaki.

News of Zamanabadi’s work for Ad Fontes—which markets its “analysis” to schools as a tool for teaching media literacy and claims that its ratings are “non-partisan”—comes as the watchdog faces questions about its own objectivity and ethics. Last summer, the Federal Trade Commission requested records about Ad Fontes’s business practices as part of an investigation into “possible collusion” in a scheme to get advertisers to withdraw their support for conservative content, the New York Times reported. The Trump FTC says these spending pullbacks are illegal boycotts.

Keep reading

A Reckoning Is Underway At The FDA

For months, a quiet battle has been unfolding inside the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

It began with an analysis of child deaths after Covid vaccination, followed by strategic leaks to major media outlets, and has now erupted into the open with a memo from the regulator’s own vaccine chief.

In September, it was reported that FDA officials had privately investigated 25 paediatric deaths following Covid vaccination — the first systematic review of such cases since the rollout began.

The findings were meant to be presented to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). But the presentation never came. The meeting passed without a word. Something had happened behind closed doors.

Now we know what.

On 13 November 2025, STAT published an extraordinary insider account describing a tense internal meeting in which FDA scientist Dr Tracy Beth Høeg presented evidence of young people who had died after Covid vaccination.

According to STAT, her findings triggered pushback from career FDA regulators who feared the implications of acknowledging fatal cases.

Now, comes the explosive memo from FDA vaccine chief Dr Vinay Prasad, confirming — for the first time — that US regulators have formally attributed at least 10 of these children’s deaths to Covid vaccination.

Prasad called it “a profound revelation” with far-reaching implications for American vaccine policy, adding that the true number is “certainly an underestimate.”

Here, I’ll take you through the memo, the leaks, the internal rebellion at FDA, and what this means — not just for Covid vaccines, but for all vaccine approvals going forward.

This story marks a turning point in US vaccine regulation.

Keep reading

Hungarian Law Prohibiting Children From Accessing LGBT Content Violates EU Law, Court Says

A Hungarian law prohibiting the access by minors to LGBT content violates European Union law, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on April 21.

The court said in a statement that the 2021 law, aimed at protecting children and prohibiting or restricting childrens’ access to content on transgenderism and homosexuality, “stigmatises and marginalises LGBTI+ persons.”

“Although those amendments are, according to that Member State, intended to protect minors, several of them have the effect, in essence, of prohibiting or restricting access to content having as a defining element the portrayal or promotion of deviation from the self-identity corresponding to the sex assigned at birth, of gender reassignment, or of homosexuality,” the European Court of Justice said.

The court said the restrictions Hungary placed interfered with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The European Court of Justice said Hungary violated Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union, which the statement defined as “the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”

The court said this was the first such action brought against an EU member state.

Keep reading

Forensic Analysis Debunks Media Frenzy Claiming Charlie Kirk Bullet Didn’t Match Gun

Charlie Kirk was murdered on Sept. 10, 2025. Millions of Americans lost their breath in despair at this violent tragedy. The FBI and Utah authorities had Tyler Robinson in custody within days, charged him with Kirk’s murder, and Utah prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

On March 31, the defense team in the Charlie Kirk murder case filed a simple, customary, and ordinary motion. It stated: “regarding the firearm evidence, the defense has been provided with an ATF summary report which indicates that the ATF was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson.”

This sent media outlets, influencers, and clickbait grifters into frenzied animation. A Daily Mail headline read, “Bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did NOT match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson, new court filing claims.” A PBS headline asked, “Did a bullet analysis clear Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer?”

MSN claimed, “Bullet mismatch rocks Charlie Kirk murder case.” A People headline read, “Bullet that killed Charlie Kirk doesn’t match Tyler Robinson’s rifle, his lawyer’s claim.” TMZ boldly asserted in its headline that “Docs claim bullet used doesn’t match alleged rifle.” Countless others ran with this fake news.

Keep reading

NEW WAR IN EUROPE? Russian Citizens in Moldova’s Breakaway Republic of Transnistria Allegedly Under Threat, as Moscow Vows To Protect Them at Any Cost

Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania… all in the same powder-keg situation.

Many people don’t remember, but the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, began as Russia moved to protect Russian-speaking populations in the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk).

Now, even as the conflict with Kiev is still raging, another minority Russian population becomes focus of attention of Russian military authorities.

We’re talking about Transnistria, a Russian enclave in Moldova – which itself is a former part of Romania.

Now, former defense minister and current secretary ​of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, has come to the public to warn that the safety of Russians in the Transnistria region is currently under threat.

Shoigu further warned yesterday (21) that Moscow will take all steps to protect their citizens.

Keep reading

Bank of Korea Vows to Create CBDC

The Bank of Korea has now made its position unmistakably clear, and this is precisely what I have been warning about for years. In his very first address, Governor Shin Hyun-song did not merely suggest innovation in digital finance, he explicitly prioritized a system built around central bank digital currencies and bank-issued deposit tokens, while deliberately omitting stablecoins entirely from the discussion. What you are witnessing is not competition in money, it is the consolidation of control.

They are trying to rebrand this as modernization, but behind the curtain this is about power. Shin outlined that CBDCs and deposit tokens will form the core of South Korea’s future monetary system, reinforcing a structure where the central bank and regulated banking institutions remain the gatekeepers of all financial activity. This is not accidental. Deposit tokens are essentially programmable bank liabilities tied directly into a centrally controlled system, ensuring that even when money becomes “digital,” it never leaves the institutional framework.

What stands out is not what he said, but what he refused to say. Stablecoins, which represent a competing form of digital liquidity outside direct state control, were entirely absent from his inaugural speech despite ongoing legislative efforts in South Korea to establish a domestic stablecoin market. That omission speaks volumes. Central banks do not fear volatility, they fear competition.

Even when pressed previously, Shin made it clear that stablecoins would only play a “supplementary” role, not a foundational one. In other words, private digital money may exist, but only within boundaries defined by the state. This is the same pattern we are seeing globally. Governments will tolerate innovation only to the extent that it does not threaten their monopoly over money and taxation.

The Bank of Korea is already expanding real-world testing through initiatives like Project Hangang, aiming to integrate CBDCs and deposit tokens into everyday transactions and even government spending. This is how it always unfolds. First comes the pilot program, then limited adoption, and finally full integration under the justification of efficiency and stability. By the time the public realizes what has happened, the infrastructure is already in place.

They will argue this is about improving payment systems, reducing friction, and enhancing transparency. But transparency for whom? Governments will gain unprecedented visibility into every transaction, every movement of capital, and ultimately every individual’s economic behavior. The original promise of cryptocurrency was decentralization and financial sovereignty. What is being constructed here is the exact opposite.

Keep reading

Wes Moore’s ‘Climate Study’ Bankrolled by Left-Wing Rockefeller Fund As Left Looks To Force Oil Companies To Pay Damages for Climate Change

Democratic Maryland governor Wes Moore announced late last year he would commission a climate “study” aimed at assessing “the undue burden Marylanders are paying for extreme weather events” so that fossil fuel companies can be coerced into paying some sort of climate reparations. Moore didn’t mention it, but the left-wing, climate-obsessed Rockefeller Family Fund chipped in $30,000 for the study, raising questions about the study’s impartiality, the Free Beacon‘s Thomas Catenacci reports. We aren’t holding our breath for the results.

The RFF—established in 1967 by the liberal great-grandchildren of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller—says oil companies (the source of their generational wealth) “advance a business model that accelerates the climate crisis” and that the Maryland study is intended to make those companies pay up. The RFF said in a December press release that the study would “lay the groundwork for a Maryland climate superfund bill, which would require fossil fuel companies to pay for a portion of the state’s climate adaptation costs identified through the study”—which is a weird thing to say before the study is actually conducted and the findings presumably unknown—but did not disclose its role in funding the research.

Blue states like New York and Vermont have already passed “climate superfund” laws, which stipulate that oil companies helped cause extreme weather events like floods and wildfires and have to pay damages to compensate for them. Both states are facing lawsuits from the Trump administration arguing that the laws illegally usurp federal emissions regulations.

The move comes as the RFF—which sits on more than $200 million in total assets, according to its latest tax filing—also supports lawsuits seeking to compel oil companies to pay damages by holding them responsible for climate change. “Such suits have largely been unsuccessful, including in Maryland, where the state’s Supreme Court recently dismissed three lawsuits from Democratic-led jurisdictions that accused the likes of BP, ExxonMobil, and Chevron of causing costly weather events,” Catenacci writes. “The RFF-backed study, then, could be the first step toward securing payouts from oil companies through the legislative process rather than the judicial one.”

Keep reading

Pokémon Go — The Largest Mapped Data Collection Ploy in History

When Pokémon Go was released, it appeared to be a harmless game encouraging people to go outside and explore, yet beneath that surface was a far more sophisticated system that directed human movement into very specific locations where data was needed most, turning millions of users into mobile data collectors. The placement of Pokémon, Gyms, and PokéStops was not random, but concentrated around landmarks, businesses, and dense urban corridors, meaning players were repeatedly funneled into high-value mapping zones, often returning to the same locations over and over again, capturing them from multiple angles, at different times of day, and under varying conditions, which is exactly how high-quality spatial datasets are built.

For many reading this, particularly those who never played the game, it is important to understand what this actually looked like in practice, because this was not some passive background process, it required people to physically walk through neighborhoods, parks, shopping districts, and even residential areas while holding up their phones, actively scanning their surroundings to “catch” virtual creatures that did not exist. The game encouraged users to point their cameras at real-world objects, move around them, and interact with the environment. The system was capturing detailed imagery not just of public landmarks but also of surrounding areas, including streets, entryways, and private homes, all embedded in what appeared to be a simple entertainment experience.

Keep reading

Ontario landowners push back against high-speed rail and property rights threats

Landowners gathered at the Ontario Landowners Association (OLA) general meeting in Cobourg to voice strong opposition to the federal government’s proposed $90-billion Alto high-speed rail project, warning it threatens private property rights through aggressive expropriation and sweeping legislative changes.

The project, aimed at linking Toronto and Quebec City, has sparked alarm among rural residents and farmers in eastern Ontario as letters from Alto arrive, requesting access to private land for surveys, soil testing, and environmental assessments.

Many fear that allowing entry could weaken their legal standing and pave the way for forced takings.

“There is no law that requires property owners to allow anyone onto their property with respect to Alto,” OLA president Jeff Bogaerts relayed. “The moment you allow Alto onto your property, your property rights are going away.”

Attendees noted that the lack of clear route details, crossing plans, or impact assessments has left landowners in the dark.

Critics like Conservative MP Philip Lawrence argue that the project is fundamentally flawed. At speeds requiring grade separation, every road, farm lane, or crossing demands expensive overpasses or underpasses, costing millions each.

For him and concerned landowners, the economics don’t add up: an estimated $8,000 per Canadian household, with most taxpayers (outside of the 1,000 km corridor between Toronto and Quebec City) unlikely to ever use the service.

“It’s my property. I should be able to do what I want with it,” one farmer stated plainly. “We don’t need it, we can’t afford it, and it’s just a bad idea,” said another.

Others pointed out practical inconveniences, such as disrupted local travel patterns that could force longer drives for basic needs like groceries.

Concerns extend beyond cost and disruption, with speakers highlighting potential conflicts of interest, noting involvement of firms like SNC-Lavalin (now rebranded Atkins Realis), compounded by the fact that Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s partner is vice-president of Alto’s environmental division.

Questions also arose about the project’s alignment with broader global agendas under Prime Minister Mark Carney, with former MP Jack MacLaren saying, “I hope the train goes where the new world order goes, and that’s nowhere.”

Nowhere — that’s exactly where a 2018 Ontario government proposal for a high-speed rail line ended up, despite plans to have it running by 2025 and an $11 billion ‘commitment’ to the failed project.

Ironically, a copy of that year’s OLA magazine was shared with attendees, showing just how relevant those same concerns persist nearly a decade later.

Keep reading

Zelensky Demands Ukrainian Men Abroad Return to Fight His War

Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that Ukrainian men of conscription age who left the country, many in violation of his wartime restrictions, should return to die in his war. He states it is only “fair” since the army needs them for rotation, which is nothing less than an admission that the war effort is running short of bodies.

“As regards young people who are currently not in Ukraine, but abroad. First of all, there are different groups of young people. I agree with you regarding those of conscription age who left Ukraine. They left temporarily but ended up staying away for years,” Zelensky stated, oblivious to the reason so many fled their homes. “And many of them left in breach of Ukrainian law. The relevant authorities in both countries should address this issue.

Our Armed Forces would certainly like them to return. Because this is a matter of fairness. We have people, soldiers on the front lines, who need rotations. These Ukrainian soldiers are as strong as iron, but let’s be honest: they have families; they are defending their homes, and more than that – the entire state. But this responsibility should be borne by every person who is a citizen of Ukraine who has the capacity to do so. It is both a constitutional duty and a matter tied to conscription age.”

Casualty estimates are running into the hundreds of thousands killed or wounded, while millions fled their homes to escape precisely this outcome. Zelensky continues to be portrayed in the Western press as a heroic figure, but the truth is that he is a madman prepared to see an entire generation sacrificed to maintain a war that cannot be won. When he speaks of “fairness,” what he is really saying is that no one should be allowed to escape. Millions have fled Ukraine to avoid his tyranny. The prospect of returning is slim as there will not be a “Ukraine” to return to once this conflict comes to an end.

From the standpoint of Ukrainian men living abroad, this becomes deeply personal because they are being told that their lives are secondary to the needs of the state. Their attempt to survive and protect their families is somehow unjust. How can any leader claim to represent his people while demanding that they walk back into a war zone?

Keep reading