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Report Shows How Military Industrial Complex Sets Media Narrative on Ukraine

Wealthy donors have long funded think tanks with official-sounding names that produce research that reflects the interests of those funders (Extra!, 7/13). The weapons industry is a major contributor to these idea factories; a recent report from the Quincy Institute (6/1/23) demonstrates just how much influence war profiteers have on the national discourse.

The Quincy Institute—whose own start-up funding came mainly from George Soros and Charles Koch—looked at 11 months of Ukraine War coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, from March 1, 2022, through January 31, 2023, and counted each time one of 33 leading think tanks was mentioned. Of the 15 think tanks most often mentioned in the coverage, only one—Human Rights Watch—does not take funding from Pentagon contractors. Quincy’s analysis found that the media were seven times more likely to cite think tanks with war industry ties than they were to cite think tanks without war industry ties.

With 157 mentions each, the top two think tanks were the Atlantic Council and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Both of these think tanks receive millions from the war industry. The Atlantic Council has long been the brain trust of NATO, the military organization whose expansion towards Russia’s borders was a critical factor in Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine. (See FAIR.org, 3/4/22.) Both think tanks receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, companies which have already been awarded billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts as a result of the war in Ukraine.

CSIS was revealed in a New York Times expose (8/7/16) to produce content that reflected the weapons industry priorities of its funders.  It also “initiated meetings with Defense Department officials and congressional staff to push for the recommendations” of military funders.

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The Story Of Michael Rockefeller’s Disappearance And The Gruesome Theories Behind It

Michael Clark Rockefeller was born in 1938. He was the youngest son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and the newest member of a dynasty of millionaires founded by his famous great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller — one of the richest people who ever lived.

Though his father expected him to follow in his footsteps and help manage the family’s vast business empire, Michael was a quieter, more artistic spirit. When he graduated from Harvard in 1960, he wanted to do something more exciting than sit around in boardrooms and conduct meetings.

His father, a prolific art collector, had recently opened the Museum of Primitive Art, and its exhibits, including Nigerian, Aztec, and Mayan works, entranced Michael.

He decided to seek out his own “primitive art” (a term no longer in use that referred to non-Western art, particularly that of Indigenous peoples) and took a position on the board of his father’s museum.

It was here that Michael Rockefeller felt he could make his mark. Karl Heider, a graduate student of anthropology at Harvard who worked with Michael, recalled, “Michael said he wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before and to bring a major collection to New York.”

He had traveled extensively already, living in Japan and Venezuela for months at a time, and he craved something new: he wanted to embark on an anthropological expedition to a place few would ever see.

After talking with representatives from the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology, Michael decided to make a scouting trip to what was then known as Dutch New Guinea, a massive island off the coast of Australia, to collect the art of the Asmat people who resided there.

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9/11: Whodunnit? and Why It Matters to the Peace Movement

“I have chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived — yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace . . .”— PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, JUNE 10, 1963

Sixty years later it behooves us more than ever to penetrate the tenacious ignorance of which Kennedy spoke. To honor my friend and colleague, TRANSCEND member Prof. Graeme MacQueen, who passed away in April, this editorial addresses topics he was passionate about, namely peace, justice and truth, in particular 9/11 truth.

If we’re not willing to open our minds to the abundant evidence refuting the narrative, fed to us mere minutes after the heinous crimes of 9/11 unfolded before our eyes, that a band of foreign militants from the Middle East was solely responsible for those crimes, then we risk continuing to fall prey to propaganda leading to unending wars and suffering.

Johan Galtung introduced me to Graeme at a 2011 TRANSCEND symposium in North Carolina. 9/11 was not on the formal agenda, but came up in side conversations as the 10-year anniversary approached. Galtung has always promoted open dialog on challenging topics, bucking the penchant of academic institutions and major media platforms to ignore dissenting views on 9/11 and dismiss them as crazy conspiracy theories. He thus proposed adding a session on 9/11 to the symposium and opening it to the general public. Three of us presented our views, followed by Q and A.

Galtung accepted the official narrative that 9/11 was perpetrated by foreign Muslim extremists, viewing it as blow-back from the many injustices the US had inflicted on the Middle East. He called it a public execution of 3 buildings (World Trade Center 1 and 2, and the Pentagon) that symbolized the US military-financial complex. 

Graeme and I enumerated unexplained anomalies pointing to complicity of key agents within the US Government and cast doubt on the culpability of Al-Qaeda operatives. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9/11, confessed involvement only after being subjected to prolonged torture via waterboarding, while videos of Osama bin Laden claiming credit for the attacks look suspiciously fake.

We all agreed, however, along with most peace activists, that the US response to the events of 9/11 was reprehensible: declaring the unending war on terror, fomenting widespread Islamophobia, curtailing civil liberties, decades-long military incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq that ruined both countries and cost countless lives. The US leadership justified its violent response by the fear, outrage and desire for revenge that swept across much of the nation, horrified at the shock and awe it had witnessed that fateful day. How could that have been prevented?

Imagine what our world might look like if the propaganda machine set in motion the morning of 9/11 had failed. What if most journalists, commentators, engineers, pilots, firefighters, police, and politicians on mainstream media had pressed for answers to valid questions, like:

How could damage and fires on the upper floors have caused both twin towers to explode and disappear into their footprints? How could World Trade Center 7, a third skyscraper not hit by a plane, have imploded symmetrically at free fall speed? How could an alleged hijacker who flunked flight school on small planes have executed a harrowing maneuver to ram a passenger jet into the Pentagon going 500 mph at ground level? How did the US, with its hundreds of billions in defense spending, fail to defend the nerve center of its military headquarters in the nation’s capital? 

Once it was announced hijacked planes were crashing into buildings, why did Secret Service agents allow President Bush to remain in a Florida classroom with children, leaving them vulnerable to attack? Who made money on a significant increase in stock market betting right before 9/11 that prices of American and United Airline stocks would drop? 

What if honest eye-witness journalists, who in the morning had reported explosions both before and during the destruction of the towers, had continued to develop that thread and ask deeper questions throughout the day and following days, rather than being diverted by select experts and pundits who silenced the “explosion” theme, supplanting it with unproven assertions that Osama bin Laden did it.

Had these questions — many raised also by 9/11 victims’ family members — been relentlessly pursued, the flimsy tale of Muslim extremists from remote parts of the world with no ties to any government being the lone perpetrators of this apocalyptic theatrical display would have soon disintegrated.

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Joe Biden’s Incoherent Student Loan Logic

In the hours after Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down his attempt to forgive large amounts of federal student debt, President Joe Biden promised two new actions to ease borrowers’ burdens. The president’s next steps and his rhetoric suggest that little has changed in his flawed logic regarding student loan forgiveness—which has always seemed to have been more about electoral politics than serious policymaking, despite the huge price tag.

Going forward, Biden’s student loan plan will include the two steps announced Friday and one lingering element from his earlier proposal that wasn’t part of the Supreme Court’s review.

First, Biden has invoked a different federal statute in another attempt to unilaterally forgive some student debt. Under powers contained in the Higher Education Act of 1965, Biden intends to direct Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to “compromise, waive, or release loans under certain circumstances.” That will be a federal ruling process, and those tend to take a while—the White House says the first step is a virtual public hearing on July 18—and it is unclear how much debt could be forgiven this way, who would benefit, or what the cost to taxpayers will be.

In the meantime, federal student loan payments will come due again in October after being paused since the COVID-19 emergency was declared in March 2020. But borrowers will be able to ease back into paying what they owe: Biden also announced Friday a 12-month “on-ramp” process during which missed payments will not accrue penalties and won’t result in delinquent borrowers having their credit scores dinged.

When they do restart, those monthly payments will be lower than before the pandemic for many borrowers. That’s due to the third part of Biden’s plan, which caps monthly payments at 5 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income—which the Department of Education defines as income that exceeds 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. In practice, that means a single borrower with no children starts making payments on income that exceeds $20,400. Additionally, outstanding loan balances will be forgiven after 10 years for those who borrowed $12,000 or less, with a maximum payment period of 20 years no matter how much was borrowed.

That part of the plan isn’t new, but the Department of Education finalized those rules on Friday just after the Supreme Court’s ruling. “It will cut monthly payments to zero dollars for millions of low-income borrowers, save all other borrowers at least $1,000 per year,” Cardona promised.

The consequences of capping monthly payments and also capping the length of time a loan can be in repayment should be fairly obvious: A lot of loans will never get paid back in full. “On average, borrowers (current and future) might only expect to repay approximately $0.50 for each dollar they borrow,” the Brookings Institution concluded in an analysis last year.

That’s going to create some major perverse incentives in the already screwed-up student loan marketplace. Brookings warns that Biden’s income-based repayment plan will result in “tuition inflation” and “increased borrowing,” particularly by students in pursuit of “low value, low earning” degrees.

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Discovery of up to 25 Mesolithic pits in Bedfordshire astounds archaeologists

  • A prehistoric site with as many as 25 monumental pits has been discovered in Bedfordshire to the astonishment of archaeologists.

Found in Linmere, they date from the Mesolithic period, 12,000 to 6,000 years ago, a time from which few clues into the lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors survive.

The pits could offer extraordinary new insights. They are in alignments and clustered around former stream channels, suggesting a spiritual significance.

Such is the scale of this site that it has more such pits in a single area than anywhere else in England and Wales, including Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating revealed they are from 7,700 to 8,500 years ago.

Archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (Mola), who are conducting the research, said: “This date makes the site incredibly significant because there are very few Mesolithic sites in the UK that are this substantial. Evidence from this period is often slim, only consisting of flint tools and occasional butchered animal remains.”

Early Humans Were Weaving Baskets in the Philippines 40,000 Years Ago!

Recent examination of ancient stone tools reveals that as early as 40,000 years ago, the early inhabitants of the Philippines were crafting ropes and baskets from plant fibers. This discovery pushes back the timeline for plant-based artifacts in the region by an astounding 31,000 years, as previously the oldest such artifacts were fragments of mats from southern China, estimated to be about 8,000 years old.

Mastering Fibre Technology

According to the study, which was published in the journal PLOS One , researchers analyzed stone tools found in Tabon Caves , situated in the Palawan Province of the western Philippines. Dubbed as the country’s “cradle of civilization”, Tabon Caves is a site of archaeological importance due to the number of prehistoric human remains found there.

The tools showed microscopic evidence of wear and tear associated with using plant fibers for purposes such as for rope-making and basket weaving. These signs included a brush stroke-type pattern of striations, micro-polish and micro-scars on the surface of the tools, according to a report by Cosmos Magazine .

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In Less than 48 Hours, 2 Cops in the Same Department Arrested for Sex Crimes

A disturbing pattern of sexual misconduct has come to light within the Placer County Sheriff’s Department, further reinforcing the already tainted image of America’s security force. A deputy was arrested on suspicion of forcible rape and sodomy of an intoxicated person, marking the second arrest for a sex crime in the department within a mere 48 hours.

This alarming pattern is not isolated to Placer County. According to the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, sexual misconduct ranks as the second highest of all citizen complaints nationwide against police officers, at 9.3%. Shockingly, the study also found that the rate of sexual misconduct among officers was significantly higher than the rate among the general public.

The frequency of such incidents paints a deeply troubling picture of police behavior. It underscores the crucial need for greater accountability and transparency within these institutions that wield immense power over the citizenry.

Yet, despite these alarming incidents, the Placer County Sheriff’s Department seems dismissive of conducting a larger department-wide investigation. This nonchalant response to such grave misconduct is reflective of the systemic issues within law enforcement bodies, where such allegations often go unpunished or uninvestigated.

Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo reiterated in a statement, “We have no tolerance for law enforcement misconduct on or off duty.” However, these are not isolated incidents within the law enforcement community. They are part of a broader and more deeply ingrained issue, further highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive reforms.

The data and these recent incidents serve as a reminder of the scale of the problem within law enforcement. It underlines the need for a significant overhaul of the system to ensure those who are tasked with serving and protecting the community are held to the highest standards. Until then, trust in law enforcement will continue to erode.

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More JFK Assassination Documents Released

The National Archives and Records Administration released thousands of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, meeting a Friday deadline set in a December memo by President Joe Biden.

NARA said on the JFK Assassination Records page on its website it worked in concert with agencies to jointly review the remaining redactions in 3,648 documents in compliance with the president’s directive. Between April and June, NARA posted 2,672 documents containing newly released information.

“At the National Archives, we believe in the importance of government transparency and the accessibility of information,” said Colleen Shogan, the 11th Archivist of the United States, in a statement. “The dedicated and detailed work completed by NARA staff and by our partners and stakeholder agencies is an excellent representation of how we can collaborate together to ensure that the maximum amount of information is made available to the American people, while we protect what we must.

“I have every confidence that the NDC’s [National Declassification Center] implementation of these plans offers a clear path forward for public transparency and the timely release of additional information as circumstances warrant.”

The largest block of more than 1,000 documents was released Tuesday. Some documents contain redacted information because of national security concerns, the Washington Examiner reported.

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Joe Biden Says He Wants To Crack Down on ‘Privilege’ in Education. He Once Called UPenn’s President To Get His Granddaughter In.

Shortly after the Supreme Court declared affirmative action college admission policies unconstitutional, President Joe Biden said his administration would direct the Department of Education to scrutinize how “practices like legacy admissions … expand privilege instead of opportunity.”

The department could start by examining how politically connected families like the Bidens get their children into Ivy League schools.

In 2018, Hunter Biden tapped his father and a number of Biden family connections to help get his daughter into the University of Pennsylvania. Text messages and emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, show how Joe and Hunter Biden worked behind the scenes to get a subpar family member into one of the most selective schools in the country.

Maisy Biden’s college admissions process could raise a number of uncomfortable questions for the president. The saga highlights exactly the kind of “legacy admissions” Biden has slammed. The story also highlights the Biden family’s occasionally shady dealings with the University of Pennsylvania just as congressional Republicans are probing alleged ethical misconduct by both Joe and Hunter Biden.

Maisy Biden was never much of a student. But she had her sights set on the University of Pennsylvania, whose 5.9 percent acceptance rate made it one of the most exclusive schools in the country.

“I applied early decision to Penn today!!” Maisy Biden texted Hunter Biden on October 31.

Just two days later, Maisy asked her father for an update on her application. In the coming months, Hunter and Joe Biden would mount a full-court press on university administrators to get Maisy’s application over the finish line. The Bidens took their case directly to the top: University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann.

On December 13, 2018, the elder Biden texted Hunter that he was “going to try to see [University of Pennsylvania] Pres GUTMANN tomorrow.” Two days later, Joe Biden told Hunter Biden that he “had a great talk with Guttman [sic].”

“Maisy still in the game for regular acceptance. But must do well in class this period. It’s real,” Joe Biden wrote on December 15. “We should talk about tutors etc starting tomorrow.”

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How young religious Australian women were ‘brainwashed’ and lured into a South Korean sex cult to become ‘spiritual brides’ of a convicted rapist

A South Korean cult has been accused of recruiting vulnerable young Australian women at shopping centres to be brainwashed and then sent abroad. 

The victims were told they were the ‘spiritual brides’ of Jung Myung Seok (JMS), the self-proclaimed second coming of Jesus Christ and messiah of the Providence church he founded in 1978.

But JMS is a convicted rapist and the women were sent to his Wolmyeongdong compound not for any spiritual reasons, but to allegedly be sexually assaulted.

The recruiters are reportedly told to find tall, slim white women for JMS, and two Australian survivors, Liz and Amy (not their real names) have spoken out to warn others to be aware they could be targeted too.

Amy was recruited while on her way to meet a friend to go bowling at Melbourne Central shopping centre, she told Channel 7’s Spotlight program.

‘All of a sudden, somebody tapped me on my shoulder, I turned around and two girls were smiling at me … they asked me to do a survey about my faith,’ she said. 

Amy was 22 at that time in 2014 and had a growing interest in Christianity. The chance encounter would change her life for the worst. 

‘I believed that this was a almost an elevated version of Christianity because that’s how they pitched it to me,’ she said.

Liz had just finished Year 12 when she was approached at the Canberra Centre and thought it ‘sounded really fun and exciting’.

‘I was on a gap year, so I was looking to travel, I was working part-time, and I was also thinking about what I was going do with my life. 

‘I was in a really good position to be susceptible to psychological coercion, and they definitely took advantage of that.’

The young women attended bible study classes and lecturers and eventually moved into cult houses in Australia, where their lives were strictly controlled, including getting up at 2am every day to pray to JMS. 

In time, their physical and mental resistance was worn away and the people they thought of as friends told them they were ‘faith stars’.

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