Stripe, Substack Demand Financial Details from Authors

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ROBERT W MALONE MD, MS
SUBSTACK
via 
Godfree Roberts

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Another step towards implementing a Social Credit system

Stripe's billionaire founders.

Stripe's billionaire founders. Just kids, but with an outsize power to bend society the wrong way.


Financial privacy is a right under the Constitution, as is free speech.  

Under the guise of “credit review”, Stripe is now rolling out a requirement that appears to target conservative or "anti-vax" Substack authors. Stripe is requiring that these authors provide all of their current and historic financial records associated with the bank account into which Stripe deposits Substack subscriber payments (after taking 10% off the top for Substack and 3% for Stripe).  Stripe already has information concerning this bank account (including deposits from Stripe), as we have been doing business with Stripe via this account for over two years.

If I or anyone else agree to these new terms, this newly implemented arbitrary, capricious and overreaching requirement will provide Stripe with complete records of all financial transactions associated with this account. Consequently, this will provide Stripe with comprehensive information on all of my customers, patients and clients, all of my travel (historic and planned), all of my purchases, and any donations (and donor information). This information from my account and those of any others who comply with this demand can be hacked or sold, provided to the US Government, used to fuel predictive algorithms (AI), used to derive insights into my political orientation, weaponized against me by press or other hostile actors, or used to support future social credit score-based restrictions.

Stripe has a history of financially de-platforming (or de-banking) for political reasons, including removing support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Despite its relatively recent entry into the financial transaction business, Stripe has become a major global financial organization, and processed one Trillion US Dollars in payments during 2023, and is now expanding its credit charge program.


 

Substack requires that authors use Stripe for all Substack-related financial transactions including subscriptions. This policy on all subscriber transactions is despite the availability of alternative payment processing organizations, which refuse to engage in debanking. In other words, Stripe has been granted a monopoly over all Substack transactions, and so if a Substack author wishes to accept paid subscriptions, they must use Stripe. This enables Stripe to function as a gatekeeper for Substack content. Although Substack has touted its commitment to free speech, the reality is far different from the pretty words.

For example, although Substack claims to not permit harassment, there are multiple Substack authors who continually harass and cyberstalk me (and others), including expressing claims that that I am a mass murderer and should be tried and hung. Complaints to Substack fall on deaf ears. Cyberstalking is a crime.

With that in mind, we commit to keeping Substack wide open as a platform, accepting of views from across the political spectrum. We will resist public pressure to suppress voices that loud objectors deem unacceptable. … Of course, there are limits. We do not allow porn on Substack, for example, or spam. We do not allow doxxing or harassment. We have content guidelines (which will evolve as Substack grows) with narrowly construed prohibitions with which writers must comply. But these guidelines are designed to protect the viability of the platform at the extremes, not act as a filter through which we see the world. There will always be many writers on Substack with whom we strongly disagree, and we will err on the side of respecting their right to express themselves, and readers’ right to decide for themselves what to read.

And now this. Stripe is requiring access to all financial transaction records from selected (targeted) authors’ bank accounts which receive subscription revenue from their Substack work product. The following is the key clause included in Stripe’s demand statement. While the initial message indicates that this is a request, subsequent communication from both Stripe and Substack has demanded that I comply within seven days or Stripe will cease transferring funds into my account.

“When you first set up your Stripe account, we asked you to connect your bank account in order to receive payouts. We are now requesting that you link your bank account, which involves sharing details and activity relating to your bank account with Stripe. This includes your current account balance and transactions, as well as historical transactions.”

In light of this email from Stripe, I reviewed the Stripe “Know Your Customer” (KYC) obligation. (https://support.stripe.com/questions/know-your-customer-obligations). The KYC policy derives from requirements that government regulators put upon Stripe such as Passport or driver’s license (https://support.stripe.com/questions/passport-id-or-drivers-license-upload-requirement).



While there is a page as a party of the KYC policy that talks about sensitive information, nothing in the sensitive information indicates that a person has to link their account and show all their transaction history. https://support.stripe.com/questions/why-do-i-need-to-provide-sensitive-information

Stripe does include a page that talks about required verification information for customers in the U.S. (https://docs.stripe.com/connect/required-verification-information). Nothing on this page talks about one having to link an account. In fact, the only thing of interest is that after you have $500,000 in lifetime transaction, they do require that you provide them with a Social Security Number.

In reviewing the Stripe 2023/2024 US Verification Requirements Update and Services Agreement, I do not see anything that requires a linking of an account to continue doing business. It appears that this may be unfair targeting of this account.

In response to this financial threat, I immediately retained an experienced California-based first amendment Attorney (Mark Meuser of the Dhillon Law Group) to guide my response. This comes at considerable personal expense, but I knew that if I did not respond immediately and appropriately, I would lose my only source of revenue and many others would likely be targeted by the same policy. This was clearly another case of needing to promptly “do the right thing” to push back against this new form of censorship, which appears to be an attempt to vacuum up financial transaction data from myself and others which can then be weaponized, traded and/or sold to third parties including the US Government. I have been told to anticipate that the legal case against this new Stripe/Substack policy will require approximately $100,000 to prosecute.

I have now been contacted by other politically conservative Substack authors who have received the same demand correspondence from Stripe and Substack.

Since Mr. Mark Meuser responded with a formal legal letter to Stripe and Substack one week ago, as of this moment Stripe has NOT followed through with their threat to stop processing Substack subscriber payments.

In their correspondence, Stripe indicates that selected Authors must link the account for Stripe review due to the US Government’s KYC policy, and with this KYC policy Stripe is that they are just doing what the government bureaucrats are telling them to do. As such, if they are really being required to link Author accounts because the government is telling them to, they should have no problem producing the evidence that the government has told them to link your account. This evidence has not been provided to date, despite a legal letter sent to Stripe (with a copy to Substack) by the Attorney which I have retained to guide me in my response to this demand.

To date, neither Stripe nor Substack have responded to the legal letter regarding this matter sent a week ago by Mr. Meuser. I have received multiple inquiries by Substack suggesting that I speak personally and informally to their corporate liaison at Stripe, but they refuse to communicate directly with Mr. Meuser, so he has again sent an email requesting a meeting. Based on the nature of their outrageous demands, I have been advised to not enter into informal discussions with Stripe, and have redirected these inquires back to my Attorney.

Please let me know if this is of any interest.

As soon as one “clicks” the Stripe-provided button to link my account and enable full Stripe access to all current and historic financial transaction record, there is an automatic acceptance of new terms of service with Stripe, and by extension to Substack.

This new policy comes at a time when the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has revealed a broad governmental program of financial surveillance and data collection targeting conservative US citizens titled “FINANCIAL SURVEILLANCE IN THE UNITED STATES: HOW FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMANDEERED FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS TO SPY ON AMERICANS “. There is the appearance that Stripe may be acting at the behest of this politically motivated illegal and selective federal law enforcement program.



Of related interest is that seven months ago Catherine Valentinejoined Substack as “head of politics”. Recently, she served as senior publicist on politics, justice and national security at The Washington Post. She identifies her mission at Substack as “making 2024 the Substack Election”.

Mrs. Valentine received a BA from the University of Virginia in Religious Studies and Foreign Affairs, and served as an “Immigration Intern” at the United States Senate for two months.

COVID-related tweets here, and her J6-related tweets here.


 


Josh Kushner, brother to Trump son in law Jared, is a major investor in Stripe. Founder of Thrive Capital, Kushner has seen his personal fortune soar to an estimated $3.7 billion, according to Bloomberg’s calculations, after his firm secured a major investment from several billionaires.

Disney CEO Bob Iger and KKR co-founder Henry Kravis were part of a group that paid $175 million to acquire a minority stake in Thrive Capital, the firm announced on Tuesday.

The son of real estate developer Charles Kushner, Josh founded Thrive Capital in 2009 after a stint in private equity at Goldman Sachs.

Thrive has specialized in tech-related investments, making early bets on major firms such as Spotify, Instagram, Twitch and Stripe.


This action by Substack and its contractor Stripe appears to be yet another incremental step towards implementing further weaponization of financial transactions to control and constrain freedom of speech, and to further a financial social credit system-based system of controls. Once again, despite the financial risks, I have chosen to take a firm stand against this new arbitrary and capricious overreaching policy. This will require significant legal expenses, and will place my relationship with Substack corporation at risk despite my almost complete financial dependency on this platform.

It appears that a similar debanking strategy was already deployed against the “Libs of TikTok” by Stripe. In this case, the revenue stream was associated with an “X” account, and rumor has it that direct action by Elon Musk has resulted in Stripe backing down.

I have been contacted by other Substack authors who are being targeted in the same way, and invite all who receive these threat letters to contact me. I will be glad to put you in contact with Mr. Mark Meuser, who has already completed significant due diligence regarding this matter. I can provide copies of relevant correspondence received from Stripe and Substack to credentialed reporters who may wish to investigate further.

In the meantime, I thank my Substack subscribers (particularly the small subset who are paying subscribers) for their patience during this troubling time, and ask that you consider donating to help defray the substantial legal expenses which will accrue from resisting this arbitrary and capricious action, which appears to be a pilot program and may eventually extend to all of us.

Dr. Malone Legal Defense Fund


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SPECIAL ADDENDUM

Google's thuggish corpofascist algos respect no one. They have even swung their mace at a highly respectable website like Naked Capitalism. Here's their story, in their own words. 


Google Censorship: AI Run Amok Threatens Demonetization Over a Navigation Page with No Ads, An Article on a Foreign Policy Best-Seller Deemed Anti-Vaxx, and More Flagrant Errors

We posted briefly on a message from our ad service in which Google threatened to demonetize the site. The e-mail listed what it depicted as 16 posts from 2018 to present that it claimed violated Google policy. The full e-mail and the spreadsheet listing the posts Google objected to are at the end of this post as footnote 1.

We consulted several experts. All are confident that Google relied on algorithms to single out these posts. As we will explain, they also stressed that whatever Google is doing here, it is not for advertisers.

Given the gravity of Google’s threat, it is shocking that the AI results are plainly and systematically flawed. The algos did not even accurately identify unique posts that had advertising on them, which is presumably the first screen in this process. Google actually fingered only 14 posts in its spreadsheet, and not 16 as shown, for a false positive rate merely on identifying posts accurately, of 12.5%.

 

Those 14 posts are out of 33,000 over the history of the site and approximately 20,000 over the time frame Google apparently used, 2018 to now. So we are faced with an ad embargo over posts that at best are less than 0.1% of our total content.

And of those 14, Google stated objections for only 8. Of those 8, nearly all, as we will explain, look nonsensical on their face.

For those new to Naked Capitalism, the publication is regularly included in lists of best economics and finance websites. Our content, including comments, is archived every month by the Library of Congress. Our major original reporting has been picked up by major publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. We have articles included by academic databases such as the Proquest news database. Our comments section has been taught as a case study of reader engagement in the Sulzberger Program at the Columbia School of Journalism, a year-long course for mid-career media professionals.

So it seems peculiar with this site having a reputation for high-caliber analysis and original reporting, and a “best of the Web” level comments section, for Google to single us out for potentially its most extreme punishment after not voicing any objection since we started running ads, more than 16 years ago.

We’ll discuss:

 

Why these censorship demands are not advertiser-driven

The non-existent posts in the spreadsheet

The wildly inaccurate negative classifications

Censorship Demands Do Not Come From Advertisers

We have been running Google ads from the early days of this site, which launched in 2006. We have never gotten any complaints from readers or from our ad agency on behalf of advertisers about the posts Google took issue with, let alone other posts or our posts generally.2 That Google flagged these 14 posts is odd given how dated most are:

1 from 2018
2 from 2021
7 from 2022
3 from 2023
1 from 2024

It is a virtual certainty that no person reviewed this selection of posts before Google sent its complaint. It is also a virtual certainty that no Internet readers were looking at material this stale either. This is even more true given that 6 of the 14 were news summaries, as in our daily Links or our weekday Water Cooler, which are particularly ephemeral and mainly reflect outside content.

A recovering ad sales expert looked at our case and remarked:

No human is flagging these posts. This is all done entirely by AI. Google’s Gemini is notoriously bad and biased. Not sure if Gemini has anything to do with it. But if it does, it would explain a lot.

Advertisers want to communicate with people to sell their products to. It’s hard to imagine that they don’t want to sell products to your readers. And I’m pretty sure advertisers have no idea that the Google bot is blocking their carefully crafted communications from reaching your readers — which is what “demonetize” means.

Then too, advertisers are using the automated Google system to place ads, and they get to pick and choose some characteristics that publishers offer, and they can specify certain things. Google’s AI takes it from there.

But the fundamental thing is that advertisers want to connect with humans and sell them stuff. Blocking their communications to humans is not helpful in making sales.

I’m very worried about Google. It has immense power over the publishing industry. It controls nearly all the infrastructure to place ads on websites. It is now getting sued by publishers from News Corp on down, and by the FTC. They have lots of very good reasons – and you put your finger on one of them.

We have managed to reach only one other publisher, whose beats overlap considerably with ours, who also got a nastygram from his ad service on behalf of Google with a list of offending posts. But Google did not threaten him with demonetization as it did with us.

This publisher identified posts where the claims were erroneous and Google relented on those. This indicates that Google has been sloppy and overreaching in this area for some time and has not bothered to correct their algorithm.

Our contact was finally able to get Google to articulate its remaining objections with granularity. They were all about comments, not the posts proper.

It is problematic for Google to be censoring reader comments, since the example above underscores the notion that Google’s process is not advertiser-driven.

As articles about advertiser concerns attest, their big worry is an ad appearing in visual proximity to content at odds with the brand image or intended messaging.3

We do have one ad slot, which often does not “fill”, that is towards the end of our posts and thus near the start of the comments section. Since our comments section is very active, only the top one to at most three (depending on their length) would be near an ad.

So for the considerable majority of our relatively sparse ads, the viewer will see any ads very early in a post, and will get their impression, and perhaps even click through, then. It will be minutes of reading later before they get to comments, which often are many and always varied, with readers regularly and vigorously contesting factually-challenged views.

Unlike most sites of our size, we make a large budget commitment to moderation. The result is that our comments section is widely recognized as one of the best on the Internet, as reflected it being the focus of a session in a Columbia School of Journalism course. We do not allow invective, unsupported outlier views (“Making Shit Up”), and regularly reject comments for lack of backup, particularly links to sources. In particular, we do not allow comments that are clearly wrong-headed, like those that oppose vaccination.

So given the substantial time and screen real estate space between our ads and the the majority of our comments, and our considerable investment in having the comments section be informative and accurate, it is hard to see Google legitimately depicting their censorship in our case as being out of their tender concern for advertisers.

Non-Existent Posts in the Spreadsheet

Why do we say Google’s spreadsheet lists only 14 potentially naughty posts rather than 16?

Rows 4 and 12 are duplicate entries, so one must be thrown out. Row 7 is not a post:

Rows 4 and 12 both list the same URL: www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/mark-ames-shamiwitness-bellingcat-neocons-collaborated-influential-isis-propagandist-twitter.html

Row 7 lists a URL for a category page: www.nakedcapitalism.com/category/technology-and-innovation

The URLs in rows 4 and 12 are identical, yet the AI somehow did not catch that. The URL in row 7 is for a category page, automatically generated by WordPress, that simply lists post titles under that category. How can a table of contents violate any advertising agreement when it contains no ads? On top of that, none of the articles on this category page are among the 14 Google listed.

But the category is “Technology and Innovation” and contains articles about Google, particularly anti-trust actions and lawsuits. So could the AI be sanctioning us for featuring negative news stories about Google?

The Wildly Inaccurate Negative Classifications

Google did not cite any misconduct on some posts in its spreadsheet. On the 8 where Google did, virtually all are off the mark, some wildly so.

Let us start with the one that got the most red tags. It was an article by Tom Englehardt, a highly respected writer, editor, and publisher. His piece was a retrospective on the foreign policy expert Chalmers Johnson’s bestseller, Blowback (which Englehardt had edited), titled Blowback for the Twenty-First Century, Remembering Chalmers Johnson.

Google’s spreadsheet dinged Englehardt’s article as follows: [ANTI_VACCINATION, HATEFUL_CONTENT, DEMONSTRABLY_FALSE_DEMOCRATIC PROCESS,HARMFUL_HEALTH_CLAIM].

Engelhardt was completely mystified and said he had gotten no complaints about this 2022 post. The article has nothing about vaccines or health. The only mentions in comments are in passing and harmless, such as:

….When I tell my Democrat friends that Biden’s COVID policies have been arguably worse than Trump’s, they are shocked that I would say such a thing.

The article includes many quotes from Chalmers’ book, after which Engelhardt segues to a view that ought to appeal to Google’s Trump-loathing executives and employees: that Trump is a form of blowback. So it is hard to see the extended but not-even-strident criticism of Trump as amounting to “HATEFUL_CONTENT].4

Perhaps the algo choked on this section?

He certainly marked another key moment in what Chalmers would have thought of as the domestic version of imperial decline. In fact, looking back or, given his insistence that the 2020 election was “fake” or “rigged,” looking toward a country in ever-greater crisis, it seems to me that we could redub him Blowback Donald.

The “He” at the start of the paragraph is obviously Trump but Engelhardt violated a writing convention by opening a paragraph with a pronoun rather than a proper name. The second sentence is long and awkward and doesn’t identify Trump until the end. Did the AI read the reference to “the 2020 election was “’fake’ or ‘rigged,’” as Engelhardt’s claim, as opposed to Trump’s?

The first comment linked to and excerpted: WHO Forced into Humiliating Backdown. Biden had proposed 13 “controversial” amendments to International Health Regulations. For the most part, advanced economy countries backed them. But, as Reuters confirmed 47 members of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa opposed them, along with Iran and Malaysia (the link in comments adds Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). So Google is opposed to readers reporting on the US making proposals to the WHO that go down to defeat?

Another example is a post that Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University, allowed us to cross post from his Substack: The Candidacy and Claims of RFK, Jr. Sethi is an extremely careful and rigorous writer. This is the thesis of his article:

Kennedy believes with a high degree of subjective certainty many things that are likely to be false, or at best remain unsupported by the very evidence he cites. I discuss one such case below, pertaining to all-cause mortality associated with the Pfizer vaccine. But the evidence is ambiguous enough to create doubts, and the failure of many mainstream outlets and experts to acknowledge these doubts fuels suspicion in the public at large, making people receptive to exaggerated claims in the opposite direction.

Sethi then proceeded to provide extensive data and analysis of his “one such case”:

The claim in question is not that the vaccine is ineffective in preventing death from COVID-19, but that these reduced risks are outweighed by an increased risk of death from other factors. I believe that the claim is false (for reasons discussed below), but it is not outrageous.

Google labeled the post [AntiVaccination]. So according to Google, it is anti-vaccination (by implication for vaccines in general) to rigorously examine one not-totally-insane anti-Covid vaccine position, deem that the available evidence says the view is probably incorrect, and say more information is needed.

When we informed Sethi of the designation, he replied, “Wow that’s just incredible,” and said he would write a post in protest.5

Another nonsensical designation is Washington Faces Ultimate Snub, As Latin American Heads of State Threaten to Boycott Summit of Americas.

Google designated it [Demonstrably_False_Democratic_Process]. Huh?

The article reports on a revolt by Latin American leaders over a planned US “Summit of the Americas” where the US was proposing to exclude countries that it did not consider to be democratic, namely Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The leaders of Mexico, Honduras and Bolivia said they would not participate if the US did not include the three nations it did not deem to be democratic, and Brazil’s president also planned to skip the confab.

The post is entirely accurate and links to statements by State Department officials and other solid sources, including quoting former Bolivia President Evo Morales criticizing US interventionism and sponsorship of coups. So it is somehow anti-democratic to report that countries the US deems to be democracies are not on board with excluding other countries not operating up to US standards from summits?

Another Google label that seems bizarre is having [sensitive event] as a mark of shame, here applied to a post by John Helmer, Ukraine Is Smashed – This Is How It Will Be Repaired.

If discussion of sensitive events were verboten, reporting and commentary would be restricted to the likes of feel-good stories, cat videos, recipes, and decorating tips. The public would be kept ignorant of everything important that was happening, and particularly events like mass shootings, natural disasters, coups, drug overdoses, and potential develoments that were simply upsetting, like market swan dives or partisan rows.

Helmer’s post focused on what the map of Ukraine might look like after the war. His post included maps from the widely-cited neocon Institute of the Study of War and the New York Times.

So what could possibly be the “sensitive event”? Many analysts, commentators, and officials have been discussing what might be left of Ukraine when Russia’s Special Military Operation ends. Is it that Helmer contemplated, in 2022, that Russia would wind up occupying more territory than it held then? Or was it the use of the word “smashed” as a reference to the Japanese art of kintsugi,6 which he described as:

Starting several hundred years earlier, the Japanese, having to live in an earthquake zone, had the idea of restoring broken ceramic dishes, cups, and pots. Instead of trying to make the repairs seamless and invisible, they invented kintsugi (lead image) – this is the art of filling the fracture lines with lacquer, and making of the old thing an altogether new one.

This peculiar designation raises another set of concerns about Google’s AI: How frequently is it updated? For instance, there has been a marked increase in press coverage of violence as a result of the Gaza conflict: bombings and snipings of fleeing Palestinians, children being operated on without anesthetic, doctors alleging they were tortured. If Google is not keeping its algos current, it could punish independent sites for being au courant with reporting when reporting takes a bloodier turn. That of course would also help secure the advantageous position of mainstream media.

Yet another peculiar Google choice: Links 1/6/2023 as [HARMFUL_HEALTH_CLAIMS,ANTI_VACCINATION,HATEFUL_CONTENT]

The section below is probably what triggered the red flags. The algo is apparently unable to recognize that criticism of the Covid vaccine mandate is not anti-vaccination. The extract below cites a study that shows that the vaccines were more effective, at least with the early variants, at preventing bad outcomes than having had a previous case of Covid.

The section presumed to be Google offending:

SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Hospitalization, and Death in Vaccinated and Infected Individuals by Age Groups in Indiana, 2021‒2022 American Journal of Public Health n = 267,847. From the Abstract: “All-cause mortality in the vaccinated, however, was 37% lower than that of the previously infected. The rates of all-cause ED visits and hospitalizations were 24% and 37% lower in the vaccinated than in the previously infected. The significantly lower rates of all-cause ED visits, hospitalizations, and mortality in the vaccinated highlight the real-world benefits of vaccination. The data raise questions about the wisdom of reliance on natural immunity when safe and effective vaccines are available.” Of course, the virus is evolving, under a (now global) policy of mass infection, so these figures may change. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m fully in agreement with KLG’s views on the ethics of vaccine mandates (“no”). And population level-benefit, as here, is not the same as bad clinical outcomes in certain cases (again, why mandates are bad). As I keep saying, we mandated the wrong thing (vaccines) and didn’t mandate the right thing (non-pharmaceutical interventions). So it goes.

Perhaps the algo do not know what non-pharmaceutical interventions are (e.g., masking, ventilation, social distancing, and hand washing) and that they are endorsed by the WHO and the CDC?

Or perhaps the algo does not recognize that criticizing the vaccine mandate policy is not the same as being opposed to vaccines

Unlike the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) series with which most Americans are familar, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were non-sterilizing, meaning they did not prevent disease spread (“breakthrough infections“) at the population level.

widely propagated slogan“vax and relax,” and at the official level by President Biden’s statement that “if you’re vaccinated, you are protected.” That bogus notion was reinforced policies likeNew York City’s Key to NYC program, where proof of vaccination wass required for indoor dining, indoor fitness, and indoor entertainment, and by then CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s statement that “the scarlet letter of this pandemic is the mask.” Even Harvard, where Walensky had been a professor of medicine, objected strenuously to this remark, saying:

Masks are not a “scarlet letter” …They’re also just necessary to prevent transmission of the virus. There is no path out of this pandemic without masks.

As for HATEFUL_CONTENT, the only thing we could find was:

Victory to Come When Russian Empire ‘Ceases to Exist’: Ukraine Parliament Quotes Nazi Collaborator Haaretz. Bandera.

Haaretz called out the existence of Nazis in Ukraine. That again is not a secret. The now-ex Ukraine military chief General Zaluzhny was depicted in the Western press as having not one but two busts of the brutal Stepan Bandera in his office. Far too many photos of Ukraine soldiers also show Nazi insignia, such as the black sun and the wolfsangel.

The algo labeled Links 5/4/2023 as [AntiVaccination]. Apparently small websites are not allowed to quote studies from top tier medical journals and tease out their implications. This text is the most plausible candidate as to what set off the Google machinery:

Evaluation of Waning of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Induced Immunity JAMA. The Abstract: “This systematic review and meta-analysis of secondary data from 40 studies found that the estimated vaccine effectiveness against both laboratory-confirmed Omicron infection and symptomatic disease was lower than 20% at 6 months from the administration of the primary vaccination cycle and less than 30% at 9 months from the administration of a booster dose. Compared with the Delta variant, a more prominent and quicker waning of protection was found. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against Omicron rapidly wanes over time.” Remember “You are protected?” Good times. Liberal Democrats should pay a terrible price for its vax-only strategy. Sadly, there’s no evidence they will pay any price at all, unless President Wakefield’s candidacy catches fire.

Google dinged Links 1/31/2024 as [Hateful content]. We did not find anything problematic in the post. However, since early 2022, virtually every day, readers have been submitting sardonic and topic new lyrics to pop standards. The first comment, which would be near an ad if our final ad spot “filled,” was about the Israeli Defense Force sniping children. From the top:

Antifa
January 31, 2024 at 7:03 am

UP ON THE GAZA WALL
You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall & Oates)

My best shot?
I got some Arab kid in sandals
Up here that ain’t a scandal
It’s just a sniper’s game, yeah, yeah

We all talk
A lot our thoughts may seem like chatter
We get bored up here together
We shoot kids to ease our pain

Google’s search engine shows not only many reports of IDF soldiers sniping children (and systematically targeting journalists), but also that the UN reported the same crime in 2019, per the Telegraph: Israeli snipers targeted children, health workers and journalists in Gaza protests, UN says. Advertisers did not boycott the Torygraph for reporting this story.

Our attorney, who is a media/First Amendment expert and has won 2 Supreme Court cases, did not see the ditty as unacceptable from an advertiser perspective. Anything that overlaps with opinion expressed in mainstream media or highly trafficked and reputable sites is by definition not problematic discourse. It is well within boundaries of mainstream commentary even if it does use dark humor to make its point. Imagine how many demerits Google would give Dr. Strangelove!

The last of the eight was the post Google listed twice, Mark Ames: ShamiWitness: When Bellingcat and Neocons Collaborated With The Most Influential ISIS Propagandist On Twitter, but only gave a red label once: [Violence or gore].

Here Google had an arguable point. The post included a photo of a jihadist holding up a beheaded head. Yes, the head was pixtelated but one could contend not sufficiently. The same image is on Twitter and a Reddit thread, so some sites do not see it as outside the pale. But author Mark Ames said the image was not essential to the argument and suggested we remove it, which we have done.

Needless to say, there are 6 additional posts where Google has not clued us into why they were demonetized. Given the rampant inaccuracies in the designations they did make, it seems a waste of mental energy to try to fathom what the issue might have been.

We have asked our ad service to ask Google to designate the particular section(s) of text that they deemed to be problematic, since they have provided that information to other publishers. We have not gotten a reply.

In the mean time, I hope you will circulate this post widely. It is a case study in poorly implemented AI and how it does damage. If Google, which has more money that God, can’t get this right, who can? Technologists, business people being pressed to get on the AI bandwagon, Internet publishers and free speech advocates should all be alarmed when random mistakes can be rolled up into a bill of attainder with no appeal.
_____

1 We believe the text of the message from our ad service accurately represents what Google told them, since we raised extensive objections and our ad service went back to Google over them. We would have expected the ad service to have identified any errors in their transmittal and told us rather than escalating with Google.

The missive:

Hope you are doing well!


We noticed that Google has flagged your site for Policy violation and ad serving is restricted on most of the pages with the below strikes:
 
  1. VIOLENT_EXTREMISM,
  2. HATEFUL_CONTENT,
  3. HARMFUL_HEALTH_CLAIMS,
  4. ANTI_VACCINATION
  5. Here are few Google support articles that should be handy:
    1. Google Publisher restrictions
    2. Policy issues and Ad serving statuses
    3. Program policies

I’ve listed the page URLs in a report and attached it to the email. I request you to review the page content and fix the existing policy issues flagged. If Google identifies the flags consistently and if the content is not fixed, then the ads will be disabled completely to serve on the site.  Also, please ensure that the new content is in compliance with the Google policies.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Here are screenshots of the spreadsheet:


For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on screenshots and “open image in new tab.”

Here are the full complaints about the last two entries, which are truncated in the screenshot above:

2Except for:

Receiving a defamation complaint, well after the statute of limitations had expired, for factually accurate reporting as later confirmed by an independent investigation.

3 We have had numerous instances over the history of the site of Google showing a lack of concern about how its ads match up with our post content, to the degree that we have this mention in our site Policies:

Some of you may be offended that we run advertising from large financial firms and other institutions that you may regard as dubious and often come under attack on this blog. Please be advised that the management of this site does not chose or negotiate those placements. We use an ad service and it rounds up advertisers who want to reach our educated and highly desirable readership.

We suggest you try recontextualizing. How successful do you think these corporate conversion efforts are likely to be? And in the meantime, they are supporting a cause you presumably endorse. Consider those ads to be an accidental form of institutional penance.

4 There was a comment, pretty far down the thread, that linked to a Reddit post on police brutality, with a police representative apparently making heated remarks about how cops could not catch a break, juxtaposed with images of police brutality. I could not view it because Reddit wanted visitors to log in to prove they are 18 and I don’t give out my credentials for exercises like that. However, we link to articles and feature tweets on genocide. There are many graphic images and descriptions of it on Twitter. And recall the Reddit video was not embedded but linked and hence was not content on the site.

6 Helmer used this image in his post and we reproduced it. Could that have put Google’s AI on tilt?

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Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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The last stammering of Jewish fascism

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Thierry Meyssan
Reseau Voltaire

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"The two irreducible enemies: fascist Benjamin Netanyahu and democrat Benny Gantz"

The Biden administration watched with bated breath as Israel reacted to the attack by the Palestinian Resistance, including Hamas, known as the "Flood of Al-Aqsa" (October 7). Operation Iron Glaive began with a massive pounding of Gaza City on a scale unprecedented anywhere in the world, including the World Wars. From October 27 onwards, this was followed by ground intervention, looting and the torture of thousands of Gazan civilians. In five months, 37,534 civilians were killed or disappeared, including 13,430 children and 8,900 women, 364 medical personnel and 132 journalists. [1].

At first, Washington reacted by unwaveringly supporting "Israel’s right to defend itself", threatening to veto any ceasefire request and supplying as many bombs as necessary for the widespread destruction of the Palestinian enclave. It was unthinkable, in its eyes, to suffer yet another defeat, after those in Syria and Ukraine. However, Americans were watching the horrors live on their cell phones. Many high-ranking State Department officials wrote and spoke of their shame at supporting this butchery. Petitions were circulated. Prominent figures, both Jewish and Muslim, resigned.

In the midst of a presidential election campaign, Joe Biden’s team could no longer stain its hands with blood. It therefore began to put pressure on the Israeli war cabinet to negotiate the release of the hostages and conclude a ceasefire. However, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition refused, playing on the trauma of its citizens to ensure that peace would only return once Hamas had been eradicated. Washington eventually realized that the events of October 7 were merely a pretext for Jabotinsky’s followers to do what they had always wanted to do: expel the Arabs from Palestine. He became more insistent, stressing that the Palestinians had a right to live, that the colonization of their land was illegal under international law, and that the Israeli-Palestinian question would be resolved by a "two-state solution" (and not by the binational state envisaged by Resolution 181 of 1947).

Revisionist Zionists" (i.e., followers of Jabotinsky [2]) responded by organizing the "Conference for the Victory of Israel" [3] on January 28, 2024. Headlining the event was Rabbi Uzi Sharbaf, sentenced in Israel to life imprisonment for his racist crimes against Arabs, but pardoned by his friends. Sharbaf did not hesitate to proclaim himself heir to the Lehi and Stern groups who fought against the Allies alongside duce Benito Mussolini.

The message was perfectly received in Washington and London: this tiny group intended to impose its will on the Anglo-Saxons and would not hesitate to attack them if they tried to prevent ethnic cleansing.

The White House immediately issued a ban on fundraising and transfers to them [4]. This ban was extended to all Western banks under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

In addition, on February 8, President Joe Biden signed a Memorandum on the conditions of US arms transfers [5]. Israel has until March 25 to guarantee in writing that it will not violate either International Humanitarian Law (but not International Law itself) or Human Rights (in the sense of the US Constitution).

For their part, the parliaments of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have begun debating the possibility of ceasing arms trading with Israel.

In Israel, the Jewish democratic opposition organized anti-Zionist demonstrations, which were not very well attended. Speakers emphasized the betrayal of the Prime Minister, who used the shock of October 7 not to save the hostages, but to realize his colonial dream.

Gantz (left) meeting Anthony Blinken (TGP screenshot)

The "revisionist Zionists" then launched a media offensive against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Since 1949, this UN agency has been providing education, food, healthcare and social services to 5.8 million stateless Palestinians in Palestine itself, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It has an annual budget of over $1 billion and employs over 30,000 people. Already in 2018, President Donald Trump had questioned the agency’s assistance to Palestinians and suspended US funding for it. His intention was to force the Palestinian factions back to the negotiating table. Five years on, the aim of the "revisionist Zionists" is very different. By attacking UNRWA, they intend to force Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to expel Palestinian refugees too. To this end, they accused 0.04% of its staff of having taken part in Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa, and blocked their bank accounts in Israel. UNRWA Director Philippe Lazzarini of Switzerland immediately suspended the 12 accused employees and ordered an internal investigation.

Of course, he never received the proof the Israelis claimed to have, but one donor after another, led by the United States and the European Union, suspended funding. Within days in Gaza, and weeks in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, the United Nations aid system collapsed.

As David Cameron, former British Prime Minister and current Foreign Secretary, visited Israel to discuss how to salvage what was left for the Palestinians, Amichai Chikli, Minister of the Diaspora, compared him to Neville Chamberlain signing the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. "Hello to David Cameron, who wants to bring ’Peace to Our Time’ and give the Nazis, who committed the atrocities of October 7, a prize in the form of a Palestinian state as a sign of gratitude for the murder of babies in their cradles, the mass rapes and the abduction of mothers with their children," he declared. As at the "Israel Victory Conference", the "revisionist Zionists" threatened the Anglo-Saxons.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jewish supremacist coalition began to talk of a new phase of "Swords of Iron", this time against Rafah. Civilians, who had already fled Gaza, would have to flee again. However, since Tshal had built a road cutting the Gaza Strip in two, they would not be able to return to where they had come from. Preparing for the worst, Egypt set up a vast area of Sinai to temporarily house Gazans whose expulsion seemed inevitable [6].

Aware that they could only hold on to power in Tel Aviv thanks to the shock of October 7, the "revisionist Zionists" passed a law equating any reflection on the "Flood of Al-Aqsa" operation with a challenge to the Nazi Final Solution. It forbade any investigation into these events, on pain of 5 years’ imprisonment. Revisionists could therefore continue to attribute the attack solely to Hamas, even though Islamic Jihad and the PFLP had taken part. They could interpret it as an anti-Semitic demonstration, equating it with a gigantic pogrom and thus denying its objective of national liberation.

Knowing that many states were questioning their withdrawal from UNRWA funding, the revisionist Zionists continued their attacks on the agency. They claimed that Hamas headquarters was located in a tunnel beneath the agency’s headquarters. Philippe Lazzarini expressed his perplexity and recalled that Israel regularly came to search the agency’s facilities. But Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, tweeted: "It’s not that you don’t know, it’s that you don’t want to know. We have shown the terrorists tunnels under UNRWA schools and provided evidence that Hamas is exploiting UNRWA. We implored you to carry out a comprehensive search of all UNRWA facilities in Gaza. But not only did you refuse, you chose to bury your head in the sand. Assume your responsibilities and resign today. Every day, we find more proof that in Gaza, Hamas=the UN and vice-versa. You can’t trust everything the UN says, or everything they say about Gaza.

The Jewish supremacists formed an organization, Tzav 9 (by analogy with the general mobilization order "Tsav 8") to prevent UNRWA from continuing its aid to the Gazans. They stationed activists at the two entry points to the Gaza Strip to obstruct the passage of trucks. At the same time, an UNRWA truck driver was murdered in Gaza, forcing the agency to suspend its convoys. The convoys were eventually resumed, but only under Israeli military escort. It was at this point that the first attacks by starving crowds took place. USAID Director Samantha Power announced that she would be visiting the area to verify what was happening. Washington assumed that the attacks were not spontaneous, but encouraged by "revisionist Zionists". Only then did the massacre take place at the Naboulsi traffic circle (south of Gaza City): according to the IDF, 112 people were trampled to death during a food aid distribution. The Israeli soldiers only managed to extricate themselves by using their weapons. In reality, according to the medical staff and the United Church of Christ, 95% of the victims were killed by bullets. Washington issued a statement supporting Tel Aviv’s position, but according to Haaretz: "It is doubtful that the international community will buy these explanations" [7].

Washington responded by authorizing Jordan and France to drop food rations on Gaza’s beaches, and then by joining in these air operations. In addition, they began deploying their logistics to create a floating island that could serve as a landing stage for international humanitarian aid to Gaza (the Gazan coast is too shallow to accommodate large ships). In doing so, the Pentagon is taking up an idea put forward in 2017 by Israel Katz, current Minister of Foreign Affairs. The principle of a humanitarian naval corridor from Cyprus has already been agreed. It will be used by the United Arab Emirates and the European Union

While Israel accused, still without proof, now 450 UNRWA employees of being members of Hamas, UNRWA met and listened to a hundred Gazan civilians who had been taken prisoner by the IDF "for interrogation". It is preparing a report on the systematic torture they underwent. The whole world has seen the images of these men forced by Israeli soldiers to strip naked for interrogation.

Scorning the Anglo-Saxons, the "revisionist Zionists" resumed their colonization project. They entered the Gaza Strip, through the Eretz/Beit Hanoune crossing, to construct the first buildings of a new settlement, New Nisanit. They were able to erect two wooden buildings before being turned back by the IDF.

36 editors from leading Anglo-Saxon media signed a letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists denouncing the deaths of their employees in Gaza and reminding the Israeli government of its responsibility to ensure their safety [8].

However, while the Israeli government pretended to be surprised by these deaths, most of the Department of Information officers tendered their resignations en bloc. Minister Galit Distel-Etebaryan had already resigned on October 12 to protest against military censorship. Now the crisis was much more serious: those responsible for disinformation refused to continue lying, as the gap between their narrative and the truth continued to widen.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s only concession was to lift the ban on Ramadan celebrations at the Al-Aqsa mosque. After Arab deputies in the Knesset intervened with King Abdullah II of Jordan, who was solely responsible for the security of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy site, he finally authorized these gatherings for the first week, renewable every seven days.

Washington then decided to radically change its policy. Until then, it had considered that it could not afford to let Israel lose. It had therefore supported its crime. Now, it could no longer afford to let the Jewish fascists win. It’s important to understand that Washington didn’t change its mind when it saw the suffering of the Gazans, nor because of a sudden outburst of anti-fascism, but because of the threats of the "revisionist Zionists". Its positions are dictated exclusively by its desire to maintain its domination of the world. It could not contemplate another defeat for its Israeli allies, this time after those in Syria and Ukraine. But it could even less envisage losing to the "revisionist Zionists".

The Biden Administration has therefore invited General Benny Gantz, the former alternative Prime Minister and since October 12 Minister without Portfolio, to consult in the United States, despite the opposition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a kind of backlash to the way the latter was invited to deliver a speech before Congress against the advice of President Barack Obama, in 2015. The United States is keen to show that it is in charge and no one else.

The United States feels compelled to act. Russia has invited sixty Palestinian political organizations to Moscow. It urged them to unite and convinced Hamas to accept the PLO charter, i.e. to recognize the State of Israel.

General Benny Gantz did not accept this invitation to seek outside help and overthrow the Prime Minister. He went to Washington to make sure that he could still save Israel and that his allies would not let him down. To their great surprise, he did not appear to them as a strategic alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu, but just as a general concerned not to massacre innocent people en masse.

On March 5, Benny Gantz was received by Vice President Kamala Harris, who delivered an uncompromising denunciation of the massacre perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. The US press pointed out that her initial speech had been written in even harsher terms. The important thing is that she played the role of "bad cop", while the State Department and Pentagon played the more understanding "good cop". He also met the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who thus anointed him in the name of "America" as Israel’s future Prime Minister. While there, he learned of the immediate retirement of Under-Secretary Victoria Nuland.

She is known in Europe for having overseen the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014. She was also responsible for convincing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande to sign the Minsk agreements in order to secure Russia’s withdrawal. We now know that the West had no intention of stopping the massacre of the Donbass inhabitants, but only of buying time to arm Ukraine.

However, Victoria Nuland is first and foremost the wife of historian Robert Kagan, who presided over the Project for a New American Century. It was in this capacity that they announced the September 11th attacks, the "New Pearl Harbor" that would reawaken the "American Empire" [9]. Both are disciples of the philosopher Leo Strauss, himself a disciple of Vladimir Jabotinsky and a leading figure in the neoconservative movement [10]. The number 2 at the Project for a New American Century was Elliott Abrams, the man who last year financed Benjamin Netanyahu’s election campaign and coup d’état [11].

In 2006, Victoria Nuland, then US ambassador to NATO, stopped the Israeli-Lebanese war, saving Israel from defeat at the hands of Hezbollah. She therefore knows Benjamin Netanyahu very well.

Her dismissal demonstrates the Biden Administration’s desire to clean up its own house, while doing the same for Israel.

On March 6, Benny Gantz stopped off in London on his way home. He was received by Security Adviser Tim Barrow, Prime Minister Rishi Suna and Foreign Secretary David Cameron. He stressed that Israel had the right to defend itself, but only in accordance with international law. For him, this was an obligatory stop, since Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political secret society run by the British MI6 and followed for decades by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales).

During his State of the Union address on March 7, President Joe Biden said, "To Israel’s leaders, I say this: Humanitarian aid cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives must be a priority. As for the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution. I say this as a long-time ally of Israel, and as the only American president to have visited Israel in wartime. But there is no other way to guarantee Israel’s security and democracy. There is no other way to guarantee the Palestinians a life of peace and dignity. And there is no other way that guarantees peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia" [12].

During the Gazan massacre, many leaders in the wider Middle East who were sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood began to question Hamas. If it was understandable that, supposedly in the name of Islam, the Brotherhood had fought the Soviets, then the secularists Muamar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad, how could it be explained that they had carried out an operation for which only a Muslim people would pay the price? First to react, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revoked the Turkish citizenship of the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, the Egyptian Mahmud Huseyin, which he had granted him two years earlier.

This does not, of course, mean that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is abandoning the ideology of political Islam, but that he is attempting to dissociate it from Anglo-Saxon colonialism, as proposed by Brother Mahmoud Fathi.

For 75 years, the West has imposed its will on its former colonies in the "wider Middle East", either through jihadists or directly through its armies. By supporting for four months the massacres perpetrated by the Jewish fascists of the Jabotinsky-Netanyahu group, the West has lost its prestige. Whatever Israel does next, with Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid rather than Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s power, based on the myth that Jews are incompatible with fascism, has collapsed. From now on, it will be possible to exhume all the crimes committed by this tiny group, on behalf of the CIA, during the Cold War, in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.


Notes
[1
Bombs and Humanitarian Aid from the USA in Gaza”, by Manlio Dinucci , Global Research , Voltaire Network, 11 March 2024.

[2The veil is being torn: the hidden truths of Jabotinsky and Netanyahu”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 25 January 2024.

[3In Jerusalem, the "Conference for the Victory of Israel" threatens London and Washington”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 13 February 2024.

[8«Open letter on journalists in Gaza», Committee to Protect Journalists, February 29, 2024.

9/11 - the big lie, Thierry meyssan, Carnot (2002).

[10Russia declares war on the Straussians”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 5 March 2022.

[11The coup d’état of the Straussians in Israel”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 7 March 2023.

[12State of the Union Address”, by Joseph R. Biden Jr. , Voltaire Network, 7 March 2024.

Thierry Meyssan

Political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network).

Latest work in English – Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump, Progressive Press, 2019.

—Thierry Meyssan


Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.


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WHO FUNDS LABOUR FRIENDS OF ISRAEL – AND WHY WON’T IT SAY?

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Declassified UK

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WHO FUNDS LABOUR FRIENDS OF ISRAEL – AND WHY WON’T IT SAY?

DATELINE 24 JANUARY 2024

Labour friends of Israel

MPs at a Labour Friends of Israel event. (Photo: Keir Starmer / Flickr)


  • 37% of Labour MPs are associated with LFI, with an additional 37 Lords
  • The current and all seven recent shadow foreign secretaries have been members of LFI or financially supported by the pro-Israel lobby
  • LFI delegation recently met politician named in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel

Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has described itself as “a Westminster based lobby group working within the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel”.

The group does not disclose its funders, and has refused to respond to Declassified’s questions regarding its sources of income.

What is LFI hiding? 

LFI currently counts 73 of Labour’s 197 MPs as parliamentary supporters or officers of the organisation, as well as 37 lords and 4 MSPs. You can view the list of names below.

Why is the group allowed to have such an association with elected officials without saying who funds it?

In particular, the extent to which it receives direct or indirect sponsorship or assistance from the Israeli government should be crystal clear.


UK and US politicians seem similarly corrupted when it comes to Israel, and their political systems, while boasting of "democracy" are simply blatant travesties hiding imperialist totalitarian plutocracies. 


Failure to be transparent raises the prospect of undue interference in British politics.

One former British minister, writing anonymously, has criticised LFI’s “opaque funding and underhand conduct” as a “national disgrace and humiliation” which “must be stamped out”.



Watch John McEvoy discuss his investigation of the Israel Lobby

Funding politicians

One of LFI’s main activities is taking Labour MPs on “fact finding” missions to Israel. 

According to the Electoral Commission, LFI has spent over £150,000 on such trips since 2002. Over 60 of these delegations were reportedly organised in the past decade.

The trips are designed to cultivate support for Israel and build ties between key Labour figures and Israeli politicians and businesspeople. 

Earlier this month, LFI led a “solidarity mission” to Israel amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza, attended by Labour MPs Christian Wakeford and Margaret Hodge, its spokesperson in the House of Lords Ruth Anderson (formerly Smeeth), and former MP Louise Ellman. 

The delegation met Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who has been named in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for his statement about Palestinians.

“The LFI delegations also often involve a strong security component”

He said: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware [or] not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone”.

After pledging collective punishment against the Palestinians, Herzog metIsraeli soldiers and signed a bomb with the words, “we trust you”.

The LFI delegations also often involve a strong security component.

In February 2023, LFI organised its largest delegation to Israel in over a decade, with a group of Labour MPs meeting Herzog and Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel’s National Security Council.

After an LFI-funded trip to Israel in 2017, then shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry declared: “The briefings I received on the security situation, not just the domestic terror threat but the wider regional picture, just confirmed for me what a long way there is to go before Israeli citizens can feel safe in their homes and on their streets”.

Israeli embassy

LFI has worked discreetly with the Israeli embassy in London. According to a former minister in David Cameron’s government, “for years…LFI have worked with – even for – the Israeli embassy to promote Israeli policy” and undermine “the actions of ministers who try to defend Palestinian rights”.

In Al Jazeera’s 2017 documentary, The Lobby, LFI parliamentary officer and now director Michael Rubin acknowledged that: “We do work really closely together, it’s just publicly we just try to keep LFI as a separate identity to the embassy”.

“LFI has worked discreetly with the Israeli embassy in London”

The documentary further showed former LFI chair and MP Joan Ryan discussing “more than one million pounds” in Israeli embassy funding in relation to a list of “names that [LFI] put into the embassy” – over six times the total value of LFI delegations listed on the Electoral Commission since 2002.

LFI subsequently denied that the one million pounds was for an LFI parliamentary delegation, but failed to adequately resolve concerns surrounding its relationship with the Israeli embassy and use of undisclosed funding within British politics.

Funders of LFI have reportedly included pro-Israel figures in the British business community such as Trevor Chinn, who has financed Keir Starmer and other Labour MPs.

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Foreign affairs

Each year, LFI organises a banquet which serves as a public display of support for Israel and brings together leading pro-Israel and Labour figures. 

At last year’s event, in November, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy spoke alongside LFI chair Steve McCabe MP and Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador in London who is now vociferously defending its war crimes in Gaza.

All seven of the past seven shadow foreign secretaries have been members of LFI or financially supported by the pro-Israel lobby.

LFI would hold “regular meetings with [then foreign secretary] David Miliband and his Foreign Office team to make the case for Israel”, it was reported in 2009.

Briefings

The group also briefs Labour MPs on key security and political issues relating to Israel, enjoying historically close access to ministers. 

LFI’s briefing efforts have intensified amid Israel’s war on Gaza. The group has produced information packs for MPs and convened events with Israeli embassy figures.

The organisation has opposed an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that “Israel is fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian people”.

LFI’s fundamental role appears to be insulating the Israeli government from criticism on the British left as it engages in widely unpopular policies.

Declassified emailed LFI twice asking it to reveal its funders, but did not receive a reply.

RELATED

UK POLITICAL LEADERS BRING SHAME ON THE COUNTRY

READ MORE 

During the Great March of Return protests in Gaza in 2018, two Labour MPs reportedly asked for their names “to be removed from the list of [LFI’s] parliamentary patrons”.

Amid Israel’s near-total destruction of Gaza, however, it appears that LFI has not lost any of its parliamentary supporters.

expect to improve their career prospects, with the organisation “seen as a kind of stepping-stone to promotion” for young parliamentarians.

The names of LFI’s parliamentary officers and supporters in the House of Commons can be read below:

CLICK HERE TO OPEN PDF:
LFIs-parliamentary-officers-and-supporters-in-the-House-of-Commons-and-Holyrood-–-MPs-and-MSPs_-77

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
John McEvoy is an independent journalist who has written for International History Review, The Canary, Tribune Magazine, Jacobin and Brasil Wire. .


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—The Editor
—The Editor


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The Yemen adventure critiqued by truly rational voices

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Larry Johnson • Sabby Sabs • Tim Anderson •
Billy Bob • Jim Kavanagh

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LARRY JOHNSON:
U.S. IS PAINTING ITSELF INTO A CORNER IN THE RED SEA

An Aegis Destroyer (USN)


Joe Biden, amidst his mental confusion, must think he is John Mccain reincarnated. I bet he’s humming, “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb; Bomb Bomb Iran.” You know how it is, Iranians, Yemenis, they all look alike. While the bombs are causing some damage in Yemen, Yemen has seen it before and is unfazed. In fact, the bombing appears to be strengthening the resolve of Yemen to continue its blockade of the Red Sea.

The United States does not have enough bombs to force Yemen to surrender. Why? Yemen’s rocket and missile force is mobile. They can move dozens of missiles at the same time in different directions, which then forces the United States, notwithstanding robust ISR, to find the needles in the haystack that is Yemen. The U.S. can kill and destroy some, but not all.

Stephen Bryen, has written his usual excellent article detailing the problem:

The first answer relates to the number of missiles aboard a ship. US ships are relying on SM-2 missiles, part of the AEGIS system. One expert estimates the number available as follows:

“The [AEGIS] destroyers have a complement of 96 VLS cells, while the [Ticonderoga class] cruisers have 122. …However, they need to fit a mixture of weaponry in those cells so they can’t all be used for air defense. This includes:

ESSM (quad packed into a single cell)

SM-2 (and its newer counterpart the SM-6)

Tomahawk cruise missiles

ASROC anti-submarine missile

SM-3 anti-ballistic missile

The exact ratio of these weapons is largely dependent on the mission and the possible threats faced. However, at least 200 ESSM and another 100 or so SM-2 or SM-6 seems like a fair guess. Maybe a bit more.”

In short, each of the AEGIS has around 100 missiles.

The British Sea Viper air defense system is the main defense system HMS Diamond relied on to fire at Houthi drones and missiles. “Type 45 Destroyers, also known as Daring-class destroyers, are specifically designed around the Sea Viper (PAAMS) air-defence system. Each Type 45 destroyer is equipped with a 48-cell A50 Sylver Vertical Launching System. This system is designed to accommodate a mix of up to 48 Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles.”

Neither the US nor the British ships can be reprovisioned at sea, so they have a limited ability to “stay in the fight” if it continues for any length of time.

There you have it. Yemen can launch a hundred drones and missiles at U.S. ships and the destroyer escorts will exhaust their supply of air defense missiles. In the 1970s the U.S. Navy had ship tenders that could pull alongside a destroyer and resupply it. Not today. The Vertical Launch Systems have to be reloaded in a port. That means the destroyers will have to sail to Dubai, which means the U.S. aircraft carrier they are accompanying will have to follow because it relies on them for protection from ballistic and cruise missiles.

Here’s the bottomline, if you are going to get into a gun fight you better have enough ammunition on hand to finish it. Only we’re not talking about having a million rounds of 9 mm pistol ammunition. The missiles the Aegis system uses are damn expensive. Here’s Stephen’s take:

One needs to add that using missile defense is very expensive. Each SM-2 missile costs $2.1 million each. Sea viper, which can either be an Aster 15 or Aster 30 costs either £1m to £2m a time ($1.25 million to $2.5 million). Nor does this take into account the challenge of replacing these missiles, once expended. It not only will be more expensive, but could take years of production time.

Yemen is showing how a so-called third rate military can effectively bankrupt the Naval power of a “Superpower.” The neo-cons urging Biden to attack Iran are math challenged. Iran has more missiles, drones and rockets than Yemen. If little Yemen is doing this to the U.S., just imagine the havoc Iran could cause.

Washington is like the degenerate gambler who is playing a losing game of blackjack. Instead of accepting his losses, Joe Biden seems intent on doubling down and destroying the reputation of the U.S. Navy as the most powerful force in the World. I suspect the Russians and Chinese are enjoying some heaping buckets of buttered popcorn as they watch this spectacle of national suicide.


The above material from Larry Johnson's blog, SONAR21

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(s)
Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. You can also follow me on telegram (t.me/sonar_21 (https://t.me/sonar_21), Patreon and Substack (https://larrycjohnson.substack.com).


Timothy Anderson
"Five million Houthis show their determination to resist..." 

Professor Anderson warns that the US, intoxicated by imperial hubris, is clearly underestimating the Houthis' ability to resist. In fact, as suggested by other analysts, including Larry Johnson, the US is using its navy in the WW2 style, an approach made obsolete by the arrival of advanced rockets and drones. 


TWITTER ACCOUNT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(s)
Writer, internationalist, academic. Director of the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies. Comment welcome but trolls and abusers will be blocked.


Jim Kavanagh

Yemen says US is framing Ansarullah Movement’s operations in the Red Sea as a global threat

Yemen says the United States is framing Ansarullah Movement’s operations in the Red Sea as a global threat to turn attention away from Israeli massacres in Gaza. 
Source: PressTV

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(s)
Jim Kavanagh (The Polemicist)  @THEPOLEMICIST Former college professor doing political analyst from a left-socialist perspective.
Website: The Polemicist (www.thepolemicist.net)
Twitter: @ThePolemicist_
Facebook: www.facebook.com/polemicist



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Billy Bob’s Dispatches: Avant-Garde Journal Team

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11/28/2023 Episode 35 of Blowback: Exposing Imperial Decline welcomes special guests Jeremiah Kim, Serafina Harris, and Jahan Choudhry. These activists, journalists, and artists are contributors to the Avant-Garde journal that launched on November 9th. All contributors are associated with the Saturday Free School. Each guest discussed their work including Jahan's provocative critique of Gerald Horne, Serafina's Black Reconstruction painting: "The Black Worker and World Peace", and Jeremiah's provocative article on Norman Finkelstein. The roundtable also discussed current events and the necessity of properly contextualizing our current situation in order to make the most of the opportunities that present themselves due to the increasing geopolitical upheavals that lie ahead.



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Billy Bob is a dedicated anti-imperialist activist and blogger. You can reach him at his Facebook page HERE.


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