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Putin, Sputnik V & mass vaccination

Riley Waggaman This is Part I of an ongoing series, "Putin & COVID." Parts II, III, IV are already available on Riley's substack. What role has Putin played in Russia's response to COVID? Is he waging a silent war to root out the clot-shot fanatics and Virus nannies in his country? Or has he enabled …

The BBC’s “Unvaccinated”: The Pandemic Dataset – Part 3

Iain Davis In Part 1 we looked at the propaganda and manipulation techniques used throughout the BBC programme "Unvaccinated with Professor Hannah Fry." In Part 2 we considered the undisclosed conflicts of interest that apparently led some of the BBC's chosen "experts" to make some misleading statements. Yet perhaps the greatest single deception of all was in the BBC press …

WATCH: The News-Benders

A reader posted this in our comments section a few days ago and we liked it so much we had to share it. Dating from 1968, written by Desmond Lowden, this short TV play from the BBC presents us with a world in which there are shadowy people who "write the news" as if it …

This Week in the New Normal #42

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world. 1. Yearly Covid vaccine updates "like new iphones" The CEO of Moderna gave an interview with CNN this week where he claimed the company is …

At the Lost and Found

Edward Curtin "Nothing is more real than nothing." Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies Those who are never lost are forever lost.  Only those who know they are lost and that life is a shipwreck have a chance to find their way to shore. The world's great religions, including Taoism and Existential philosophy, understand that at the heart …

The Horrendous Damage of Censorship

Todd Hayen There has always been a hunger for new discoveries and revelations of the truth, but often, in the past, it took great effort to get past the "agenda"—there has always been one. Think of the Daniel Ellsberg exposure of The Pentagon Papers as well as many pieces coming out of Viet Nam during …

WATCH: The Voluntaryist Handbook

Keith Knight of Don't Tread on Anyone joins James Corbett to discuss The Voluntaryist Handbook. You can download a free PDF of the book here, or buy a hard copy here.

Repression, Terror, Fear: The Government Wants to Silence the Opposition

John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives …

Is the Bank of Russia buying gold?

Riley Waggaman On March 25, the Bank of Russia announced it would buy gold at a fixed price of 5,000 rubles per gram. Less than two weeks later, on April 7, Russia's central bank canceled its new gold-buying policy, opting instead for a negotiated price (at a discount). The logic behind this move, according to …