Friday, August 22, 2025

"As IDF achieves 83% civilian casualty rate, Netanyahu unveils plan to censor whole internet" by Laura from Normal Island

 

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Source: Laura from Normal Island


As IDF achieves 83% civilian casualty rate, Netanyahu unveils plan to censor whole internet

The IDF could not resist boasting that at least 83% of the people it has killed in Gaza are civilians - a murder rate that has surpassed Itamir Ben Gvir's wettest dreams. The IDF achieved this milestone after realising it was much easier to bomb tents and gun down civilians in aid queues than it was to fight Hamas in booby-trapped tunnels.

The IDF admitted it had killed 8,900 Hamas fighters before asking itself, why bother fighting people who can fight back? At that time, the official death toll in Gaza was 53,000, suggesting 83% of those killed were civilians. However, Ben Gvir is quick to emphasise the real death toll is likely to be around 400,000, meaning we have a 98% civilian casualty rate. This means 50 civilians are killed for every Hamas fighter.

As you can imagine, the woke brigade are uneasy about the fact the IDF is gunning down everyone in sight, including children. Things are further complicated by the fact famine has been officially declared in Gaza City.

The IDF has begun a ground invasion of Gaza City where it hopes the starving civilians will make easy targets. Israel faces the awkward position of really wanting to brag about its killing but needing to hide it. Imagine having to keep your proudest achievements secret. Life can be so cruel.

Netanyahu has just explained that Israel has a "Gen Z problem", by which he means across the world, Gen Z thinks he's a cunt. He has therefore announced that Israel must seize control of the algorithms. This is the only way to suppress those who report the war crimes the IDF keeps bragging about... I know, I'm confused too!

Apparently, excited IDF soldiers are allowed to boast about their murders, but everyone else is expected to pretend those murders never happened, otherwise they are antisemites. Netanyahu's plan is to silence those antisemites by making their social media posts invisible. This is because Israel is fighting for western values... such as free speech.

Excitingly, the censorship process is well underway and there has been a huge drop in the visibility of posts reporting the IDF's war crimes. Unfortunately, this policy has also impacted hasbarists who couldn't resist gloating. The algorithm might need some tinkering.

Netanyahu's noble mission to seize control of the internet has included forcing the sale of TikTok and pushing through the Online Safety Act. Soon your timeline is going to be full of people declaring that the world's most wanted war criminal deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, at which point Gen Z will be safe from bad thoughts and everyone will love Israel again. I fucking love this dystopian hellscape, don't you? x


"More Ghastly Decisions by the Trump Administration?" by Philip Giraldi

More Ghastly Decisions by the Trump Administration?
Children wounded in Gaza blocked from medical treatment in US

It must be Good News Week judging by the stories generated by the Trump regime and its supporting cast of neocons, with good old best friend and ally Israel up to its usual tricks and Ukraine, Russia and the Europeans vying to see who can flatter and cajole the mentally challenged American president most effectively. With much of the focus on Ukraine and the visit of Vladimir Putin to Alaska, Israel was free to continue to slaughter Palestinians as part of the plan to create an “Eretz” or Greater Israel running from the Euphrates to the Nile and also incorporating much of Lebanon and Syria. The process involves the removal of the indigenous population to be replaced by Jewish settlers. The latest plan for Gaza is to ship those inhabitants who are not summarily executed to some shithole like Sudan where they will be allowed to expire without any press coverage. Bezalel Smotrich, an Israeli settler-extremist who Minister of Finance summed it up this way: “We conquer, cleanse, and stay… On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains.….We’re breaking Gaza apart, leaving it as a pile of rubble, total unprecedented destruction.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gloated how his policies over twenty-five years in government have now enabled him to guarantee that there will never be any such entity as a Palestinian state sharing space with the Chosen people of Zion. That is accomplished by killing or deporting all the remaining Palestinians, which Bibi, who embraces a greater Israel, refers to as giving them a “choice.”

Donald J. Trump on @realDonaldTrump, appears to agree with those assessments, focusing on fewer that fifty hostages and ignoring the scores of unarmed Palestinians seeking food who are slaughtered each day. On August 19th in a radio interview with total Zionist stooge Mark Levin Trump, who dodged the draft during America’s Vietnam war, praised Netanyahu saying “He’s a good man. He’s in there fighting…He’s a war hero, because we worked together. He’s a war hero. I guess I am too.” He tweeted characteristically and hubristically, and also inaccurately, boasting how “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be. Remember I was the one who negotiated and got hundreds of hostages freed and released into Israel (and America!). I was the one who ended 6 wars, in just 6 months. I was the one who OBLITERATED Iran’s Nuclear facilities. Play to WIN or don’t play at all! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”

And the United States knows how to express its gratitude for all that Israel and America’s Zionists have done to support a White House that Netanyahu regards correctly as the most friendly towards the Jewish state ever, even outdoing the crawling on his belly servitude exhibited by Genocide Joe Biden. The Department of Homeland Security has just released $110 million dollars in funding to Jewish and other religious organizations and groups to provide security for their facilities and members. Most of the money has gone to Jewish institutions and it follows on $100 million that went to 500 Jewish groups only in June. The beneficiaries include some entities that were instrumental in raising the $1 billion plus that went to elect Trump to guarantee the almost complete corruption of America’s political system. The billion also guaranteed that many billions more would go in a steady flow to Israel, together with weapons and political cover to permit the carrying out of genocide. So if it seems to the average American that Jewish groups just might be able to afford to pay for their own security, one should not necessarily be surprised to notice that there is a backlash developing which is conveniently being labeled as “antisemitism” by the government and the Chosen themselves to suppress any popular uprising by criminalizing any and all free speech that is critical of Israel.

America’s thanks to Israel also apparently extends to letting lawbreaking senior Israeli government officials flee to Israel, which routinely does not extradite Jews who have committed crimes in foreign countries. The recent case of one Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior Israeli government cyber expert, illustrates how the judicial system can operate to benefit Israelis, a precedent established when Israeli “movers” spies were arrested in the wake of 9/11 for apparent complicity in the terrorist act but were soon released by the federal government after being questioned.

Tom Alexandrovich, a senior department head in Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, was taken into custody in Las Vegas two weeks ago along with seven others as part of a wide-ranging police operation targeting suspected online sexual predators. Alexandrovich was reportedly in Las Vegas to meet with counterpart NSA and FBI officials. As an electronic spying expert Tom should have known better than to use his cellphone to hook up with a 15-year-old. Tom then hurried to meet his date via Uber, which left another electronic trail. He was then caught by police in what was a sting operation and arrested on sex with minors pedophilia charges on August 6th. He is now back in Israel and is not expected to show up for his court date on August 27th.

Tom allegedly used computer technology to lure the child, who suffered from mental disabilities, for sexual purposes, according to the arrest records. The alleged crime is a felony that carries up to 10 years in jail in the case of a conviction. Police said he was booked into Henderson Detention Center and later released on $10,000 bail awaiting trial after appearing before a judge. Interestingly, Alexandrovich, though obviously a major flight risk, was given his passport back, allowing him to flee the country, and there is considerable suspicion that the pressure to do so came from the Department of Justice in Washington in response to Israeli government demands. And the involvement of Sigal Chattah, an Israeli-born American attorney and politician who is currently serving as the interim United States Attorney for the District of Nevada and was appointed by Donald Trump certainly begs for a more serious inquiry into what took place. Inevitably, Washington’s possible role in Alexandrovich’s release has been denied by Attorney General Pam Bondi and head of the FBI Kash Patel, both of whom are well established liars.

But the most horrific story to come out of last week is the fate of a number of Gazan children who were badly injured or wounded by the Israelis and who had the good fortune to fall into the hands of a US-based charity called HEAL PALESTINE that was able to get them out of the Strip for medical treatment in the United States and elsewhere. The children were in need of major surgery and other complicated treatment and were accompanied by at least one of their parents in most cases as they were unable to function independently. A number of other countries in addition to the US have accepted the injured Gazan children for intensive care without there being any problems or issues with the families involved, it must be noted.

Inevitably, the Zionist cheering section discovered the arrival of the sixty or so children in the US and immediately declared them to be “terrorists” a view that was clearly shared by the US State Department, which blocked the issuance of any more visas and is now engaged in a “full and thorough investigation” into how the travel was approved and arranged in the first place. Rabid and radical Trump ultra-loyalist and far-right Zionist activist Laura Loomer, who is both physically hideous and of course Jewish, is now claiming credit for the prompt State Department decision to freeze visitor visas for Gazans. Loomer is a so-called “influencer” who has a large following that is deeply loyal to MAGA and Trump. While she is not actually a government employee, Loomer’s lobbying has reportedly influenced a number of the Trump administration’s policy and personnel decisions. She has been credited with the removal of at least 16 staffers, including six on Trump’s National Security Council as well as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Deputy National Security Adviser Alex Wong. President Donald Trump has described Loomer as “a fantastic woman, a true patriot,” yet another indication that the president is delusional and possibly demented while also unable to separate right from wrong.

Loomer took action against the Gazan children when she reposted a video showing injured children being brought to the United States for medical care. “I have obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be refugees from Gaza coming into the United States via San Francisco and Houston, Texas this month,” Loomer’s post on X claimed, calling the arrival of the children a “national security threat.” She asked “Why are any Islamic invaders coming into the US under the Trump admin? Who signed off on these visas? They should be fired.”

Loomer, who reportedly has full access to the White House and to President Donald Trump and to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom go to her for advice, took credit for the State Department’s reversal. She wrote “Today, I saved so many American citizens from being killed by pro-HAMAS jihadis. God only knows how many lives I personally saved today by blowing the whistle on rogue actors at State Department giving visas to Gazan families. It’s amazing how fast we can get results from the Trump administration.”

It has been reported that, in this case, Loomer spoke directly with Rubio about what she described as “the threat of Islamic invasion via the humanitarian visa program.” Speaking on Sunday’s Face the Nation, Rubio defended his decision, claiming that “numerous” congressional offices had shown him evidence that groups “bragging about” acquiring the medical visas to the United States have “strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas.” He explained how “We are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas. There was just a small number of them issued to children, but they come with adults accompanying them obviously. And we are going to pause this program and re-evaluate how those visas are being vetted and and what relationship, if any, has there been by these organizations to the to the process of acquiring those visas. We’re not going to be in partnership with groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas.”

Australian journalist Caitlin Johnston, as is so often the case, nails the reality of the Federal Government’s policies as they play out on the ground, writing succinctly that “Things are so fucked up that the only way to get wounded Palestinian children in and out of the United States for medical treatment these days would be to disguise them as Israeli pedophiles.” Indeed, Rubio’s assessment comes from a man who has been standing by and watching those very Gazan children being slaughtered and maimed by a totalitarian country that he and his boss have opted to support unconditionally no matter what atrocities it commits. This is not the America I and many others grew up in and I wonder what rocks he and Trump were hiding under when the humanitarian virtues of life in the United States were actually on display.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org. 




Thursday, August 21, 2025

"From Alternative to EchoChamber: Why Podcasts Are Starting to Look Like MSM" by Biljana Vankovska

 

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Source: Biljana Vankovska


From Alternative to EchoChamber: Why Podcasts Are Starting to Look Like MSM


Like many others, I abandoned mainstream media long ago. The endless spin, shallow reporting, and predictable and propagandist narratives made it unbearable. Podcasts once seemed like the antidote: raw, unfiltered, and intellectually daring. But after countless hours of listening, I’ve begun to notice something unsettling: the global podcast universe is slowly morphing into the very thing it set out to replace.

It doesn’t matter which show you tune into—the same pundits, professors, and activists appear on rotation. The circle is closed. What once felt refreshing now feels predictable and self-referential. And part of the problem is the commercialization and ruthless competition for views and followers. Every podcaster wants traction, and the easiest shortcut is to invite a star guest. We, the audience, fall for it every time—believing that the bigger the name, the more profound the insights. The reality? Most celebrities are exhausted, endlessly repeating the same theses. Consistent, yes. But new? Rarely.

Despite the promise of broader horizons, most discussions follow the daily news cycle or focus on whichever conflict dominates headlines. Everything else disappears. The world is effectively shrinking—reduced to a handful of regions and a narrow set of concerns. Some hosts release multiple episodes in a single day. How deep can those conversations possibly be? Often, what masquerades as productivity is really just mass production. The speed comes at the expense of substance. Meanwhile, Western voices dominate. Women are often absent altogether. So we all end up in the world of westsplaining and mansplaining.

When podcasters endlessly guest on each other’s shows, swapping seats and recycling conversations, the result is not dialogue but repetition. An echo chamber with shinier packaging is still an echo chamber. The real challenge is not in lining up “big names” but in expanding the conversation: making it more polemical, more creative, more imaginative, more globally aware, more diverse.

Perhaps the true problem is our own laziness. We have grown accustomed to outsourcing our judgment, waiting for the “best” or most famous voices to tell us what to think. It is comfortable, quick, and flattering to believe we are following the wisdom of giants. But perhaps it is precisely this habit that leaves us intellectually dependent, recycling dominant (even though alternative, critical) insights instead of creating new ones.

Local and national podcasters are on the rise for quite some time, but their reach remains limited, often hindered by language barriers or uneven production quality. The same pattern repeats everywhere: chasing visibility, recycling familiar perspectives, and favoring recognizable names over truly fresh voices. The result is a public sphere that is narrower, less inventive, and less daring than it could be. But it remains a (relatively) profitable one…

If podcasts are to be more than mainstream media’s digital twin, we need to demand more—not only from hosts but from ourselves as listeners. We must cultivate curiosity beyond celebrity, seek voices we disagree with, challenge accepted wisdom, etc. Otherwise, the danger isn’t just boredom—it’s intellectual stagnation. If we do not break this cycle, we will soon discover that these “alternatives” were never really alternatives at all.

If we don’t insist on new voices (especially from the Global South/majority), bolder ideas, and sharper arguments, the “alternative” will soon be indistinguishable from the mainstream it once sought to escape.

Maybe I am wrong… I am just sharing my observations.
By the way, I still find Substack more inspirative than podcasts. It feels like a space where ideas can breathe, develop, and push us beyond the recycled talking points.

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