The Pressure Campaign on Spotify to Remove Joe Rogan Reveals the Religion of Liberals: Censorship
By Glenn Greenwald | January 29, 2022
American liberals are obsessed with finding ways to silence and censor their adversaries. Every week, if not every day, they have new targets they want de-platformed, banned, silenced, and otherwise prevented from speaking or being heard (by “liberals,” I mean the term of self-description used by the dominant wing of the Democratic Party).
For years, their preferred censorship tactic was to expand and distort the concept of “hate speech” to mean “views that make us uncomfortable,” and then demand that such “hateful” views be prohibited on that basis. For that reason, it is now common to hear Democrats assert, falsely, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not protect “hate speech.” Their political culture has long inculcated them to believe that they can comfortably silence whatever views they arbitrarily place into this category without being guilty of censorship.
Constitutional illiteracy to the side, the “hate speech” framework for justifying censorship is now insufficient because liberals are eager to silence a much broader range of voices than those they can credibly accuse of being hateful. That is why the newest, and now most popular, censorship framework is to claim that their targets are guilty of spreading “misinformation” or “disinformation.” These terms, by design, have no clear or concise meaning. Like the term “terrorism,” it is their elasticity that makes them so useful.
When liberals’ favorite media outlets, from CNN and NBC to The New York Times and The Atlantic, spend four years disseminating one fabricated Russia story after the next — from the Kremlin hacking into Vermont’s heating system and Putin’s sexual blackmail over Trump to bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the Biden email archive being “Russian disinformation,” and a magical mystery weapon that injures American brains with cricket noises — none of that is “disinformation” that requires banishment. Nor are false claims that COVID’s origin has proven to be zoonotic rather than a lab leak, the vastly overstated claim that vaccines prevent transmission of COVID, or that Julian Assange stole classified documents and caused people to die. Corporate outlets beloved by liberals are free to spout serious falsehoods without being deemed guilty of disinformation, and, because of that, do so routinely.
This “disinformation” term is reserved for those who question liberal pieties, not for those devoted to affirming them. That is the real functional definition of “disinformation” and of its little cousin, “misinformation.” It is not possible to disagree with liberals or see the world differently than they see it. The only two choices are unthinking submission to their dogma or acting as an agent of “disinformation.” Dissent does not exist to them; any deviation from their worldview is inherently dangerous — to the point that it cannot be heard.
The data proving a deeply radical authoritarian strain in Trump-era Democratic Party politics is ample and have been extensively reported here. Democrats overwhelmingly trust and love the FBI and CIA. Polls show they overwhelmingly favor censorship of the internet not only by Big Tech oligarchs but also by the state. Leading Democratic Party politicians have repeatedly subpoenaed social media executives and explicitly threatened them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more aggressively — a likely violation of the First Amendment given decades of case law ruling that state officials are barred from coercing private actors to censor for them, in ways the Constitution prohibits them from doing directly.
Democratic officials have used the pretexts of COVID, “the insurrection,” and Russia to justify their censorship demands. Both Joe Biden and his Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, have “urged” Silicon Valley to censor more when asked about Joe Rogan and others who air what they call “disinformation” about COVID. They cheered the use of pro-prosecutor tactics against Michael Flynn and other Russiagate targets; made a hero out of the Capitol Hill Police officer who shot and killed the unarmed Ashli Babbitt; voted for an additional $2 billion to expand the functions of the Capitol Police; have demanded and obtained lengthy prison sentences and solitary confinement even for non-violent 1/6 defendants; and even seek to import the War on Terror onto domestic soil.
Given the climate prevailing in the American liberal faction, this authoritarianism is anything but surprising. For those who convince themselves that they are not battling mere political opponents with a different ideology but a fascist movement led by a Hitler-like figure bent on imposing totalitarianism — a core, defining belief of modern-day Democratic Party politics — it is virtually inevitable that they will embrace authoritarianism. When a political movement is subsumed by fear — the Orange Hitler will put you in camps and end democracy if he wins again — then it is not only expected but even rational to embrace authoritarian tactics including censorship to stave off this existential threat. Fear always breeds authoritarianism, which is why manipulating and stimulating that human instinct is the favorite tactic of political demagogues.
And when it comes to authoritarian tactics, censorship has become the liberals’ North Star. Every week brings news of a newly banished heretic. Liberals cheered the news last week that Google’s YouTube permanently banned the extremely popular video channel of conservative commentator Dan Bongino. His permanent ban was imposed for the crime of announcing that, moving forward, he would post all of his videos exclusively on the free speech video platform Rumble after he received a seven-day suspension from Google’s overlords for spreading supposed COVID “disinformation.” What was Bongino’s prohibited view that prompted that suspension? He claimed cloth masks do not work to stop the spread of COVID, a view shared by numerous experts and, at least in part, by the CDC. When Bongino disobeyed the seven-day suspension by using an alternative YouTube channel to announce his move to Rumble, liberals cheered Google’s permanent ban because the only thing liberals hate more than platforms that allow diverse views are people failing to obey rules imposed by corporate authorities.
It is not hyperbole to observe that there is now a concerted war on any platforms devoted to free discourse and which refuse to capitulate to the demands of Democratic politicians and liberal activists to censor. The spear of the attack are corporate media outlets, who demonize and try to render radioactive any platforms that allow free speech to flourish. When Rumble announced that a group of free speech advocates — including myself, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, comedian Bridget Phetasy, former Sanders campaign videographer Matt Orfalea and journalist Zaid Jilani — would produce video content for Rumble, The Washington Post immediately published a hit piece, relying exclusively on a Google-and-Facebook-aligned so-called “disinformation expert” to malign Rumble as “one of the main platforms for conspiracy communities and far-right communities in the U.S. and around the world” and a place “where conspiracies thrive,” all caused by Rumble’s “allowing such videos to remain on the site unmoderated.” (The narrative about Rumble is particular bizarre since its Canadian founder and still-CEO, Chris Pavlovski created Rumble in 2013 with apolitical goals — to allow small content creators abandoned by YouTube to monetize their content — and is very far from an adherent to right-wing ideology).
The same attack was launched, and is still underway, against Substack, also for the crime of refusing to ban writers deemed by liberal corporate outlets and activists to be hateful and/or fonts of disinformation. After the first wave of liberal attacks on Substack failed — that script was that it is a place for anti-trans animus and harassment — The Post returned this week for round two, with a paint-by-numbers hit piece virtually identical to the one it published last year about Rumble. “Newsletter company Substack is making millions off anti-vaccine content, according to estimates,” blared the sub-headline. “Prominent figures known for spreading misinformation, such as [Joseph] Mercola, have flocked to Substack, podcasting platforms and a growing number of right-wing social media networks over the past year after getting kicked off or restricted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube,” warned the Post. It is, evidently, extremely dangerous to society for voices to still be heard once Google decrees they should not be.
This Post attack on Substack predictably provoked expressions of Serious Concern from good and responsible liberals. That included Chelsea Clinton, who lamented that Substack is profiting off a “grift.” Apparently, this political heiress — who is one of the world’s richest individuals by virtue of winning the birth lottery of being born to rich and powerful parents, who in turn enriched themselves by cashing in on their political influence in exchange for $750,000 paychecks from Goldman Sachs for 45-minute speeches, and who herself somehow was showered with a $600,000 annual contract from NBC News despite no qualifications — believes she is in a position to accuse others of “grifting.” She also appears to believe that — despite welcoming convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to her wedding to a hedge fund oligarch whose father was expelled from Congress after his conviction on thirty-one counts of felony fraud — she is entitled to decree who should and should not be allowed to have a writing platform:
This Post-manufactured narrative about Substack instantly metastasized throughout the liberal sect of media. “Anti-vaxxers making ‘at least $2.5m’ a year from publishing on Substack,” read the headline of The Guardian, the paper that in 2018 published the outright lie that Julian Assange met twice with Paul Manafort inside the Ecuadorian Embassy and refuses to this day to retract it (i.e., “disinformation”). Like The Post, the British paper cited one of the seemingly endless number of shady pro-censorship groups — this one calling itself the “Center for Countering Digital Hate” — to argue for greater censorship by Substack. “They could just say no,” said the group’s director, who has apparently convinced himself he should be able to dictate what views should and should not be aired: “This isn’t about freedom; this is about profiting from lies. . . . Substack should immediately stop profiting from medical misinformation that can seriously harm readers.”
The emerging campaign to pressure Spotify to remove Joe Rogan from its platform is perhaps the most illustrative episode yet of both the dynamics at play and the desperation of liberals to ban anyone off-key. It was only a matter of time before this effort really galvanized in earnest. Rogan has simply become too influential, with too large of an audience of young people, for the liberal establishment to tolerate his continuing to act up. Prior efforts to coerce, cajole, or manipulate Rogan to fall into line were abject failures. Shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported in September, 2020 that Spotify employees were organizing to demand that some of Rogan’s shows be removed from the platform, Rogan invited Alex Jones onto his show: a rather strong statement that he was unwilling to obey decrees about who he could interview or what he could say.
On Tuesday, musician Neil Young demanded that Spotify either remove Rogan from its platform or cease featuring Young’s music, claiming Rogan spreads COVID disinformation. Spotify predictably sided with Rogan, their most popular podcaster in whose show they invested $100 million, by removing Young’s music and keeping Rogan. The pressure on Spotify mildly intensified on Friday when singer Joni Mitchell issued a similar demand. All sorts of censorship-mad liberals celebrated this effort to remove Rogan, then vowed to cancel their Spotify subscription in protest of Spotify’s refusal to capitulate for now; a hashtag urging the deletion of Spotify’s app trended for days. Many bizarrely urged that everyone buy music from Apple instead; apparently, handing over your cash to one of history’s largest and richest corporations, repeatedly linked to the use of slave labor, is the liberal version of subversive social justice.
Obviously, Spotify is not going to jettison one of their biggest audience draws over a couple of faded septuagenarians from the 1960s. But if a current major star follows suit, it is not difficult to imagine a snowball effect. The goal of liberals with this tactic is to take any disobedient platform and either force it into line or punish it by drenching it with such negative attacks that nobody who craves acceptance in the parlors of Decent Liberal Society will risk being associated with it. “Prince Harry was under pressure to cut ties with Spotify yesterday after the streaming giant was accused of promoting anti-vax content,” claimed The Daily Mail which, reliable or otherwise, is a certain sign of things to come.
One could easily envision a tipping point being reached where a musician no longer makes an anti-Rogan statement by leaving the platform as Young and Mitchell just did, but instead will be accused of harboring pro-Rogan sentiments if they stay on Spotify. With the stock price of Spotify declining as these recent controversies around Rogan unfolded, a strategy in which Spotify is forced to choose between keeping Rogan or losing substantial musical star power could be more viable than it currently seems. “Spotify lost $4 billion in market value this week after rock icon Neil Young called out the company for allowing comedian Joe Rogan to use its service to spread misinformation about the COVID vaccine on his popular podcast, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience,’” is how The San Francisco Chronicle put it (that Spotify’s stock price dropped rather precipitously contemporaneously with this controversy is clear; less so is the causal connection, though it seems unlikely to be entire coincidental):
It is worth recalling that NBC News, in January, 2017, announced that it had hired Megyn Kelly away from Fox News with a $69 million contract. The network had big plans for Kelly, whose first show debuted in June of that year. But barely more than a year later, Kelly’s comments about blackface — in which she rhetorically wondered whether the notorious practice could be acceptable in the modern age with the right intent: such as a young white child paying homage to a beloved African-American sports or cultural figure on Halloween — so enraged liberals, both inside the now-liberal network and externally, that they demanded her firing. NBC decided it was worth firing Kelly — on whom they had placed so many hopes — and eating her enormous contract in order to assuage widespread liberal indignation. “The cancellation of the ex-Fox News host’s glossy morning show is a reminder that networks need to be more stringent when assessing the politics of their hirings,” proclaimed The Guardian.
Democrats are not only the dominant political faction in Washington, controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, but liberals in particular are clearly the hegemonic culture force in key institutions: media, academia and Hollywood. That is why it is a mistake to assume that we are near the end of their orgy of censorship and de-platforming victories. It is far more likely that we are much closer to the beginning than the end. The power to silence others is intoxicating. Once one gets a taste of its power, they rarely stop on their own.
Indeed, it was once assumed that Silicon Valley giants steeped in the libertarian ethos of a free internet would be immune to demands to engage in political censorship (“content moderation” is the more palatable euphemism which liberal corporate media outlets prefer). But when the still-formidable megaphones of The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNN and the rest of the liberal media axis unite to accuse Big Tech executives of having blood on their hands and being responsible for the destruction of American democracy, that is still an effective enforcement mechanism. Billionaires are, like all humans, social and political animals and instinctively avoid ostracization and societal scorn.
Beyond the personal interest in avoiding vilification, corporate executives can be made to censor against their will and in violation of their political ideology out of self-interest. The corporate media still has the ability to render a company toxic, and the Democratic Party more now than ever has the power to abuse their lawmaking and regulatory powers to impose real punishment for disobedience, as it has repeatedly threatened to do. If Facebook or Spotify are deemed to be so toxic that no Good Liberals can use them without being attacked as complicit in fascism, white supremacy or anti-vax fanaticism, then that will severely limit, if not entirely sabotage, a company’s future viability.
The one bright spot in all this — and it is a significant one — is that liberals have become such extremists in their quest to silence all adversaries that they are generating their own backlash, based in disgust for their tyrannical fanaticism. In response to the Post attack, Substack issued a gloriously defiant statement re-affirming its commitment to guaranteeing free discourse. They also repudiated the hubristic belief that they are competent to act as arbiters of Truth and Falsity, Good and Bad. “Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse,” read the headline on the post from Substack’s founders. The body of their post reads like a free speech manifesto:
That’s why, as we face growing pressure to censor content published on Substack that to some seems dubious or objectionable, our answer remains the same: we make decisions based on principles not PR, we will defend free expression, and we will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation. While we have content guidelines that allow us to protect the platform at the extremes, we will always view censorship as a last resort, because we believe open discourse is better for writers and better for society.
A lengthy Twitter thread from Substack’s Vice President of Communications, Lulu Cheng Meservey was similarly encouraging and assertive. “I’m proud of our decision to defend free expression, even when it’s hard,” she wrote, adding: “because: 1) We want a thriving ecosystem full of fresh and diverse ideas. That can’t happen without the freedom to experiment, or even to be wrong.” Regarding demands to de-platform those allegedly spreading COVID disinformation, she pointedly — and accurately — noted: “If everyone who has ever been wrong about this pandemic were silenced, there would be no one left talking about it at all.” And she, too, affirmed principles that every actual, genuine liberal — not the Nancy Pelosi kind — reflexively supports:
People already mistrust institutions, media, and each other. Knowing that dissenting views are being suppressed makes that mistrust worse. Withstanding scrutiny makes truths stronger, not weaker. We made a promise to writers that this is a place they can pursue what they find meaningful, without coddling or controlling. We promised we wouldn’t come between them and their audiences. And we intend to keep our side of the agreement for every writer that keeps theirs. to think for themselves. They tend not to be conformists, and they have the confidence and strength of conviction not to be threatened by views that disagree with them or even disgust them.
This is becoming increasingly rare.
The U.K.’s Royal Society, its national academy of scientists, this month echoed Substack’s view that censorship, beyond its moral dimensions and political dangers, is ineffective and breeds even more distrust in pronouncements by authorities. “Governments and social media platforms should not rely on content removal for combatting harmful scientific misinformation online.” “There is,” they concluded, “little evidence that calls for major platforms to remove offending content will limit scientific misinformation’s harms” and “such measures could even drive it to harder-to-address corners of the internet and exacerbate feelings of distrust in authorities.”
As both Rogan’s success and collapsing faith and interest in traditional corporate media outlets proves, there is a growing hunger for discourse that is liberated from the tight controls of liberal media corporations and their petulant, herd-like employees. That is why other platforms devoted to similar principles of free discourse, such as Rumble for videos and Callin for podcasts, continue to thrive. It is certain that those platforms will continue to be targeted by institutional liberalism as they grow and allow more dissidents and heretics to be heard. Time will tell if they, too, will resist these censorship pressures, but the combination of genuine conviction on the part of their founders and managers, combined with the clear market opportunities for free speech platforms and heterodox thinkers, provides ample ground for optimism.
None of this is to suggest that American liberals are the only political faction that succumbs to the strong temptations of censorships. Liberals often point to the growing fights over public school curricula and particularly the conservative campaign to exclude so-called Critical Race Theory from the public schools as proof that the American Right is also a pro-censorship faction. That is a poor example. Censorship is about what adults can hear, not what children are taught in public schools. Liberals crusaded for decades to have creationism banned from the public schools and largely succeeded, yet few would suggest this was an act of censorship. For the reason I just gave, I certainly would define it that way. Fights over what children should and should not be taught can have a censorship dimension but usually do not, precisely because limits and prohibitions in school curricula are inevitable.
There are indeed examples of right-wing censorship campaigns: among the worst are laws implemented by GOP legislatures and championed by GOP governors to punish those who support a boycott of Israel by denying them contracts or other employment benefits. And among the most frequent targets of censorship campaigns on college campuses are critics of Israel and activists for Palestinian rights. But federal courts have been unanimously striking down those indefensible red-state laws punishing BDS activists as an unconstitutional infringement of free speech rights, and polling data, as noted above, shows that it is the Democrats who overwhelmingly favor internet censorship while Republicans oppose it.
In sum, censorship — once the province of the American Right during the heydey of the Moral Majority of the 1980s — now occurs in isolated instances in that faction. In modern-day American liberalism, however, censorship is a virtual religion. They simply cannot abide the idea that anyone who thinks differently or sees the world differently than they should be heard. That is why there is much more at stake in this campaign to have Rogan removed from Spotify than whether this extremely popular podcast host will continue to be heard there or on another platform. If liberals succeed in pressuring Spotify to abandon their most valuable commodity, it will mean nobody is safe from their petty-tyrant tactics. But if they fail, it can embolden other platforms to similarly defy these bullying tactics, keeping our discourse a bit more free for just awhile longer.
GOP Doctors Caucus ‘infuriated’ with Fauci, White House
RT | January 29, 2022
Murphy, a practicing surgeon, says the GOP Doctors Caucus is “infuriated” with the White House and its chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for promoting Covid-19 vaccinations too heavily while ignoring potential therapeutic treatments.
“I’m a vice chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus. We are infuriated – infuriated – that this has all been about vaccination. Fauci has been, ‘Vaccination, vaccination, vaccination,’ rather than therapeutics,” Murphy told Breitbart News on Friday, adding that he believes there is no way for the US to “vaccinate our way” out of the pandemic.
“There should be something that we should be able to write and prescribe that’s not $800 a pill for people who test positive to try to get them better, not only keep them out of the hospital, but get them better, get them back to work, and let society function, I think this is a major problem,” Murphy said. He suggested drugs like ivermectin – most famously taken by podcaster Joe Rogan when he tested positive for Covid – should be studied to find alternate treatments to Covid to avoid continuous vaccines and subsequent booster shots.
Public trust in health officials has deteriorated during the pandemic, Murphy went on to say, and he puts the majority of the blame on Fauci’s “arrogance.”
“Fauci, I’m going to blame [him] as the biggest reason, his arrogance, [that] the trust of the American people in health care, and in doctors, in particular, has plummeted,” the North Carolina Republican said.
The GOP Doctors Caucus is made up of 18 congressional members who are also medical providers, and focuses on policy related to healthcare.
While Fauci has remained popular among Democrats, his approval ratings have plummeted among Independents and Republicans as the infectious diseases expert has become a target of critics of vaccine mandates and pandemic-era lockdown orders.
The GOP Doctors Caucus even previously requested an apology from Fauci for referring to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) as a “moron” in a hot mic moment following a back and forth about the doctor’s financial disclosures.
Fauci argued at the time that all of the information the senator was requesting was publicly available. The White House medical adviser has maintained that vaccines are the best way to combat Covid-19 and to prevent mutations.
US Asks Hungary To Host Troops Aimed At Russia, Despite Long Snubbing Orbán
Suddenly Washington wants something from Hungary, after seeking to isolate and humiliate Budapest…

Viktor Orbán via Reuters
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 28, 2022
It’s been revealed that the United States approached Hungary this week to ask the country to host a temporary troop deployment related to the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto “received an American request about temporary deployment of troops” – CNN reports.
Hungary’s Defense Ministry is said to be discussing the formal request; however, given the tense US administration relationship with the Viktor Orbán government since Biden took office – centered on seeking to isolate the conservative prime minister known for his unapologetic ‘Hungary first’ policies – the prospect remains highly unlikely. This comes as Biden announced Friday that he’ll be sending a small number of American forces to Eastern Europe: “I’ll be moving troops to eastern Europe in the NATO countries in the near term.” He qualified in the remarks reporters at Joint Base Andrews after returning from Pittsburg that this will be “not too many” troops.
A mere less than two months ago, Biden tried to humiliate Hungary’s “human rights backsliding” leader:
On Thursday and Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden will gather leaders from over 100 countries to a virtual “Summit for Democracy.” He invited rule-of-law troublemaker Poland. He invited Serbia, despite some questionable democratic credentials. He invited every EU member but one.
That one was Hungary.
CNN further reports that Romania and Bulgaria are also mulling the acceptance of additional US deployments. Both eastern European NATO countries are typically much more amenable to US security requests, and Romania already provocatively hosts coastal defense missiles on the Black Sea.
Among the security guarantees Russia is currently seeking from Washington and Brussels is precisely that NATO forces leave Bulgaria and Romania.
Thus when it comes to Hungary, from the point of view of officials in Budapest they are unlikely to want to see their country thrust into the middle of the tense escalating Russia vs. West standoff.
“The deployments would number approximately 1,000 personnel to each country and would be similar to the forward battle groups currently stationed in the Baltic States and Poland,” CNN notes of the numbers under initial discussion – though without doubt this would be ramped up in the instance of any potential Russian incursion into Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in a Russian media interview FM Sergey Lavrov said Friday “If it’s up to the Russian Federation, there will be no war. We do not want wars. But we won’t allow the West to grossly ignore our interests, either,” according to Sputnik.
Denmark is First EU Country to Scrap All COVID Restrictions
21st Century Wire | January 29, 2022
Later this week, England is scheduled to drop its problematic mask mandate for shops and public transport, along with its highly unpopular vaccine passport regime. Up north, Scotland says it will “relax” so-called ‘work from home guidance,’ and reopen nightclubs, as well as ending venue capacity limits.
While the UK and Ireland gingerly roll-back their highly disruptive COVID restriction policies, other European countries are now leading the way by scrapping the entire ‘pandemic’ regime altogether.
Financial Times reports…
Denmark said it would lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions and stop designating it a “societally critical” disease on Wednesday in the latest sign that western European countries are easing or even eradicating strict measures brought in to combat the Omicron coronavirus variant.
Magnus Heunicke, Denmark’s health minister, wrote to parliament on Wednesday saying that he would remove all Covid-19 restrictions on February 1, except for testing on arrival from abroad. Just as the Danish government did in September, when it lifted all restrictions, it will also stop calling Covid-19 a “societally critical disease”, meaning that it will no longer have the legal basis to introduce wide-ranging curbs.
“Tonight we can begin to lower our shoulders and find our smiles again,” said Mette Frederiksen, Danish prime minister, on Wednesday evening. “The pandemic is still here, but with what we know now, we can dare to believe we are through the critical phase.”
Denmark is the latest European country in recent days to announce it is dropping most or nearly all measures as it follows in the footsteps of the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands…
Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets like Politico report this latest development with the accompanied fear-mongering over the latest “subvariant” – allegedly on the loose:
The announcement comes as a new subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, is gaining a foothold in Denmark and driving infections up, with 46,000 new COVID-19 cases recorded on Wednesday.
“Recent weeks have seen very high infection rates, in fact the highest in the entire pandemic,” Frederiksen said. “Therefore, it may seem strange and paradoxical that we are now ready to let go of the restrictions.”
Some 82 percent of Denmark’s population is fully vaccinated with two doses, of whom 50 percent are boosted with a third dose, according to the Danish Health and Medicines Authority.
However, as the FT points out, with this alleged rise in “cases” (aka PCR positive tests) promoted in the media – there is no corresponding rise in serious illness as a result COVID-19:
Denmark still has one of the highest number of Covid-19 cases per capita in the world, currently more than 10 times its previous peak as Omicron causes tens of thousands of daily infections. But the number of patients in intensive care continues to fall and, even with Omicron, never hit the peaks reached from April 2020 and January 2021.
Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Finland have all announced they will also be easing their restrictions in the coming weeks.
Are vaccine deaths outpacing Covid-only deaths in under-65s?
By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | January 29, 2022
LAST week several readers alerted me to the government’s reply to a Freedom of Information request as to the number of Covid only deaths. Even to hardened sceptics of the pandemic ‘crisis’ such as myself the answer came as something of a shock. The number of those dying of Covid alone – that is with no coexisting illness or condition – are by any standards low compared with other causes of death. The figures show a total (all age) mortality rate over two years of just 17,500. The figure for the under 65s is very much lower. As one reader put it to me, did we really lock an entire country down in 2020 for just 1,550 under-65s dying?
The real public health threat, as with other diseases, is the country’s dietary and lifestyle choices – obesity and insufficient exercise and vitamin D.
What struck me perhaps even more forcibly was the comparison with the reported number of the MHRA vaccine deaths, 1,954 as of their last publication (see below). It raises the question of whether vaccine deaths have, within one year, outpaced two years of Covid deaths for the under-65s?
That is a genuine question to which I don’t know the answer. It will require a further FOI demanding the publication of an age breakdown of the reported vaccine fatalities. As it stands on the main reporting page with Annex One documents there is no overall total fatality age breakdown provided. This is simply unacceptable. We need to know the ages of the people dying following the vaccines.
The only fatality age breakdown given is for thrombo-embolic (blood clotting) events with concurrent low platelets. Scroll down to about halfway through the long report page link above and see table 6:
Number of UK suspected thrombo-embolic events with concurrent thrombocytopenia ADR cases received for the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca by patient age up to and including 19 January 2022.
By far the largest number of these otherwise preventable deaths are of people under 70, the highest proportion being in the 40-60 category. These may also of course have been people vulnerable to Covid, but given that by far the largest majority of Covid deaths remain in the 70-plus age groups and the absolute majority in the over-80 group, it really makes you wonder at the recklessness of the government’s totally uncompromising and determined vaccine roll out to all age groups, not just the vulnerable ones.
As far as I’m aware, there is no further breakdown available. As far as age related adverse event data reporting goes it is shockingly limited. The only information given about children injected can be found slightly above the half way scroll mark on the above link, ‘Suspected side effects reported in individuals under 18 years old’. There is very limited information offered. The number of children injected rounded to estimate numbers, and number of Yellow Cards filed are listed per brand but no specific adverse event data. It is unclear if the child adverse events reactions listings are included in the overall total and document brand pdfs.
It feels almost futile to say it is not good enough, but it is not. It is nothing short of negligent. Meanwhile the overall number of fatalities and adverse events continue to rise.
The latest MHRA Yellow Card combination reporting summary up to January 12, 2022 (data published January 20, 2022) follows.
Adult – Primary & Booster/Third Dose, Child Administration
Pfizer – 25.5million people – 47.7m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 160 people impacted
AstraZeneca – 24.9m people – 49.1m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 103 people impacted
Moderna – 1.6m people – 3m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 48 people impacted
Overall 1 in 119 people injected experiences a Yellow Card Adverse Event, which may be less than 10 per cent of actual figures according to MHRA.
Adult Booster or 3rd Doses = 36,079,875 people
Booster Yellow Card Reports – 26,076 (Pfizer) + 399 (AZ) + 14,457 (Moderna) + 128 (Unknown) = 41,060
Reactions – 454,881 (Pfizer) + 857,702 (AZ) + 112,011 (Moderna) + 4,477 (Unknown) = 1,429,071
Reports – 158,933 (Pfizer) + 242,148 (AZ) + 33,630 (Moderna) + 1,462 (Unknown) = 436,173 people impacted
Fatal – 696 (Pfizer) + 1,190 (AZ) + 30 (Moderna) + 38 (Unknown) = 1,954
Blood Disorders – 16,320 (Pfizer) + 7,743 (AZ) + 2,317 (Moderna) + 63 (Unknown) = 26,443
Pulmonary Embolism & Deep Vein Thrombosis – 832 (Pfizer) + 2,997 (AZ) + 83 (Moderna) + 25 (Unknown) = 3,937
Anaphylaxis – 624 (Pfizer) + 868 (AZ) + 76 (Moderna) + 2 (Unknown) = 1,572
Acute Cardiac – 11,141 (Pfizer) + 10,855 (AZ) + 2,642 (Moderna) + 86 (Unknown) = 24,724
Pericarditis/Myocarditis – 1,091 (Pfizer) + 417 (AZ) + 276 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 1,790
Infections – 10,834 (Pfizer) + 19,774 (AZ) + 1,968 (Moderna) + 139 (Unknown) = 32,715
Blindness – 144 (Pfizer) + 312 (AZ) + 25 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 485
Eye Disorders – 7,452 (Pfizer) + 14,685 (AZ) + 1,350 (Moderna) + 81 (Unknown) = 23,568
Deafness – 272 (Pfizer) + 418 (AZ) + 43 (Moderna) + 5 (Unknown) = 738
Spontaneous Abortions – 438 including 4 miscarriage related deaths + 1 premature baby death / 15 stillbirth/foetal deaths (11 recorded as fatal) (Pfizer)…. + 227 + 2 miscarriage related deaths + 5 stillbirth (AZ)…. + 53 + 1 stillbirth (not recorded as fatal) (Moderna)…. + 4 (Unknown) = 722 miscarriages
Psychiatric Disorders – 9,493 (Pfizer) + 18,171 (AZ) + 2,181 (Moderna) + 105 (Unknown) = 29,950
Headaches & Migraines – 34,083 (Pfizer) + 93,643 (AZ) + 8,681 (Moderna) + 326 (Unknown) = 136,733
Nervous System Disorders – 76,294 (Pfizer) + 181,290 (AZ) + 18,227 (Moderna) + 819 (Unknown) = 276,630
Dizziness – 11,675 (Pfizer) + 24,942 (AZ) + 3,240 (Moderna) + 109 (Unknown) = 39,966
Strokes and CNS haemorrhages – 713 (Pfizer) + 2,262 (AZ) + 40 (Moderna) + 13 (Unknown) = 3,028
Guillain-Barré Syndrome – 84 (Pfizer) + 483 (AZ) + 10 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 583
Seizures – 1,030 (Pfizer) + 2,032 (AZ) + 240 (Moderna) + 17 (Unknown) = 3,319
Paralysis – 470 (Pfizer) + 857 (AZ) + 88 (Moderna) + 7 (Unknown) = 1422
Respiratory Disorders – 20,042 (Pfizer) + 29,289 (AZ) + 3,708 (Moderna) + 186 (Unknown) = 53,225
Reproductive/Breast Disorders – 28,503 (Pfizer) + 20,324 (AZ) + 4,479 (Moderna) + 185 (Unknown) = 53,491
Children & young people special report
Suspected side effects reported in individuals under 18yrs old
Pfizer – 3,000,000 children (1st doses) plus 900,000 second doses resulting in 2,591 Yellow Cards (up 120 since last week)
AZ – 12,400 children (1st doses) plus 9,000 second doses resulting in 250 Yellow Cards – Reporting rate 1 in 50
Moderna – 1,900 children (1st doses)* and 1,100 second doses resulting in 16 Yellow cards – Reporting rate 1 in 119
Brand Unspecified – 11 Yellow Cards
Total = 3,014,300 children injected
Total Yellow Cards Under 18s = 2,868
*MHRA state: ‘Figures for vaccinations by age group in previous weekly summary reports were based on the person’s age calculated at 31 March 2021. From this week onwards, the age definition will move to a new definition, person’s age calculated at the time of vaccination.’
Full reports including 344 pages of specific reaction listings are here.
Virginia AG issues Opinion that public universities lack authority to demand COVID vaccinations of students
By Merly Nass, MD | January 28, 2022
Hallelujah! There are many state entities that are acting as if they have authorities which were never granted to them. They simply usurped the authority and hoped no one would burst their expanding bubble. Well, the AG in this newly-Republican state told the public universities to go pound sand.
Why does anyone think it is okay to force Americans, especially children, to receive experimental inoculations, whenever they say so? It is against the law to force people into an experiment. It is against the law to withhold informed consent. Why do so many bigwigs, like college presidents, think that is okay?
Here is the 3 page Virginia AG’s opinion:
https://files.constantcontact.com/d3e83e11901/e247bd43-59d8-4738-9c1f-5862d916c981.pdf
Nearly 35,000 Reports of COVID Vaccine Injuries Among 5- to 17-Year-Olds, CDC Data Show
By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | January 28, 2022
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,071,856 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 21, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
The data included a total of 22,607 reports of deaths — an increase of 414 over the previous week — and 178,994 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 4,130 compared with the previous week.
Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 740,000 adverse events, including 10,316 deaths and 67,496 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 21, 2022.
Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.
Of the 10,316 U.S. deaths reported as of Jan. 21, 19% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 24% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 61% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
In the U.S., 532.4 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of Jan. 21, including 312 million doses of Pfizer, 202 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed. Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 21, 2022, for 5- to 11-year-olds show:
- 7,052 adverse events, including 152 rated as serious and 3 reported deaths.
The most recent death involves a 7-year-old girl (VAERS I.D. 1975356) from Minnesota who died 11 days after receiving her first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine when she was found unresponsive by her mother. An autopsy is pending.
- 14 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation).
- 24 reports of blood clotting disorders.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 21, 2022, for 12- to 17-year-olds show:
- 27,772 adverse events, including 1,588 rated as serious and 37 reported deaths.
The most recent deaths involve a 13-year-old male (VAERS I.D. 2042005) from an unidentified state who died from a sudden heart attack seven months after receiving his second dose of Moderna, and a 17-year-old female from an unidentified state (VAERS I.D. 2039111) who died after receiving her first dose of Moderna. Medical information was limited and it is unknown if an autopsy was performed in either case.
- 68 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 96% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
- 609 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis with 597 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
- 154 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 21, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:
- 21% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
- 54% of those who died were male, 41% were female and the remaining death reports did not include the gender of the deceased.
- The average age of death was 72.7.
- As of Jan. 21, 4,925 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 1,575 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.
- Of the 3,474 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 51% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 41% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
- 850 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), with 41% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 30% to Moderna and 28% to J&J.
- 2,281 reports of anaphylaxis where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death.
- 12,704 reports of blood clotting disorders in the U.S. Of those, 5,646 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 4,521 reports to Moderna and 2,490 reports to J&J.
- 1,542 reports of myocardial infarction.
- 3,817 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 2,348 cases attributed to Pfizer, 1,293 cases to Moderna and 164 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.
Unvaccinated man denied heart transplant by Boston hospital
DJ Ferguson, 31, was removed from the top of a heart transplant at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital because he was not vaccinated against COVID.
Ferguson on Tuesday received a mechanical heart pump — called a left ventricular assist device — that should keep him alive for up to five years, but he won’t have much of a life, his father said.
According to ABC News, Ferguson, a father of two children with another baby on the way, didn’t want the vaccine because he feared it would complicate his heart condition. He also said getting vaccinated would go against his basic principles.
“The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving,” Dr. Arthur Caplan, who runs Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine told MassLive.
Despite the open-heart surgery, Ferguson still needs a transplant due to his rapid deterioration, Ferguson’s parents told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Wednesday.
COVID vaccine regime for children under age 4 will include 3 doses, Fauci says
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday said the COVID vaccine regime for kids younger than 4 years old will likely include three doses when it’s authorized because two shots did not induce an adequate immune response in 2- to 4-year-olds in Pfizer’s clinical trials.
“Dose and regimen for children 6 months to 24 months worked well, but it turned out the other group from 24 months to 4 years did not yet reach the level of non-inferiority, so the studies are continued,” Fauci said, referencing effectiveness standard comparison to adults.
Fauci said he hopes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will authorize the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID vaccine for children under 5 years old next month, although he can’t say for sure when the agency will render its decision.
Sweden decides against COVID vaccines for children 5 to 11
Sweden won’t recommend COVID vaccines for kids under 12 years old because the benefits did not outweigh the risks, but will “constantly” reassess the situation, Reuters reported.
The Public Health Agency of Sweden said in a press release on Thursday the medical benefit for a child aged 5-11 who has received a vaccine against COVID “is currently small.”
Britta Bjorkholm, a Sweden health official, said during a news conference, “With the knowledge we have today, with a low risk for serious disease for kids, we don’t see any clear benefit with vaccinating them.”
Karin Tegmark Wisell, director-general of the Public Health Agency of Sweden, said updated guidance would be provided prior to the fall term.
COVID vaccines causing miscarriages, cancer, neurological disorders among Military
In a hearing organized this week by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), attorney Thomas Renz told a panel of experts data provided to him by three whistleblowers show COVID vaccines are causing catastrophic harm to members of the U.S. military while not preventing them from getting the virus.
Renz summarized data obtained from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database — the military’s longstanding epidemiological database of service members.
The data show miscarriages and cancer increased 300% in 2021 over the previous five-year average. Neurological disorders increased 1000% in 2021 over the past five-year average, increasing from 82,000 to 863,000 in one year.
“Our soldiers are being experimented on, injured and sometimes possibly killed,” Renz said.
Following Renz’s presentation, attorney Leigh Dundas reported evidence of the DOD doctoring data in DMED to conceal cases of myocarditis in service members vaccinated for COVID.
OSHA withdraws COVID vaccine mandate
The U.S. Department of Labor this week announced it is withdrawing the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers.
In pulling the rule, the department said it recognized the Emergency Temporary Standard could not be revived after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked it earlier this month and will plan instead to set a permanent standard for the vaccine mandate, according to a notice provided to the court by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
The Labor Department’s decision to withdraw the rule means pending legal proceedings in the 6th Circuit will be dropped.
OSHA could move a version of the vaccine-or-test rule through its rule-making process, but would still likely face legal challenges.
Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.
Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.





