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Switzerland May Build Radioactive Waste Storage Facility Near German Border

Samizdat – 11.09.2022

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy (BFE) has stated that an area of northern Switzerland near the border with Germany might be used for the construction of a nuclear waste storage facility.

The Swiss government has yet to approve a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste, due to be located in the region of Nordlich Lagern, north of Zurich.

BFE spokeswoman Marianne Zuend told Reuters that the project was initiated by the National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (NAGRA), a company which plans to propose the Nordlich Lagern site on Monday.

“This is only an announcement of where they (Nagra) would like to build,” Zuend pointed out, adding that the BFE is overseeing the process.

She also said that “All the details will have to be elaborated now by NAGRA to be put into the official demand that they will submit in about two years’ time to the authorities.”

According to NAGRA, the proposal also has yet to get the green light from the Swiss parliament, with the government not expected to make a final decision on the site until 2029. The construction of the repository may only start in 2045.

AFP news agency, in turn, quoted NAGRA spokesman Felix Glauser as saying that they “chose Nordlich Lagern as the safest site for a deep geological repository.”

He referred to “extensive investigations” that he said “have shown that Nordlich Lagern is the most suitable site and has the largest safety reserves.”

The German Federal Ministry for the Environment has voiced concern regarding NAGRA’s plans, which were also slammed by Christian Kuhn, a member of the German parliament (Bundestag) from Baden-Wurttemberg.

He argued that the proximity of the planned nuclear waste storage site to Baden-Württemberg village in Hohentengen “poses a problem both during the construction phase and during the operation of the repository.”

Right now, there are four active nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Switzerland, which may reportedly continue their operation as long as their safety is guaranteed.

September 11, 2022 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power | , | Leave a comment

Revealed: Ministers ignored warnings on school closures

By UsForThem | TCW Defending Freedom | September 7, 2022

‘After schools shut their gates on Friday afternoon, they will remain closed until further notice.’

When then Education Secretary Gavin Williamson stood up in Parliament on March 18 2020 to utter these words, a chill went through the nation, especially parents. It was another two days before Boris Johnson announced that all pubs, restaurants, gyms and other social venues across the country were to close, putting children’s education firmly behind adults’ entertainment. That chill turns to an icy blast when it becomes clear that this seismic decision, one which will impact many children into their adult lives, was made in full knowledge that closures were likely to be lengthy – months, not weeks – and that there was little consideration as to what that would mean for children, nor any plan to support them.

Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, in his tell-all interview of lockdown decision-making, made clear that no one was prepared to consider the impact of school closures. ‘Forget about the economy,’ Sunak recalls himself saying, ‘surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare . . . There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious.’

To see such wilful blindness – some might say recklessness – at the heart of government in regard to the welfare, education and safeguarding of some 12million children in black and white is sobering. In light of that acknowledgment, we decided to do a deep dive into the minutes of Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) to see what more the records could tell us about warnings that were ignored.

Our findings raise serious questions about the integrity of the assumptions made around school closures, the lack of any serious recognition of the impact on children in documented decision-making, and most consequential of all, about why the government and Department for Education (DfE) were not prepared for the scale of the shutdown when Sage had repeatedly made clear that, according to their estimates, school closures would need to be lengthy to have any impact.

School closures never anticipated to be effective in the long term

The core planning assumption at the outset (mid-February 2020) was for schools to stay open, in line with the assumptions of the previous influenza pandemic plans and the recognition that ‘any impact from school closures on the total number of cases is likely to be highly limited’.

Some (most notably the Institute for Government in their report on the government’s handling of education during the pandemic) have suggested that the policy switch to full school closures happened rapidly over the weekend of March 16/17 and took the DfE by surprise. However, if one tracks through the Sage minutes, a clear pattern is evident whereby the question of closures appears to escalate from a ‘probably not’ or perhaps an ‘if’, to a ‘when?’ and ‘for how long?’

A few factors make this progression especially perplexing. First, the impact of school closures on transmission was always highly uncertain. Even in the minutes of March 17, just before closures, the minutes read ‘Our best assessment is that they would reduce the reproduction number by between 10 per cent and 20 per cent’ and even that remains heavily caveated: ‘The impact of school closures, as a stand-alone policy, on Covid-19 would be expected to be smaller than for influenza.’

Early suggestions for mass school closures had been predicated on the basis that they should be considered only if children were responsible for high levels of transmission. But the day before Williamson’s statement, SPI-M-O (Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group) predicted that ‘infected children could be an average of 25 per cent to 75 per cent as likely to transmit SARS-CoV-2 per contact than adults’. Why, then, were the models not re-run with these lower transmission rates?

Finally, all the models showed that when schools reopened, cases would increase again, and the effectiveness of the measure would therefore be limited. At best it was known from the start that school closures could only be a short term, very incomplete tool – ostensibly to help ‘save the NHS’ – yet this tool was still employed again a year later, in January 2021, and almost a third time when the NHS found itself in trouble again.

Children discriminated against vs other groups

In early February 2020, the view of SPI-M-O was that potential interventions had the ability to delay the pandemic for only one month, listing four interventions predicted to have the most impact. School closures were included in that list, despite a clear acknowledgement that the incubation period and lack of prior immunity among adults would mean that this would not be expected to be as effective a tool as in a flu pandemic.

By early March 2020, Sage recommended social distancing for over-70s as a key intervention estimated to reduce deaths by 20-30 per cent, and combined with isolation of symptomatic individuals and their households, by 50 per cent. Closing schools in this model had no impact on deaths. In light of this, why were school closures always on the table, and especially given the uncertain benefits, never rigorously questioned in regard to the long-term impact on children?

Lack of recognition of the impact on children 

The Sage minutes recognise throughout that closing schools would have ‘impact’. Occasionally it is acknowledged that these impacts are on children, such as in the magnificently underplayed phrase ‘foregone education’ or in the guise of ‘educational costs’, but far more often the impacts on the rest of the population are the priority, for instance in terms of the following:

  • Parent absenteeism
  • Concern for grandparents forced to care for children off school
  • Impact on the economy and especially the health care system
  • Providing education on pandemic control such as handwashing to share with families

In truth, and as Sunak implied, Sage rarely looked at the implications for children. Only one paper with the Sage minutes for the six weeks preceding the decision to close schools raises the spectre of the awful treatment that we now know was suffered by the most vulnerable of young people. And it could not have been more underplayed: ‘Almost all strategies will result in reduced, or changed, adult oversight of children. This presents a risk of unintended consequences.’ So the deaths of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, and those of the other 220 children whose deaths during lockdown were thought to involve abuse or neglect, were ‘unintended consequences’ that no one in authority bothered to consider.

Lack of preparation and honesty on duration of closures

Sage say clearly in their minutes that ‘allowing exams to take place in otherwise closed schools would only have a marginal impact’, a conclusion drawn by most other countries as well. So why were Gavin Williamson and the Department for Education unprepared for this eventuality, when school closures had been on the table for at least six weeks before the decision was announced? Most shameful of all, though, is that the ‘closed until further notice’ announced by Gavin Williamson on 18 March was envisaged the day before by the scientists as variously ‘a long period’, ‘until September’,  or – at best – ‘school closures would need to last several months to maintain the effect seen’.

So given that Sage were clearly signalling from early February that if schools closed it would need to be for a significant period, why was there no communication of this when schools closed? Why was there no plan for exams? Why had there been no attempt in the weeks prior to the closures to prepare pupils, parents and teachers for distance learning? Most of all, why weren’t the known safeguarding concerns acted upon?

Were school closures inevitable?

It is hard to recall now the increasing levels of uncertainty and fear in media and government communications in March 2020. By mid-March, with 20 per cent of teachers isolating and school attendance at 70 to 80 per cent, school closures may have become the only option. However, imagine if, as well as a plan to close schools, the DfE had a plan to reopen them, or – as envisaged in previous pandemic plans – to keep some form of in-person teaching going using a retired/reserve workforce. Imagine if the government had not chosen in its communications a route that decreed ‘the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging’ – a narrative which not only impacted the mental health of children, but also made it almost impossible to have a balanced view on the need for schools to reopen, leading to the chaos of isolations as well as the school closures of January 2021.

The decision-making around school closures, almost complete failure to grasp the severe and in some cases fatal implications for school closures on children, and the apparent lack of any coherent plan for reopening or education whilst schools were closed must be central to any examination by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. If children and young people are once again excluded from the process, it will be a stark admission that our society places a lower value on children than on adults.

September 11, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Covid Vaccines Up to 100 Times More Likely to Cause Serious Injury to a Young Adult Than Prevent It, Say Top Scientists

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

University COVID-19 vaccine mandates are unethical because the vaccines are up to nearly 100 times more likely to cause a person of student age serious injury than prevent him or her from being hospitalised with COVID-19, a new study has concluded.

The study, whose authors include Dr. Kevin Bardosh, a recipient of funding from the pro-vaccination Wellcome Trust led by Sir Jeremy Farrar, and Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg of the Florida Department of Health, presents a risk-benefit assessment of booster vaccines among people of student age and provides five ethical arguments against mandates.

The researchers estimate that 22,000-30,000 previously uninfected adults aged 18-29 must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent just one COVID-19 hospitalisation. In the study, which is currently undergoing peer-review, the authors analyse CDC and reported adverse event data and find that booster mandates are likely to cause a net expected harm. They estimate that for every COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented in previously uninfected young adults, 18 to 98 serious adverse events will occur, including 1.7 to 3.0 booster-associated myocarditis cases in males, and 1,373 to 3,234 cases of serious injury which interferes with daily activities.

The authors add that given the high level of natural immunity following infection now present in the population, the actual risk-benefit profile is even less favourable.

On the basis of this evidence they argue that university booster mandates are unethical because:

  1. no formal risk-benefit assessment exists for the age group;
  2. vaccine mandates may result in a net expected harm to individual young people;
  3. mandates are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given the modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission;
  4. U.S. mandates violate the reciprocity principle because rare serious vaccine-related harms will not be reliably compensated due to gaps in current vaccine injury schemes; and
  5. mandates create wider social harms.

They consider counterarguments, such as a desire for socialisation and safety, and show that such arguments are weak and lack scientific and ethical support.

The authors include Dr. Vinay Prasad of the University of California and Dr. Martin A. Makary and Dr. Stefan Baral of Johns Hopkins University. A previous intervention in February by many of the same authors, published in BMJ Global Health, took a strong ethical stance against vaccine coercion in the form of mandates and passports.

It’s been clear for some time that the cost-benefit assessment of the vaccines will not be favourable for young people. But with leading scientists, including some funded by pro-vaccination organisations like the Wellcome Trust, now putting the case in top journals, hopefully the message will get through to politicians and administrators, especially in America, who continue to impose vaccine requirements on young adults.

While the present paper is focused on vaccine coercion, its arguments also apply more generally to the offer of vaccination to young adults, and raise questions as to whether vaccine recipients are being fully apprised of the risks and likely benefits before consenting to the inoculation.

September 11, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

When will Covid reporting start to tell the truth?

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | September 9, 2022

The writer is in New Zealand.

TWO and a half years into the Covid saga, the public is still faced with an information blackout. The data is very concerning indeed, but no one in parliament or the MSM wants to get in front of it. Instead many are still stuck stoking the fear factor.  As Professor Vinay Prasad, an American haematologist-oncologist and health researcher, wrote a few days ago: ‘Legitimising irrational anxiety is bad medicine’.

Early on in our efforts to publicise the dangers of biotechnology medicine, I had an email exchange with Jesse Mulligan, a popular commentator with RNZ Afternoons. His perspective on Covid vaccination was as follows.

December 6, 2021: ‘I feel like anybody aiming to critique such an obviously positive public health measure should begin and end their messaging reminding people that any risks/flaws in the vaccine are minor compared to the horrific impacts of getting Covid . . . I don’t have the time to correspond with you on this at length but, for what it’s worth, if you’re putting people off getting a largely safe vaccine by what you’re writing about it, I think you need to review how you approach writing these messages.’

Mulligan quoted from Ministry of Health directives and had also read some questioning scientific articles, but he could not get past the conclusion that vaccination was an obvious public good and for this reason he declined to have me on his show.

The ‘obvious public good’ narrative has come in for some recent criticism. The BMJ printed an opinion piece in July entitled Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise? Or try this referenced substack article which reports that the negative harm/benefit ratio in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials has been acknowledged in a scientific journal article. In other words there is more harm than benefit.

For me, the central early point of pandemic misinformation has been the underlying assumption that biotech medicine interventions could be safe. There really was little or no evidence to justify such an attitude, in fact, as I have discussed, there was a great deal of published pre-pandemic evidence to justify caution.

Given the central role of DNA in human physiology, altering its function was from the outset potentially catastrophic. We are now facing Covid vaccine outcomes which not only involve serious individual adverse effects, but also potentially affect whole populations into the longer term. These outcomes include:

·         Elevated excess all-cause death rates and lowered longevity

·         Lowered birth rates and fertility

The evidence for these is patchy because governments are not rushing to publish data, but it is still very convincing. So concerning in fact, that the Israeli government has covered up key data and scientific conclusions.

The latest comprehensive evidence for Covid vaccine-induced excess all-cause mortality can be found in this analysis: Excess mortality in Germany 2020-2022.

It is extraordinary that this perilous new normal has found its way into advertising messages, but not into serious commentary. Today I watched a TV ad for a funeral home which arranges alternative and appropriate funerals for those dying young, whilst a British Heart Foundation appeal featured a young woman collapsing on the football field. It did so to encourage donations.

Sudden deaths among all ages are being normalised in the public’s mind because they really are happening at a rate that dwarfs the past, as insurance data confirms. However here in New Zealand we are still being subjected to puerile government advertising devoid of scientific caution. Like this Ministry of Health promotion which turned up this morning:

GET YOUR SECOND BOOSTER – I’ve had three shots, do I really need another booster? Current evidence shows your protection against severe infection slowly decreases over time – GET YOUR SECOND BOOSTER

No mention of safety, no mention of efficacy, and the term ‘current evidence’ used as if this advert is scientifically up to date and reliable. It isn’t.

Why is it so unfashionable to be concerned about rising death rates and lowered birth rates? You might find a clue in this frightening pre-pandemic article from the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending: Report. Are higher death rates good news for people with this kind of perspective? We hope not.

We are clearly on a learning curve here. The poor vaccination outcomes were not anticipated, the adverse effects were initially disbelieved on principle and blamed on misinformation.

It is understandable that in the uncertain early days of Covid, people [trusted] the official MoH narrative, but continuing to do so now doesn’t fit the published scientific narrative or the public data. Caution was and is a very scientific strategy, it never deserved bad press.

Those offering advice to the public need to be more discerning if they wish to contribute to the well being and longevity of our society. MSM language has become extreme, and it is increasingly polarising without foundation in science.

There is still a chance for journalists to cover the pandemic with an open mind. It is happening elsewhere. GB News for example has gained one of the largest prime-time news audiences in the UK. Why not initiate a more open public debate? Cooling rhetoric and decreasing polarisation can only lead to better outcomes. Fresh air never harms anyone – it can save lives.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Wisconsin Healthcare Workers Who Had Religious, Medical Exemptions Must Get Novavax COVID Shot or Lose Job

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 9, 2022

A Wisconsin hospital this week said it is withdrawing medical and religious exemptions for some employees from the hospital’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, giving those employees until Sept. 21 to get the Novavax vaccine.

Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, which operates 11 hospitals and more than 45 health centers and clinics throughout the midwest and employs more than 2,000 physicians, in an email said the Novavax vaccine option “eliminates conflicts” for those who originally declined COVID-19 vaccination for religious or medical reasons.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July granted Emergency Use Authorization of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults ages 18 and up. While the prior COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson used fetal cell lines from unborn fetuses in various stages of development and testing, the Novavax vaccine is made differently and does not use human fetal cell lines.

Froedtert employees who don’t get the first Novavax dose by Sept. 21 will be terminated as Froedtert will consider them to have “voluntarily resigned,” the company said.

The hospital said in a statement:

“Froedtert Health requires staff and providers be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a federal requirement that is monitored for compliance. We join many other health systems around southeast Wisconsin and the U.S. that have made vaccination a condition of employment.

“The Novavax vaccination for COVID-19 is now available. This protein-based vaccination option eliminates conflicts for those staff with religious or medical exemptions caused by mRNA-based vaccines and other concerns.

“Since those staff are now eligible for a vaccination that does not conflict with their religious beliefs or medical situation, their exemption will expire. This affects a small percentage of staff with a vaccine exemption. Eligible staff continue to be exempt from a COVID-19 vaccine for religious and medical reasons.

“Froedtert Health respects the right of staff and providers to engage in activity protected by state and federal law.”

A Froedtert employee who spoke anonymously to WISN 12 News on Wednesday said Froedtert’s abrupt demand will have negative repercussions.

“Anyone in healthcare knows we’re very understaffed and overworked right now and this is just going to take away a lot of nurses from the bedside,” she said. “This will affect patient care and safety.”

Although according to Froedtert, as of October 2021 — their most recent count — nearly 99% of their employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19, the employee said she thought about 100 nurses would be affected.

The employee, a Catholic, said the previous vaccines were against her religious beliefs because of the ingredients. However, the Novavax vaccine also goes against her religious beliefs, she said.

“Now that we’re two, almost three years into this [COVID-19 pandemic] and we know more, we should be able to make our own educated decision,” she said.

She added:

“It’s my body, my temple. God is within us. If we’re uncomfortable, or not sure about something, then we shouldn’t do it.”

The employee said she’s presently unsure what she will do.

“I carry the health insurance for our family. I have a week to decide if I feel comfortable taking this vaccine otherwise I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if any other healthcare facilities in this area even take exemptions,” she said.

Froedtert officials said their recent exemption withdrawal complies with federal regulations that mandate all employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or have legitimate religious or medical exemptions.

Mark Goldstein, an employment lawyer, told WISN 12 News employees affected by the mandate could “attempt to recast their religious exemption as a more generalized claim.”

“Quite frankly,” he added, “some of it depends on how strident they are in that regard.”

The hospital’s requirement is that employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but not that they have to get the new Omicron-specific booster shot made by Pfizer and Moderna.

Novavax pushed on unvaccinated despite safety concerns

As The Defender reported in late July when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults age 18 and up, Operation Warp Speed in 2020 awarded Novavax — which like Moderna, had never brought a product to market before COVID-19 — a secret contract worth $1.6 billion (now being reported as $1.8 billion).

It was one of the largest taxpayer handouts channeled through Operation Warp Speed.

The media characterized the Novavax injection as a “game changer” in comparison to the mRNA and adenovirus-vectored gene therapy shots, claiming it should be “reassuring to those who are hesitant.”

In fact, according to the CDC’s advisors, the unvaccinated represent the “primary target population for Novavax.”

Some media outlets claimed Novavax — made with recombinant moth-cell-based nanoparticle technology, the problematic surfactant polysorbate 80 and a never-before-approved nanoparticulate adjuvant called Matrix-M — is “free of side effects.”

However, the day after the FDA issued its Novavax authorization, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) updated its product information for the Novavax shot to disclose “new” side effects.

The EMA’s list of side effects included “severe allergic reaction [anaphylaxis] and unusual or decreased feeling in the skin” (called paresthesia and hypoesthesia, respectively).

In addition, the EMA said it would assess myocarditis and pericarditis as Novavax side effects — safety signals that also were on display in the FDA’s briefing document on Novavax.

And in clinical trials, older adults who received the Novavax vaccine experienced an increased incidence of hypertension compared to those in the placebo group.

Not as ‘traditional’ as portrayed

The Novavax vaccine relies on a protein-based technology used for decades, leading some media outlets to portray it as a “traditional” vaccine compared with other COVID-19 vaccines that use newer technologies.

But according to Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist with a special interest in vaccine-induced illnesses, chronic fatigue syndrome and toxicology, the media’s portrayal of Novavax as a more traditional vaccine is not accurate.

Nass, a member of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory committee, pointed out that the Novavax shot contains a novel adjuvant, Matrix-M, “so it is not really an old-fashioned shot.”

Nass raised safety concerns specific to the adjuvant, while others voiced concerns about Novavax being linked to heart inflammation and blood clots, and the fact that the vaccine was designed for use against the original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2 — not the Omicron variants that are dominant today.

Adjuvant used in Novavax linked to autoimmune disease

Because Novavax is a protein subunit vaccine, it uses just the spike protein as the antigen rather than the whole pathogen (an inactivated or attenuated virus). Using the whole pathogen would expose the host to the virus’ entire protein coat instead of just one protein.

Protein subunit vaccines are often less immunogenic (less likely to provoke the immune system) than vaccines that use whole pathogens as the antigen, and may not generate a strong enough immune response.

That’s why they require the use of an adjuvant — in this case, Matrix-M — in addition to the antigen to get a stronger immune response.

However, few adjuvants are both potent and non-toxic enough for clinical use.

The proposed primary series for Novavax is two intramuscular injections 21 days apart at the dose level of 5 µg of the recombinant spike protein and 50 µg of the Matrix-M adjuvant.

Matrix-M, originally called QS-21, was one of the saponins derived from Quillaja saponaria, which is the soap bark tree native to Chile.

Some reports point out that the Matrix-M adjuvant — unlike the polyethylene glycol (PEG) lipid used in mRNA vaccines — is not linked to anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction), making it more attractive to people who are allergic to PEG.

But according to Nass, while it’s true that Matrix-M — which is not found in any other vaccines in the U.S. — isn’t linked to anaphylaxis, it is linked to autoimmune diseases.

“While touted as a replacement for the PEG lipid found in the mRNA vaccine, Matrix-M is less likely to cause anaphylaxis but more likely to cause autoimmune diseases,” Nass said.

Nass voiced other safety concerns about Novavax technology, including the use of moth cells.

According to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where Novavax Phase 3 clinical trials were conducted, the Novavax vaccine uses moth cells to create a nanotechnology version of the COVID-19 spike protein.

Nass said insect cells can be used to grow proteins rapidly. “There is one flu vaccine made the same way: Flublok,” Nass said. Flublok is one of two egg-free flu vaccines licensed for use in the U.S.

“How many insect and viral proteins or other molecules are being injected into you when you get the Novavax vaccine — which is a function of how purified the vaccine is —  is unknown,” Nass said.

Novavax still uses the spike protein

The SARS-CoV-2 virus encodes 29 proteins, but Novavax — like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — chose to target only the spike protein.

As previously reported in The Defender, it is not known if the spike protein itself is safe.

“We have known for a long time that the spike protein is a pathogenic protein,” said Byram Bridle, Ph.D., associate professor of viral immunology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. “It is a toxin. It can cause damage to our body if it gets into circulation.”

According to Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., CHD’s chief scientific officer, “If you wanted to pick the most toxic protein, you know what represents the highest virulence, the highest amount of damage on the COVID-19 virus? You would pick the spike protein.”

The spike protein “has been consistently shown to create clotting issues in the blood,” Hooker said.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

400 Doctors and Professionals Declare International Medical Crisis Due to Covid Vaccine Injuries and Deaths

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 10, 2022

Over 400 doctors, scientists and professionals from more than 34 countries this morning declared an international medical crisis due to “diseases and death associated with the ‘COVID-19 vaccines’”.

Launched at a press conference on Saturday, September 10th, the declaration states: “We are currently witnessing an excess in mortality in those countries where the majority of the population has received the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccines’. To date, this excess mortality has neither been sufficiently investigated nor studied by national and international health institutions.”

It continues:

The large number of sudden deaths in previously healthy young people who were inoculated with these ‘vaccines’ is particularly worrying, as is the high incidence of miscarriages and perinatal deaths which have not been investigated.

A large number of adverse side effects, including hospitalisations, permanent disabilities and deaths related to the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccines’, have been reported officially.

The registered number has no precedent in world vaccination history.

The declaration, which originates among concerned medics and professionals in India, makes eight “urgent” demands, including an immediate stop to the vaccinations and investigation of all deaths in previously healthy people.

Read the full text below, and if you are a doctor, scientist or other professional, do consider signing.

DECLARATION OF INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CRISIS DUE TO THE DISEASES AND DEATHS CO-RELATED TO THE ‘COVID-19 VACCINES’

We, the medical doctors and scientists from all over the world, declare that there is an international medical crisis due to the diseases and deaths co-related to the administration of products known as ‘COVID-19 vaccines’.

We are currently witnessing an excess in mortality in those countries where the majority of the population has received the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccines’. To date, this excess mortality has neither been sufficiently investigated nor studied by national and international health institutions.

The large number of sudden deaths in previously healthy young people who were inoculated with these ‘vaccines’, is particularly worrying, as is the high incidence of miscarriages and perinatal deaths which have not been investigated.

A large number of adverse side effects, including hospitalisations, permanent disabilities and deaths related to the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccines’, have been reported officially.

The registered number has no precedent in world vaccination history.

Examining the reports on CDC’s VAERS, the U.K.’s Yellow Card System, the Australian Adverse Event Monitoring System, Europe’s EudraVigilance System and the WHO’s VigiAccess Database, to date there have been more than 11 million reports of adverse effects and more than 70,000 deaths co-related to the inoculation of the products known as ‘Covid vaccines’.

We know that these numbers just about represent between 1% and 10% of all real events.

Therefore, we consider that we are facing a serious international medical crisis, which must be accepted and treated as critical by all states, health institutions and medical personnel worldwide.

Therefore, the following measures must be undertaken on an urgent basis:

  1. A worldwide ‘stop’ to the national inoculation campaigns with the products known as ‘COVID-19 vaccines’.
  2. Investigation of all sudden deaths of people who were healthy previous to the inoculation.
  3. Implementation of early detection programmes of cardiovascular events which could lead to sudden deaths with analysis such as D-dimer and Troponin, in all those that were inoculated with the products known as ‘COVID-19 vaccines’, as well as the early detection of serious tumours.
  4. Implementation of research and treatment programmes for victims of adverse effects after receiving the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccine’.
  5. Undertaking analyses of the composition of vials of Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca, Janssen, Sinovac, Sputnik V and any other product known as ‘COVID-19 vaccines’,
    by independent research groups with no affiliation to pharmaceutical companies, nor any conflict of interest.
  6. Studies to be conducted on the interactions between the different components of the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccines’ and their molecular, cellular and biological effects.
  7. Implementation of psychological help and compensation programmes for any person that has developed a disease or disability as a consequence of the so-called ‘COVID-19 vaccines’.
  8. Implementation and promotion of psychological help and compensation programmes for the family members of any person who died as a result of having been inoculated with the product known as ‘COVID-19 vaccines’.

Consequently we declare that we find ourselves in an unprecedented international medical crisis in the history of medicine, due to the large number of diseases and deaths associated with the ‘vaccines against COVID-19’. Therefore, we demand that the regulatory agencies that oversee drug safety as well as the health institutions in all countries, together with the international institutions such as the WHO, PHO, EMA, FDA, UK-MHRA and NIH respond to this declaration and act in accordance with the eight measures demanded in this manifesto.

This Declaration is a joint initiative of several professionals who have been fighting for this cause. We call on all doctors, scientists and professionals to endorse this statement in order to put pressure on the entities involved and promote a more transparent health policy.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

MEDICAL FASCISM IN THE LANCET

By David Bell and Domini Gordon | PANDA | August 28, 2022

Medical ethics is about protecting society from medical malfeasance and the self-interest of the humans whom we trust to manage health. It is therefore disturbing when prominent people, in a prominent journal, tear up the concept of medical ethics and human rights norms. It is worse when they ignore broad swathes of evidence, and misrepresent their own sources to do so.

On July 8th 2022, The Lancet published a ‘Viewpoint’ article online: “Effectiveness of vaccination mandates in improving uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in the USA.” The article, which acknowledges the controversial nature of vaccine mandates, primarily concludes that coercing people to take a medical product, and reducing options for refusal, increases product uptake.

It further concludes that the best way to implement such mandates is for employers and educational institutions to threaten job security and the right to education.

The use of coercion goes against the established ethics and morals of Public Health, and could be argued to be anti-health. In this case, the article justifies it by stating that “the current evidence regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in adults is sufficient to support mandates.” However, it offers scant evidence to back this assertion, and ignores all evidence to the contrary. They apparently consider the ability to work and support a family, or gain formal education, as something that is to be granted or taken away, not a human right.

The Lancet was once a credible journal with a rigorous policy of peer review. However, in this article it appears to have dropped its former standards, promoting medical fascism (coercion, threat and division to achieve compliance with authority) without insisting on a rigorous evidence base to justify such an approach. This suggests an attempt to normalize such approaches in mainstream public health.

Past experience has shown us where fascism behind a façade of public health can lead. The sterilization campaigns aimed at coloured and low-income populations of the US Eugenicist era, and the extensions of similar programs under Nazism in 1930s and 1940s Europe, relied heavily on the normalization of such approaches.

Leading public health voices from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and other institutions championed a public health approach of sanitizing populations rather than environments, encouraging the idea of a tiered society where health ‘experts’ determine the rights and medical management of those deemed less worthy.

Avoiding the discomfort of evidence

The authors of this Lancet paper, ranging from academics and medical consultants to the daughter of a prominent politician, attempt to rewrite human rights in medicine as if precedent never existed. Their argument for coercion in mass vaccination recognizes that ‘vaccine mandates,’ whether issued by governments, employers or schools, all involve a loss of rights. No serious attempt is made to provide a medical justification for mass vaccination with a non-transmission-blocking vaccine.

The paper focuses on the premise that coercion, commonly considered a form of force, makes humans do things they would not otherwise do. Banning fellow humans from making their own health choices on pain of loss of normal participation in society has an impact on increasing vaccine uptake. This is hardly a revelation to any thinking human, but clearly important enough to justify publication in The Lancet.

The article links to evidence of vaccine mandates used for state school entry that show higher compliance when the right of religious and personal belief exemption is removed, or where onerous requirements for exemptions are put in place. Leaving ethical questions aside, the obvious lack of similarity between the authors’ predicate childhood vaccinations that block transmission and COVID-19 vaccines that have minimal impact on transmission, and may even promote it, is ignored. The one mandated adult vaccine predicate referenced in the article, the influenza vaccine, provides only a 2.5% reduction in pneumonia ‘when the (mandated) vaccine was well matched to circulating strains’ in the reference quoted.

When raising the sacking of non-vaccinated workers, the authors seem comfortable with the approach but coy in admitting its consequences. Their admission that “a few large US employers have terminated hundreds of workers for non-compliance references an article in Money magazine which actually paints a bleaker picture, characterizing it as a ‘great resignation.’

The authors will also have been aware of mass layoffs by large employers such as New York City (over 9,000 sacked or placed on leave), the US Department of Defense (DoD, which sacked 3,400), Kaiser Permanente (laid off 2,200), and the tens of thousands of staff lost from the UK care-home sector . Extrapolated across countries and society to actually provide credible data may have been too uncomfortable for the authors and Lancet editors.

High efficacy and safety are an obvious (though on their own, insufficient) prerequisite for any mandated product. This entire area of safety is dealt with by stating; “The current evidence on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in adults is sufficient to support mandates,” supported by a single study comparing vaccinated individuals 1-3 weeks and 3-6 weeks post-vaccination, revealing low levels of myocardial infarction, appendicitis and stroke.

The claim that “widespread administration in adults has quickly generated a large evidence base supporting the vaccines’ safety, including evidence from active surveillance studies” suggests that both the authors and The Lancet are unaware of the VAERS and Eudravigilance databases set up for exactly this purpose. No mention is made of growing data on myocarditis, menstrual irregularities, or the excess all-cause mortality and severe outcomes in vaccinated groups in the Pfizer randomised control trials on which the FDA emergency registration was based. Were The Lancet’s reviewers unaware of these sources?

The sole reference to vaccine efficacy discusses COVID-19 ventilated patient outcomes, It ignores the period to 14 days post-previous dose that Pfizer acknowledges can be associated with immune suppression. Fenton et al. have noted that classing a vaccinated person as unvaccinated in the first 14 days post-injection has profound impacts on vaccine effectiveness data.

Ignoring the awkwardness of reality

Post-infection immunity in the unvaccinated is a threat to arguments for mandates. The authors disingenuously state that “evidence suggests that the immunity produced by natural infection varies by individual, and that people with previous infection benefit from vaccination. New variants further undercut the case for adequacy of previous infection.

Two references are used here: one from a study in Qatar and the other a study from Kentucky. The Qatar study finds that “the protection of previous infection against hospitalization or death caused by reinfection appeared to be robust, regardless of variant,” whilst the Kentucky study found Covid reinfection was reduced by vaccination over a 2-month period in the months soon after vaccination, prior to the waning and then reversal of this protection as demonstrated in studies of longer duration elsewhere.

The vast breadth of evidence on relative effectiveness of post-infection immunity is ignored. Either the authors failed to read their references and are unaware of waning and of the vast literature on post-infection immunity, or they do not consider demonstration of efficacy important for coerced medical treatments.

In a previous era, or in a previously credible medical journal, an argument for coercion to support a medical procedure would have required very high standards of evidence of efficacy and safety. It is arguing for the abrogation of fundamental principles such as informed consent that are at the core of modern medical ethics. Failure to address well-known contrary data should prevent an article from even reaching the peer-review stage.

Degrading public health degrades society

We are left with a paper stating that coercion is a good path to increase compliance for a product that does not reduce community infection risk, and has potentially serious side effects. Ignoring both of these aspects of COVID-19 vaccines is a poor approach to justifying mass vaccination. The sole nod to any human rights concern – “Some objectors argue mandates represent undue encroachment on individual liberty” – is an interesting way to characterize removal of the right to income, education and the ability to socialize with others.

Although all these rights are recognized under the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, the authors and The Lancet consider them insufficiently serious to dwell upon.

Public health has been down this road before. We have seen the path society takes when basic public health principles are subverted to achieve an aim that some perceive as ‘good.’ We have also seen how most health professionals will comply, however horrific the actions involved. There is no reason to believe that this round of medical fascism will end differently.

We rely on medical journals such as The Lancet to apply at least the same standards to the purveyors of such doctrines as they do to others and demand a rational and honest evidence base. Anything less would raise legitimate questions as to the role the journal is taking in promoting these doctrines, and their place in a free, evidence-based and rights-respecting society.

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is the former Program Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Domini Gordon is Open Science and Open Society Coordinator at Panda.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Pharma’s Criminal Business Model — and How the U.S. Government Benefits From It

The Defender | September 9, 2022

In early September, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that pharma giant Bayer would have to fork over millions to the DOJ to resolve allegations of fraud under the False Claims Act (FCA).

The False Claims Act, which enables civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government, dates back to the 19th century and Civil-War-era defense contractor fraud — but in modern times, healthcare fraud is the “top driver of FCA activity, both in the number of cases filed and total dollars recovered.”

In fiscal year 2021 — a year in which medicine and pharma went to town with demonstrably murderous COVID-19 hospital protocols and vaccines — the act brought in $5.6-plus billion, the second largest annual total in the FCA’s history.

Eighty-nine percent of those settlements and judgments were related to “drug and medical device manufacturers, managed care providers, hospitals, pharmacies, hospice organizations, laboratories and physicians.”

And, though the total amounts were smaller in the three preceding years — fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018 — healthcare-related cases still predominated, accounting for 86% to 87% of settlements and judgments.

In 2016, and again in 2019, the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen zeroed in on “ongoing, systematic wrongdoing” by the pharmaceutical industry, analyzing up to 27 years (1991-2017) of criminal and civil penalties paid to the federal or state governments, whether via the FCA or other mechanisms.

The top two types of violations were drug-pricing fraud and unlawful or deceptive marketing. But the reports also described practices such as kickbacks, patent manipulation, corporate collusion, data concealment, sale of contaminated or adulterated products, accounting and tax fraud, insider trading and distribution of unapproved drugs.

In 2020, academic authors published a similar analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reporting that 22 of 26 Global 500 or Fortune 1000 pharmaceutical firms had paid state or federal penalties for illegal activities between 2003-2016, with all but one firm engaging in the illegalities “for 4 or more years.”

The authors speculated that the four companies not documented as paying penalties could be more ethical or, conversely, might harbor “an ability for illegal activity to be undetected.”

All of these reports support the conclusion of Marc Rodwin — a Suffolk University Law School professor and expert on health law, policy and ethics — who wrote in a 2015 legal paper that the pharmaceutical industry’s “wide-scale” misconduct “risks slipping into the banalities of ordinary business practices.”

Bayer’s drop in the bucket

Bayer’s just-announced $40-million DOJ settlement, which responds to whistleblower lawsuits initiated nearly two decades ago, represents a drop in the bucket compared to the company’s $48.9-billion earnings for 2021.

The Germany-headquartered company, the world’s sixth-largest pharmaceutical juggernaut, is engaged in an ongoing biotech “investment spree” that has enabled positive financial results despite the current legal headaches associated with its ownership of Monsanto.

Violation Tracker, a database covering corporate misconduct from the year 2000 on, displays 155 results for Bayer and its subsidiaries over the past two decades, listing penalties such as drug and medical equipment safety violations, FCA offenses and various other forms of fraud.

The company’s “history of malfeasance” extends much further back, however, featuring its marketing of heroin as a top-selling children’s cough syrup in the early 20th century; the sale of lethal chemical weapons during WWI in violation of chemical warfare treaties; collaboration, as part of the IG Farben conglomerate, with Nazi medical experiments during WWII; knowingly marketing tainted blood products in the 1970s and 1980s; and, for 16 years, promoting a now-recalled birth control device — the focus of nearly 20,000 lawsuits — that routinely perforated women’s internal organs.

The long-running lawsuits that led to the latest settlement alleged Bayer paid kickbacks to hospitals and physicians to promote three drugs: a cholesterol drug recalled in 2001 after being linked to “significantly more fatal cases than its competitors,” a potent antibiotic associated with a wide range of serious or fatal adverse reactions and a kidney-toxic heart surgery drug approved in 1993 and belatedly recalled in 2007, after killing an estimated 22,000 bypass patients.

The whistleblower also alleged drug marketing “for off-label uses that were not reasonable and necessary” and significant downplaying of the two recalled drugs’ safety risks.

Though Bayer withdrew both drugs for “safety reasons,” its settlement admits no wrongdoing.

Top offenders since the early 1990s

In 1986, Congress amended the False Claims Act, significantly expanding its scope and “breath[ing] new life into what has now become the government’s primary enforcement tool against fraud.”

However, that same year President Ronald Reagan signed into law the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, a piece of legislation that decimated incentives to make vaccines safe by furnishing manufacturers with blanket immunity from liability for vaccine injuries.

The lifting of those legal constraints catapulted vaccines from a “neglected corner of the drugs business” into a major driver of pharmaceutical industry profits.

Public Citizen’s 1991-and-on analyses of settlements indicate these manufacturers also felt emboldened to engage in lawless — and recidivist — behavior even for drugs not enjoying liability protections.

According to Violation Tracker, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Merck and Pfizer are the top three companies in terms of total penalties paid, with the latter two also accounting for the largest numbers of violations.

Among Pfizer’s penalties was a 2009 settlement for $2.3 billion — the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the DOJ’s history.

Merck and Pfizer happen to be two of the “big four” companies providing the vaccines on America’s childhood vaccine schedule, and J&J and Pfizer are responsible for two of the four COVID-19 shots authorized for U.S. use.

In 2021, Pfizer became the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, by revenue, thanks to its COVID-19 shots, also liability-free, and its Paxlovid drug. Together, Paxlovid and the vaccines accounted for almost half of operational revenues.

“Durable Covid-19 revenues” are fueling Pfizer’s expectation that it will remain a “growth company.”

Cui bono?

Although pharmaceutical industry kickbacks to hospitals and physicians are among the bad behaviors openly acknowledged to lead to settlements or judgments, few experts discuss, even indirectly, the fact that the penalties themselves function as a form of federal kickback.

Law professor Rodwin discreetly alluded to this in his 2015 paper when speculating as to “why prosecutors rarely use the strongest sanctions in their arsenal.” Rodwin hypothesized that it might be because they “prefer to seek monetary penalties to support their budgets.”

According to Violation Tracker, pharmaceutical penalties since 2000 have enriched federal (and state) coffers to the tune of over $87 billion.

Curiously, Public Citizen’s two reports showed a sudden drop in 2013 and 2014 in the number and size of settlements, with federal criminal penalties “nearly disappearing” by 2017.

Eager to counteract any perception of declining enforcement, a publication called FCA Insider proclaimed in early 2021 the DOJ’s “years-long effort … to be more proactive in combatting fraud,” optimistically suggesting that “sophisticated data mining tools” were going to help the nation’s top law enforcer achieve increased fraud-related recoveries.

An honest look at history shows, however, that far more often than not, the DOJ — and regulatory agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — have been pharma’s biased partners in crime rather than its antagonists.

Examples of the phony and selective zeal for justice include the alleged fraud perpetrated by DOJ lawyers intent on denying compensation to thousands of National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program petitioners, and, more recently, Pfizer’s astonishing argument that a COVID-19-vaccine-related whistleblower lawsuit against it should be dismissed “because the U.S. government knew about the wrongdoings but continued to do business with the vaccine maker.”

And from the pharmaceutical industry’s perspective, handing over an $87-billion cut to the feds to grease the skids appears to be an acceptable price to pay.

As Public Citizen noted a few years ago, pharma penalties over the 1991-2017 period represented a paltry 5% of the 11 largest global drug companies’ net profits “during just 10 of those 27 years,” amounting to little more than a slap on the wrist.

Emphasizing the “stark imbalance” between penalties and profits, the consumer group concluded that without more sincere and active enforcement — including prosecution and jail sentences for executives overseeing systemic fraud — “illegal but profitable activities will continue to be part of [pharmaceutical] companies’ business model.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Simone Gold, Fighter for Medical Freedom

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | September 10, 2022

Simone Gold is a fighter for medical freedom. Many Americans first learned of her when in July of 2020 Gold, who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, spoke along with other doctors at a Washington, DC press conference. The doctors challenged the coronavirus party line that had been pushed relentlessly in America over the preceding few months. That press conference, at which Gold spoke first among the doctors and served as the master of ceremonies, was a refreshing breakthrough of the voice of dissident doctors challenging the coronavirus crackdown and the accompanying propaganda campaign.

Gold and her organization continued fighting for medical freedom and against extreme coronavirus crackdown measures since. Among other things, America’s Frontline Doctors came out in opposition early on to the heavily pushed by politicians and media insistence that the experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots were safe and effective and something everyone should take. The organization also helped people obtain early treatment for coronavirus so they could avoid serious sickness. Meanwhile, the coronavirus scare propagandists said there was nothing to do but wait until sickness becomes so bad that hospital admission is required.

On Friday, Gold was released from prison. Her crime? None. It was just a misdemeanor for, as reported in the Washington Times, “entering and remaining in a restricted building.” Yet, the building was the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, so the full force of the US government was employed to cause the great harm to Gold and many other people who walked into that building and did nothing destructive.

While in the building, the Washington Times notes that Gold “gave a speech in Statuary Hall about her opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates and government-imposed lockdowns.” Ordinary people would not find her doing this worrisome. But, for the Biden administration devoted to coronavirus tyranny it is downright threatening.

In addition to her 60 days prison sentence, the Washington Times article reports that Gold was punished with a 9,500 dollars fine and 12 months of supervised release starting after her time in prison. Gold is among the many victims of a very harsh crackdown on people presented as opponents of President Joe Biden and repeatedly, though farcically, painted as taking part in an “insurrection” on January 6 of last year.

Here’s to Gold returning to her work fighting for medical freedom. We can use her help.

Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Prosecuting Trump

By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | September 6, 2022

What would you do if you were Merrick Garland? Would you prosecute Trump? Or would you walk away, concerned about accusations you and the FBI were playing politics?

Step One appears easy, put off any decision until after the midterms. Trump is not a candidate, key issues driving the midterms (inflation, Ukraine, Roe) are not his issues and though Trump is actively stumping for many candidates, initiating any prosecution before the midterms is just too obvious. Nothing else about Mar-a-Lago has had an urgency to it (months passed from the initial voluntary turnover of documents and the forced search) and announcing an indictment now would be a terrible opening move. So if you’re Garland, you have some time.

On the other hand waiting until after the midterms can be dangerous if as expected the Republicans do well and take both the House and the Senate. Even with slim majorities Republicans are expected to initiate their own hearings, into Hunter Biden’s laptop and how the FBI played politics with that ahead of the 2020 election. Holding off an indictment until that is underway risks making your case look like retaliation for their case. That’s a bad look for a Department of Justice which claims it is not playing politics. It would look even worse if the Republicans try and cut you off, opening some sort of hearings into the Mar-a-Lago search prior to an indictment. Nope, if you’re Merrick Garland you are caught between a rock and a hard place.

But there is a bigger question: if you are Garland and you indict Trump, can you win? Candidate Trump is already earning a lot of partisan points claiming he is the victim of banana republic politics, and his indictment ahead of 2024 (it matters zero if he has formally announced or not, he is running of course) will allow him to claim he was right all along. An indictment will allow Trump to fire both barrels, one aimed at Garland and the other at the FBI and these, coupled with the dirty tricks a Republican investigation into the FBI and Russiagate will expose will make Trump look very right. He was the victim of partisan use of justice, and the FBI did try to influence both the 2016 election (with Russiagate) and the 2020 (by deep-sixing Hunter Biden’s laptop claiming falsely it was Russian misinformation) and now is taking a swing at 2024 with the Mar-a-Lago documents. If public opinion moves further to Trump’s side, Merrick Garland through his indictment just reelected Trump to the White House as a sympathy candidate. The spooks call that blowback, and it is a real threat in this instance.

Any action against Trump must preserve what is left of faith in the rule of law applied without fear or favor, or risk civil disenfranchisement if not outright civil unrest. Garland will have to address the most obvious precedent case involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who maintained an unsecured private email server which processed classified material. Her server held e-mail chains classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level which included the names of CIA and NSA employees. The FBI found classified intelligence improperly stored on Clinton’s server “was compromised by unauthorized individuals, to include foreign governments or intelligence services, via cyber intrusion or other means.” Clinton and her team destroyed tens of thousands of emails, potential evidence, as well as physical phones and Blackberries which potentially held evidence. She operated the server out of her home kitchen despite the presence of the Secret Service on property who failed to report it. Her purpose in doing all this appeared to have been avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests during her tenure as SecState, and maintaining control over what records became part of the historical archive post-tenure.

Clinton seems to have violated all three statues Trump was searched under. If the FBI is going to take similar fact sets and ignore one while aggressively pursuing another, it risks being seen as partial and political. Any further action against Trump and certainly any prosecution of him must address why Hillary was not searched and prosecuted herself. Fair is fair, and after all nobody is above the law.

The other fear holding Garland back would be that of losing the case outright in court. Classified documents are typically dealt with either via administrative penalties (an officer is sent home for a few days without pay) or as part of some much larger espionage case where the documents were removed illegally as part of the subject spying for a foreign country. Rarely is a case brought all the way to court for simple possession. Most of the laws Trump may have broken require some sort of intent to harm the United States. In other words, Trump would have had to have taken the documents not just for ego or his library or as some uber-souveniers but with the specific intent to commit harm against the United States. Garland certainly does not have that.

Other factors which typically play into documents cases are also not in Garland’s favor. Despite not being kept in line with General Services Administration standards, the documents appear to have been locked away securely at Mar-a-Lago, the premises itself guarded by the Secret Service. Trump has already turned over surveillance video of the documents storage location, which presumably does not show foreign agents wandering in and out of frame. It is much harder to prosecute a case when no actual harm was shown done to national security.

Another factor in documents cases involves the content of the documents themselves. The uninformed press has made much of the classification markings, but Garland will need to show the actual content of the docs was damaging to the U.S., and that Trump knew that. Overclassification will play a role, as will the age and importance of the information itself; after all, it is that information which is classified, not the piece of paper itself marked Secret. Garland will know Trump will fight him page by page, meaning much of the classified will be exposed in court and/or the trial will move to classified sessions to shield the information but feed the conspiracy machine. One can hear Trump arguing his right to a public trial being taken away.

Hyperbole aside, the critical question returns to whether or not prosecutors could prove specific intent on Trump’s part for the more serious charges. Proving a state of guilty mind — mens rea — would be the crux of any actual prosecution based on the Mar-a-Lago documents. What was Trump thinking at the time, in other words, did he have specific intent to injure the United States or to obstruct some investigation he would have had to have known about? Without knowing the exact nature of the documents this is a tough prediction but even with the documents on display in front of us proving to a court’s satisfaction what Trump wanted to do by keeping the documents would require coworkers and colleagues to testify to what Trump himself had said at the time, and that is unlikely to happen. It is thus unlikely based on what we know at present that Trump would go to jail for any of this.

Take for example the charges of tax evasion now levied again the Trump Organization (i.e., not Trump personally and not part of the Mar-a-Lago case.) Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, as part of a plea deal, will testify against the Organization but not Trump himself as to why the Organization paid certain compensation in the form of things like school tuitions, cars, and the like, all outside the tax system. It will be a bad day for the Organization but loyal to the end, Weisselberg will not testify as to his boss’ mens rea. It is equally unclear who would be both competent and willing to do so against President of the United States Trump. Blue Check enthusiasm aside, he won’t go to jail over this.

The final questions are probably the most important: DOJ knows what the law says. If knowing the chances of a serious conviction are slight, why would the Justice Department take the Mar-a-Lago case to court? Then again, if knowing the chances for a serious conviction are slight, why would the FBI execute a high-profile search warrant in the first place? To gather evidence unlikely ever to be used? No one is above the law, but that includes politics not trumping clean jurisprudence as well.

And then what? If Garland successfully navigates the politics, if he proves his case in court, and if he secures some sort of conviction against Trump which withstands the inevitable appeal, then what? Trump’s Mar-a-Lago “crimes” are relatively minor. Could Garland call Trump having to do some sort of community service during the 2024 campaign a win? Pay a fine? It seems petty. It sure seems Trump wins politically big-picture whether he wins or loses at Mar-a-Lago. If you were Merrick Garland, what would you do?

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Predator spyware rivals NSO’s Pegasus

MEMO | September 10, 2022

The US and the Israeli Ministry of Public Security have imposed restrictions and sanctions on Israeli spyware company NSO. It was placed on the US blacklist, resulting in a decline in its deals and income.

However, it wasn’t the politicians, opposition activists and journalists who were spied on who benefitted from these restrictions, but rather another cyber-attacker Tal Dilian, a former combat fighter in an elite Special Operations Unit of the Intelligence Corps in the Israeli army and held a senior position in the Israeli Military Intelligence Division “Aman”.

One of the spyware companies that Dilian founded is Intelexa, which developed the Predator software. Dillian focused on selling this spyware programme to countries where the Israeli Defence Ministry does not issue permits to export cyber-attack software, such as Bangladesh, Sudan and Ukraine, according to a report in Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published on Friday.

Unlike cyber-attack companies registered and operating in Israel, which are subject to the supervision of the Security Export Supervision Division in the Ministry of Defence, Dilian believes he is not under the Ministry of Security’s supervision and can supply his goods to any country or entity.

About a year ago, the phone of Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was behaving oddly, as his battery began to die quickly and phone calls were being disconnected. The journalist, who criticised the Greek prime minister’s economic policy, became suspicious that he was being watched. A month later, a Canadian cyber security research institute, Citizen Lab, discovered that the Predator programme had hacked Koukakis’ phone.

It was also found, following the formation of a commission of inquiry into the matter by the European Parliament and after examining 200 of its members’ phones, that an unsuccessful attempt had been made to hack the phone of the head of the Greek opposition, Nikos Androulakis, which caused a scandal described as the “Greek Watergate”.

Citizen Lab published a report last December confirming that two Egyptian dissidents in exile, politician Ayman Nour and a popular programme host who wishes to remain anonymous, had been hacked by the Predator spyware.

The newspaper added that investigations into the Greek scandal revealed the source of the Predator programme as Israel. Several weeks ago, members of the investigation commission set up by the European Union secretly visited Israel and met with officials in the Ministries of Justice and Public Security, as well as with Director General and founder of NSO Shalev Julio. The investigation committee announced that it had not found evidence linking Pegasus to a spying scandal in Spain.

While the US and Israeli authorities imposed sanctions and restrictions on Israeli cyber companies, an official in the Israeli cyber intelligence company Verint, Sam Rabin, resigned to appoint the deputy general manager of Intelexa, based in North Macedonia. However, most of its employees and director, as well as the hackers, are individuals dismissed from Israeli intelligence services. Dilian held the rank of colonel in the Israeli army and was the commander of the 81st Technological Unit and a senior officer in the army’s special operations unit.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden extends 9/11 emergency

Samizdat | September 10, 2022

US President Joe Biden has renewed the national emergency declared by former president George W. Bush in the days following the events of September 11, 2001 for another year.

The “terrorist threat” behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people “continues,” Biden wrote in a Thursday memo published in the Federal Register, adding that the “powers and authorities adopted to deal with” the attacks “must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2022.”

The 9/11 emergency declaration is just one of several Biden has extended this week alone. Also on Thursday, the president prolonged a national emergency he had declared the previous year regarding sectarian violence and human rights abuses in Ethiopia, while on Tuesday he announced the renewal of an emergency declared by his predecessor Donald Trump in 2018 regarding the threat of “foreign interference in or undermining public confidence in” US elections.

Biden has declared at least six national emergencies since taking office in January 2021 and extended several more, including the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. The National Emergencies Act endows the president with over 136 powers, most of which do not require congressional approval to wield. Since its passage in 1976, more than 60 national emergencies have been declared, with only about half of them officially concluded.

The president has largely abandoned predecessors’ focus on external terrorist threats like the al-Qaeda hijackers held responsible for 9/11, opting to focus attention instead on domestic terrorism, which the FBI has declared to be the primary threat facing the nation.

September 10, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

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