In future, it will no longer be enough for the EU to censor and silence undesirable alternative media only in its own area of responsibility. The EU also wants to fight unwelcome opinions and competing media in the rest of the world.
To this end, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has announced that he intends to use alleged “disinformation experts” in EU offices around the world. Their task would be fighting Russian and Chinese spreaders of alleged “fake news”.
Borrell announced the deployment of official censors to this end: “All our delegations will be equipped with experts in countering disinformation in many parts of the world so that our voice is better heard.”
A particular thorn in the side of the EU is the Russian and Chinese media and their multipliers, for example on platforms such as Telegram.
More international solidarity with allies is also required here, said Borrell. “We need to address this issue politically at the highest level.” The EU and like-minded partners should create their own way of sharing data and analysis of foreign disinformation campaigns, but also work more with authorities around the world to ban competing voices.
Borrell did not give any specific information about what this should look like in the future and how the EU broadcasters should act against “fake news”. So far, the EU has not come up with anything other than censorship when it comes to unwanted competition but that could be difficult in foreign countries.
From the point of view of Borrell and the EU authorities there is no reason whatsoever to doubt the official narrative, and every expressed doubt will now be given a new label: “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference”, abbreviated FIMI.
The unelected preach ‘democracy’
The EU Commission is not a democratic structure, its members are appointed, not elected, and most of them lack any understanding of democracy. EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell could virtually serve as Exhibit A.
Not long ago, Ursula von der Leyen deleted her mobile phone communication with Pfizer about the purchase of millions of doses of a pharmaceutical preparation and while it raises the suspicion of corruption, this could be presented as FIMI simply because it was also reported by a Russian broadcaster.
Borrell’s grasp of the English language is at least as bad as that of Ursula von der Leyen’s. Yet both insist on proposing these far-reaching measures in English, no longer an EU language. Do they understand the subtleties of their proposal?
Ignoring facts
The Chinese state media, according to the EU report, “have reinforced selected pro-Kremlin conspiracy narratives, for example about alleged US military biorepositories in Ukraine”.
This is a clear example of how to dispose of truth or factual information as a criterion. These labs are not only found as budget items listed in the US defence budget (a document over which the Kremlin presumably exercises no control), but individual collaborations, such as the research projects of the Bernhard Nocht Institute or the Friedrich Löffler Institute with these Ukrainian labs, can also be found on their websites, as well as the financier of these projects, the German Ministry of Defence.
It must therefore be stated that these laboratories existed, that they were financed from the military budget and that the research was carried out on behalf of the military, and not only on behalf of the US. Nevertheless, the EU has declared the very existence of the labs to be a “conspiracy narrative”.
In connection with protests under the title #StopKillingDonbass, the EU report stated that it was “falsely claimed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine and ‘paramilitary units of neo-Nazis’ were committing atrocities against civilians, including children” while the Soros NGO Human Rights Watch recently actually admitted that Ukraine had distributed butterfly mines in Donetsk, an outlawed munition in residential areas.
According to their rationale, any “disinformation” accusation by FIMI does not have to take into account whether the statement is true, but only that it contradicts the EU narrative.
Therefore, the report noted: “The information disseminated by these networks does not have to be provably false or misleading to constitute a FIMI incident, which FIMI applies more broadly than the classic definition of disinformation.”
The US has turned to Islamist extremists to plan terrorist attacks in Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, Moscow’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said on Monday. A group is being trained at a base in Syria for the purpose, the agency claimed.
“The US military is actively recruiting militants from jihadist groups affiliated with Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS] and Al-Qaeda to commit terrorist attacks in Russia and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS],” the SVR stated, citing “credible reports.”
Established after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIS incorporates some of its former republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
According to the SVR, the US has enlisted 60 terrorists who have already been active in the Middle East. They are undergoing training at the Al-Tanf American military base in Syria, where they are learning how to manufacture and use improvised explosive devices, it added.
“Particular attention is paid to planning attacks on well-protected facilities, including foreign diplomatic missions,” the agency stated. It added that Washington is aiming to “deploy the militants as part of small groups to the territory of Russia and the CIS states in near future.” They will then target “diplomats, public officials, law enforcement officers, and military personnel,” the SVR claimed.
“We see that US security agencies have lost all moral principles… Obsessed with the crazy idea of ‘bleeding Russia dry’, Washington strategists presume it is acceptable to directly use terrorists for their dirty purposes,” the agency said. It asserted that “such actions put Washington on a par with the largest international terrorist groups.”
In December, SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin claimed that the White House was pursuing policies to create an “instability belt along Russia’s external perimeter.” Naryshkin had previously stated that the security services in Russia and CIS countries have the common goal of “counteracting Western countries’ destructive actions on the territory of our states.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was treated like a hero when visiting Brussels on February 9. Although he received endless adulation, his lobbying to EU leaders for further military support mostly fell on deaf ears despite making an impassioned, but disingenuous plea that Ukraine is defending Europe’s eastern borders.
Zelensky visited London and Paris on his second foreign trip since the war began almost a year ago and hoped to secure modern fighter jets and long-range missiles. He then brought his circus show to Brussels to address EU leaders and MEPs directly. Unsurprisingly, Zelensky received cheers and a standing ovation in the European Parliament, yet, made no progress in convincing Brussels to allow Ukraine an express membership into the EU.
“We are defending against the most anti-European force of the modern world — we are defending ourselves, we Ukrainians on the battlefield, along with you,” Zelensky told MEPs.
However, despite the contradictory rhetoric emanating from European leaders, they are also fully aware that Russia will never attack without provocation. It is for this reason that they can make a show for Zelensky in Brussels, but will never commit to the extent that Kiev demands.
Although French President Emmanuel Macron awarded Zelensky with the National Order of the Legion of Honour, he also made it clear that he would not supply fighter jets to Kiev in the near future. Even though Zelensky has forced the supply of fighter jets into discourse, European leaders, including Macron, are less than enthusiastic as they are fully aware it would take several years to train Ukrainian pilots to be competent enough with an unfamiliar fighter jet to have any chance against the Russian Air Force. In addition, they understand that Russia will respond appropriately too.
Ignoring this reality, European Parliamentary speaker Roberta Metsola, declared: “Ukraine is Europe and your nation’s future is in the European Union. States must consider, quickly, as a next step, providing long-range systems and the jets you need to protect the liberty too many have taken for granted.”
Unfortunately for the European Parliament, they wield very little influence on state policies and enforcing support for Ukraine. Rather, with Zelensky seen in Western European capitals begging for more weapons, the whole exercise is a tasteless theatre to discuss supposed value systems – values that tolerate rampant neo-Nazism in Ukraine.
In this way, Zelensky is nothing more than an actor in a show to present supposed European unity on Ukraine. The uncomfortable truth is that unity in the Western world is forced and mostly just exists at a political level. With support for Ukraine being mostly maintained by the political class, public dissatisfaction caused by economic difficulties from the sanctions against Russia is growing.
With dissatisfaction growing, Macron is desperately wanting the war to end and for a peace conference to be held – but on terms that do not correspond to the realities on the battlefield and with aims of making Russia the ultimate loser.
At the trilateral meeting held on February 8 in the Elysée Palace with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Zelensky, Macron presented a proposal for organising a peace conference but, as said, on terms where Russia is the ultimate loser. Macron sees Kiev’s ten-point plan as a “solid foundation on the way to a peace conference” despite confirmation that Kiev is categorically refusing to negotiate on Russia’s unification with Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson.
In addition, a peace conference can only occur if Washington and London agree to one since they are the real masters behind the war. Although Macron has grandiose illusions of becoming a second Charles de Gaulle to lead an “autonomous Europe,” his endless failed attempts to form a European Army and the cancellation of military contracts with Australia shows that he is far from the global and historic figure that he wants to be remembered as. It also demonstrates that Western power is still firmly in Anglo hands.
Rather, Macron’s initiative is media propaganda because the two most powerful states in the EU, France and Germany, want to legitimise themselves in the media as contributors to the peace process. It cannot be forgotten that France and Germany already mediated the signing of the Minsk Accords and that former German chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that the aforementioned agreements allowed the Ukrainian military to become stronger as it bought time.
Therefore, French and German mediation in the current crisis cannot be trusted, and for this reason it is unlikely that Moscow will ever entertain a peace conference under such ludicrous terms. It was French and German inaction in enforcing the Minsk Accords that led to the current conflict, and now that Russia has acted on the only option that was left available, Macron has the audacity to request a peace conference on the terms that Russia backs away from all the progress it made.
As this is unrealistic, the song and dance must continue, and Zelensky will continue playing the part. But in the end, the level of support that Zelensky wants is evidently not coming to fruition, and will likely remain this way, rendering his tour of Europe to be mostly useless.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
The American Medical Association (AMA) urges physicians to promote COVID-19 vaccines and bivalent boosters. The AMA even supplies members with social media talking points and strategies to deal with vaccine detractors. It is not the first time that my profession has endorsed a product that may be hazardous to your health.
For most of the 20th century, the AMA turned a blind eye toward the dangers of tobacco use. During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, tobacco companies paid handsomely to advertise cigarettes in AMA’s journal, JAMA. In a 1948 editorial minimizing the ill effects of smoking and justifying tobacco advertising in its publications, JAMA noted that “cigarette business is a tremendous business,” as if the size of the bottom line can mitigate a conflict for an organization founded for the “betterment of public health.”
The connection between smoking and lung cancer was recognized early in the century. At the same time, the AMA became increasingly dependent on money generated by tobacco sales. Tobacco companies sponsored meetings of medical societies, setting up their booths alongside exhibitions of the latest medical treatments. Free cartons were distributed at physician meetings. Cigarette makers even paid for publication of pseudoscientific reports claiming the health benefits of their products.
Doctors who opposed smoking faced ridicule from their colleagues. Dr. Alton Ochsner, a renowned surgeon and sentinel voice warning of the dangers of tobacco, began publishing on the connection between smoking and lung cancer in the early 1940s. His 1954 book Smoking and Cancer: A Doctor’s Report was negatively reviewed in prominent medical journals, characterized as a medieval model of logic that belongs in the nonscience section of a library. Prior to his appearance on Meet the Press, Dr. Ochsner was told he could not discuss the relationship between smoking and lung cancer on air.
Yet the mounting evidence was hard to ignore. In 1954, JAMA stopped accepting cigarette advertisements and published an editorial rebuking tobacco company advertising practices. But five years later, a JAMA editorial was still skeptical of the evidence linking smoking to cancer, and a 1961 Nebraska State Medical Journal editorial dismissed the evidence as merely “statistical.” Tobacco companies continued to sponsor state medical meetings as late as 1969. By then most people were aware of the dangers of smoking.
In 1964, the Surgeon General concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other life-limiting health conditions. The next year, a warning label was required on packages of cigarettes. By 1971, the government banned cigarette advertisements on television and radio. Instead of taking the lead against an obvious threat to public health, the AMA asked for time and money to study the effects of tobacco.
Between 1964 and 1976, the AMA received more than $20 million from the tobacco industry to fund research. Instead of using the money for smoking cessation programs, many of the funded studies focused on ways to make a safer cigarette. To keep money flowing into its Education and Research Foundation the AMA delayed, stating in a confidential 1971 report that, “AMA is not prepared to make any statement regarding termination of the smoking-health research program.” The report went on to complain that tobacco companies are “in arrears on 1970 contributions.” The dependency on tobacco money created a political alliance between doctors and cigarette makers as their lobbyists joined forces in Washington.
The delay benefitted tobacco sales and maintained the AMA’s “research” payments, but it angered Dr. Ochsner, who accused the AMA of being derelict. The AMA called Dr. Ochsner’s position “extreme.” But name-calling could not stall the inevitable conclusion any longer. In 1978 the AMA finally agreed with what most people had already realized: smoking causes lung cancer, and many other health problems. The romance with big tobacco was over.
Or was it?
As late as 1982, JAMA publications were warned to steer clear of “politically sensitive” topics like tobacco use. After most of a century of being on the tobacco dole, the AMA could not make a clean break. The AMA portfolio contained investments in tobacco companies until the late 1990s.
In 1998, the tobacco industry settled lawsuits filed by state governments with a massive Master Settlement Agreement. In exchange for perpetual annual payments and tight regulatory control, the tobacco industry could continue to sell its products protected from future lawsuits brought by participating states and jurisdictions.
But who really benefitted from the Tobacco Settlement? Only 2.6 percent of the money has been used for smoking prevention and cessation programs. Some states have used the tobacco money to fill budget gaps. South Carolina gave money to tobacco farmers affected by a drop in prices. Altria Group, a global tobacco company, is on the US News & World Report 10 best-performing stocks list. Altria, Phillip Morris, and British American Tobacco have all grown annual dividends consecutively since the settlement. According to Dr. Ed Anselm, “The most addictive thing about tobacco is money.”
Tobacco use remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States. In the first fifty years after the Surgeon General’s 1964 report, more than 20 million Americans died of smoking. How many of these deaths would have been prevented if doctors had not been conflicted by financial entanglements with the tobacco industry?
The New York State Journal of Medicine published a retrospective of tobacco’s relationship to medicine in its December 1983 issue. Flipping through the pages is enlightening. Surrounding the articles describing the greed and politics of Big Tobacco are advertisements from medicine’s new love—Big Pharma. Doctors have exchanged one bedfellow for another.
By endorsing irrelevant COVID-19 vaccines and poorly tested bivalent boosters, the AMA is pushing a product without concern for its potential negative health effects. Like before, the medical profession lags behind public opinion. According to recent Rasmussen Reports, 7 percent of vaccinated individuals report a major side effect, and nearly half of Americans believe that COVID-19 vaccines have caused unexplained deaths, about the same proportion who believed that smoking caused cancer in the 1960s while the AMA was studying the issue.
A conflicted profession cannot honestly evaluate data. Nowadays, the pharmaceutical business is a tremendous business. An organization benefitting from product sales cannot be trusted to evaluate that product.
If doctors could not recognize the health dangers of tobacco for most of the last century, why should we trust them when they say novel vaccines are safe and effective?
Kevin Homer, MD has practiced anatomic and clinical pathology at a community hospital in Texas since 1994.
Eighteen senior former intelligence professionals have signed an ‘alert memorandum’ to President Biden warning him what will follow his decision to send Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
Calling themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, they informed him: ‘What your advisers should have told you is that none of the newly promised weaponry will stop Russia from defeating what’s left of the Ukrainian army. If you have been told otherwise, replace your intelligence and military advisers with competent professionals – the sooner the better.’
Two decades ago, before the US/UK attack on Iraq, some of the same signatories warned President George W Bush that ‘justification’ for such an attack was based on false intelligence. In their February 5, 2003 memorandum on Colin Powell’s speech, they alerted the then president to the unintended consequences of an attack on Iraq which were likely to be catastrophic. Then, as now, they urged the president to widen the circle of his advisers beyond those clearly bent on a war for which they saw no compelling reason. Five years later the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded: ‘In making the case for war, the [Bush] Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.’
The current Alert Memorandum goes on: ‘The issuances of your current intelligence advisers rival those of Bush’s and Cheney’s fixers in disingenuousness. Their statements run from dishonest to naïve. They betray a woeful lack of understanding of Russia’s strategic concerns and its determination to use its formidable military power to meet perceived external threats. The statements also reflect abysmal ignorance regarding how US behaviour has led willy-nilly to a profound shift in the world correlation of forces in favour of Russia and China – to include making them military allies in all but name.’
Even a casual observer of events in Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union is aware that Nato’s continuous eastwards push has been provocative because Vladimir Putin had made it abundantly clear that Nato expansion into Ukraine was a red line for Russia. Some will also know that in 2014 and 2015 Russia brokered two truces, called the Minsk Protocols I and II, in an attempt to end the slaughter of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by the AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine). These agreements were simply ignored. Fewer may know that on February 16, 2022, a week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the AFU began heavy bombardment of the area in Eastern Ukraine mainly occupied by ethnic Russians. Yet, just as the media echoed and reinforced the false claims of WMD in Iraq, so it pushes the myth that Putin launched an ‘unprovoked invasion’ of Ukraine.
Public opinion in the US is not totally fooled, however, as manifested by a new right-left coalition which is organising a protest march from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House next Sunday demanding ‘Not one more penny for war in Ukraine’.
The sponsoring organisations of this new movement are the People’s Party and the Libertarian Party. The former was formed in 2020, but the latter is the third-largest political party in the US by voter registration.
The key demands of the demonstration are:
· Not one more penny for war in Ukraine
The Democrats and Republicans have armed Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weapons and militarised aid. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
· Negotiate peace
The US government instigated the war in Ukraine with a coup of its democratically elected government in 2014, and sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
· Stop the war inflation
The US blew up the Russian gas pipeline to Europe to break up trade relations between Russia and Europe, starve the latter of energy and de-industrialise its countries.
· Disband Nato
Nato expansion to Russia’s border provoked the war in Ukraine. Nato is a warmongering relic of the Cold War. Disband it like the Warsaw Pact.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is going to make an official visit to China next week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.
Raisi’s planned visit will take place between February 14 and 16 and is at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the ministry announced in a statement on Sunday.
The three-day trip will, among other elements, include talks between Raisi and Xi, a joint meeting of the leaders with Iranian and Chinese businessmen, and the signing of cooperation documents between the delegations of the two countries, according to Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA.
Also reporting on the upcoming visit, US outlet Politico said that it’s “expected to deepen ties between the two political and economic partners that are opposed to the US-led Western domination of international affairs.”
Xi and Raisi last met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. During those talks, the Chinese leader insisted that consolidating their strategic partnership was a common choice for both Beijing and Tehran.
In December, Chinese Vice President Hu Chunhua visited Iran and met with Raisi, with both sides expressing eagerness to boost bilateral ties further.
China is Iran’s largest trading partner and the main buyer of its oil amid US sanctions on Tehran. According to Iranian data, its exports to China reached $12.6 billion in the last ten months. The country also bought $12.7 billion worth of Chinese goods during the period.
Last year, Iran was formally included into the SCO as a permanent member and also applied to join BRICS – the two international organizations in which China and Russia play a major role.
Wednesday, Congress held a hearing on Twitter’s censorship of The New York Post and its coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop. While House Republicans focused on issues like shadowbanning and government collusion with Big Tech, Rep. Jamie Raskin and other Democrats advocated for increased censorship from Silicon Valley companies.
Raskin argued that the committee would be better served focusing on “the real threats of massive Russian disinformation and white nationalist violent incitement on social media.”
Like the Biden Administration’s usurpation of the First Amendment, Raskin’s cohort’s goal is censorship and the accompanying augmentation of state power, not challenging the veracity of opponents’ arguments or claims.
In “Shouting Covid in a Crowded Theater,” I discuss how officials in the Biden Administration use wartime rhetorical strategies to slander dissidents. In doing so, they conflate dissent with threats to public safety to censor critics.
When discussing public health, the regime consistently uses labels of “misinformation” and “disinformation.” But the more we learn about government operations, the more it appears that these labels are references to inconvenience, not falsity.
This strategy extends beyond the country’s COVID response.
Wednesday morning, Seymour Hersh published “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 Pipelines exploded in September 2022. The Nord Stream 1 has delivered natural gas from Russia to Europe for over a decade, and Russia was developing the Nord Stream 2 at the time. Outlets like The New York Times called the explosions “a mystery.”
The sabotage presented a major energy crisis for the United States’ European allies. Europe imports nearly 40% of its gas from Russia, and the Nord Stream 1 was responsible for delivering approximately one third of that supply.
Now, Hersh reports that “the United States executed a covert sea operation” with Navy divers to sabotage Russia’s pipelines with explosives.
For a less obsequious press corps, this should have been an easy story to crack.
In the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Biden announced his intention to act against the pipelines in the event of war.
“If Russia invades… there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” he told reporters. “We will bring an end to it.”
“How will you do that exactly?” a reporter asked.
“I promise you we will be able to do it,” President Biden said with a slight smile.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland was equally as explicit.
“I want to be very clear to you today,” she told reporters in January 2022. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed “Anglo-Saxons” in the West for “terror attacks” on the pipelines. “Those who profit from it have done it,” Putin told the press.
President Biden chastised Putin’s accusation for “pumping out disinformation and lies.”
“Just don’t listen to what Putin’s saying,” Biden added. “What he’s saying we know is not true.”
White House National Security spokeswoman Adrienne Watson backed up Biden’s claim, referring to Putin’s accusation as “Russia’s disinformation.”
Russia’s U.N. ambassador also implied that the United States had been involved in the sabotage. Richard Mills, U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., responded by calling the claims “conspiracy theories and disinformation.”
Despite the Commander and Chief’s explicit announcement that he would take action against the Nord Stream pipeline, a credulous press corps has dutifully parotted government talking points that accusations of western involvement in the sabotage are “baseless”“misinformation,”“disinformation,” and “conspiracy theories.”
This all follows a similar pattern to the informational warfare of the Covid era: an inconvenient narrative arises, the government and lemmings in the media slander it as false and dangerous, and, months later, the dispute in question turns out to be true (or at least highly plausible).
Arguments over natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, masks, the lab leak hypothesis, school shutdowns, lockdowns, and the scientific basis of social distancing are just a few examples that followed this cycle of reporting.
This was the same pattern as The New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop. Now, at hearings to investigate corruption that implicated Big Tech, intelligence officials, and the federal government, Raskin and his cohorts return to their familiar censorship ploys.
For censors, augmentation of power, not truth, remains the chief objective. To achieve this goal, they conflate dissent with domestic terrorism.
For example, the Department of Homeland Security’s “National Terrorism Advisory Service” listed misinformation and disinformation as terrorism threats in February 2022. The memo identified these threats as efforts to “undermine public trust in government.”
Regarding both Covid and Ukraine, the most powerful forces in the country have repeatedly lied and misled the American public. They censor critics to protect their delicate narratives of fiction, and they attack others for the public’s waning trust in government.
Hersh’s article pierces through the hegemonic narrative; hopefully, exposing their lies and warmongering will disrupt their ploys for censorship and power.
William Spruance is a practicing attorney and a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. The ideas expressed in the article are entirely his own and not necessarily those of his employer.
After I won my landmark “quarantine camp” lawsuit against Governor Hochul and her Department of Health a few months ago, people from around the globe started reaching out to me. Some wanted to simply send congratulations on a job well done, and thank me for giving them hope that this tyranny that somehow magically took hold contemporanously in countries around the world, could be defeated.
But many others wanted more than that. They wanted actual help. They wanted to know how they could fight back against the intense tyranny in their countries. So, I started doing interviews and presentations to groups based in the UK, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. I shared with them my legal theory behind my case, the separation of powers argument, and all about my courageous plaintiffs (Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, Assemblyman [now Congressman] Mike Lawler, and a citizens’ group called Uniting NYS).
I told them about the other wonderful group of NYS Legislators that supported us with an Amicus Brief (Assemblymen Andy Goodell, Will Barclay and Joseph Giglio), and the battles that we fought and won along the way, as the Attorney General tried tactic after tactic to stall, derail and destroy our case. I shared all that I could with them in the hopes that it would assist them in their countries, as they pushed back against their government abuses.
At first I was taken aback by the response from those who reached out to me from abroad. It was hard for me to imagine that all those foreigners were watching our quarantine case so intently. Many told me they’d heard about it through “alternative media” sources, and had been quietly cheering me on and praying for a win. This made me realize that the utter helplessness brought on by the flagrant despotism of so many nations’ governments was eerily simultaneous – and equally frightening to all citizenry, no matter which country one called home.
Our quarantine camp lawsuit win against New York’s governor was almost akin to the proverbial shot heard around the world. Almost. Not quite. One big difference is that my lawsuit was (and still is today) heavily censored. Mainstream media barely covered it when we won, except for an article here and there in the New York Post and my interview on OAN Network. Epoch Times TV did a deep-dive interview with me on their wildly popular show, American Thought Leaders, but still yet, the Epoch Times is not legacy, mainstream media that continuously pours over the airwaves day in and day out.
Local and alternative media were covering it, but not mainstream media. I previously wrote an article about the censorship of my quarantine case which you can read here.
With my exposure to citizens from countries far and away, I was hearing tales of horrific happenings. Things that I simply could not believe governments would do their people, especially in countries that were supposedly “free”. And yet, here they were, telling me stories, sending me news articles or photos or actual video footage of atrocities I could not wrap my head around.
Some of the images are forever burned into my memory, no matter how hard I try to erase them. And at the end of each story that someone recanted, or each video that I watched, I thought to myself, “Thank God we won our quarantine camp lawsuit here in New York.”
I realized that we had not only stopped this complete totalitarianism from taking place in my home state, but we had likely stopped it from spreading across the nation to the point where quarantine camps would become the “new norm” as a way to (supposedly) stop the spread of a disease – or to punish someone the government didn’t like. (Remember, the languange in the reg we got struck down said the government did NOT have to prove you actually had a disease)! For more details on the reg and our lawsuit, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit
Through my connection with Brownstone Institute, I was introduced to a wonderful and brave Australian who had spent two weeks in a quarantine camp in northern Australia. Let’s refer to her as “Jane”. I share with you now her first hand account that she shared with me of what happened and what it was like, replete with photographs from inside the camp.
At the time Jane was in the camp, Dan Andrews was (and still is) the Premier in Australia. The country had very strict COVID19 policies, which Jane points out, were constantly changing. Literally, the government would change a policy whilst people were flying mid-air, and upon landing at their destination, they’d be arrested because they now suddenly were in violation of a new COVID policy just issued!
The rule at the time was that no Australian was allowed to leave their state, unless you had a “legitimate reason” to do so, and in order to actually leave, you had to first quarantine for 2 weeks. Not in your home. No, don’t be silly! You had to quarantine in a facility that was run by the government. Some people got to choose which facility, others did not. There was a large camp in the Northern Territory near Darwin, and then there were many quarantine hotels scattered throughout the country.
Reportedly, the quarantine hotels were a total nightmare where you were shut into a room for 2 weeks, no exiting your room, no going outdoors allowed, and some rooms didn’t even have windows! But living in Melbourne, a large city in southest Australia, was just as bad. The government would only let you out of your home for ONE HOUR/day, with a mask on, and you couldn’t stray more than 5 kilometers from your house. You not only couldn’t leave the city, you couldn’t leave the country!
Forget having anyone visit – no guests were allowed in your home. The government set up a hotline so that Australians could call and report any of their neighbors who were disobeying the COVID mandates. The police would often check on the citizens to see if they were complying. They’d phone you, and if you didn’t respond within 15 minutes, they’d come knock on your door! The camp where Jane was quarantined seemed almost like a holiday, comparatively speaking. Well, not really.
So how it worked was that, if you had family or friends or business in another state, you had to first go to a government facility to quarantine for 2 weeks. Again, only if you had what the government deemed to be a legitimate reason. Jane needed to leave Melbourne, so she packed up her bags, booked an absurdly expensive flight to the Northern Territory, and off she went to the quarantine camp in Darwin for 2 weeks. Did she go “voluntarily”, of her own free will? That’s a very fine line of semantics there folks. Yes, she herself booked her flight and packed her bags to go, but it was only because the government told her that was the only way she could leave Melbourne. I don’t consider that free will. I hope you share my view.
The quarantine camp:
The camp had rows of trailer-like buildings that housed the inmates – I mean the there-of-their-own-free-will Australians. Jane was put into a unit that had a bedroom and a bathroom. Each unit had a small front stoop, sort of like a porch (see photo below). You were allowed to sit outside and talk to a neighbor, through a face mask of course, if you could stand the sweltering heat. Police were constantly patroling the camp, walking past the trailers, ensuring everyone was complying with the “social distancing” requirements and the forced masking, etc.
You weren’t allowed to do anything other than sit on your front stoop, or walk “laps” through the camp… as long as you stayed the proper distance from others, wore your mask, and didn’t try to do anything else. There was a swimming pool, but you were only allowed a dip in the pool twice during your 2 week stint there, and that was only if you were going to do some laps… no games allowed!
The food was terrible. No alcohol allowed. Cell phones and internet were allowed, at least when Jane was there. She said one woman tried to escape, but she was caught and then put into solitary confinement.
Now, sit down for this next part. The government restricted you from leaving your town, your state, your country, forced you into quarantine hotels or a camp if you were able to convince them that you had a real reason to cross a state border, treated you like a criminal, and get this – YOU had to pay for it!! And it was not cheap. The price tag was $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family at the camp. The “hotels” apparently were more costly at $3,000 for the 2 weeks.
There were more details that Jane shared with me, but I cannot cover all here. At this point, I’m going to close out this story with a part of my conversation with Jane that really struck me. She could tell that I was flabbergasted by the things she was telling me. She could hear it in my voice, but also in the long pauses in between my questions after she would answer the litany of inquiries I was throwing at her.
My underlying astonishment was obvious… “How could your government do these things to its people?!”
Her response was immediate and direct, “We don’t have your Second Amendment. If we had, our government never would have treated us this way.”
Let that sink in for a minute.
Lawsuit update:
As I mentioned above, we defeated New York’s quarantine camp regulation when we won our lawsuit last July against Governor Hochul and her DOH. The Attorney General filed a notice of appeal, and had 6 months to appeal the win. Elections were November 8th. Not surprisingly, no appeal was filed, until…
The first week of January, just days before their 6 month deadline was up, the Attorney General asked for an additional 2 months to appeal our victory over quarantine camps! Unfortunately, the Court granted the request, despite our objection.
For more information about the case, the timeline, or if you’d like to support our lawsuit against the Governor and her quarantine camp regulation, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit
Together, we win this!
Bobbie Anne is an attorney with 25 years experience in the private sector, who continues to practice law but also lectures in her field of expertise – government over-reach and improper regulation and assessments.
The term ‘moral injury’ is a new one for me, as it probably is for most. It’s more commonly applied in a military context and only recently in health and social care, since 2020 to be precise. Indeed, the literature gently, knowingly or unknowingly, nudges us into believing that moral injury, reframed as occupational moral injury, isn’t a new concept but an inevitable consequence of working in an ethically challenging health and social care system.
Moral injury is understood as the damage done to an individual’s conscience or moral compass when they perpetrate, witness or fail to prevent acts that transgress their own moral beliefs, values or code of ethics. The term is thought to have originated after the Vietnam war when returning veterans and their carers struggled to make sense of high levels of anguish, anger and alienation that couldn’t be explained in terms of a mental health diagnosis such a post-traumatic stress disorder. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to understand why veterans were morally injured but the Moral Injury Project at Syracuse University in New York cites examples such as using deadly force in combat and inadvertently causing harm or death to civilians and colleagues, giving orders which result in the injury or death of colleagues, failing to provide medical aid to civilians or colleagues and failing to report incidents such as sexual assaults.
When lockdowns were implemented in 2020, the health and social care workforce faced insurmountable and intolerable challenges when it was deemed unsafe in many situations to have close contact with fellow human beings who were in need of assistance. In essence, a workforce who function on the need for human contact could endanger life by simply doing their job. Subsequently, care and support was withdrawn or compromised through almost non-existent face-to-face interactions or time limited, with minimal physical contact if they took place at all.
Moral injury therefore makes sense in the context of health and social care. Staff were forced to deny medical and compassionate care to the injured and dying, leave adults and children in risky situations which in some cases led to death and injury, isolate frail older people from the life-giving company of family and friends and ignore or dismiss situations that previously justified urgent attention; all done while hiding smiles and humanity behind useless and potentially dangerous masks.
Moral injury during the pandemic can surely be applied across most professions and indeed the population: the police officer investigating a peaceful family gathering, the funeral director separating distressed relatives, the religious leader closing the door of a place of worship or the teacher who forced children to wear masks for hours on end. There were also the children who isolated their parents and parents who isolated their children, neighbours and community groups who withdrew essential help and support, and friends and family who got angry or fell out with those they disagreed with. Emotions and tensions ran high, leading me to think that many of us are morally injured to some degree or another. Is it any wonder that so many are struggling with poor mental health?
The growing number of articles drawing attention to moral injury, the most significant in the BMJ in July 2020 and a reference point for further articles, all focus on reassuring staff that a conflict of morals and the potential for injury is a normal consequence of doing what was necessary to prevent illness and death from Covid-19. At no point are the logic and morality of the rules called into question, which is surprising because the Moral Injury Project makes reference to two other potential causes of moral injury that are not referred to in recent literature:
‘Following orders that were illegal, immoral, and/or against the Rules of Engagement or Geneva Convention’;
‘A change in belief about the necessity or justification for war, during or after one’s service’.
As the realisation slowly dawns on the world that the inhumane actions which staff were forced to take were in fact unnecessary and based on flawed concepts with no robust evidence base, are we facing a rising tide of the morally injured? All measures were applied in the absence of risk/benefit analysis, despite common knowledge that blanket approaches to managing risk are likely to cause more damage than the presenting problem. Yet the whole population was terrified into believing we were all at equal risk of severe illness or death from a lethal virus, to which we had no natural immunity and was quietly spread from those with no symptoms, especially children. Lockdowns, school closures, testing, mask wearing, social distancing, mass vaccination programmes and subsequent passports were said to be necessary but in reality were unjustified and immoral. Dismissing the question of the necessity and morality of these measures and normalising moral injury as a natural consequence of a warlike situation places accountability solely on those who enforced the polices and vindicates those who created them.
A morally injured workforce is evidence that the response to Covid-19 was morally wrong. None of us know how we would have behaved in the shoes of the workers who enforced immoral policies that contravened their conscience and moral compass. However, we can be sure of one thing: many of the injured will need support to come to terms with the realisation they have inadvertently played a part in injuring some of the very people they intended to protect.
The sub district court has ruled that the University of Groningen (RUG) may dismiss lecturer Tjeerd Andringa. An external investigation had been launched into the lecturer, alleging that he had used too many “one-sided alternative sources”.
Andringa was suspended early last year for allegedly spreading “conspiracy theories” at the university. The investigators argued that there was “an insufficient” safe learning environment in Andringa’s class.
The investigation committee “concluded that conspiracy theories played an inappropriate role in teaching”. The university subsequently decided to dismiss Andringa. He took the matter to court, but lost.
The kakistocracy
Andringa told students that “alternative media cover a lot more topics”. He also commented on their quality: “If you know how to find them, you will see that they are also of a much better quality.”
What are these so-called “conspiracy theories”? For example, he argued that intelligence agencies most likely organise sex parties with children to recruit new members for the kakistocracy, a form of government by the worst, least fit or unscrupulous citizens.
This, he said, is evidenced in part by the fact that intelligence agencies have close ties with terror groups and paedophile networks. “If you are looking for the most unscrupulous people, sex parties with children are an excellent selection mechanism.”
Attacks on their own populations
He also said he did not believe the official narrative about the September 11, 2001 attacks. “Just take Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, and yet collapsed. Twenty minutes before Building 7 collapsed, a BBC correspondent was already confirming it on TV, with the then still proudly erect building clearly visible in the background.”
He said in an interview with Novini that governments do often attack their own people in order to make their citizens fearful and docile. “What is certain is that secret organisations have carried out attacks on their own population. Operation Gladio is a clear example.”
Basing wars on lies, like the one against Iraq, he said, was typical of a kakistocracy.
Most citizens aren’t interested in such knowledge, however. “That’s because through the mainstream media they don’t come into contact with these kinds of ideas very much, if at all. People don’t want to know either. People who cannot criticise the system they are part of, cannot bear the thought of contributing to a kakistocracy.”
Speaking to radio Kossuth, Peter Szijjarto commented on recent remarks by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who pushed for fighter jets and long-range weapons to be sent to Kiev. According to the minister, EU lawmakers’ decisions on Ukraine “have generally caused damage to Europe,” and further weapons deliveries will only worsen the hostilities.
He went on to blast the EU legislature, claiming that its “credibility is practically zero.” Szijjarto pointed to a recent graft scandal as proof that the EU parliament is “one of the most corrupt organizations in the world.”
He was referring to the recent arrest of the parliament’s former vice president, Eva Kaili, who has been charged with taking bribes from Qatar in exchange for illegally lobbying the interests of the Gulf state.
Szijjarto noted that in Western countries, war rhetoric sounds “incomparably louder than the rhetoric of peace,” while nations outside “the transatlantic bubble” tend to prefer peace to a deadly conflict.
The minister went on to question the West’s anti-Russia sanctions. He argued that they have failed to force Moscow to end the conflict, while Europe’s economy has “faced incredible difficulties,” and that “the tenth sanctions package will only be suitable for causing further damage to us Europeans, similar to the previous nine ones.”
Since the start of large-scale hostilities in Ukraine almost a year ago, Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, has been critical of Western sanctions against Moscow. It has also refused to support Kiev with weapons, or allow arms transfers across its border with Ukraine.
By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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