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‘Medical Gaslighting’: Physicians Speak Out Against COVID Policies, Call for Reform

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 5, 2023

The Global Health Project last week released a video titled “The Oath,” in which physicians describe the effect on doctors, patients and the healthcare system of silencing dissent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The filmmakers also called on doctors to commit to making foundational changes so that what happened during the pandemic never happens again.

The film features six doctors — Elizabeth Lafay, D.O., Steven Klayman, D.C., Timothy Stonesifer, D.O., Molly Rutherford, M.D., MPH, Michael Turner, M.D., and Amy Offutt, M.D. — who said they are “saying what tens of thousands of silenced medical professionals from all over the world have not been able to say.”

Throughout the video, they respond to a series of questions.

Responding to the first question, “When did you begin to have doubts?” they described how they lost faith in institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Lancet and the pharmaceutical companies as they saw well-respected doctors silenced, articles retracted and corrupted clinical trials exposed.

It became clear the agencies were not acting in the public interest, Turner said, because “they’re captured, they’re paid off, they’re corrupt.“

In response to the second question, “How have people been harmed?” they discussed spiking levels of anxiety and depression that began with the fearmongering at the start of the pandemic.

Lafay described working in the ER during the early days of the pandemic when the hospitals emptied out and there were few COVID-19 patients — but many people arriving with “horrible, debilitating anxiety and depression.”

People stuck at home in front of the television absorbed the message “Stay home, don’t be with your family, don’t be with your friends. Isolate, hibernate,” Offutt said. “It’s really taken its toll.”

“People are fearful and I think that was the goal, to make people fearful and be forced into taking this vaccine,” Klayman added.

They said many people no longer trust the medical profession because doctors have been silent on what happened and that many doctors felt they could not speak out.

As the names of pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, GSK (formerly GlaxoSmithKline), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others flashed across the screen, Lafay said:

“It’s really tough because we’re all owned at this point. It’s easier for me to come on camera maybe and say some things like this because I am an independent practitioner now. If you don’t have your [own] practice, then you really can’t help people.

“And I think that is where a lot of [practitioners’] fear comes from, the fear of not being employed.”

But there are larger moral issues at stake, too, Klayman said, adding: “Are you going to give in to what is wrong? Or are you going to fight for what is right?”

Offutt said she thought “fixing the broken system” begins with rebuilding the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors used to spend more time with patients, she said, but then, “It became a business, and I was just one of the employees.”

“There is uniformity and conformity that’s encouraged, and the decision-makers at the top usually are not physicians, and this is a big problem, right?” Turner asked. Instead, they are lawyers looking to minimize risk and accountants looking to maximize profits.

When doctors work for these corporations, Lafay said, insurance and pharmaceutical companies are calling the shots:

“We don’t really have a voice anymore. We’re not really making choices that are best for our patients. We’re checking boxes.

“Unless we fight for the doctor-patient relationship and work to maintain privacy and decision-making that is based on an individual patient scenario, then that will be lost. The art of medicine will be gone, and we may as well be replaced by artificial intelligence.”

The doctors said in order to heal, you should “own your health” — eat well, get sunshine, move around, connect in person and to other people.

“I think doctors who maybe did some things that they regret should come out and acknowledge what they did and assure patients that they’re going to learn from it and change,” Rutherford said. “And then I think we need the truth. We need to investigate, why did all of this happen and how can we keep this from ever happening again?”

Turner said people from across the political spectrum and all walks of life are starting to come together around principles such as “accountability, honesty, respect, self-determination, bodily autonomy, freedom.”

“There’s an awakening going on, so it’s exciting and we’re gonna come out the other side,” he said.

The video closes with the oath:

“I solemnly swear to listen to my patients, respect their wishes, and together make the best choices for that individual and to do no harm.”

Video marks launch of Global Health Project

The video release marked the launch of the Global Health Project, an organization hoping to raise awareness of the coercive power exerted on society by global health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic and to build a movement to create a better system.

The group began as a conversation among physicians and health researchers about what happened during the pandemic and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again, Andrea Nazarenko, Ph.D., a spokesperson for the organization, told The Defender.

The group hopes the video will open the door for conversation, Katarina Lindley, D.O., family physician and another group spokesperson, said.

A doctor might hear the physicians’ stories and say, “That’s exactly how it happened to me,” she said. Or, patients can go to their doctors and raise these issues with them.

Lindley also said that statements by global leaders, the World Health Organization’s proposed pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations, and other evidence point to the fact something like the COVID-19 pandemic can happen again, and if it does, the Global Health Project wants to build an informed and connected public. She continued:

“So our hope is that by sharing these stories, by empowering the public as well, we want them to question things … when new things come along. And if they feel in their gut something is wrong, they need to trust their gut, then they really become advocates for themselves, for their family, for their friends.

“And I’m hoping that physicians will remember why they took the Hippocratic oath … And there’s lots of things that we need to start questioning that maybe we didn’t question before.”

While the changes they are talking about are systemic, Lindley said it starts in the doctor-patient relationship.

When someone’s car breaks down, she said, they usually try to find a good mechanic by asking friends and shopping around.

“I think when it comes to medicine and healthcare, we kind of almost need to do the same thing. Shop around … interview your doctor. Even if you have insurance and you’re assigned to a doctor, you don’t have to accept the doctor.”

People can find doctors who are independent, who have “stepped away from the matrix, as I call it,” Lindley said, so they can build great relationships with patients.

Nazarenko added:

“Ultimately, what we experienced during the pandemic was traumatic. We are suffering from collective trauma at a societal level. Just like any other trauma, this trauma will not disappear by ‘moving on’ and ‘forgetting about it.’ Trauma must be processed.

“Unfortunately, what we are facing right now is the mainstream narrative telling us to ‘forget about it,’ to ‘just move on,’ and to ignore our feelings (‘just let it go’). This is medical gaslighting at a population level. In any other relationship, we would identify this as the behavior of an abuser.

“If we want to move on and create a world of togetherness, we need to talk about it. We don’t all need to agree on everything — but we need to have the conversation.

“Silence leaves us vulnerable to this happening again. They separated us for a reason. This video is about bringing people together again and engaging in authentic conversations.”

Watch here:

Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

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.

PHYSICIANS TRY TO HEAL THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP

Interview begins at 11 minutes:

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , | Leave a comment

Deaths from the flu – do not seek and ye shall not find

By Professor Martin Neil | TCW Defending Freedom | June 7, 2023

The flu vanished from the UK in the winter of 2020/21 and did not return for another year, as I wrote in TCW here. The official reason is that the novel and deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus ‘outcompeted’ flu and replaced it as a primary cause of death during that time. However there appears to have been a collective and systemic failure in flu surveillance and flu death reporting systems in the UK during 2020 and into 2021. Thus, it is possible that the failure to detect and report flu (and deaths recorded as due to it) may better explain the mystery of vanishing flu rather than viral interference from SARS-Cov-2.

A mix of surveillance systems consistently reported on flu before 2020 and continued to have some role to play post-spring 2020 until flu returned at the end of 2021. In the UK, flu surveillance is performed via clinical surveillance by primary care (based on networks of GPs), the FluDetector and the FluSurvey systems.

Credence has been given to the idea of tracking pandemics using machine learning via Google Trends data, the UK’s FluDetector system being one such system. FluDetector reported that flu disappeared in 2020/21, yet this is totally at odds with Google’s own data and UKHSA reports, both of which report a clear signal for flu in the UK in 2020/21. What the Google data does show is that people were concerned enough about flu that they searched for flu on the internet in significant numbers, even when apparently in the middle of a deadly pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, a virus they were told was more novel and more deadly than the flu. It is also notable that the number of searches for flu in 2020 were not significantly different from those conducted in previous years in the UK.

The UK FluSurvey system was originally conceived to survey a panel of self-selecting participants for signs and symptoms of influenza-like illnesses (ILIs). In March 2020 it was repurposed to cover both Covid-19 and flu symptoms, and the routine questionnaire was adapted to capture Covid-19 specific information. The FluSurvey system tracked ILI incidence only until week 20 of 2020, and never updated this data. It was decided no longer to track both flu and Covid from November 2020 but report this change in policy only in January 2021. The FluSurvey then stated it (presciently) knew in January 2021 that the flu season had now begun and did so after (supposedly) witnessing the near eradication of flu from March 2020 to May 2020. Fever and cough symptoms were still tracked and peaked in the same way as in previous years and this continued, but tracking ILI incidence was abandoned, thus reducing the strength of the flu signal.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have a legal duty to report mortality statistics for each year. The 2020 statistics for England and Wales exclude any report on influenza and pneumonia deaths, and instead are wholly focused on deaths ‘involving’ Covid-19. In contrast, their 2021 statistics report on influenza and pneumonia deaths, starting on January 8. So, for 2020 any reporting of flu deaths was completely abandoned in favour of Covid-19 reports, and flu is included only in surveillance reports from 2021, thus giving the impression flu had disappeared in the intervening period.

In response to a freedom of information request about flu in 2020 the ONS obfuscated its answer by using a different death code, ‘respiratory disease’ rather than flu, for the period up to May 2020, and may have done so to hide the deaths that should have been attributed to flu. This FoI request shows that there were 2,287 flu deaths in March 2020, which is not greatly different from the 3,324 Covid-19 deaths that same month; yet SARS-CoV-2 was considered to be a significantly greater threat to public health. Furthermore, in January 2021 the ONS reported that there were almost as many deaths involving flu (5,719) as there were involving Ccovid-19 (7,610), yet for only 5.2 per cent of these flu deaths was flu recorded as the underlying cause of death.

Evidence for the presence of flu is available from other data sources. Data for pneumonia and flu deaths can be extracted from the UK NOMIS (official census and labour market statistics) system. When we queried this system, we were quite shocked to find that it returns 20,130 influenza and pneumonia deaths for 2020, at a rate consistent with previous years (eg 26,342 in 2019). The presence of flu deaths in 2020 in the UK is repeated elsewhere. In the US, influenza and pneumonia numbers are similar in 2020 to previous years, as reported by the CDC, with 53,544 deaths in 2020 compared with between approximately 50-60k deaths in each year from 2015 to 2019.

Despite these facts, the WHO’s international flu surveillance system, FluNet, shows no significant flu for 2020/21 in either the UK or US.

The fact that these failures cut across all parts which comprise the UK flu surveillance and reporting system suggests that this failure is not coincidental, as do the observed inconsistencies in changing patterns of flu surveillance and reporting across different branches of UK public health.

In a previous article we pointed out the dearth of virological evidence for viral interference causing SARS-CoV-2 to ‘outcompete’ flu. These new findings relating to reporting systems also strongly suggest that viral interference between SARS-CoV-2 and the flu is a myth. Flu was present in 2020 and some of the respiratory deaths attributed solely to SAR-CoV-2 may have also involved flu in some significant way.

This is based on an original article co-authored with Professor Norman Fenton, Nick Hudson and Jonathan Engler. The extended version is available from the substack Where are the Numbers?

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Mayo Clinic Suspended Professor Over Comments On Covid And Transgenderism

By Ben Squires | Reclaim The Net | June 8, 2023

The Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science suspended a professor for deviating from “prescribed messaging” and placed a gag order on him, Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) says.  The college handed down the punishment despite its free speech promise to faculty and students.

On March 5, professor Michael Joyner was suspended without pay for speaking to the press, which is common for him as he is a prominent academic.

After he commented about plasma treatment for Covid and transgender sports performance on The New York Times, CNN, and other outlets, Mayo Clinic said he “failed to communicate in accordance with prescribed messaging.”

Administrators said that “reflect[ed] poorly on Mayo Clinic’s brand and reputation” and led them to “question whether … [he is] able to appropriately represent Mayo Clinic in media interactions.”

However, Joyner did not speak on behalf of the college, he spoke for himself. In letters to the college, FIRE explained that faculty members have the right to speak as private citizens.

After suspending him without pay, Joyner was told he must vet “each individual media request through Public Affairs … [to] determine what topics are appropriate and are responsible for protecting Mayo Clinic’s brand and reputation” and cease “engagement in offline conversations with reporters.”

In simpler terms, he was told to shut up. When he does speak, he must discuss “approved topics only and stick to prescribed messaging.”

Mayo Clinic is in violation of the institution’s Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom Policy, which promises “academic freedom and freedom of expression for all learners and faculty … which includes the right to discuss and present scholarly opinions and conclusions without fear of retribution or retaliation” even “if those opinions and conclusions conflict with those of the faculty or institution.”

In response to a letter from FIRE about upholding free speech and academic freedom, Mayo Clinic said disciplinary “action taken against Dr. Joyner did not involve a gag order and did not violate our academic freedom policy.”

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Austrian Censorship of Peace Conference Is An Outrage

By David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War; Kathy Kelly, President of World BEYOND War; John Reuwer, Board Member of World BEYOND War; Brad Wolf, Director of Peace Action, Lancaster, PA | June 8, 2023

Forty-eight hours before a global peace conference in Vienna, Austria, was to begin, the venue host abruptly cancelled. Peace, it seems, cannot be discussed, especially peace in Ukraine.

This news is a disturbing step in a growing trend.

Owners of the venue which was to host the Summit for Peace in Ukraine, announced on Wednesday, 7 June, 2023, their decision to cancel the agreement holding the summit on their premises. Fortunately, a new location was secured in Vienna (and anyone on Earth can sign up to take part online), but not before a smear campaign against the summit had been launched.

The venue owners reportedly explained: “We have decided to comply with the wishes of Ukraine and its embassy operating in Austria and have cancelled the rental of all rooms in the ÖGB catamaran for the event ‘International Summit for Peace in Ukraine’ next weekend.”

This was not just one venue taking this position. “On Wednesday, the Press Club Concordia also refused to make its premises in a central location in downtown Vienna available for a press conference of the ‘summit’.”

Supporters of the summit note the chilling innuendo caused by the abrupt cancellation of the summit. Speakers widely regarded for their moral and intellectual guidance have been undermined in statements intended to justify objections to the summit.

This is not an isolated incident. Western liberal ideals have long asserted that the best answer to mistaken speech was wiser speech and more of it. We now have a rapidly growing liberal consensus in favor, instead, of censoring media outlets, canceling speaking events, and forbidding people with unwanted points of view from even gathering together. Powers are being granted to governments, social media platforms, and other tech corporations that believers in democratic self-governance spent centuries claiming nobody should have.

Those who turn against free speech are often groups afraid they cannot win an honest debate. And so, they take up censorship. The movement for peace in Ukraine can take this as a compliment. Governments fear such a discussion of peace and instead smear this peace summit and the speakers.

An Austrian press report announced on Thursday that the venue (ÖGB Catamaran) had been withdrawn because the event was “under suspicion of propaganda.” What sort of propaganda? Well: “According to its own statements, the ‘International Summit for Peace in Ukraine’ wanted to show ways out of the war.” Under international law, propaganda for war is illegal and must be banned. Not a single nation on Earth complies with that requirement, raising up the value of free speech as trumping the rule of law. But speaking in favor of bringing a war to an end has now acquired the status of forbidden propaganda.

Moreover, the report explains, “some announced participants have no current fear of contact with the media of the aggressor.” In other words, if talk of negotiating peace is shut out of the media controlled by only one side of a war, speaking to media controlled by the other side — even to say exactly what one would have said to any other media outlet — is grounds for not only censorship but a ban on meeting and strategizing.

The report gives some specifics: “The internationally prominent U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs, for example, as well as Anuradha Chenoy, ex-dean of India’s Jawarharlal Nehru University and an important representative of global civil society networking, have given interviews to the TV station Russia Today (RT). The channel has been blocked across the Union for Russian war propaganda in the wake of EU sanctions. Sachs also answered questions from Russian TV host and war advocate Vladimir Solovyov in December 2022. Solovyov has often called for attacking Germany and Great Britain as well.”

The “Press Club Concordia” also explained that the problem was that Jeffrey Sachs might do an interview on Russian media.

Not only is diplomacy shunned, but speaking to members of the media with whom one disagrees is equated with advocating whatever those journalists have advocated. This can only contribute to distrust, enmity, and war without end.

Not only did the venue say it was doing the wishes of the Ukrainian embassy, but the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria tweeted that peace activists were the fifth column and henchmen of the Russian government.

And who created the idea that the whole world must obey the wishes of the government of Ukraine? The government of the United States — a country where little time passes these days without news of some event cancelled to fulfill the wishes of the government of Israel.

Further, “Noam Chomsky, who will speak at the summit via video, for example, believes that NATO has ‘marginalized’ Russia for too long.” Whether that fact is in dispute, or merely the acceptability of stating it out loud, was not explained.

“Also physically present in Vienna, according to the program, should be Clare Daly, an Irishwoman and member of the EU Parliament and the parliamentary group Die Linke. Daly also spoke repeatedly to RT about the West’s ‘complicity’ in the war in Ukraine. She believes the sanctions are wrong: they would not harm Russia and would not help Ukraine. In the EU Parliament in early 2023 Daly voted against a resolution holding Russia legally responsible for the war. Daly said she does support those parts of the text that condemn Russia for the invasion and call on the government in Moscow to immediately cease all military action and withdraw from Ukraine. However, she said she opposes providing weapons to Ukraine and expanding NATO’s presence in the region.”

So, opposing both sides of a war is just as unacceptable as opposing one side, in the view of these censors.

This is where we have arrived. Proposing to negotiate peace — without even suggesting what those negotiations should arrive at — is so unacceptable to proponents of war, that it cannot be discussed — not in any large gathering. And yet, despite the wars being waged in the name of “democracy” it is not clear how such censorship is driven by democracy or in alignment with democratic values. Nor is it clear how many steps, if any, remain between the varieties of censorship we have now and hardcopy book burnings of the past.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Kiev’s Alleged Proof That Russia Blew Up The Kakhovka Dam Doesn’t Stand Up To Scrutiny

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 9, 2023

The Ukrainian secret police claimed on Friday to have intercepted a call between two Russian soldiers where one of them allegedly admitted that their side blew up the Kakhovka Dam. That person explicitly denied that Kiev was responsible and instead said that it was a false flag attack by Russia’s own troops that supposedly went awry, which would explain their losses downstream. They also said that the flooding killed thousands of animals in a nearby safari park.

Nobody should believe the account that was shared in this recording since it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. For starters, it’s already suspicious enough that the three talking points made in the recording – that Ukraine wasn’t responsible, Russia staged a false flag that didn’t go according to plan, and thousands of animals also died – perfectly align with Kiev’s official narrative. The chances that one of their opponents echoed all three points in a single secretly recorded conversation is highly unlikely.

The second reason why this is dubious is because it was shared a day after Foreign Minister Kuleba angrily rejected Turkiye’s pragmatic proposal to form a multilateral committee for investigating the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction. Kiev would have certainly known that refusing to participate in a truly neutral investigation into this war crime would make their side look guilty, which explains why they fabricated this recording in order to desperately divert attention towards Russia instead.

And finally, the global media attention that this recording just generated serves to drown out the discussion that Tucker Carlson sparked in the first episode of his new show on Twitter where he informed the 110 million people who watched it about a damning Washington Post report from December. Ukrainian Major General Andrey Kovalchuk not only admitted to plotting the exact same terrorist attack that happened half a year later, but even to testing its viability with US-supplied HIMARS missiles.

The content, timing, and context within which the Ukrainian secret police just shared their alleged proof that Russia blew up the Kakhovka Dam are all questionable in and of themselves, let alone when taken together. No honest observer would extend credence to this recording, which is arguably fabricated for the reasons that were explained. Those who sincerely want to know the truth about what happened should pressure Ukraine to join Turkiye’s proposed UN-led multilateral investigation committee.

Kuleba’s innuendo that the deck would be stacked against Kiev in the event that it participates in a UN-led investigation is discredited by the fact that this global body has consistently taken its side in every one of its disputes against Russia since the start of the special operation. Unlike UNGA votes where countries can be bribed or pressured to influence the political outcome of this process, however, no such trickery can take place in an evidence-driven investigation where Russia participates as an equal party.

Ukraine knows that Turkiye’s proposal would prove that it blew up the Kakhovka Dam exactly as Kovalchuk admitted to the Washington Post that Kiev had been plotting to do since late last year, which is why it refuses to join and instead fabricated this “evidence” as its excuse. Nevertheless, Russia, Turkiye, and other UN members can still proceed with this investigation even without Ukraine if they have the will to do so, but the West might claim that it’s “illegitimate” so long as Kiev isn’t involved.

In the court of public opinion, however, Ukraine comes off as guilty by refusing to participate in a truly neutral investigation into this war crime. Having its infamously corrupt secret police share a suspicious recording that coincidentally echoes all three of Kiev’s talking points and then claiming that the case is closed on this issue isn’t something that someone who’s innocent would do. Anyone who claims otherwise has an agenda in gaslighting others in order to cover up for Kiev’s culpability in this war crime.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | 1 Comment

Bipartisan opposition to US government spying grows – poll

RT | June 8, 2023

For the first time in over a decade, less than half of Americans – 48% – believe it is sometimes necessary to relinquish freedom to the government in exchange for protection from terrorism, according to an AP-NORC poll published on Thursday.

Half of the poll’s 1,081 respondents countered that sacrificing one’s rights was never necessary for security. When the pollster asked the same questions in 2011, nearly two thirds (64%) had accepted the possibility they might have to jettison their liberty to fight terrorism, with one third disagreeing.

Declining trust in US intelligence agencies and their leadership appeared to play a significant role in the shift. Just 18% of poll respondents said they had “a great deal of confidence” in the leaders of the intelligence community, and while 49% had “some” confidence, nearly a third (31%) had hardly any.

The sharpest decline was among Republicans, only 44% of whom supported sacrificing liberty for security – in comparison with 55% of Democrats and 42% of independents. In 2011, 69% of Republicans had prioritized protection over freedom.

Accompanying the decline in trust has been a growing awareness that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while explicitly intended to spy on foreign targets, is also used to surveil millions of Americans. The infamous loophole makes any American contacted by a foreign target fair game for warrantless wiretapping by US intelligence. This deeply unpopular scheme has united even some Republicans and some Democrats in Congress against it.

That FISA warrants illegally obtained by the FBI were used to spy on former president Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign has only strengthened some Republicans’ rejection of that system.

Asked about different types of warrantless wiretapping, poll respondents found eavesdropping on domestic phone calls to be the most objectionable tactic, with 67% of respondents opposing it. While 62% found reading domestic emails equally beyond the pale, three out of five responses opposed monitoring domestic text messages as well.

A plurality even opposed government eavesdropping in situations involving reading emails of foreign origin and listening to phone calls from outside the US, with just 28% thinking warrantless wiretapping was acceptable in either case. Monitoring internet searches for “suspicious activity” attracted more approval, with 30% favoring it, and more disapproval, with 48% being against it at the same time.

The Biden administration has urged Congress to renew Section 702, which will otherwise expire at the end of the year. Claiming it is critical to fighting terrorism overseas, intelligence officials nevertheless declined to share specifics on how they use the controversial program earlier this year, instead merely informing lawmakers that every court that has examined the FISA provision has “found it to be constitutional.”

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Billionaire Biden Donor Bankrolled 2020 Election Social Media Censorship Effort

BY LEE FANG | JUNE 8, 2023

The Department of Homeland Security’s controversial social media censorship effort during the 2020 election was propped up by a partisan billionaire.

Newly obtained documents, acquired through a public records request, confirm that Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of eBay, financed a specialized portal maintained by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). This portal was used to facilitate the swift removal of predominantly conservative messages on Twitter and Facebook during the previous presidential election.

Omidyar, previously identified as one of the largest donors to campaign groups supporting Joe Biden’s presidential bid, donated $45 million to the “Sixteen Thirty Fund” in 2020. This dark money group mobilized Democratic voters and financed pro-Biden Super PACs. However, Omidyar’s direct involvement in the DHS partnership, which is now facing increased scrutiny, remained undisclosed until now.

The funding provided by Omidyar to CIS was used to establish a Misinformation Reporting Portal (MiRP). A team from CIS continuously monitored this portal 24/7 from September 28 to November 6, 2020, as revealed in a post-election report, “Election Infrastructure Misinformation Reporting.” The Democracy Fund, Omidyar’s foundation, supported the creation of the MiRP through a direct grant, according to the report.

The misinformation reporting portal served to rapidly identify and remove instances of alleged misinformation. CIS’s report acknowledged that the flagged content ranged from “intentional misinformation to honest mistakes.” Of the content reported by CIS, 61% “resulted in positive action,” which the group defined as content takedowns or labeling.

This MiRP system was used by a coalition of liberal-leaning research groups and overseen by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), a sub-agency of the DHS that has led the government’s push to censor social media. Despite government backing for the project, the effort was partisan – the Democratic National Committee was part of the consortium, but not the Republican National Committee, indicating a partisan bias.

“In addition to sharing all reports with CISA, some reports were shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the CIS report noted. The effort focused on “election narratives” deemed conspiratorial or inaccurate.

Tax records appear to confirm the Omidyar funding. The Democracy Fund’s 990 disclosure shows that it donated $130,000 to CIS in 2020. The grant, however, is listed as support for “election security best practices,” a vague description that belied the true function of the MiRP portal.

CIS did not respond to a request for comment. The Omidyar Network discussed this inquiry with me but stopped responding before publication.

Evidence of this MiRP system first emerged in emails I obtained from a visit to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in December. In an email thread dated October 1, 2020, Twitter attorney Stacia Cardille mentioned receiving outreach from DHS, forwarding a censorship demand from CISA, CIS official Aaron Wilson, and a representative from the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition monitoring misinformation.

The alleged misinformation mentioned in the October 1 thread revolved around conservative warnings regarding potential risks associated with mail-in voting—a concern voiced by partisans from both sides. Twitter, however, took action against conservative accounts but did not similarly act against Democrats who warned against mail-in ballots, as I’ve previously reported. For instance, former D.N.C. chairman Howard Dean tweeted during the election: “Do not vote by mail. Ok to vote now early and drop your ballot off in person at the proper office. Too late to trust trumps postmaster thug.”

The Dean tweet was noted by Twitter’s content moderation team but no action was taken, while similar messages warning against mail-in voting from conservative accounts were censored.

The CIS report provides a comprehensive explanation of the public-private apparatus employed to influence content on social media. In doing so, the report also debunks recent myths. In April, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan made a false claim that journalist Matt Taibbi deliberately misrepresented his case under oath during his congressional testimony on CISA’s role in shaping social media decisions. Hasan suggested that Taibbi had willfully conflated CISA with CIS during his testimony. This claim led Representative Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I) to accuse Taibbi of perjury in a letter.

The CIS report I obtained contradicts Hasan and Plaskett, clarifying that “CIS and CISA worked together to ensure the reports were sent to the social media platform within an hour of their receipt.” CIS also played a pivotal role in triaging the material while maintaining the government partnership with disinformation research think tanks.

In essence, CIS and CISA worked in close collaboration to exert pressure on platforms like Twitter, aiming to remove conservative political expression deemed untrustworthy. The project was a public-private venture, overseen by government agencies, and supported by a system financed entirely by a Democratic donor.

The report makes recommendations for future elections. It notes that misinformation reporting may require dedicated government funding, with a “transition to the operational side of CIS” under the CISA umbrella, as well as better operational support from social media platforms.

The CIS report is part of a batch of documents recently received from Kate Starbird, an advisory board member of CISA at the University of Washington, via a records request. As I reported on Tuesday, the Justice Department intervened last year to impede the release of records from Starbird’s team. Starbird has also accused journalists seeking these records of “harassment,” likening it to a cyber attack.

Nevertheless, these inquiries are part of a broader public examination of government-backed censorship. As previously reported, Starbird’s advisory panel advocated for an expanded role for CISA, calling for an extension of its monitoring to include various platforms such as social media, mainstream media, cable news, hyper-partisan media, talk radio, and other online resources.

To support their argument for such a broad mandate, CISA advisors highlighted the detrimental effects of alleged misinformation on key democratic institutions like the courts, as well as other sectors such as the financial system and public health measures, suggesting that virtually any major public interest concern may be used as justification for broad censorship.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers Have Chance to Bust IRS & Expose Hillary’s ‘Pay-to-Play’

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 08.06.2023

Clinton Foundation whistleblowers are due to provide new information to the US Tax Court concerning the IRS’ apparent unwillingness to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity. The IRS, FBI, and DoJ have already been under the spotlight over their apparent “preferential treatment” of Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

The Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower case has largely eclipsed another Tax Court development that could have serious consequences for US dynastic political families. Late last month, US Tax Court Judge David Gustafson reinvigorated a years-long whistleblower case concerning the Clinton Foundation, a charity run by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Two forensic investigators-turned-whistleblowers, John Moynihan and Larry Doyle, filed a lawsuit over the IRS’ apparent unwillingness to look into the charity’s alleged misdeeds.

Despite the IRS commissioner repeatedly trying to trash the case, the judge rejected the agency’s latest motion to dismiss and asked for new arguments by June 30, 2023.

What’s in the Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Case?

The story of the years-long case goes back to August 2017, when Doyle and Moynihan first submitted a whistleblower complaint with the IRS accusing the Clinton Foundation of tax crimes. However, in November 2018 they received a preliminary denial from the revenue service.

Nonetheless, the whistleblowers did not give up. On December 13, 2018, Doyle and Moynihan testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, suggesting that the Clinton Foundation owes the US government between $400 million and $2.5 billion in taxes. According to the forensic investigators, the charity does not operate as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, but acts as nothing short of a foreign agent.

“As such, the foundation should’ve registered under FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act). Ultimately, the foundation and its auditors conceded in formal submissions that it did operate as a (foreign) agent, therefore the foundation is not entitled to its 501c3 tax-exempt privileges as outlined in IRS 170 (c)2,” Moynihan stated at the time.

The two whistleblowers told US lawmakers that they had collected approximately 100 exhibits in excess of 6,000 pages, expressing bewilderment at the IRS’ hesitation to investigate the Clinton Foundation case.

Tax Court Judge Busted IRS

Having received the final denial from the IRS to look into the issue in February 2019, Doyle and Moynihan filed a lawsuit with the US Tax Court.

On October 8, 2020 they scored their first victory: Tax Court Judge Gustafson ruled that the IRS’ Whistleblower Office (WBO) had “abused its discretion” in trying to dismiss “specific credible documentation” put forward by Doyle and Moynihan, thereby allowing the case against the Clintons’ charities to proceed.

The judge also raised concerns over the IRS’ handling of the case and detailed mistakes in the filing of specific forms by the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) division and omissions in its conclusions concerning the Clinton Foundation whistleblowers’ complaint. Judging from the division’s documentation, it remained unclear whether the IRS had used the information provided by the whistleblowers in any investigation into the charity. The judge noted, however, that he had reasons to believe that the IRS had engaged in some investigative activity concerning the Clinton charity in coordination with the FBI.

“Prompted by petitioners’ [Doyle and Moynihan] allegations – explicit and detailed, with names, dates, and locations – the WBO’s email put a single direct question to CI: ‘Can you please confirm that IRS CI is not working with these [whistleblowers] on any investigation with these [target] entities?’ CI’s reply was a non-answer that looks like it may have been a deliberate evasion: ‘The claim was appropriately declined by criminal investigation.’ But was CI ‘working with’ petitioners or not? CI did not say,” Gustafson wrote at the time.

Besides this, in 2018 the CI “had to be asked three times to complete its Form 11369 for this case, giving ‘unacceptable’ responses to the WBO and grousing that it’s ‘somebody else’s job,'” the judge pointed out.

In April 2021, Tax Court Judge Gustafson suggested in his new ruling that the IRS Whistleblower Office had been withholding important information concerning the case: “The [IRS] Whistleblower Office must further investigate to determine whether CI proceeded with an investigation based on petitioners’ information and collected proceeds… It seems clear we should remand the case to the WO so that it can explore this gap,” the judge stated.

Durham Report Sheds New Light on Clinton Foundation Probes

Meanwhile, on October 26, 2021, Moynihan and Doyle announced that they had been approached and interviewed by Special Counsel John Durham, who at the time was investigating the origins and handling of the Trump-Russia probe.

Earlier, on September 24, 2021, The New York Times broke a story that the special counsel had sought information about the FBI’s Clinton Foundation inquiry within the framework of his probe, which was launched in 2019.

Later, in May 2023, Special Counsel Durham revealed in his 306-page final report that the FBI’s Washington, New York, and Little Rock, Ark., field offices had at least four ongoing probes into the Bill and Hillary Clinton charity’s apparent “pay-to-play” schemes during the 2016 election cycle. Still, all four investigations were abruptly closed prior to the 2016 Election Day, with Hillary running as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Durham particularly pointed out that senior FBI and Justice Department officials engaged in slowing down and closing the aforementioned investigations. “Both senior FBI and department officials placed restrictions on how those matters were to be handled such that essentially no investigative activities occurred for months,” the special counsel emphasized.

Durham Report and Hunter Biden IRS Whistleblower Case May Help

Judge Gustafson’s May 30 ruling gives an opportunity to Doyle and Moynihan to incorporate Durham’s allegations in their forthcoming court filings, which they should submit no later than June 30, as per Just the News, a US independent media outlet founded by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon.

In addition, a specific recent ruling in a Tax Court case titled Berenblatt vs. IRS Commission could also come in handy for the Clinton Foundation whistleblowers, the media outlet noted.

“Whistleblowers may be granted limited discovery if they make a significant showing that there is material in the IRS’s possession indicative of bad faith on the IRS’s part in connection with the case or of an incomplete administrative record compiled by the IRS,” the ruling stated concerning the Berenblatt vs. IRS Commission.

The IRS’ lax handling of the Doyle and Moynihan complaint, as well as the agency’s ambiguous conduct and apparent unwillingness to look into the Clinton Foundation appear especially suspicious in light of the FBI’s closure of a whopping four probes into the charity.

Previously, similarly controversial behavior by IRS, FBI, and DoJ officials was exposed by Hunter Biden IRS whistleblowers.

On May 26, 2023, IRS supervisory criminal investigator Gary Shapley appeared before the US House Ways and Means Committee and provided seven bombshell documents totaling 23 pages to confirm his claims regarding the apparent “preferential treatment” of Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden. The documents presented by the agent indicated that starting from at least 2020, DoJ officials made repeated attempts to thwart his investigation.

Shapley blew the whistle in April. After that, the IRS veteran and his 12 subordinates were expelled from the probe at the request of the DoJ. What’s more, one of Shapley’s subordinates, who asked his seniors about the rationale behind booting the team out, was threatened and silenced by IRS officials.

What Will Happen to Clinton Foundation if Doyle and Moynihan Win?

Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel has been conducting a separate private investigation into the Clinton Foundation for the last several years. Ortel is an old hand in exposing potential financial fraud: he was the first to raise a red flag about General Electric (GE) shortly before the company’s stock crashed in 2008.
In an interviews with Sputnik, the Wall Street analyst repeatedly drew attention to the FBI, DoJ, and IRS’ failures to see obvious discrepancies in the Clinton Foundation’s operations and financial documentation. Per Ortel, the charity’s case remains the largest unprosecuted fraud ever.

Separately, the analyst referred to the US mainstream media’s unwillingness to touch upon the matter, too. The US mainstream press either silences or ridicules attempts to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s apparent “pay-to-play” schemes much in the same vein as it tried to trash the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” story.

“The judge [Gustafson] and his staff likely have extensive evidence indicating that the entity originally known as ‘The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation’ and subsequently operating under many other names is not validly authorized by the IRS or by any other government to conduct charitable activities as a nonprofit organization,” Ortel told Sputnik.

“Nonetheless, Bill Clinton and his associates have solicited more than $2 billion in the guise of charity but have failed to account for its financial results in the manner required by applicable laws and regulations.”

“Because Bill Clinton also is active politically and pursuing personal profit, there is great suspicion that the Clinton Foundation Charity Network is the core of an illegal conspiracy where donors seeking political favors from Clinton and his globalist allies exchange contributions for favors inside America and around the world. The Clinton approach and past failures by many governments to purge charity fraud and political corruption from the system likely inspired the Biden family to follow the Clinton script. Who knows how many other politicians will milk supposed charities for personal and political gain?” the Wall Street analyst pointed out.

If Doyle and Moynihan win their case in the US Tax Court and subsequent IRS/FBI investigations into the Clinton Foundation are conducted in good faith, it is likely that the alleged fraud and pay-to-play schemes would be proven, according to the analyst.

He believes that the Clinton Foundation should be placed in conservatorship and run by a nonpartisan group of Trustees, who would then be charged with constructing accurate records from October 23, 1997 to present.

“This course may not be possible because there are major defects in the known public record calling into question whether ‘The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation’ actually existed after April 25, 2005 when Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws were defectively amended,” Ortel continued. “In a worst case scenario for the Clinton family and for ‘Trustees,’ all ‘revenues’ of ‘The Clinton Foundation’ would become taxable personal income to the co-conspirators while some expenses might be tax deductible. On top of this financial burden, fines and penalties and interest might also be assessed.”

“Not only should the FBI investigate the Clinton Foundation fraud conspiracy, but appropriate government authorities must investigate why current and former presidents who illegally abuse public charities are insulated and protected from prosecution and then discipline all bad actors involved forcefully and publicly,” the Wall Street analyst concluded.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

DeSantis Says ‘Weaponization’ of Federal Law Enforcement ‘Mortal Threat to Free Society’

Sputnik – 09.06.2023

The “weaponization of federal law enforcement” in the United States is a “mortal threat to a free society,” Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said Thursday, following the news about the indictment of former US President Donald Trump.

“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary [Clinton] or Hunter [Biden]?” DeSantis tweeted, adding that “the DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ [Department of Justice], excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said on Telegram that “the corrupt Biden administration” had informed his lawyers that he had been indicted in a federal investigation over alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Florida residency and summoned to appear in court on Tuesday. The ex-president expressed despair over the indictment, pointing out that he is being prosecuted as polls show he is by far the leading candidate among both Republicans and Democrats.

American media, citing sources, reported on Thursday that Trump was facing seven counts, including willful retention of national defense information, corruptly concealing docs, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements.

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said later in the day that it was “unconscionable” for US President Joe Biden to indict “the leading candidate opposing him,” adding that Biden “kept classified documents for decades” and calling the situation “a dark day for the United States of America.” McCarthy said House Republicans “will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the classified documents case and the other three criminal probes he is involved in, including charges of falsifying business records and the former president’s alleged involvement in the events on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Biden Regime Censors Disclosure Of 2020 Election Censorship Documents

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | June 7, 2023

Censoring proof of censorship – that would be a new low for the current US administration, but that is what newly released documents – emails – are now revealing as the inner workings of the Biden White House related to online speech, and what they say they consider to be “misinformation.”

The new documents refer to the time last September when some journalists and civil rights advocates wanted to probe the role of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in censorship on social sites – a part of what is now widely considered collusion between various government agencies, and privately-owned tech giants.

But, it would appear that instead of being forthcoming about this information – in the spirit of democracy, and also, since the cat was already out of the bag anyway – the government, via the Department of Justice (DoJ) got busy trying to effectively sabotage these efforts, Lee Fang reported.

The method was to “at least” slow down the rate at which public records having to do with the authorities’ behavior were released to the public.

These latest revelations have to do with DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), University of Washington (UW) professor and a CISA advisory panel member Kate Starbird, who also heads a “disinformation” outfit at the university (funded by the government), and requests from the Daily Caller News Foundation, Tech Inquiry, journalist Lee Fang, and the Government Accountability Project, all separately asking for records from the UW.

Requests varied, but all had to do with Starbird – her job was to assist CISA in “moderating” -i.e., censoring – some types of Twitter and Facebook content.

Instead of providing this information, Western District of Washington Assistant US Attorney Annalisa Cravens emailed Starbird saying that CISA informed them about the requests – and, “(…) We would ask to have an extension of time before the records are produced so that we can have time to review them and assess whether we’ll have to file suit to protect them from disclosure,” the email reads.

This is an example not only of how the power the government has given itself to be the arbiter of what content, particularly political, or construed as political, people have access to online – but also of how it goes about trying to minimize the perception of its involvement.

“It is not clear which documents may have ultimately been delayed, withheld, or redacted because of the Biden administration’s interference in the public records request,” Lee Fang writes.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Fat Fiction

Indie Rights Movies For Free | July 2021

Fat Fiction reveals how the United States government relied on questionable evidence to support one of the most damaging public health recommendations in the history of our country: the “low fat diet.”
Featuring world leaders in low-carb nutrition:

Dr. Mark Hyman, Functional Medicine Doctor and Director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and the UltraWellness Center and Chairman of the board of the Institute for Functional Medicine.

Dr. Sarah Hallberg, Obesity Expert has reversed Type 2 Diabetes in hundreds of patients by ignoring the guidelines and prescribing a high fat, low carb nutrition plan.

Dr Jason Fung, Nephrologist and author of The Obesity Code, a book for reversing Type 2 Diabetes with LCHF and Intermittent Fasting.

Professor Tim Noakes, author of the Lore of Running.

Nina Teicholz, Journalist and author of the Big Fat Surprise.

Gary Taubes, Journalist and author of Good Calories, Bad Calories and The Case Against Sugar.

Dr. Rob Lustig, Pediatric Endocriniologist at University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Bret Scher, Cardiologist and Lipidologist practicing in San Diego

Dr. Eric Westman, Director of the Lifestyle Medicine clinic at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina

Dr. Brian Lenzkes, Internal Medicine Doctor

Jonny Bowden, Nutritionist and author of The Great Cholesterol Myth

Dr. Zoe Harcombe, phD obesity researcher who wrote her thesis on the lack of evidence behind the US Dietary Guidelines

Professor Andrew Mente, McMaster University and researcher on the PURE Study

Alyssa Gallagher, Registered Dietician, Certified Diabetes Educator at Humphries Diabetes Center in Boise, Idaho

Doug Reynolds, Founder of LowCarb USA

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment