MRNA vaccines must be banned once and for all
By Angus Dalgleish | TCW Defending Freedom | September 29, 2023
Those of us who knew from the beginning that the sequence of CoV-SARS-2 contained inserts which could not have possibly occurred naturally, and were similar to ones that had already been published from the Wuhan laboratory, have had to endure unbelievable scorn, scientific ostracism and the ignominy of being ‘cancelled’ by the MSM as well as by professional colleagues for nearly three years now.
In the summer of 2020 a paper I co-authored, describing the findings of an Anglo-Norwegian team of scientists who had demonstrated unique ‘fingerprints’ of laboratory manipulation in the Covid virus, was suppressed in both the US and UK. This was at the time that the World Health Organization, leading science journals and others were going to huge lengths to persuade us that Covid was a natural occurrence, and that we should spend a lot more money to fight any such future threats.
Only now does the Telegraph (uncritically) report that the US government is no longer going to fund the research it denied doing for nearly three years and the MSM sat on. Yet it has been an open secret for anyone who follows primary sources of information (the ones ignored by the MSM and the BBC specifically, reported as misinformation by Ofcom and targeted by the Orwellian Counter-Disinformation Cell of the UK government) that mRNA vaccines did not do what it says on the vial, as it were.
First the ‘vaccine’ did not stay at the site of injection as promised but travelled throughout the body and were found at post-mortems to be everywhere.
Accusations of dramatic variations in batch-to-batch variability – an absolute ‘no no’ in vaccine manufacture protocols – which could explain why side effects were more common in some batches than others were denied but were borne out by definitive Danish research reported here. These alarming concerns seem to have been brushed off by the regulators when they should have immediately begun investigating them in depth.
All the while the regulatory authorities and politicians, parroting their ‘highest standards’ assurances, have repeatedly declared the mounting disturbing UK Yellow Card and US VAERS adverse event reports to be nothing to be worried about.
Last June, whistleblowers led by the scientists Sucharit Bhakdi and Kevin McKernan raised an entirely new issue of concern – that of serious levels of DNA contamination. Once again this was ignored by the MSM. Though quite happy to report the odd side effect from the vaccines as an excuse to point out that they are extremely rare, they have never addressed the increasingly problematic official ‘safe and effective’ mantra.
Finally there was a small breakthrough. An isolated but braver branch of the MSM in the form of the Spectator Australia has finally blown the lid on serious levels of contamination of both Pfizer and Moderna mRNA Covid vaccines. The article describes how the genomics scientist Kevin McKernan from Boston used Pfizer and Moderna vials as controls in a study only to find that they contained highly significant DNA plasmid contamination. It reports that McKernan was alarmed to find the presence of an SV40 promoter in the Pfizer vaccine vials, a sequence that is ‘used to drive DNA into the nucleus, especially in gene therapies’ and that this is ‘something that regulatory agencies around the world have specifically said is not possible with the mRNA vaccines’. These SV40 promoters are also well recognised as being oncogenic or cancer-inducing.
Others have confirmed these findings. A German biologist whistleblower has found contamination rates of up to 354 times the recommended limit. All this has been reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is highly significant.
To put it bluntly, this means that they are not vaccines at all but Genetically Modified Organisms that should have been subject to totally different regulatory conditions and certainly not be classed as vaccines. This has been recognised by the Australian version of the FDA, the TGA, which has changed the picture so much that the Premier of Victoria Dan Andrews, who was the greatest proponent of the vaccine and of its mandatory use, has resigned – though at the time of writing the vaccine has not been mentioned as the reason for his resignation. (Paula Jardine reported in these pages in December 2021 on this regulatory sleight of hand in granting vaccine Emergency Use Authorisations for what were gene therapies.)
All this data, which is slowly breaking through into the public domain, comes hard on the heels of the latest findings that booster vaccines actually increase the chance of getting infected by 3.6 times. This is according to an in-depth study published by the Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest health care organisations in the world, who monitored their staff as well as patients.
It gets worse. Supporters of this technology have claimed that it can be adapted to chase new variants. But it can’t. The results of bivalent vaccines (with components against at least two variants) are seeing the same result. Authors of the Cleveland study say that ‘there is not a single study that has shown that the Covid-19 bivalent vaccine protects against severe disease or death caused by the XBB lineages of the Omicron variant. At least one prior study has failed to find a protective effect of the bivalent vaccine against the XBB lineages of SARS-CoV-2.’
In one study, all bivalent-vaccinated mice which were challenged with Covid became ill.
This was predicted by many of us as the SARS viruses are subject to immunological imprinting: that is, once they have seen a vaccine they will make the same response to any close variant (this is also known as ‘antigenic sin‘) making further vaccines not only useless but more dangerous as they induce antibodies that enhance infection (ADE antibodies), not cross reactivity as has been claimed by the manufacturers.
This is not the end of the issues with the mRNA ‘vaccines’. Several immunology studies have shown that the boosters induce an antibody switch from neutralising subtypes to tolerising subtypes as well as inducing significant T cell suppression, all of which will encourage new infections and suppress the immune response to cancer.
At the end of last year I reported that I was seeing melanoma patients who had been stable for years relapse after their first booster (their third injection). I was told it was merely a coincidence and to keep quiet about it, but it became impossible to do so. The number of my patients affected has been rising ever since. I saw two more cases of cancer relapse post booster vaccination in my patients just this last week.
Other oncologists have contacted me from all over the world including from Australia and the US. The consensus is that it is no longer confined to melanoma but that increased incidence of lymphomas, leukaemias and kidney cancers is being seen after booster injections. Additionally my colorectal cancer colleagues report an epidemic of explosive cancers (those presenting with multiple metastatic spread in the liver and elsewhere). All these cancers are occurring (with very few exceptions) in patients who have been forced to have a Covid booster whether they were keen or not, for many so they could travel.
So why are these cancers occurring? T cell suppression was my first likely explanation given that immunotherapy is so effective in these cancers. However we must also now consider DNA plasmid and SV40 integration in promoting cancer development, a feature made even more concerning by reports that mRNA spike protein binds p53 and other cancer suppressor genes. It is very clear and very frightening that these vaccines have several elements to cause a perfect storm in cancer development in those patients lucky enough to have avoided heart attacks, clots, strokes, autoimmune diseases and other common adverse reactions to the Covid vaccines.
To advise booster vaccines, as is the current case, is no more and no less than medical incompetence; to continue to do so with the above information is medical negligence which can carry a custodial sentence.
No ifs or buts any longer. All mRNA vaccines must be halted and banned now.
MHRA Finally Admits it Failed to Test the Safety of Mass Manufactured Covid Vaccine Batches
UK’s medicines regulator comes clean
By JJ Starky| The Stark Naked Brief | September 28, 2023
On December 8th, 2020, June Raine, the Head of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), publicly declared that “no corners have been cut” during the temporary authorisation of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. However, thanks to the persistence of former Ministry of Defence employee, Nick Hunt, recent findings prove Raine’s statement was not true.
For context, it’s common in development trials across various sectors to first use products made in small-scale facilities or laboratories. Investing in mass production usually comes later, once there’s sufficient confidence in the product’s design. Scaling up, naturally, introduces new risks.
With pharmaceuticals, regulations are in place to manage this process. This is to ensure the final product remains consistent and effective.
Concerns first arose in 2022 regarding the Pfizer Covid vaccine. There were suspicions that the vaccine MHRA approved in December 2020, manufactured using “Process 2”, differs from the version tested in Pfizer’s clinical trials, manufactured using “Process 1”. Josh Guetzkow, an Israeli academic, brought the difference to light, referencing Freedom of Information requests from various countries and Pfizer documents released by U.S. courts.
In May 2023, he published this rapid response in the British Medical Journal alongside Professor Retsef Levi, airing his concerns.
Guetzkow highlighted two things. First, there is a lack of publicly available reports comparing vaccines produced by both processes. Second, there is significant variability in the rate of serious adverse events across different vaccine lots, underscoring the need to better understand variability in the production process.
In October 2020, Pfizer had committed to comparing safety and immunogenicity results between vaccines produced by both processes. Yet, when Hunt submitted his initial FOI request concerning the latter to MHRA in July, their initial response directed him to the European Medicine Agency’s archive without specific guidance.
Here’s the bombshell.
Nick then requested an internal review. In their response, MHRA admit their replies “were not compliant with the (FOI) Act and did not provide or address the specific information (Nick) asked for”.
They then confess they do not possess the “Process 2” report.
The document goes on to state the “Process 2 drug… was shown to be comparable through side-by-side comparability studies and heightened characterisation testing”. In short, trust us, we’ve seen the data but we can’t show it to you and we don’t have it.
Worse yet, MHRA also revealed they failed to chase Pfizer on the promised report that the company should have published comparing the products. This was because of the “extensive usage of vaccines manufactured via Process 2”.
Family investigated for keeping teen home after school-based health center gave bag of unlabeled Zoloft to 17-year-old
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 28, 2023
A federally funded school-based health center (SBHC) in Maine reportedly gave prescription anti-depressant pills in a plastic baggy to a 17-year-old girl without her parents’ knowledge or consent, her father told The Maine Wire.
When the girl’s father, Eric Sack, found the pills — which his daughter told him were Zoloft — he complained to the school.
Zoloft carries a black box warning — which warns of possible serious adverse reactions — indicating the drug can cause suicidal ideation, particularly in people under age 24, when they first start taking the drug.
Sack kept his daughter home from school the following week to make appointments with a doctor and therapist — a decision that resulted in someone at the school or the health center reportedly contacting Child Protective Services, which investigated the family.
The recent push by the U.S. federal government to rapidly expand the number of SBHCs across the country to improve healthcare for children by offering “primary care, mental health care, and other health services in schools” — particularly in underserved communities — is raising red flags.
Critics say they’re concerned children might receive, or be pressured into receiving, unnecessary or unwanted medical interventions without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Georgia attorney Nicole Johnson, co-director of Georgia Coalition for Vaccine Choice and a consultant to the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) legal team, told The Defender :
“This case in Maine really is everything we worried about. It is almost the worst-case scenario. A young person is getting a drug with a black box warning. They come home with it. It doesn’t even have any warning label on it. The parents haven’t been told, and the drug is in some plastic bag that anybody — any other child in the house, or their peers — could have access to. It could be a very dangerous situation.”
Maine goes all in on SBHCs
The Bulldog Health Center at Lawrence High School in Fairfield, Maine, which reportedly gave the Zoloft to Sack’s daughter, offers primary care services onsite to middle and high school students.
It is operated by Maine’s HealthReach Community Health Centers, a nonprofit funded largely by patient fees and grants. HealthReach reported it also received $4.8 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), although further grant details are not available.
HRSA also awarded approximately $25 million in 2022 to expand 125 SBHCs, including $81,728 to HealthReach. HRSA also awarded $5 million to 27 centers in 2021.
Those grants came in addition to $50 million in HHS grants authorized by the Biden administration and Congress in 2022 to states “for the purpose of implementing, enhancing, or expanding the provision” of healthcare assistance through SBHCs using Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, The Defender reported.
In Maine, the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced in March 2022 plans to expand SBHCs across the state through the use of one-time federal American Rescue Plan funding for $2.4 million.
Funds are being distributed in two-year grants during 2021-24 to establish 12-15 new centers in Maine.
In 2022, there were at least 22 SBHCs in the state.
State funding covers startup costs plus costs for uninsured and underinsured students, for additional time needed during visits and for “confidential care that may not be billed to insurance,” according to a presentation by DHHS.
In the SBHC partnership, the school district acts as the “host,” coordinating enrollment in the SBHC program, parental consent and services. The healthcare provider is the “sponsor,” which receives the funding and provides the services.
A key justification for the expansion of the centers, in Maine and nationally, is an “increased need for mental health care.” The demand for mental health services for children and youth were at “an all-time high,” according to DHHS’ presentation, and the COVID-19 pandemic made disparities in access to healthcare more severe.
In the 2020-21 school year, 77% of the reported SBHC visits were for mental health services. DHHS also indicated that increased emergency department use by youth was driven by suicidal ideation among adolescent females.
‘I’m looking out for the best interests of my daughter’
The Maine Wire reported that when Sack found a zip-close bag containing small blue pills in his family home, his daughter told him she had been prescribed the pills by the Bulldog SBHC.
He said he was concerned the prescription given to his daughter violated his parental rights, but also that the center sent unlabeled drugs with no child-resistant container home with his daughter to a household where two younger children also lived.
Sack said he contacted Lawrence High School Principal Dan Bowers, who told him the clinic was a separate entity that he had no control over.
Sack also said a representative from the Bulldog Health Center told him they could legally prescribe the medication to his daughter without informing him. They did not comment on the lack of a label or safety container, he said.
Concerned, Sack pulled his daughter out of school the following week.
“I’m looking out for the best interests of my daughter. That’s why I pulled her out of school,” Sack told The Maine Wire. “Because I don’t think she really ought to be there if they’re going to start giving her pills, you know? Until I sit down with a doctor that I pick for my daughter, not through the school.”
The Maine Wire reported what happened next:
“On Thursday, an agent from Child Protective Services (CPS) called Sack and informed him that he would be arriving shortly to make a surprise visit to his home to conduct a child welfare investigation.
“‘They called and said it was an emergency situation at my house, that I was pretty near holding my daughter hostage, is what the gentleman that came yesterday told me,’ Sack said.
“‘He had information that only the school and Bulldog Health Center had,’ he said.”
Members of the family were questioned individually and as a group by CPS Agent Dylan Wood, who eventually indicated the complaint against him was unfounded, Sack said.
The Defender reached out to Sack, who said he is seeking legal counsel and declined to be interviewed at this time. The Bulldog Health Center and Bower did not respond to a request for comment.
SBHC consent forms may be confusing for parents
Sack told The Maine Wire that he or his wife may have signed a consent form at the start of the school year, but he still thought the incident violated his rights.
Justine Tanguay, an attorney with nearly 20 years of experience advocating for children in various areas of the law, told The Defender these consent forms are a key issue for parents to be aware of.
At the start of each school year, parents are given many forms to sign and they likely don’t realize they are signing away their rights over their children’s healthcare, she said.
Most parents, she said, tend to assume that school medical consent forms allow a school nurse to administer first aid, treatment for minor illnesses or emergency treatment.
“But that is not what this is,” Tanguay said. “It’s something much more nefarious.”
Unlike school nurses, SBHCs function as primary care clinics. By signing consent forms, parents may unknowingly give those who run the SBHC the legal authorization to provide “comprehensive healthcare.”
This could include — but may not be limited to — “the ability to provide preventative treatment, behavioral and mental health services, reproductive counseling, lab and prescription services, various medical screenings, immunizations and disease management,” Tanguay said.
She said parents should know:
“One form they may receive at the start of the school year is a blanket consent form, and if they sign it, they are basically abdicating their parental rights to make medical decisions for their kids.
“The school won’t need to reach out and ask, ‘Hey, can we test your child for whatever thing?’ No, they’ve signed the form, they’ve already said, ‘Do whatever you want.’”
But, she said, parents who signed such a form have the right to revoke it.
Tanguay added that consent forms can be difficult to understand and the forms are not all the same.
She suggested parents whose children go to schools with SBHCs should find out what the forms they are signing say and decide what they want to opt out of.
Tanguay also said Bower’s alleged statement that the clinic is not under his control is true. These clinics are inside of the school, but are separate entities not administered by the school, she said.
Yet, the school is responsible for obtaining signed consent forms from the parents, which generates confusion.
That means parents are not giving informed consent, Tanguay said.
“Did the father in this case know what he was signing? Was there a warning on the document that stated ‘You are abdicating your parental rights to make medical decisions’? So did he understand the implications of the form? I doubt it,” she said.
Teen mental health crisis spurred federal funding for SBHCs
At least since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials and organizations have been sounding the alarm about a mental health crisis among children.
The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) declared the children’s mental health crisis a national emergency in October 2021 and the surgeon general in May of this year issued a public advisory warning that social media can pose a “profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
In fact, suicide rates, particularly among teenage girls, have been on the rise since 2008.
Those public announcements pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic, racism, and social media as the causes of higher rates of mental illness among teens.
But other experts, including Vinay Prasad, M.D., MPH, have cautioned against those assumed links, instead pointing to policies such as lockdowns and school closures that isolated kids and teens and forced them online for large periods of time, compromising their education and their social lives.
Groups like the AAP, a strong supporter of SBHCs, have used the mental health crisis to call on the Biden administration to fund expanded access to screening, diagnosing and treatment for children, arguing access to “school-based mental health care” should be a priority.
The administration responded with new policy measures, including the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — which made $11 billion available for mental health services — and the American Rescue Plan Act. Both offer funding explicitly for school-based mental health services for students, KFF Health News reported.
Many of these resources have funded the expansion of SBHCs.
Professional associations including the AAP and the American Academy of Family Physicians recommend antidepressants, often combined with therapy, to treat moderate-to-severe mental health issues in young people.
But the use of antidepressants for young people — one tool for addressing mental health issues by the healthcare industry — has been controversial, with many advocates arguing for decades that the “heavily-marketed mind-altering agents” are prescribed too frequently to children and the drugs’ effects are understudied.
A 2016 review of over 70 trials published in The BMJ found an increase in self-harm and aggression in children and adolescents taking antidepressants, but not in adults.
Because of these concerns, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) put a black box warning on many antidepressants in 2004, warning that they increase the risk of suicidality (defined as serious thoughts about taking one’s own life or planning or attempting suicide) among children, adolescents and young adults.
Despite those concerns, there has been a steady increase in the last decade in the number of antidepressants prescribed to children.
Many medical researchers have called on the FDA to eliminate these warnings, alleging they led to a reduction in the number of young people who take antidepressants. Others have found these claims are based on “weak evidence.”
Advocates for children’s mental health, such as Tom Madders, director of campaigns at the U.K.-based YoungMinds, a children and young person’s mental health nonprofit, said antidepressants could play a role in some young people’s mental health, but that it is “crucial” they be coupled with other therapies and that they are not used as a substitute for other treatments.
Even those who strongly advocate for the use of antidepressants for children caution about side effects and the importance of parental education and informed consent.
A 2019 article in Current Psychiatry underscored that:
“It is important that clinicians and families be educated about possible adverse effects and their time course in order to anticipate difficulties, ensure adequate informed consent, and monitor appropriately.
“The black-box warning regarding treatment-emergent suicidal thoughts or behaviors must be discussed.”
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.
U.S. Supreme Court to Weigh in on State Laws to Prevent Tech Giants From Censoring Social Media Content
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 29, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court today said it will hear cases challenging Texas and Florida laws that prohibit social media companies from censoring content posted on their platforms, in what The New York Times said will lead to “a major ruling on how the First Amendment applies to powerful tech platforms.”
The two laws, both passed in 2021, and the Supreme Court’s decision to consider them, “could have nationwide repercussions for how social media — and all websites — display user-generated content,” CNN reported.
If upheld, the laws could open the door to more state legislation with similar obligations for social media sites.
Texas House Bill 20 (HB 20) and Florida Senate Bill 7072 (SB 7072) allow users to “sue social media platforms over allegations of political censorship” and “restrict companies from taking down or demoting certain kinds of content even when the platforms may decide it violates their terms of service,” according to CNN.
The laws also could make it harder for platforms to remove what they determine is “misinformation, hate speech or other offensive material,” CNN added.
According to USA Today, the laws “limit” platforms’ ability to regulate content, “even if those posts spread a foreign government’s misinformation or provide false medical advice.”
Two tech industry trade groups, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, challenged the laws in 2021, saying that tech companies enjoy First Amendment protection which prevents the government from telling them “whether and how to disseminate speech,” the Times reported.
Both states’ laws were temporarily blocked by federal courts pending the completion of the appeals process.
According to The Associated Press (AP), the court’s announcement came three days before the start of its new term. A decision is expected in 2024, according to USA Today.
W. Scott McCollough, an Austin, Texas-based technology attorney, welcomed the news.
“I’m glad the Supreme Court picked up the case, because what both Texas and Florida were doing is, they required individualized protection — a consumer protection measure,” he said. “It required them to inform the parties that ‘we’ve done something to you.’”
McCollough added:
“The two states here recognize that these platforms have immense power. They purport to have the right to act unilaterally and subjectively to restrict posts as part of content moderation. So, the states are requiring them to give notice to the people they are censoring and tell them why they did it. This is reasonable at its face.
“If nothing else, I’ve always believed that these aspects of these two state statutes, in theory, should not have a First Amendment problem. States have forever engaged in consumer protection matters. Every state has consumer protection statutes.”
Laws intended to ‘combat Silicon Valley censorship’
Texas HB 20 regarding “censorship of or certain other interference with digital expression, including expression on social media platforms or through electronic mail messages,” passed on Sept. 9, 2021, and was set to take effect on Dec. 2, 2021.
According to Politico, HB 20 “would allow both the state of Texas and individual Texans to sue companies if they ‘censor’ an individual based on their viewpoints or their geographic location by banning them or blocking, removing or otherwise discriminating against their posts.” It would apply to platforms with at least 50 million active users.
Florida SB 7072, Social Media Platforms, also known as the Stop Social Media Censorship Act, was to take effect July 1, 2021. It sought to regulate the content moderation policies of social media platforms, barring them from banning users based on their political ideology.
According to the Times, “The sites in question are largely barred from removing posts based on the viewpoints they express, with exceptions for the sexual exploitation of children, incitement of criminal activity and some threats of violence.”
Supporters of the Florida and Texas laws “argue that the measures are needed to combat what they called Silicon Valley censorship,” including on issues like COVID-19 and claiming election fraud, the Times also reported.
Challenges to both laws resulted in conflicting rulings in federal courts.
In May 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit largely upheld a preliminary injunction freezing enforcement of the Florida law.
Also in May 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked enforcement of the Texas law pending completion of the appeals process. However, in September 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed earlier court rulings that had blocked the law.
Judge Andrew S. Oldham of the 5th Circuit wrote, “Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say. The platforms are not newspapers. Their censorship is not speech.”
McCollough agreed, saying that prior legal precedent holding that “newspapers don’t have to post everybody’s letter to the editor” was based on the rationale that “there is not enough space in a newspaper to post everybody’s letter.”
The 5th Circuit is considering two other cases with First Amendment and free speech implications: Missouri et al. v. Biden et al. and Kennedy et al. v. Biden et al., in which Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is a plaintiff. The 5th Circuit heard oral arguments in Missouri et al. v. Biden et al. last month.
In July, the two cases were consolidated.
Legal experts said the consolidated case is likely headed to the Supreme Court after Associate Justice Samuel Alito earlier this month lifted an injunction that temporarily blocked certain Biden administration offices and officials from contact with social media giants.
The injunction, requested in the Missouri v. Biden case, on July 4 was granted by Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Monroe Division and was later upheld under a Sept. 8 ruling by the 5th Circuit.
Justice Alito paused it after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted an emergency filing asking the Supreme Court to stay the injunction while the high court considers whether to hear the case.
The Supreme Court’s alignment in its 5-4 vote temporarily blocking the Texas law, was “unusual,” according to the AP, with liberal justice Elena Kagan joining three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — in the dissenting opinion that would have allowed the law to remain in effect.
In the dissent, Justice Alito wrote, “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news. At issue is a groundbreaking Texas law that addresses the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day.”
Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD’s acting general counsel, highlighted the significance of the constitutional issues the Supreme Court will consider:
“We will be watching the two First Amendment cases out of Texas and Florida carefully. In these two cases, the social media companies are claiming their First Amendment rights are violated by these laws.
“In several cases in which CHD is involved, we argue that the social media platforms and the U.S. government violated the First Amendment rights of those posting to social media and the consumers of the posts.”
U.S. government claims First Amendment protects its ‘bully pulpit’
One of several legal matters at hand in the two cases pertains to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Passed in 1996, Section 230 gives internet providers legal protections for hosting, moderating and removing most user content.
According to the New York Post, Section 230 was designed to prevent internet companies from being treated as publishers by shielding them from lawsuits by anyone claiming to be wronged by content posted by another user — even though the platforms typically engage in moderation of user-posted content.
In his dissent, Justice Alito wrote, “It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies.”
Social media platforms have long argued that they are not publishers, in order to avoid legal liability for content posted by their users. However, in other instances, these same companies have claimed, in court, that they are publishers and have the right to exercise editorial control over content on their platforms.
For instance, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, recently argued that a subpoena from the District of Columbia’s attorney general interfered with its ability to exercise editorial control over content on its platform.
“Facebook has long had the same public response when questioned about its disruption of the news industry: it is a tech platform, not a publisher or a media company,” as the Guardian reported in 2018.
But in legal arguments, Facebook has repeatedly argued, it’s “a publisher, and a company that makes editorial decisions, which are protected by the First Amendment.”
Social media platforms “claim that they are not publishers and that they should not be liable for the information that shows up on their platforms,” McCollough said.
“You’re either a publisher or you’re not a publisher, and they’ve always said they’re not publishers. So why are they saying they’re publishers now? Are they publishers for the First Amendment and not publishers for Section 230? Explain that one,” he added.
Social media platforms’ First Amendment rights are also at issue. In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court, the State of Texas argued that HB 20 does not affect social media platforms’ free speech rights because “no reasonable viewer could possibly attribute what a user says to the Platforms themselves.”
“Given the Platforms’ virtually unlimited capacity to carry content, requiring them to provide users equal access regardless of viewpoint will do nothing to crowd out the Platforms’ own speech,” the brief also stated.
According to McCollough, “the big sexy issue” in this case involves content moderation. “Can a state basically prohibit discrimination based on viewpoint? And it ultimately comes down to whether, when these platforms are engaging in so-called content moderation, whether that is them ‘speaking’ — if that is a form of speech,” he said.
“We have always contended that that is not speech. It’s conduct. It’s the consumer, the one who is doing the posting, that is engaging in speech. By taking down speech that the platform may not approve of, that is not speech by the platform,” he added.
A policy principle known as common carriage is also implicated. The Communications Act of 1934, for instance, classifies telephone companies as “common carriers,” requiring those companies to make their services available to the public at affordable rates and regardless of viewpoint or other factors.
In a previous legal brief, Texas argued that social media platforms are “the twenty-first century descendants of telegraph and telephone companies: that is, traditional common carriers” — that must generally accept all customers without viewpoint discrimination.
In 2021, Justice Thomas compared social media platforms to communication utilities that are regulated under common carrier laws, on the basis that concentration in the industry gives these companies “enormous control over speech.”
McCollough said, “When you hold out to indiscriminately serve the public on uniform terms and conditions — in other words, if you say I’ll cover it if you just accept my pre-published terms and conditions, then that basically makes you a common carrier.”
The federal government has also asserted its own purported First Amendment rights.
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar argues that lawsuits challenging government attempts to regulate social media content violate the First Amendment on the basis that the office of the president has a “bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans … to act in ways that the President believes would advance the public interest.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Supreme Court asked the DOJ for its views regarding the Florida and Texas laws “as is typical in cases involving federal interests.” In a brief, Prelogar urged the court to hear the cases.
“When a social-media platform selects, edits and arranges third-party speech for presentation to the public, it engages in activity protected by the First Amendment,” she wrote, adding that “the act of culling and curating the content that users see is inherently expressive, even if the speech that is collected is almost wholly provided by users.”
Chris Marchese, litigation director for NetChoice, said “Online services have a well-established First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit.”
And Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said, “It is high time that the Supreme Court resolves whether governments can force websites to publish dangerous content. … Telling private websites they must give equal treatment to extremist hate isn’t just unwise, it is unconstitutional, and we look forward to demonstrating that to the court.”
Tech companies, government using variation of ‘too big to fail’ argument
McCollough told The Defender that what the parties will be briefing and arguing is whether the two state statutes’ content moderation restrictions comply with the First Amendment — in other words, each state’s prohibition against viewpoint discrimination and whether that violates the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court will also hear arguments related to the “individualized explanation requirements” and the extent to which they “comply with the First Amendment.”
“What the solicitor general argued is that these platforms are just way too big,” McCollough said. “They have so many posts that it would be so burdensome on them to be reasonable with their consumers, and that this violates the First Amendment.”
McCollough called this “a variation of the ‘too big to fail’ argument … They’re too big, they do so much, that they just can’t be bothered with an individualized explanation.”
According to McCollough, the Supreme Court’s decision will have major implications for contemporary understandings of free speech and First Amendment rights.
“If you look at the position of the solicitor general and, therefore, the U.S. government, they are saying that the government has a right to free speech, the platforms have a right to free speech, but the people do not have a right to free speech.”
“From a policy perspective, what is the message being sent to Americans? Sit down, shut up, there’s nothing you can do about it, there’s nothing the state legislature can do about it,” he said. “And if they are right about the First Amendment, there’s nothing Congress can do about it.”
“Don’t sit down, don’t shut up, and yes, there is something you can do about it,” he said.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
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.
NATO’s 77th Brigade’s Set Their Legal Attack Dogs on Russell Brand
By Declan Hayes | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2023
Not content with conspiring with the British Parliament in throttling Russell Brand’s voice, NATO has set the entire British legal establishment against him.
Victoria Prentis KC, Britain’s attorney general, has warned the nation’s editors that any pertinent coverage about either Russell Brand or any criminal case that may be taken against him “may amount to contempt”, even though no arrests have yet taken place or cautions to Brand issued and no warrants have yet been issued against him. Legally, even in NATO’s corrupt British heartland, Brand should be free as a bird to go about his business, as should we be to make reasonable comments about him.
That is not now the case. Having been traduced at the behest of the 77th Brigade by the British media, Prentis has now decreed that any salient comments on Brand’s as yet non-existing case is in contempt of court, despite the fact that Brand has not yet got his day in court and no jury of his peers has yet been appointed to adjudicate on the case which, to repeat, as of yet does not exist.
Although the British Contempt of Court Act 1981 makes it illegal for newspapers to publish anything that could prejudice a criminal trial once a suspect has been arrested or a warrant issued, because this is Perfidious Albion we are talking about, laws exist to shut everyone up with or without either a bullet or a judge’s gavel.
As those rarely used laws are now being deployed against Brand, one must wonder why Brand is being singled out for this treatment and why, for example, political prisoner Julian Assange, currently being interned in Belmarsh high security prison, has been spared this further cudgel.
Writing in, of all places, the lifestyle section of Ireland’s regional Cork Examiner newspaper, reformed alcoholic Suzanne Harrington puts NATO’s case as well as any other randomly hired NATO scribe could. Suzanne begins by telling us that she feels “a crushing sense of weariness. Exhaustion, disgust. Fury, obviously, but smothered in a heavy blanket of disillusionment” and asks if we feel the same way about how Brand has betrayed us all.
Suzanne was one of those who went to hear Brand “speak in 12 step meetings.” But now, there is Brand’s “slide to the right. The alt-right. The yoga-Nazi alliance, heightened during lockdown when the entire world went a bit mad. What on earth? Conspiracy theories, rants, dubious company. It felt like he’d started smoking crack again — loony right wing crack, in the company of loony right wing crackheads. Globalist masterplans, great resets, Bill Gates, ivermectin — why? For the clicks? For the millions of followers? Because that’s how you make money away from the mainstream media. You dog-whistle the loonies.”
Although non-loony Suzanne opines there may be an off chance Brand is innocent (of what precisely?), she goes on to say “you only have to look at those who have come out in Brand’s support to see where he has positioned himself politically. He’s way over there, at the extreme toxic end, supported by the shrill voices of Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, and — oh the shame — Donald Trump Jr. Lower down the rung, voices of hate speechers like Alex Jones, Katie Hopkins, and Tommy Robinson. Sad gits like Laurence Fox. And Piers Morgan, obviously. Imagine having that lot standing up for you.”
One of the reasons such “voices of hate speechers” may be amplified in arrays of obscure corners is because the lifestyle columns of the Cork Examiner and the Irish Independent, Irish Times and the Guardian where this “journalist, TEFL teacher, dole claimer, backpacker, youth worker, painter, wardrobe assistant, washer-upper, pen pusher, house cleaner, comic bagger, market stall holder and cake maker” also opines bring no light to this or any other matter.
And that is not primarily the fault of “mainstream media” grifters like Suzanne but of newspaper proprietors like Rupert Murdoch, who have been destroying the quality of the broadsheets ever since the Sunday Times Insight Team was first eviscerated almost 50 years ago.
But what would I know as I am only a potato eating Irish peasant, who aced Australian legal exams experienced Australian lawyers failed. Not much but I do know this. There are times, as in the notorious Stephen Lawrence murder case or the gangland killing of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin when the media sailed as close to the libel law winds as is possible. And let’s not forget ageing mega pop star Cliff Richard, who was witch hunted by the 77th Brigade’s BBC in a manner that would have appalled even the lynch mobs of America’s Wild West.
And nor should we forget the Bloody Sunday Widgery Tribunal, the Ballymurphy massacre, King Rat, Robin the Jackal Johnson, the Glenanne Gang, the Pat Finucane murder, Stakeknife, the sabotaged Stalker Enquiry, the ongoing 1981 Stardust Inquest and countless more where the entire British and Irish judiciary should be in the dock if not on the gallows.
And then there is this nonsense of a jury of one’s peers, which the great Zsa Zsa Gabor once famously ridiculed. Although NATO’s Parliamentarians are generally exempted from jury service, most of them would be debarred anyway. As over 40% of serving British MPs have criminal convictions and as not one of them has been demonetised as Brand has, one must conclude that the 77th Brigade has one law for those who slavishly collaborate with it and another for the Russell Brands of this world.
And how could we get a jury of our peers from the Nazi worshipping Parliament of Canada, whose dictator, Justin Blackface Trudeau, lies that the standing ovation the Canadian Parliament gave a decorated Waffen SS war criminal is a result of the old reliable Russian disinformation canard. Just what kind of high heel wearing moron is Trudeau?
And what about the moronic Ya’ara Saks, Canada’s clearly unhinged “Jewish” Minister for Mental Health, who tried to distance herself from her collusion in welcoming the Waffen SS to the Canadian Parliament on the eve of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday before finishing her grovelling non-apology with the Nazi Azov Slava Ukraini salutation. This, incidentally, is the same “Jewish” moron who contended that Canadian Freedom Convoy truckers honking their horns were doing so in secret tribute to Hitler, whose Waffen SS volunteers she gladly venerated.
There is, in intellectual terms, no difference between those Nazi worshipping Canadian Parliamentarians and the hundreds of Germans who gather at Berlin train stations and howl up to the moon for their right to live their lives as “Canine Beings”, as dogs and bitches in plain English.
Plain English, however, cuts no ice in the British courts where one must hire a word wizard, who is totally familiar with its rabbit warren array of quirks, which exist to perpetuate the King’s arbitrary, ad hoc writs. Here is one such barrister expertly talking us through common law contempt as it applies to the Brand (non-) case and cautioning those, like Britain’s newspaper editors who believe they have a dog in this fight or in any other such circumstance as the King’s 77th Brigade may decree is verboten.
The situation with regard to Brand is that the 77th Brigade, working primarily through Caroline Dinenage, has prejudiced Brand’s defence (against what precisely?) and has warned hosting companies like Rumble that, thanks to the Online Safety Bill and the (BBC-Approved) Trusted News Initiative, they are next for NATO’s abattoir.
Although NATO’s British media would claim that they used American journalist Heather Brooke to break their Parliamentary expenses scandal scoop, critics have opined that that was just a ploy to remove some troublesome Parliamentary pebbles from the jackboots of the 77th Brigade and their MI6 body in a bag colleagues. As Brooke disparages political prisoner (and truth-teller?) Julian Assange “a supposed campaigner for truth, manipulated information to build up a cult of personality around himself – and also to see how many people fell for it”, she would, a priori, seem a low level CIA cretin best avoided, lest she morally corrupts us.
But who is to judge her or Pfizer’s track record in Africa? Not us, if the 77th Brigade and their MI6 and CIA colleagues have their way. If you or anyone you know has an opinion on Russell Brand and if your opinion diverges from that the 77th Brigade enforces, you and any site like Rumble that might give you a platform best watch out as Trudeau and his high heeled Nazi worshipping collaborators are clumsily goose stepping their way to morally corrupt and physically destroy you, wherever you may be.
US has close partnership with Takfiri terrorists in Syria, says President Assad
Press TV – September 30, 2023
President Bashar al-Assad says foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists are operating in areas of northeast Syria controlled by US occupation forces, stating that Washington has built up a close and strong partnership with militants wreaking havoc across the country.
Assad made the remarks in an exclusive interview with China’s state-run CGTN television news channel broadcast late on Friday.
“The northeastern sector of Syria is exactly the region, where terrorists are operating and Americans assert control over. The issue is not simply restricted to the looting of natural resources; but rather a partnership with terrorists to reap mutual benefits. This brings another problem, as a major power is in cahoots with terrorist. These are the facts on the ground in Syria,” he said.
Assad said the Syrian conflict is not over yet, and the Arab country is in the midst of a war.
“Syria, due to its geographical location, has historically endured numerous invasions. Anytime occupiers overran the country, they destroyed its cities and towns. Syria has, however, managed to recover. Syrian people will be able to rebuild their own country when the war ends and the siege is lifted.”
Assad said, “The current situation is certainly not good. It is, frankly speaking, difficult because livelihood woes and struggles are the main problems of the Syrian nation. I mean the financial miseries that they have to endure. Their pains and sufferings are increasing.”
“If reconstruction gets underway, Syria will have a very bright future. I am not speaking of assumptions, desires and expectations, but rather about the pre-war situation. Prior to the war, Syria’s growth was at its best rate of 7%, which was considered a very high ratio for a country with limited capacities.
“We had no foreign debts. We used to borrow and pay back our debts directly. We had enough wheat and used to export grains to other countries. We used to export vegetables and fruits, and were developing our industries in the early years of the crisis. Therefore, I can assuredly say that Syria will be much better than what it was before the war in case the war stops and reconstruction starts,” Assad added.
‘Ukraine has a terrorist government’: A new force wants the EU to change its stance
By Bradley Blankenship | RT | September 30, 2023
On September 16, around 10,000 protesters descended on Prague’s Wenceslas Square to demand a change to their government’s foreign policy. These protests were led by a group called Pravo Respekt Odbornost (Law Respect Expertise; PRO), which the Western mainstream media describes as pro-Russian and anti-Western.
Jindrich Rajchl, a Czech attorney inspired by the political lines of American conservatives Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, is the leader of the group. While some may see Rajchl’s movement as completely out of touch with the country’s traditional politics, he believes that he’s tapped into something much more critical to Prague’s national mythos: rejecting foreign domination.
PRO and its supporters see the current Czech government as traitors who are controlled primarily from Washington and Brussels. And even though the political environment in the country has been turbulent over the past several years, a situation which the current goverment was meant to resolve, Rajchl and PRO believe that a national-conservative platform is the only thing that will rein in out-of-control excesses emanating from foreign powers.
Political situation in the Czech Republic
The current Czech government is led by a three-party center-right coalition called SPOLU (‘Together’), which is composed of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), and TOP 09. These also have an agreement with the Pirate Party and the Mayors and Independents. It rode into power on a strong pro-Western, anti-corruption platform after the 2021 parliamentary elections.
That election was, first and foremost, a referendum on the leadership of former prime minister Andrej Babis, who held this post from 2017 until his eventual defeat, and served before that as finance minister from 2014. He was the spitting image of the prototypical Eastern European ‘oligarch’ before seeking public office, and is one of Europe’s richest people, according to Forbes, with an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion.
Throughout his entire tenure as prime minister, allegations of impropriety dogged him, sparking widespread mobilization within civil society. He was caught up in an EU subsidy fraud case, for which he was charged criminally and investigated by Brussels; he allegedly forcibly disappeared his own son; and he was mentioned in the Pandora Papers. It is against the backdrop of this intense public scrutiny for Babis and his left-wing coalition, which was composed of his center-left populist ANO (‘Yes’) party and the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), with a tentative agreement with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), that the Czech left was obliterated.
Babis’ alleged corruption was tied not only to his person but also to left-wing politics and its basic positions in general. While Babis was a moderate on foreign policy and supported French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for ‘strategic autonomy,’ the PM was instead cast as pro-China and pro-Russia for not buying all-in to Brussels’ political agenda. Likewise, the junior parties of the coalition – the CSSD and KSCM – were so damaged by their affiliation with Babis that neither qualified for any seats in the current Chamber of Deputies, and CSSD has only one senator, marking the first time that both houses of parliament have been without a communist party representative.
This strong mandate for the pro-Western Czech right is led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala, the leader of the very party that helped impose Washington’s ‘shock therapy’ on Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic during the 1990s. It has been given carte blanche to buy into Washington’s imperial project in Ukraine – and in the Czech Republic itself.
The current Czech parliament ratified a new defense treaty with the United States that will make it easier for Washington to deploy troops on Czech soil – a move that critics see as a violation of Czech sovereignty. Defense Minister Jana Cernochova and the ruling coalition have even expressed a desire to host a US military base in their country. Given the Czech Republic’s experience with foreign occupiers, including Nazi Germany during the Second World War and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, such a move would betray the country’s fundamental ideals.
With the death of the left comes an opportunity for the right
Enter a Czech lawyer named Jindrich Rajchl, who leads the emerging political party, PRO. The views of Rajchl and his party, in contrast to the positions of the ruling coalition, may seem out of step with the country’s typical view. For example, here’s what he said at September’s rally:
“We made another step today to move out of the way the rock that is the government of Mr. [Prime Minister Petr] Fiala,” Rajchl told demonstrators.
“They are agents of foreign powers, people who fulfill orders, ordinary puppets. And I do not want a puppet government anymore,” he said, calling on Prague to veto Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO.
PRO’s position – a national-conservative-based populist backlash against the decadence of Western liberalism – seems to be a welcome alternative to many disaffected Czechs, many of whom saw Fiala and his Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the party of the country’s first president, Vaclav Havel, as a return to normalcy.
They also want to broadly slash spending on social services, such as education, and pass the burden onto students. For example, PRO wishes to see university tuition introduced – which, to be sure, would be far less than in places such as the United States.
While PRO is an up-and-coming group and has yet to participate in an election, Rajchl told RT in a profile published in May that he is optimistic about his party’s odds. According to internal polling, he said his party was just over the minimum 5% threshold needed to enter parliament in the 2025 election. That means that, if the elections were held then, Rajchl would be an MP, a position he hopes to wield to form an alliance with other parties, such as the right-wing party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) or potentially Andrej Babis’ ANO, which is topping polls. Politico’s latest tracker, however, has PRO at only 2% – below the threshold – and ANO on top with 34%.
But Rajchl hopes to run for the European Parliament in June 2024, primarily so he can take on Brussels directly.
Economy or war?
The economic situation in the Czech Republic may give PRO a chance for success. In the years following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, prominent international credit agencies like Moody’s have downgraded the Czech Republic’s credit rating due to substantial budget deficits. Before this development, the Czech Republic boasted one of Europe’s, if not the world’s, most favorable public finance outlooks.
Inflation has rocked the Czech economy for several years. According to the Czech Statistical Office, Czechs spent 14% more last year than the year before but, in real terms, spending fell by over 1%. Energy prices were primarily responsible, soaring by 15.5% while fuel increased by 33.5%.
The general outlook for the working class has also been abysmal – and policymakers have done little to support them. Analysis by PAQ Research published in December 2022, based on data from the Czech Statistical Office (CSU), projected that up to 30% of Czech households would fall into poverty this year. Despite this forecast, the ruling coalition still moved forward with an austerity package that would have an outsized effect on average people.
A current austerity initiative making its way through the Czech Republic is set to reduce spending by roughly 94 billion Czech crowns ($4.4 billion) in 2024, followed by an additional 150 billion in 2025 ($6.9 billion). This plan aims to achieve these cuts through various measures, including raising the retirement age, slightly increasing corporate and real estate taxes, and augmenting the current alcohol tax. Furthermore, it will entail workforce reductions within the public sector or corresponding wage adjustments, and it will also significantly raise taxes on the middle class, students, parents, and others.
Numerous experts have shared their views in the media, suggesting that the government’s adoption of an austerity plan became an unavoidable necessity. But unions and opposition political parties have staunchly disagreed, spawning massive protests over the past year.
At the same time, the Fiala goverment has sent weapons and aid hand over fist to Ukraine. In February alone, the goverment approved one weapons shipment worth an estimated 10 billion crowns ($430.74 million). The total amount of aid sent to Ukraine is believed to be around 20 billion crowns ($861.55 million), which constitutes a significant portion of the amount the government wants to cut with its austerity plan.
PRO is tying the Czech Republic’s economic and financial woes to Ukraine aid, and believes that out-of-control spending is hurting the country.
Ukrainian bone of contention
To elaborate on these topics and more, RT caught up with Rajchl again to learn more about PRO’s foreign policy agenda, following the aforementioned profile on him from May. A few developments have happened in Europe since the last conversation, including a public falling out between Poland and Ukraine over grain. Warsaw has unilaterally blocked agricultural imports from Kiev, which had flooded the European market and, Polish leaders say, hurt local farmers. This occurred after an EU-wide ban expired.
When asked about the latest spat between Ukraine and Poland, Rajchl said he shares the same views; however, he insisted that he had always held this position.
“I’ve been saying this since last year: In the end, it’s about the black hole that’s taking European and US money, and there’s huge corruption. The money isn’t used to help the Ukrainian oligarchs. And everyone has understood that the policy of President Zelensky is failing. I’m glad that the Polish government finally found this out. I hope the Czech government will too, but I don’t think they will. They put all their political capital into helping Ukraine and if they admitted that they were wrong, they would be recalled and would have to resign,” Rajchl said.
He added: “The Ukrainian government is a terrorist government. [With regard to] the rocket that crossed into Poland, it’s clear that this was a Ukrainian rocket – not a Russian rocket. Zelensky blamed Russia from the very beginning, although he knew from the very beginning it was his own rocket. He fired the rocket against the EU as a false-flag operation to blame Putin and get more help from the West, which is a form of blackmail. This regime is a criminal regime, Zelensky is a terrorist and should be tried at The Hague.”
Indeed, just after Rajchl’s conversation with RT, Polish investigators reportedly reached the conclusion that the rockets that hit the Polish border village of Przewodow must have been of Ukrainian origin, according to a Polish media report.
What else do they believe in?
Last year, at the height of Europe’s inflation crisis, PRO held a similar rally that attracted tens of thousands of people. During those protests, the group blasted the inflation that was crippling the working class and demanded the government’s resignation. Today, according to the latest Morning Consult tracker of world leaders, Fiala’s government has a dismal 20% approval rating.
Commenting on this, Rajchl said, “It’s a well-deserved place because he’s the worst leader in the world right now, of all of the leaders I know. He doesn’t care about his own people. The economic situation is mostly contributing to this; Fiala is not doing anything to help the Czech people, and they know it. He’s just taking orders from the EU, from the US, from Kiev, but he’s not doing anything for ordinary Czech people.”
The PRO leader also pointed out the absurdity of Czech officials calling on Europe and the West to prepare for nuclear conflict with Russia. “We don’t need to prepare [for this]; we need to do everything in our power to avoid nuclear conflict with anybody in the world.”
“I don’t want to have any enemies in the world. I am reminded of a speech by John F. Kennedy, when he said, ‘We don’t want to have Pax Americana that is forced by American weapons.’ We need to change the perception of the world so that there won’t be friends and foes, but simply neighbors that are just living on the same planet. I don’t see Russia as a threat; I believe the much bigger threat is the Western powers that are dragging us into this stupid conflict,” Rajchl said about his feelings regarding Russia.
The organizer’s position of establishing equal partnerships and being against hegemony sounded similar to the words of some world leaders at the latest BRICS summit in South Africa. Rajchl said he would be open to seeing Prague join BRICS+, perhaps becoming the first EU member state to be incorporated into that emerging bloc.
In his profile for RT in May, he stressed that he was not anti-American or anti-NATO. However, the protest had a much more radical rhetorical angle this time around. Rajchl stressed that he was not against Washington but rather the current leadership of President Joe Biden.
“I believe Donald Trump is the right leader for the United States,” he said, “Biden is just a puppet. There are people behind the current pushing for war, pushing for the woke agenda, the LGBTQ, the Green New Deal, and all these crazy agendas that are poisoning the world and the minds of our children, which I see as the biggest threat to the world and Europe,” he said.
“The woke agenda,” Rajchl stressed, “is the biggest threat to Western civilization. Look at the United States: Its cities are full of people addicted to fentanyl. Western Europe is full of migrants from Muslim countries, which threatens our security.”
The lawyer-turned-politician plans to run for the European Parliament in the country’s upcoming election in June 2024. Rajchl said he wants to “explore and research all of the things that happened during Covid” because his movement is convinced that there were “a lot of crimes that have been committed by members of the European Commission,” and he also wants to form a “national-conservative platform” to stand up against Brussels’ overreach. While not specific on the numbers, the organizer said he was optimistic about his odds of securing an MEP seat, according to internal polling.
Moscow Says ‘Anti-Russia’ IAEA Resolution Contains Unsubstantiated Accusations
Sputnik – 30.09.2023
MOSCOW – The resolution adopted at the 67th session of the IAEA General Conference on “nuclear safety, nuclear security and safeguards in Ukraine” contains unfounded attacks and unsubstantiated accusations against Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
The 67th Regular Session of the IAEA General Conference took place from Monday to Friday in Vienna.
“On September 28, the 67th regular session of the IAEA General Conference, under pressure from the United States and its allies, adopted the resolution ‘Nuclear safety, security and safeguards in Ukraine’, containing unfounded attacks and unsubstantiated accusations against Russia, through a vote accompanied by the typical Western blackmail, intrigue and intimidation of countries,” Zakharova said in a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.
Zakharova accused the United States and its allies of using international mechanisms “to achieve their opportunistic political goals, which are in no way related to the statutory purposes of such mechanisms.”
“The above resolution is non-binding, and Russia is not going to act on its provisions, while citing the resolution in documents will make them politically and legally void to us,” Zakharova added.
The issue of nuclear safety has drawn renewed international attention since the Ukraine conflict started in February 2022. During the hostilities, the Zaporozhye NPP, which is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe by number of units and energy output, came under the control of Russian forces in early March 2022 and has since been repeatedly shelled, raising concerns over a possible nuclear accident. The IAEA established a permanent presence of its experts at the ZNPP in September 2022.
Fauci and the CIA: A New Explanation Emerges
By Jeffrey A. Tucker | The Brownstone Institute | September 27, 2023
Jeremy Farrar’s book from August 2021 is relatively more candid than most accounts of the initial decision to lock down in the US and UK. “It’s hard to come off nocturnal calls about the possibility of a lab leak and go back to bed,” he wrote of the clandestine phone calls he was getting from January 27-31, 2020. They had already alerted the FBI and MI5.
“I’d never had trouble sleeping before, something that comes from spending a career working as a doctor in critical care and medicine. But the situation with this new virus and the dark question marks over its origins felt emotionally overwhelming. None of us knew what was going to happen but things had already escalated into an international emergency. On top of that, just a few of us – Eddie [Holmes], Kristian [Anderson], Tony [Fauci] and I – were now privy to sensitive information that, if proved to be true, might set off a whole series of events that would be far bigger than any of us. It felt as if a storm was gathering, of forces beyond anything I had experienced and over which none of us had any control.”
At that point in the trajectory of events, intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic had been put on notice. Anthony Fauci also received confirmation that money from the National Institutes of Health had been channeled to the offending lab in Wuhan, which meant that his career was on the line. Working at a furious pace, the famed “Proximal Origin” paper was produced in record time. It concluded that there was no lab leak.
In a remarkable series of revelations this week, we’ve learned that the CIA was involved in trying to make payments to those authors (thank you whistleblower), plus it appears that Fauci made visits to the CIA’s headquarters, most likely around the same time.
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Suddenly we get some possible clarity in what has otherwise been a very blurry picture. The anomaly that has heretofore cried out for explanation is how it is that Fauci changed his mind so dramatically and precisely on the merit of lockdowns for the virus. One day he was counseling calm because this was flu-like, and the next day he was drumming up awareness of the coming lockdown. That day was February 27, 2020, the same day that the New York Times joined with alarmist propaganda from its lead virus reporter Donald G. McNeil.
On February 26, Fauci was writing: “Do not let the fear of the unknown… distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.”
The next day, February 27, Fauci wrote actress Morgan Fairchild – likely the most high-profile influencer he knew from the firmament – that “be prepared to mitigate an outbreak in this country by measures that include social distancing, teleworking, temporary closure of schools, etc.”
To be sure, twenty-plus days had passed between the time Fauci alerted intelligence and when he decided to become the voice for lockdowns. We don’t know the exact date of the meetings with the CIA. But generally until now, most of February 2020 has been a blur in terms of the timeline. Something was going on but we hadn’t known just what.
Let’s distinguish between a proximate and distal cause of the lockdowns.
The proximate cause is the fear of a lab leak and an aping of the Wuhan strategy of keeping everyone in their homes to stop the spread. They might have believed this would work, based on the legend of how SARS-1 was controlled. The CIA had dealings with Wuhan and so did Fauci. They both had an interest in denying the lab leak and stopping the spread. The WHO gave them cover.
The distal reasons are more complicated. What stands out here is the possibility of a quid pro quo. The CIA pays scientists to say there was no lab leak and otherwise instructs its kept media sources (New York Times) to call the lab leak a conspiracy theory of the far right. Every measure would be deployed to keep Fauci off the hot seat for his funding of the Wuhan lab. But this cooperation would need to come at a price. Fauci would need to participate in a real-life version of the germ games (Event 201 and Crimson Contagion).
It would be the biggest role of Fauci’s long career. He would need to throw out his principles and medical knowledge of, for example, natural immunity and standard epidemiology concerning the spread of viruses and mitigation strategies. The old pandemic playbook would need to be shredded in favor of lockdown theory as invented in 2005 and then tried in Wuhan. The WHO could be relied upon to say that this strategy worked.
Fauci would need to be on TV daily to somehow persuade Americans to give up their precious rights and liberties. This would need to go on for a long time, maybe all the way to the election, however implausible this sounds. He would need to push the vaccine for which he had already made a deal with Moderna in late January.
Above all else, he would need to convince Trump to go along. That was the hardest part. They considered Trump’s weaknesses. He was a germaphobe so that’s good. He hated Chinese imports so it was merely a matter of describing the virus this way. But he also has a well-known weakness for deferring to highly competent and articulate professional women. That’s where the highly reliable Deborah Birx comes in: Fauci would be her wingman to convince Trump to green-light the lockdowns.
What does the CIA get out of this? The vast intelligence community would have to be put in charge of the pandemic response as the rule maker, the lead agency. Its outposts such as CISA would handle labor-related issues and use its contacts in social media to curate the public mind. This would allow the intelligence community finally to crack down on information flows that had begun 20 years earlier that they had heretofore failed to manage.
The CIA would hobble and hamstring the US president, whom they hated. And importantly, there was his China problem. He had wrecked relations through his tariff wars. So far as they were concerned, this was treason because he did it all on his own. This man was completely out of control. He needed to be put in his place. To convince the president to destroy the US economy with his own hand would be the ultimate coup de grace for the CIA.
A lockdown would restart trade with China. It did in fact achieve that.
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How would Fauci and the CIA convince Trump to lock down and restart trade with China? By exploiting these weaknesses and others too: his vulnerability to flattery, his desire for presidential aggrandizement, and his longing for Xi-like powers over all to turn off and then turn on a whole country. Then they would push Trump to buy the much-needed personal protective equipment from China.
They finally got their way: somewhere between March 10 or possibly as late as March 14, Trump gave the go ahead. The press conference of March 16, especially those magical 70 seconds in which Fauci read the words mandating lockdowns because Birx turned out to be too squeamish, was the great turning point. A few days later, Trump was on the phone with Xi asking for equipment.
In addition, such a lockdown would greatly please the digital tech industry, which would experience a huge boost in demand, plus large corporations like Amazon and WalMart, which would stay open as their competitors were closed. Finally, it would be a massive subsidy to pharma and especially the mRNA platform technology itself, which would enjoy the credit for ending the pandemic.
If this whole scenario is true, it means that all along Fauci was merely playing a role, a front man for much deeper interests and priorities in the CIA-led intelligence community. This broad outline makes sense of why Fauci changed his mind on lockdowns, including the timing of the change. There are still many more details to know, but these new fragments of new information take our understanding in a new and more coherent direction.
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also the author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.