Is the war in Ukraine about “autocracy against democracy”?
By Noah Carl | November 24, 2022
For the past eight months, Western leaders have emphasised that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is war against democracy, and by supporting Ukraine we are defending that form of government and the values it represents.
In a speech on 26 March calling for America’s allies to stand with Ukraine, President Biden referred to the “the great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy”. He went to say that “in the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are on the frontlines”, adding that “their brave resistance is part of a larger fight for essential democratic principles”.
The EU Comission President Ursula von der Leyen characterised Russia’s invasion as a “war on our values” that is about “autocracy against democracy”. And two prime ministers ago, Boris Johnson argued the financial cost of supporting Ukraine is a “price worth paying for democracy and freedom”.
Fine words, but there’s one big problem: Ukraine isn’t particularly democratic. (Stephen Wertheim has already made this point in The Atlantic, but it bears repeating.) Two months before his “great battle for freedom” speech, Biden himself stated that Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO in the near future “based on much more work they have to do in terms of democracy”.
So on the one hand, we can’t let Ukraine into NATO because they’re not a democracy. But on the other, we can’t make concessions to Russia to end the war because this is a war against democracy!
Why is the UN Commissioner For Human Rights Trying to Suppress Free Speech on Twitter?
BY DR DAVID MCGROGAN | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 22, 2022
While there has been a great deal of hullabaloo concerning Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, one would probably not have expected senior officials at the United Nations to find it necessary to have their say on the matter. Yet on November 5th Volker Türk, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, did indeed weigh-in, sending an open letter to Mr. Musk to express his “concern and apprehension” about Twitter’s role in the “digital public square”. He urged Musk to make sure human rights would be “central to the management of Twitter”, and to “address harms” associated with the platform, and also took the time for a bit of finger-wagging at Twitter’s new CEO for sacking Twitter’s human rights team (no, I had no idea it had one either).
The letter was almost certainly only sent so that Türk, who assumed office in mid-October and is a comparative unknown (some UN insiders were apparently hoping for Michelle Obama or Angela Merkel), can get a bit of recognition. But it is instructive nonetheless in giving stark expression to the awkward position which human rights advocates have found themselves adopting when it comes to one of the most salient issues of the day – the regulation of speech online and particularly the subjects of disinformation and misinformation.
This happens in the course of two short paragraphs. Starting off, Türk is keen to emphasise the importance of protecting free speech. Twitter, he notes, is being pressed by governments to take down content or use upload filters, and he urges it in clear terms to “stand up for the rights to privacy and free expression to the full [sic] extent possible under relevant laws”. So, on the one hand, he adopts a strong position against censorship, implying that speech should only be restricted online where it would cross the border into illegality.
Yet on the other hand, in the very next breath, he declares that “free speech is not a free pass” and that the “viral spread of harmful disinformation…results in real world harms”. Therefore, in his view, Twitter must take responsibility to “avoid amplifying content” that results in harms to people’s rights – whether or not, by implication, it is technically legal. Hence, for example, scepticism about the efficacy of vaccines, legally expressed, ought nonetheless to be supressed given the impact it might have on the right to health.
This can only be described as cakeism. For Türk, it is apparently desirable both to protect freedom of expression to the fullest extent possible under the law, and yet also to restrict lawful speech where it might result in ‘harms’. It is easy to see the appeal in the abstract of the idea that these positions can be reconciled, and Türk indeed concludes his letter by suggesting that “our shared human rights offer a unifying way forward”. But it is difficult to see from its content how this could be so. Does Türk believe that freedom of speech should be protected insofar as it is possible to do so? Or does he believe lawful speech should be suppressed to prevent harm? He can believe in one, but he surely cannot coherently believe in both.
The wider point is that human rights advocates like Türk have rather lost faith in their own model. For decades, it has been orthodox human rights doctrine that all human rights are, in UN-speak, “indivisible and interdependent”. The rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, non-discrimination, health, food, housing, education, and so on, all support one another and, indeed, cannot properly be enjoyed without the others. It is therefore not only possible to secure (say) freedom of expression and the right to health – they actually bolster each other.
The rationale for this can be readily understood: if freedom of expression is secure, then people will have access to the full range of information and opinion available on any given topic, and therefore policymakers, healthcare providers, doctors and patients will be able to make better health-related decisions than they would otherwise. There is therefore a direct link between securing freedom of speech and the right to health. (And conversely, of course, securing the right to health means increasing opportunities for people to express themselves freely – one will find it much easier to actively participate in public discourse if one is in good health than not.) What is true in this example is true across the round, and the orthodox position in the UN human rights system has long been that these mutually-supportive linkages can be found throughout the human rights corpus.
This is not, however, the position that Türk adopts in his letter. To reiterate, for the new High Commissioner, freedom of expression and the right to health are not in fact “indivisible and interdependent”, but incommensurate. If people are able to express themselves freely, they will circulate dangerous disinformation about vaccines, and harm will result. Freedom of expression does not reinforce the right to health; it undermines it.
Türk is no loose cannon. As short as his letter to Musk is, it essentially summarises the position adopted in a recent report to the UN General Assembly by the Secretary-General himself. This report manages somehow to express a robust defence of the “right to hold opinions without interference” and an insistence that “free communication of information and ideas about public and political issues… is essential”, while at the same time advocating for state intervention to prevent the spread of inaccurate information concerning “public health, electoral processes or national security” and the demonetisation of legal-but-harmful content. The same schizophrenic attitude is adopted as in Türk’s letter, but the message is clear enough: while it is necessary to pay lip service to the importance of freedom of expression, the system as a whole now disavows the “indivisible and interdependent” doctrine, and instead sees freedom of expression as being potentially antagonistic to other rights.
What are we to make of this? The clue is in the types of harmful inaccurate information that both Türk and the Secretary-General identify as particularly dangerous and hence warranting state suppression – i.e., those implicating public health, electoral processes and national security. It is no accident that these subjects map pretty closely to the issues that are of greatest concern to the global bien pensant class in which these figures are so firmly entrenched – Covid vaccines, ‘election denialism’, and Russian disinformation. And it is not really a great surprise that when the chips are down and the consensus within that class is that oppositional views on those topics represent a genuine threat, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary-General suddenly find that freedom of expression is not so “indivisible and interdependent” with respect to other rights at all. Indeed, it is to be sacrificed where those particular concerns are raised. Human beings, as we know, can be remarkably flexible on points of principle when peer pressure is applied – even, it turns out, senior human rights lawyers and UN Secretary-Generals.
More broadly, if one were being especially cynical, one might say that this is further evidence supporting the long-term criticism of the international human rights system – that it is essentially a forum for pharisaical expressions of right-on opinions which vary in accordance with whatever the ‘current thing’ is. This would not be entirely fair – the UN human rights organs do very important work – but it is sometimes easy to see how this view proliferates. Türk’s letter is suggestive not so much of a commitment to the letter of human rights law, but rather only to the contemporary concerns of a particular elite constituency. This in turn indicates that the UN human rights apparatus as a whole is geared more toward addressing the anxieties of that constituency than it is towards standing up for human rights across the board. Is it any wonder, then, that ordinary people generally take a sceptical view about human rights in the round?
Dr. David McGrogan is Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School.
The Colorado gay club shooting is being used to shut down debate on child sexualization
Blaming ‘Libs of TikTok’ for a deranged murderer’s actions is shameless politicization
By Robert Bridge | RT | November 23, 2022
Almost as repugnant as the deadly attacks that are occurring with alarming frequency in the United States is the speed with which certain individuals rush to politicize them. The Club Q massacre in Colorado Springs, which left five dead and 18 injured, was certainly no exception.
The Democrats’ reaction kicked off with predictable calls for gun control. In this particular tragedy, however, the killer, 22-year-old Andersen Lee Aldrich, should never have been allowed to buy a gun in the first place. Moreover, he should have been high on the FBI’s ‘person of interest’ radar.
A year-and-a-half before Aldrich went on his deadly shooting spree, this troubled young man (who, according to court documents, has now started to identify as non-binary and use the pronouns them/they) threatened his family with a homemade bomb, forcing neighbors to evacuate while police talked him into surrendering. Yet, despite this, the district attorney of Colorado, Michael J. Allen, not only refused to press charges, but did not impose Colorado’s red-flag laws, which would have prevented Aldrich from purchasing a firearm. Had the Democratic-run state of Colorado enforced its own laws, five people might still be alive today.
Perhaps sensing the weakness of their anti-gun position, the Democrats rushed to politicize the tragedy by blaming conservative figures for instigating the violence.
Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chastised her Republican colleague Representative Lauren Boebert in the wake of the tragedy for “elevating anti LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies,” while MSNBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny took aim at a popular Twitter account for merely pointing out what is becoming increasingly clear to many Americans.
“Online… this Libs of TikTok account, which feeds larger media like Fox News stories, what has happened is the demonization of LGBTQ people, calling them ‘groomers’ and ‘pedophiles,’” remarked Zadrozny. “This type of thing, whether it’s motive or not, what we know is that it’s just another reason why LGBTQ people are scared.”
Yet the goal of voices like Libs of TikTok, which uses actual progressive sources, is not “the demonization of LGBTQ people,” as Zadrozny argues, but rather to shine a spotlight on an issue that many millions of people view as a serious problem. A recent poll showed that 57% of Americans support a ban on teaching young children about sexual orientation and transgender issues in public schools.
Meanwhile, it does not require much digging to see that the sexualization of children is really happening. Consider a recent advertising campaign by the famous fashion house, Balenciaga.
The photo shoot features a very young girl holding a teddy bear that is dressed up in a bondage outfit. Another picture in the series displays a Balenciaga bag on top of a sheaf of documents, one of which appears to reference the 2002 US Supreme Court case “Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition,” which struck down some provisions in an anti-child pornography law. The paper wasn’t featured prominently, but it’s hard to imagine it ended up there by accident.
Although the left would like people to ignore it, it stands to reason that these highly suggestive images could inspire acts of violence against children, albeit of a different kind from those witnessed at the Colorado Springs gay club. The only way to address these very real threats to children is to speak openly about them.
Youth today are being exposed to a slew of complex ideas and actions – from questioning their ‘true’ gender, to watching drag queens perform at the local gay club. Having been subjected to such radical concepts at the most impressionable age, an increasing number of young people eventually make the fateful decision to have a sex-change operation.
It is only natural that millions of Americans will want to make their opinions heard on these topics that could have life-long consequences for their children. They should be able to do so without facing accusations of being accomplices to murders carried out by deranged individuals. But as far as the left is concerned, anyone who speaks out against the sexualization of children will be responsible for getting more people killed, just like we saw at Club Q.
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.
The Road to Fascism: For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State
A New Book by Simon Elmer
OffGuardian | November 24, 2022
With the lifting of the thousands of regulations by which our lives were ruled for two long years there has been an understandable desire to believe that the coronavirus ‘crisis’ is over and we will return to something like an albeit new normal.
But as new crises have sprung up to take its place — war in the Ukraine, the so-called ‘cost of living crisis’ and the return of the environmental crisis — it’s increasingly difficult not to look back on ‘lockdown’ as the first campaign in a war that has not been declared by any government but is no less real for that.
The willingness of our governments to use the forces of the state against their own populations on the justification of protecting us from ourselves signals a new level of authoritarianism — and something like the return of fascism — to the governmental, juridical and cultural forms of the formerly neoliberal democracies of the West, and one of the aims of this book is to examine the validity of this thesis.
Its purpose in doing so, however, is not to contribute to an academic debate about the meaning of the term ‘fascism’, but rather to interrogate how and why the general and widespread moral collapse in the West over the past two-and-a-half years has been effected with such rapidity and ease, and to examine to what ends that collapse is being used.
The more deliberate is the immiseration of the populations of Western democracies, the clearer it becomes that the war started by COVID-19 is not between nation states but a civil war waged against our institutions of democratic governance and the division of powers between executive, legislature and judiciary.
Insofar as these institutions and this division are being dismantled and replaced by the rule of international technocracies that, under the cloak of the ‘pandemic’, have assumed increasing power over our lives since March 2020, this war represents a revolution in Western capitalism from the neoliberalism under which we have lived for the past forty years.
Where it is heading with ever greater speed and finality, and which The Road to Fascism sets out to demonstrate, is the new totalitarianism of the Global Biosecurity State.
Simon Elmer is the founder of Architects for Social Housing (ASH), you can follow them on twitter. The Road to Fascism was published by ASH on 28 September, and is available in hardback, paperback and e-book. Click on the link for purchase options, the contents page and preface. Excerpts have been published in The Daily Sceptic and The Exposé; and you can hear Simon discussing his book in an interview on The Delingpod.
The collapse of FTX is an embarrassment for globalists
By Lucy Wyatt | TCW Defending Freedom | November 23, 2022
The spectacular crash of FTX, discussed in TCW yesterday, is developing into a scandal of epic proportions. On Friday November 11 FTX filed for bankruptcy, owing in excess of $3.1billion to more than a million customers, including major institutional investors such as BlackRock and Sequoia Capital. After a brief two and half years of trading, FTX’s rise and fall has left many with more questions than answers. Not least because the scandal is revealing more than just a loss of money, exposing much that the globalists might prefer to remain hidden.
There are two schools of thought. One is that FTX, the world’s second biggest crypto exchange, was run by youthful MIT graduates who got out of their depth. The second is that FTX may have been set up as a scam from the beginning. Without doubt, FTX had the fingerprints of the globalists all over it. It was once heavily promoted by the World Economic Forum, with its own page on their website describing FTX as a ‘cryptocurrency exchange built by traders, for traders’ and its founder regularly attended Davos gatherings. The key question that needs answering is cui bono, who benefited from FTX’s activities? Knowing that might give some clue as to its purpose.
Certainly, in respect of the age of those running the company, FTX was ideal. Globalists have a penchant for youth (vide WEF’s Young Global Leaders programme). Having the young nominally run things is a useful ploy. They attract other young who then form armies of ‘wokeists’ to play the role of useful idiots, as we see in Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil. Youthfulness also creates its own tyranny in the sense that it cannot be challenged without appearing to stand in the way of ‘progress’. Thus the adults in the room become so overawed by the presence of these wunderkind that they forget to ask the obvious questions, such as ‘how much help did you have to get started?’
In the case of the Swedish doom goblin, we are supposed to believe that she spontaneously started skolstrejk för klimatet. Yet curiously she has moments when she appeared incapable of answering questions about climate without a script.
Back in the USA, Mark Zuckerberg apparently built Facebook on the back of some Harvard campus networking in 2004, even though coincidentally the Pentagon had begun work on something similar called Lifelog. Facebook, of course, has the great advantage in terms of collecting data that its users voluntarily provide so much detail. This summer, as if to emphasise the close ties with intelligence services, Zuckerberg confessed to Joe Rogan that Facebook had followed FBI guidance over the Hunter Biden laptop affair and in effect ‘shadow banned’ the story. Even before that, the shine had come off Zuckerberg as his holding company Meta has continued to lose value; now 11,000 employees have been sacked.
Then we have FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF or as some are calling him ‘less bankman; more fried’ and even ‘Sam Bankster Fraud’), the 30-year-old founder of the crypto exchange.
SBF ticked a lot of boxes for the globalists. He was part of the ‘Effective Altruism‘ movement which claims to be about ‘doing good better’. Which meant that he could use some of his $16billion net worth on not-for-profit charities dear to the globalists focused on planet-saving projects. In July 2021 he set up the FTX Foundation which spawned a number of initiatives such as research into stopping future pandemics; FTX Climate, a fund for research into climate change; the FTX Future Fund with areas of interest such as Artificial Intelligence and the risks from bioweapons, and FTX Community, concerned with poverty, animal welfare and community outreach. All good philanthropic stuff, the sort that globalists like.
Institutional investors were reassured by SBF’s collaboration with Congress to develop regulation for the crypto sphere. With such high moral standards and lots of virtue-signalling – saving the planet, working to improve regulation around crypto, hanging out with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, what could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately for investors, as bankruptcy proceedings are currently revealing, SBF and his colleagues were involved in an unethical and fraudulent operation. Little did investors realise that SBF was in effect running a Ponzi scheme which secretly reallocated client funds out of FTX into Alameda Research, SBF’s trading company, as collateral to cover risky trades. Because there was no oversight (FTX lacked a board of governance) and no one asked hard questions, FTX ran out of liquidity and became insolvent.
It could be said that SBF’s absence of moral boundaries was reflected in his unconventional lifestyle living in the Bahamas in a polyamorous set-up with several of his colleagues. His supposed girlfriend who was running Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, is on record describing it as being like an ‘imperial Chinese harem’. He also had no problem being a slush fund for the Democrat Party, being the second largest donor after George Soros; or being involved in financing Ukraine. FTX helped the Ukraine government to set up a crypto donations website, ‘Aid for Ukraine‘, which has led to accusations of US tax money sent to Ukraine being cycled back to the US via FTX.
Those who believe that FTX was a deliberate scam from the start point to SBF’s work with Congress as the main reason for FTX’s creation. It suited those who regard the decentralised nature of crypto as a threat to centralised financial controls to have a Trojan Horse insider who could work to undermine the crypto space. Even crashing FTX helps their cause as now all crypto is tarred with the Ponzi accusation and, having lost money, institutional investors will stay away from the space. At the end of the day, these are all power games. SBF may well have been a victim of larger forces. He served his purpose and had his fun in the sun.
Meanwhile we should all be more wary of wunderkinder. Not least the World Economic Forum, which has deleted FTX from its website and doesn’t seem keen to discuss the matter further. I wonder why?
Covid-19 Vaccines in Pregnancy
How much do we really know about safety?
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | November 20, 2022
There are gaps in our knowledge about the risk from covid infection in pregnancy but even larger gaps regarding the risks of vaccination. What we do know, however, is that there have always been very good reasons to be cautious of giving medication in pregnancy.
How risky is SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy?
Early in the pandemic, the fear was raised that Covid-19 was more severe during pregnancy. This would not be surprising, as that is true for any infection. There are several reasons for this. The immune system is relatively down-regulated in pregnancy (vital so that the mother does not reject the developing fetus which of course is 50% genetically ‘non-self’) making women more susceptible to infections. It is known that some viral infections, such as rubella and cytomegalovirus cause fetal abnormalities if caught early in pregnancy. In late pregnancy, respiratory infections are likely to be more problematic, as the diaphragm may be splinted by the growing uterus, making breathing shallower. Also any febrile illness may tip the mother into preterm labour. And finally there was the concern that passage of the virus across the placenta could infect the baby, as may be seen in untreated HIV infection.
Thus, there were good theoretical reasons to be concerned. On the other hand, Covid-19 severity was known to be highly related to older age groups and serious comorbidities whereas the majority of pregnant women will be young and healthy. In all, nine pregnant women died with Covid-19 between March and December 2020 from a total of 683,191 births that year. SARS-CoV-2 infections with the recent omicron variants are known to be much milder, including during pregnancy.
One problem with quantifying the risk of Covdi-19 in pregnancy arises from the routine testing – thus anyone admitted for obstetric reasons was tested and so hospitalisations in pregnancy will have all been counted as pregnant covid admissions where in reality many were admissions for pregnancy complications at a time of high SARS-CoV-2 prevalence.
Finally, the evidence that vaccination has reduced risk from covid in pregnant women is lacking.
What do we know about covid vaccine safety in pregnancy?
The honest answer to this is ‘very little’. All the randomised clinical trials have specifically excluded pregnant women. Indeed, participants in the trials had to affirm that they were not trying to become pregnant and that if sexually active they would take contraceptive precautions. These rules were also applied to potential fathers and an obligation to inform the trial investigators should pregnancy occur. Invariably, some participants in the trials did become pregnant but full information on the outcomes is not available.
It was known that Pfizer’s animal studies showed the lipid nanoparticles were detectable in the ovaries (see Table 4-2). Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein was found to share similarities with 27 human proteins that relate to egg production (oogenesis), uterine receptivity and placentation. It is also known that the pregnancy studies in rats involved a higher rate of pregnancy losses and fetal anomalies in the vaccine than the placebo arm, despite which, these limited studies were reported as showing no concerns. See this analysis of recently released Pfizer data.
A detailed open letter to the president of the RCOG highlights the lack of information and some worrying signals of potential harm. One such signal is the increase in neonatal deaths in Scotland. It has already been concluded that these deaths were not related to Covid-19 itself but, like the excess deaths in the whole population, the officials and the MSM are ‘baffled’. Oddly, no-one has looked at the effect of vaccination beyond 28 days. Public Health Scotland declared there was no “plausible link” to vaccination to justify investigation, adding, “the outcomes of such analysis, whilst being uninformative for public health decision making, had the potential to be used to harm vaccine confidence at this critical time.” Indeed, Professor Sarah Stock, expert in maternal and fetal medicine at the University of Edinburgh, commented in May 2022: “The numbers are really troubling, and I don’t think we know the reasons why yet” but “stressed the Covid vaccine, which studies have consistently shown to be safe in pregnancy, was not a factor”. Professor Richard Ennos, also from Edinburgh University, has written challenging her logic.
Figure 1: Scottish data on neonatal death rate per 1,000 live births per month (left axis) and doses given to pregnant women (right axis).
An inquiry has been launched in September 2022, but is likely to take 6-9 months – the temporal link to the vaccines would at least suggest a much more urgent need for investigation.
It is not only in the UK that concerns have been raised. Australia has had an extraordinary fall in live birth rate in the last two months of 2021 (2022 figures are not yet available). The results are so extreme that it must surely be some sort of reporting error. But Germany and Sweden have also seen a sharp drop in fertility rates in recent months which have been analysed here, looking a Covid-19 infections, unemployment rates and vaccination rates.
A hugely concerning peer-reviewed preprint has been published showing reduction in stem-cells from umbilical cord samples after Covid-19 infection but much more marked effects following vaccination. The paper has been reviewed here. These cells are an integral part of the newborn infants developing immune system.
Historical pharmaceutical catastrophes and cautions
The most widely known example of severe harm resulting from a drug used in pregnancy is Thalidomide. Launched in 1953 as a tranquiliser, the drug company was taken over the following year and it was relaunched in 1958 as an anti-sickness medication, despite undergoing no specific testing in pregnancy. Over the next 3 years, over 10,000 babies were born with severe limb defects and some also deaf or blind and many thousands are thought to have died. Women had trusted the authorities that all safety checks had been carried out, but sadly irreversible and catastrophic harm resulted before the drug was eventually withdrawn. It was the Thalidomide scandal which led to the setting up of the UK Yellow Card system.
The prescribing of diethylstilbestrol to pregnant women resulted in harm to female fetuses, which only became apparent when the exposed girls themselves reached adulthood. It took 30 years before the late cancer risks were fully recognised and the use of diethylstilboestrol in pregnancy was stopped. Similarly, sodium valproate, an effective anticonvulsant, when given in pregnancy can cause ‘fetal valproate syndrome’, with severe effects on cognitive function. Its teratogenic potential was known from animal studies prior to its launch in 1972, yet even as recently as 2020, women were still not fully informed. It is noteworthy that a BMJ letter in 1981 sounding caution came from a group in Finland – the same country who first noted narcolepsy in children following Pandemrix vaccination. The shortcomings of our healthcare system, described as “disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive” are evident in the Cumberlege Review published July 2020 – ‘First Do No Harm’.
It is against this background that the British National Formulary has strict cautions on prescribing in pregnancy, stating:
“Drugs can have harmful effects on the embryo or fetus at any time during pregnancy. … Drugs should be prescribed in pregnancy only if the expected benefit to the mother is thought to be greater than the risk to the fetus, and all drugs should be avoided if possible during the first trimester. During the second and third trimesters drugs can affect the growth or functional development of the fetus, or they can have toxic effects on fetal tissues.”
“Not all the damaging effects of intrauterine exposure to drugs are obvious at birth, some may only manifest later in life. Such late-onset effects include malignancy, e.g. adenocarcinoma of the vagina after puberty in females exposed to diethylstilbestrol in the womb, and adverse effects on intellectual, social, and functional development.”
Most vitally the BNF reminds us, “Absence of information does not imply safety.”
We can only hope that in the case of the Covid-19 vaccines, this does not turn out to be prophetic.
New Fauci emails show Drosten, other Corona astrologers debating whether and how to address lab origin hypothesis
Drosten: “Didn’t we congregate to challenge a certain theory, and if we could, drop it?”
eugyppius – a plague chronicle – November 23, 2022
In February 2020, virologists were beginning to worry that discussion about the origins of SARS-2 was getting out of hand. Four of them – Edward Holmes, Kristian Andersen, Andrew Rambaut and Robert Garry – decided to write a short statement on the matter, in the hopes of regaining control of the debate. Jeremy Farrar, chairman of the international vaccination cabal known as the Wellcome Trust, coordinated their work and sent a draft to various virological villains, among them Anthony Fauci and Christian Drosten, for comment. A later version of the statement appeared in Nature a month later as “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2”.
New emails discussing the genesis of this statement came to light yesterday, as a result of another successful FOIA request for Anthony Fauci’s emails, and it contains some interesting moments.
The draft statement itself (at p. 67 here) is mostly unremarkable and not all that different from the Nature piece. It insists, in bold on the first page, that “Analysis of the virus genome sequences clearly demonstrates that the virus is not a laboratory construct or experimentally manipulated virus.” At least some of its authors, though, especially Edward Holmes, were willing to entertain the lab leak hypothesis, and the consequence was this paragraph considering the possibility that SARS-2 had been enhanced by repeated passage in cell cultures or animals:
Christian Drosten, after reading the draft, complained immediately that he thought he and his colleagues had already agreed “to challenge a certain theory, and if we could, drop it”:
From this we learn, first, that Drosten had been party to prior discussions among his colleagues, where they had discussed messaging strategies relating to “a certain theory”; and, second, that Drosten apparently had no real understanding of the reasoning behind or the case for laboratory origins, and this as late as 9 February.
Edward Holmes (who Farrar elsewhere says is leaning “60-40” for the laboratory origins of SARS-2) has to bring him up to date:
Jeremy Farrar also chimes in:
Then Holmes’s co-author, Kristian Andersen (who has since become a hardcore if disingenuous natural origins advocate), contributes these very interesting remarks:
Among other things, it’s telling to see how eager all these virologists were for those fishy pangolin sequences, which Chinese scientists released just as discussions of laboratory origins were gaining ground.
There’s surely more lurking in this email dump, but I have (alas, alas) a conference coming up, and thereafter it’ll take me a few days to get through it.
Fauci Grilled Under Oath in Social Media Censorship Case
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 23, 2022
Dr. Anthony Fauci today faced questions from Attorneys General Eric Schmitt (Missouri) and Jeff Landry (Louisiana) in their lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly colluding with Big Tech platforms to censor content critical of COVID-19 vaccines and countermeasures.
Fauci sat for a deposition one day after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily halted the depositions of three other Biden administration officials.
In a statement released Tuesday in advance of Fauci’s deposition, Schmitt said:
“Tomorrow, along with my colleague from Louisiana, my Office and I will depose Dr. Anthony Fauci in our lawsuit against the Biden Administration for allegedly colluding with social media companies to censor freedom of speech.
“Since we filed our landmark lawsuit, we have uncovered documents and discovery that show clear coordination between the Biden Administration and social media companies on censoring speech, but we’re not done yet. We plan to get answers on behalf of the American people. Stay tuned.”
The statement also quoted Jeff Landry:
“We all deserve to know how involved Dr. Fauci was in the censorship of the American people during the COVID pandemic; tomorrow, I hope to find out.
“And I will continue fighting for the truth as it relates to Big Government colluding with Big Tech to stifle free speech.”
Schmitt and Landry sued President Biden, Fauci and others on May 5. New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit group representing outspoken critics of COVID-19 vaccines and countermeasures, including Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, Aaron Kheriaty and also Jill Hines, joined the lawsuit in August, as did Jim Hoft, founder and editor-in-chief of The Gateway Pundit.
According to the complaint, government officials colluded with and coerced Big Tech and social media platforms to “suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints and content” relating to COVID-19.
Several officials named in the suit, including former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, argued they shouldn’t be required to be deposed, but a federal judge on Monday denied a request to quash Psaki’s subpoena.
The same judge, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, on Oct. 21 ordered Fauci and other government officials to provide depositions under oath.
In addition to Fauci and Psaki, other government officials slated to be deposed include:
- FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan
- Carol Crawford, chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Digital Media Branch
- Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly
- White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty
- Daniel Kimmage, an official at the State Department’s Global Engagement Center
- U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy
Two lower-level officials were listed as alternates: Lauren Protentis of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in place of Easterly, and former White House COVID-19 adviser Andrew Slavitt in place of Flaherty.
A previous ruling had forced the above-named individuals to provide written testimony.
Judge rejects ‘self-serving blanket denials’
In his Oct. 21 ruling, Judge Doughty agreed with the plaintiffs that Fauci’s prior “self-serving blanket denials” regarding his role in censoring certain types of content and viewpoints on social media could not be taken at face value, necessitating a deposition.
Fauci challenged the order to sit for a deposition, arguing the communications in question are protected by executive privilege. But Judge Doughty ordered Fauci to turn over the documents within 21 days and to answer the plaintiffs’ questions in full.
Landry and Schmitt filed a request for depositions Oct. 10. In a statement released at the time by Schmitt, he said:
“After finding documentation of a collusive relationship between the Biden administration and social media companies to censor free speech, we immediately filed a motion to get these officials under oath.
“It is high time we shine a light on this censorship enterprise and force these officials to come clean to the American people, and this ruling will allow us to do just that. We’ll keep pressing for the truth.”
Depositions of three Biden administration officials on hold
In an order issued Monday, the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit temporarily halted the scheduled depositions of Easterly, Flaherty and Murthy.
According to Politico, the three-judge panel unanimously found Judge Doughty had erred in approving the depositions without first examining whether there were “other means” of obtaining the information the plaintiffs are seeking.
The court sent the case back to Doughty for further review. According to the order:
“Thus, before any of the depositions may go forward, the district court must analyze whether the information sought can be obtained through less intrusive, alternative means, such as further written discovery or depositions of lower-ranking officials.
“Written findings as to the availability and sufficiency of alternatives need to be entered.”
In a statement provided to The Defender by Landry’s office, Landry said, “These developments do not change my pursuit of the truth. We respect the court’s decision and will continue in the discovery phase of this case.”
Thursday’s court order came after lawyers for the government argued the plaintiffs should not have the ability to depose the three officials in question, on the basis that they are high-ranking government officials, and that the depositions would “unavoidably distract” them from “their important and time-sensitive duties,” which would “cause irreparable harm.”
However, the federal government’s motion for a partial stay of Judge Doughty’s deposition order was denied. The Nov. 21 order stated, “We make no ruling on the petition … at this time.”
Easterly, Flaherty and Murthy were scheduled to be deposed in early December.
On Wednesday Judge Doughty, in a separate ruling, ordered Psaki to sit for a deposition and rejected an attempt to shield FBI Agent Chan from answering questions under oath.
Plaintiffs in the case argued that none of the officials were “high-ranking,” and Judge Doughty agreed, finding that the “burdens” the officials would face as a result of sitting for depositions were outweighed by the necessity of gathering more information regarding the allegations in question prior to ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction.
According to the 5th Circuit’s order:
“It is not enough, as the district court found, that these officials may have ‘personal knowledge’ about certain communications.
“That knowledge may be shared widely or have only marginal importance in comparison to the ‘potential burden’ imposed on the deponent.”
According to the court, the government already produced “extensive written discovery.” The government claims that these documents do not reveal any violations of the First Amendment, while the plaintiffs claim otherwise.
Politico also reported that the 5th Circuit asked Judge Doughty to consider ruling on the overall viability of the lawsuit before allowing the depositions to proceed.
The 5th Circuit said Judge Doughty should have not issued a ruling regarding the depositions until the courts decided on the government’s motion to dismiss — even though that motion was withdrawn after plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and the government has not filed a new motion to dismiss.
According to Politico, the 5th Circuit’s order is not final: Judge Doughty may still decide, based on a newly clarified analysis, that depositions of Easterly, Flaherty and Murthy are needed.
Politico also reported that the 5th Circuit’s order may strengthen efforts by Psaki and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to halt her deposition.
At a recent hearing, Psaki’s lawyers claimed there is no evidence she had met or had been in contact with any social media executives regarding purported “misinformation,” although she did express critical remarks about social media platforms during White House press briefings.
In his Nov. 21 order, Judge Doughty rejected that claim, writing:
“Despite the fact that Psaki is a former high-ranking official, the potential burden upon Psaki was outweighed by the need to determine whether free speech had been suppressed.”
Previously, a federal judge in Virginia rejected the arguments made by Psaki and the DOJ, including that sitting for a deposition would place an “undue burden” on her, taking her away from her family and her new job at MSNBC for several days.
Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia passed the issue to Judge Doughty. Davis dismissed Psaki’s claims, arguing that Psaki and the DOJ were attempting an “end-run” around the deposition order.
Judge Doughty previously found “that Plaintiffs have proven that Jennifer Psaki has personal knowledge about the issue concerning censorship across social media as it related to COVID-19 and ancillary issues of COVID-19.”
“Psaki has made a number of statements that are relevant to the Government’s involvement in a number of social-media platforms’ efforts to censor its users across the board for sharing information related to COVID-19,” Judge Doughty added. “Any burden on Psaki is outweighed by the need to determine whether free speech has been suppressed.”
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.
Flemish government called on to cancel WEF membership
Free West Media | November 23, 2022
In 2022, the Flemish government will pay €175 763.87 in membership fees to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and 27 000 Swiss francs (about €27 300) as participation fees to the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos. This is according to Flemish minister-president Jan Jambon’s response to a parliamentary question by Flemish MP Sam van Rooy.
“The Flemish Government thus legitimises and subsidises a global lobbying organisation that clearly pursues a well-defined ideological agenda, namely that of globalism,” van Rooy responded.
German economist Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum (WEF) has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. The WEF claims to be a forum for exchanging ideas and networking, but at the very least the perception has arisen that a lot of government decisions are linked to the ideological goals of the WEF and stem from agreements made within the WEF.
All in all, this international lobbying organisation openly pursues a globalist future agenda involving numerous governments. This agenda seems to have recently crystallised into the so-called The Great Reset, whose goal is “a more secure, equal and stable world” by “acting jointly and rapidly to renew all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions,” according to Klaus Schwab of the WEF.
As citizens in a democratic constitutional state are entitled to transparency on the policies pursued, van Rooy asked Flemish minister-president Jambon questions about the Flemish government’s ties and cooperation with the WEF.
Regular WEF contacts
In his reply, Jambon stated that the Flemish government “has no structural contacts with the WEF outside the participation in the WEF meeting in Davos”, but that there are “regular contacts at the level of the Flemish government”. According to the prime minister, these contacts also aim to follow up on the various activities and projects that take place annually, including outside the Davos meeting.
Until 2020, the Flemish government paid an annual membership fee of €55 000 to the WEF. Since 2022, however, Flanders has been “promoted” to “associate partner” of the WEF, requiring a membership fee of no less than €175 763.87 per year. This contribution has already been paid for 2022 and the same invoice is expected for 2023.
About the “associate partnership”, Jambon stated the following: “The associate partnership offers the advantage that Flanders can participate in more activities throughout the year and, in addition, projects are being worked on within a thematic platform ‘Shaping the Future of Trade and Investment’. Those activities and projects provide additional visibility and an opportunity to learn and contribute policy-wise.” The entanglement of the Flemish government with the WEF is thus increasing.
The prime minister maintained that the WEF would have added value for Flanders because that organisation would allow him to speak at short notice with decision-makers from international companies that are important for Flanders. “The WEF provides the framework that facilitates these talks,” Jambon said, further calling WEF membership “a policy instrument of the Flemish Government” as well “to realise objectives from the Coalition Agreement”. Jambon also announced his intention to further strengthen cooperation with the WEF in the coming period.
WEF’s alleged mission
According to Jambon, the “mission of the World Economic Forum is to improve the state of the world”, but that mission appears to be politically correct and woke, said the party in a statement. The WEF has an ideological agenda of inclusion, diversity, open borders and climate and CO2 hysteria. While Jambon has claimed that “the WEF is not asking us to pursue a specific agenda”, he admitted that his “participation in the Davos meeting may result in policy initiatives”.
It therefore seems very much as if the Flemish government is following the WEF’s globalist objective as much as possible in exchange for access to the WEF network of multinationals, banks, journalists and NGOs.
Van Rooy said that Jambon’s answers were conspicuously vague and this had raised additional questions. He therefore called on the Flemish government to cancel the Flemish paying WEF membership: “Exchanging ideas and attracting investments are of course laudable ambitions in themselves, but this should not be done in the context and under the auspices of the WEF, a lobbying group that pursues a globalist agenda and thus can by no means be considered a neutral forum for this,” van Rooy said.
Rishi Sunak’s hawkish antagonization of Beijing has not gone unnoticed
By Timur Fomenko | RT | November 23, 2022
Since the conclusion of China’s 20th Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping has been on a diplomatic blitzkrieg. He’s met with leaders from countries all over the world, including the German chancellor, the French president and even US President Joe Biden himself. He’s keeping up the momentum as New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received an invitation to visit Beijing. China believes that diplomacy is critical to prevent the US from isolating it.
But one important country has thus far been left on the sidelines – the United Kingdom. A meeting between Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, scheduled at the UK’s request during the recent G20 summit, was cancelled. It came just as Sunak, at least superficially, softened his rhetoric on Beijing and sought to re-engage, after having portrayed himself as an ultra-hawk during the leadership contest at home. He even scrapped Liz Truss’s designation of Beijing as a “security threat” to his country.
But that hasn’t saved him from Beijing’s wrath. China is getting tough on Britain, in a similar way to how it did on Scott Morrison’s Australia. While the impasse with Canberra ended with the election of Antony Albanese as Prime Minister, who is more pragmatic in handling China ties, Beijing now sees London as the one playing the role of the “insufferable poodle” of the US, and will likely deliberately block engagement until it changes course.
Out of all allies of the United States, China is especially wary of what is known as “The Anglosphere” or the “Five Eyes” – That is Australia, Canada, New Zealand (although not these days) and the United Kingdom. These Anglophone countries, direct products of the British Empire, are the states which are most invested in American hegemony and closest to the United States in terms of ideology and worldview. While Continental European nations may to varying degrees differentiate themselves from the US, the Anglosphere nations are “true believers” in the US cause.
Hence, when the US invaded Iraq, it was the UK and Australia who answered the call, just to cite one instance. China therefore naturally sees members of the Five Eyes with geopolitical suspicion. Additionally, Beijing does not see them as truly “sovereign” countries or as equals to itself, but rather as US vassals. However, it has to balance this with the reality that all of these countries are critical economic and trade partners, due to their accumulated wealth and market influence. In which case, China’s geopolitical objective is not to treat these countries as adversaries, but to use a very explicit “carrot and stick” mode of diplomacy whereby it punishes them for “bad behaviour” in following the US too closely on the one hand, but rewards them for deeper bilateral engagement on the other.
And there is no more explicit example of this ongoing right now than the contrast between China deepening its engagement with New Zealand and shutting out the United Kingdom. When Beijing deems that a leader of an Anglosphere state, such as Scott Morrison of Australia, or Rishi Sunak of the UK, is too deeply following the United States, then there is absolutely no point in engaging them because the fundamental decisions are being made in Washington and not their respective capitals. The metric of right-wing populism, when these respective leaders are actively demonizing China for domestic political gain, is also a ‘naughty step’ offense. Only the US has the political privilege and power to be able to demonize Beijing, but still get engagement with it, hence why America is able to provoke China and never receive the reactions which smaller nations get from China.
This is how Beijing tries to “dilute” American power. The US itself is never confronted, but those who follow Washington too closely are. And on this, China has caught Sunak off guard. Beijing tolerated the government of Boris Johnson because he described himself as a “Sinophile” determined to improve ties with China. Sunak, however, used antagonism of China for partisan gain. The Prime Minister has since moderated his rhetoric and spoken about “keeping ties open,” believing that his spree of anti-China hyperbole, as well as a recent Ministerial visit to Taiwan, would simply be brushed off and that Beijing would welcome him with open arms. He was wrong, and Beijing is now showing that when it is not about the US, engagement with China is conditional on “good behaviour.”
China also recognizes the UK economy is weak, and as loath as London is to admit it, the UK needs ties with China. Inflation is surging, industrial unrest is picking up, chancellor Jeremy Hunt says the country is already in a state of recession. In which case, Beijing is exploiting these vulnerabilities and, similar to Australia, it will place a number of “demands” on Britain which will become pre-requisites to normalization again, which usually involve respecting Beijing’s position on Taiwan and not following the US agenda.
However, whether this works is another story. In the case of Australia, Scott Morrison’s government did not change course, and it simply became the case that China had to wait him out before re-engaging with his successor. That could very much be the case here too. Britain has ultimately made the choice to follow the US on China, even when those policies prove to be blatantly self-defeating, as is the case with the Newport Wafer Fab. Nonetheless, if Sunak is trying to be pragmatic, this should be a reality check for him.
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From the Archives
A sample of vaccine and injectable medication tragedies during my lifetime
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
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