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CHD, Parents Take on Philadelphia Health Officials in Bid to Overturn Law Allowing Kids to Get Vaccines Without Parents’ Consent

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.| The Defender | January 23, 2024

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and seven Pennsylvania parents last week opposed the City of Philadelphia’s motion to dismiss their lawsuit seeking to overturn the city’s law that allows minors as young as 11 to consent to vaccination without their parents’ knowledge.

Tricia Lindsay, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender it is important the case be heard and that its significance goes beyond the City of Philadelphia.

“This case is one which addresses pivotal issues, and is significant for all citizens,” Lindsay said, adding, “The right of a parent to the care, custody and control of their children is not a right which should be taken lightly, and is not one that can simply be extinguished with the stroke of a pen.”

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 1, 2023, alleges the City of Philadelphia engaged in a “wink and a nod” practice of vaccinating children behind parents’ backs without informed consent for the past 15 years, under the cover of its 2007 General Minor Consent Regulation (MCR).

That rule allows children 11 and older to consent to vaccination without parental knowledge as long as they receive a “vaccine information statement” for the administered shot.

It also absolves the vaccine administrator of liability related to the vaccine if the minor gives consent.

On May 14, 2021, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health enacted an additional COVID-19 Minor Consent Regulation, allowing children ages 11 and up to consent to the COVID-19 vaccine then available under emergency use authorization.

In its motion to dismiss, filed on Jan. 5, the city and its health department argued that none of the plaintiffs had been directly harmed or are likely to be harmed by the regulations and therefore they lack standing to sue.

City and health officials also argued that even if the plaintiffs did have standing, the complaint failed to “state a claim,” or show sufficient facts and legal justification, that Philadeliphia’s law violated federal or state law or that it violated parents’ constitutional rights to make decisions about their children’s upbringing.

But the defendants ignored a key relevant federal court decision — Booth v. Bowser — cited by the plaintiffs to support their claim and which legally “eviscerates” the regulations, CHD told the court.

Plaintiffs in Booth v. Bowser sought to stop the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020, a bill that similarly would have allowed children as young as 11 in the District of Columbia to be vaccinated without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Defendants in that case tried to have the case thrown out using the same rationale invoked by Philadelphia plaintiffs — lack of standing and failure to state a claim.

In Booth v. Bowser, the court found the plaintiffs did have standing, had adequately pleaded their claims and were likely to win their case. When the amended version of the bill —  Consent for Vaccinations of Minors Amendment Act of 2022 — took effect March 10, 2023, the section allowing children under age 11 to consent to vaccines without their parents’ knowledge had been repealed.

But in the Philadelphia case, rather than following that precedent and repealing the regulations, CHD attorneys wrote:

“Defendants here refuse to acknowledge that children, particularly those as young as eleven, are simply incapable of making vaccination decisions on their own, especially when defendants engage in manipulative tactics directly targeting children with false statements of safety and efficacy, calculated bullying, and peer pressure campaigns.

“Defendants have the audacity to say they are not actively interfering in compelling children to be vaccinated without parental knowledge and consent when they are blatantly manipulating children to the point of compelling children to make critical health decisions on their own and then, through the MCRs, providing the vehicle for children to obtain healthcare in secret.

“The MCRs are a critical part of [the] defendants’ propaganda machine. Without the MCRs, children cannot receive these vaccines in the absence of parental consent.”

Videos pressuring teens promote ‘name calling, outright bullying and violence’

CHD and the parents suing the city argued that whether or not their children were vaccinated without their consent, they were injured because the regulations put their children at risk of imminent vaccination, violating their constitutionally and statutorily protected parental rights.

The parents — all of whom are either residents of Philadelphia or travel frequently to Philadelphia — said they are concerned their children may be pressured into vaccination when they are in the city because of measures put in place targeting teens to get vaccinated.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Philadelphia, like the district, created a “pressure-cooker environment,” in which children could be psychologically manipulated into defying their parents and getting vaccinated, the plaintiffs allege.

The plaintiffs’ memo included several examples illustrating the intense pressure teens could be subject to, which along with the arguments in the brief, “exposed the underbelly of city officials’ methods of persuasion and coercion by directing extreme forms of psychologically manipulative peer pressure under the guise of empowerment, equality, freedom and health,” Ray Flores, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender.

That evidence included two videos that Flores called “cringeworthy.”

In one video, teens perform a skit where one teen pressures another to go with her to get the COVID-19 vaccine, by pushing her and calling her an idiot. The video, Flores said, “promotes name calling, outright bullying and violence.”

No parents are present or referenced and the teens in the skit go to get vaccinated alone.

After the skit, another teen presents a series of “facts” about the vaccine, including a guarantee that the vaccines do not affect DNA, they have no adverse effects and that they provide immunity to the virus.

“We provide the facts, so you can get the vax!” the teens chant.

In a second video, a “Teen Vaxx Ambassador” talks about how effective “teen-to-teen” conversations are in convincing others to get vaccinated. She also details how they make getting the vaccine fun by creating a “party-like atmosphere” around the vaccine.

“The city indoctrinates these children to convince peers to make rash decisions without any professional information,” Flores said. “Given that these children can receive nearly any injection without parental permission, the dangers are clear and obvious since a plethora of vaccination sites are located within the city limits.”

The memo also included links to several news stories celebrating the city’s policy allowing minors to consent to vaccination and promoting vaccination to teens.

The plaintiffs also underscored several key arguments from the complaint.

They argued that Philadelphia’s regulations conflict with the consent requirements of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA), the federal law that has primacy over conflicting local laws on such matters, according to the U.S. Constitution, and must be applied equally in all places.

They also argued that children are not “capable of providing informed consent” for vaccines, as the regulations suggest, because the vaccine information sheets or COVID-19 fact sheets are not written for children to understand. Additionally, children may not know their health history, or understand and be able to navigate the process for identifying and seeking compensation should they become vaccine-injured.

The memo reiterates that vaccinating a child without parental consent violates parental constitutional rights to direct their children’s upbringing. In their motion to dismiss, the defendants argued this right is only violated if the child is compelled to be vaccinated.

The plaintiffs countered that the injury occurs when parents are deprived of their right to make the decision in the first place.

They wrote:

“The Defendants have crafted a procedure to clandestinely bypass parents lawfully exercising their authority. Meanwhile, the City has ratcheted up the pressure on children whose parents have opted out of vaccines and even on children who do not know their vaccination status and thus even are susceptible to over-vaccination.

“The City has publicly and vocally encouraged children to be vaccinated as part of its program to do an end-run around parents.”

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

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

January 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Arizona GOP Chair Resigns After Kari Lake Threatens “More Damaging” Recording

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 24, 2024

One day after the Daily Mail published a leaked recording of Arizona GOP Chairman Jeff DeWit trying to bribe Trump ally Kari Lake to stay out of politics for two years, DeWit resigned.

“This morning, I was determined to fight for my position,” he said in a statement reported by Just the News. “However, a few hours ago, I received an ultimatum from Lake’s team: resign today or face the release of a new, more damaging recording. I am truly unsure of its contents, but considering our numerous past open conversations as friends, I have decided not to take the risk. I am resigning as Lake requested, in the hope that she will honor her commitment to cease her attacks, allowing me to return to the business sector—a field I find much more logical and prefer over politics.”

Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake called on the state’s GOP chair Jeff DeWit to resign after a recording emerged of him trying to bribe Lake to stay out of politics for two years.

In the recording, first reported by the Daily Mail, DeWit, 51, can be heard asking lake to name her price not to run.

“There are very powerful people who want to keep you out,” he can be heard telling her in a conversation recorded last March.

He then, after asking her not to mention the conversation to anyone, makes his first offer:

“So the ask I got today from back east was: “Is there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll to keep her out?”

Lake is taken aback.

“This is about defeating Trump and I think that’s a bad, bad thing for our country,” she replied.

DeWit later framed it in a different way.

“Just say, is there a number at which –

“I can be bought?” Lake interjected. “That’s what it’s about?”

“You can take a pause for a couple of years. You can go right back to what you’re doing,” DeWit replied.

Lake repeatedly shuts him down, and says she wouldn’t pull out for a billion dollars.

“This is not about money, it’s about our country,” she says (one her own recording, we’re guessing).

Listen (via Collin Rugg).

Following the report, Lake called on DeWit to resign.

“He’s gotta resign. We can’t have somebody who is corrupt and compromised running the Republican Party,” she told an NBC reporter during Trump’s New Hampshire primary victory party.

January 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | | Leave a comment

Abolish the FBI

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 23, 2024

Among the worst mistakes America has ever made is to bring into existence the Federal Bureau of Investigation — the FBI.

A national police force is an essential part of any tyrannical regime. Just look at any tyrannical foreign regime, either right wing and left wing, over the past 100 years. I will guarantee you that you will find a national police force. It serves as a useful adjunct to a big military-intelligence establishment to keep people in line.

Of course, we are all familiar with such things as COINTELPRO and the FBI’s murder of innocent people at Waco and Ruby Ridge. We are also familiar with the FBI’s fierce opposition to Martin Luther King and the civll-rights movement as well as the virtual certainty that the FBI orchestrated King’s murder. We are also familiar with former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s longtime penchant for keeping secret files on people’s personal lives with the aim of blackmailing them into supporting whatever the FBI wants. We are also familiar with the FBI’s ardent support of the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the anti-communist crusade. We are also familiar with the FBI’s active role in America’s political system.

Less familiar is the FBI’s ubiquitous practice of inducing people to commit crimes in order to justify its continued existence and its continued receipt of taxpayer-funded largess. That practice involves entrapping people into committing crimes and then proudly patting itself on the back for “keeping America safe” by supposedly busting dangerous criminals.

An example of this sordid practice is detailed in a January 19, 2024, article in the New York Times that involved four men whose lives were partially destroyed by the FBI as part of its attempt to make itself look good by creating and encouraging a crime supposedly committed by those four men.

The four men — James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams — were from Newburgh, New York, and became known as the “Newburgh Four.” Given the FBI’s history of viewing Martin Luther King and the civil-rights movement as communist agents, it’s not surprising that the FBI targeted four Black men for its entrapment scheme. The fact that they were poor also figured into the FBI’s plot, given that the FBI used the lure of big amounts of taxpayer money to induce the men to commit a crime.

The scheme was part of the FBI’s post-9/11 plot to invent criminal conspiracies to commit terrorist attacks. That’s what the FBI did with the Newburgh Four. The FBI used the services of an informant named Shahed Hussain. The FBI had Hussain infiltrate various mosques and identify poor people who could be induced to engage in acts of terrorism. That would enable the FBI to exclaim, “We’ve busted terrorists! We’re keeping you safe! Give us more taxpayer money!”

Hussain promised the Newburgh Four $250,000 if they would agree to participate in a terrorist plot. After several months of refusing the offer, the four black men, at least one of whom was unemployed and broke, agreed to participate in bomb plots at various synagogues.

The men were busted and given 25-year jail sentences. They had served 14 years in jail until a heroic federal judge recently ordered their release. As reported in the New York Times article, the judge, Colleen McMahon, called the case “notorious.”  She pointed out that “nothing about the crimes of conviction” had been of the “defendants’ own making.” She pointed out that the FBI’s agent in the crime, Shahed Hussain, was a “small time grifter and petty drug dealer.”

Judge McMahon correctly pointed out that the “real lead conspirator was the United States.” She added, “The F.B.I. invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance.” The New York Times pointed out that McMahon added that the FBI “federalized” the charges — ensuring long prison terms — by driving several of the men into Connecticut to view the “bombs.”

After 14 years in jail on FBI-manufactured crimes, the Newburgh Four are free. But the best way to ensure that the FBI doesn’t destroy other people’s lives is to abolish it. Its dismantling would go a long way toward restoring freedom and justice in America. Anyway, criminal justice belongs at the state and local level, not the federal level.

January 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Islamophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Poland’s new government moves to crack down on ‘hate speech’

Karina Bosak and Dobromir Sośnierz from the Confederation party
BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | KRESY.PL | JANUARY 22, 2024

Poland’s new government is moving to limit freedom of speech and actively penalize so-called hate speech, a move that has been associated with stifling dissent and limiting opposition to issues surrounding mass immigration, religion, and LGBT issues in other European countries.

Poland’s Confederation party is now voicing its opposition to new proposals outlined in the left-liberal coalition government’s agreement, which will effectively destroy free speech.

“The ruling coalition, as part of its coalition agreement, has announced that they want to penalize so-called hate speech. The current left-wing Deputy Minister of Justice Krzysztof Śmiszek, from the New Left, has stated that his department is currently working on introducing these regulations, which limit freedom of speech and public debate in Poland. We, as the Confederation, strongly oppose this. The direct consequence of criminalizing certain words will, in fact, be the criminalization of conservative, religious, Christian views,” declared Confederation MP Karina Bosak on Friday.

Bosak added that public debate needs to be free, open, and unencumbered. She pointed out that her party “does not want there to be any sacred cows in Poland, that there are social groups whose ideas cannot be criticized at all in a healthy, free public debate.”

“We will defend Poles against such regulations and proposals that threaten freedom of speech and their values,” declared the Confederation MP.

Dobromir Sośnierz, another party member, highlighted concerns about the subjective nature of defining hate speech.

“What the left understands by so-called hate speech, in practice, will mean speech hated by Minister Śmiszek, not necessarily speech that expresses hatred towards someone, but something that leftists dislike,” he remarked.

Sośnierz also warned that such regulations would, in practice, limit public debate.

“This government is starting not by expanding our freedoms but by limiting them again, which will also lead to clogging up the courts,” he added.

In his view, the ministry’s work is “an act of sabotage, especially in this situation where a massive crisis in the judiciary is looming, as well as perhaps the exclusion of certain judges from ruling. Adding more cases for the judiciary to resolve, which are completely unnecessary, will be counterproductive.”

Deputy Minister Śmiszek announced this week legislative changes to introduce criminal responsibility for what his party considers hate speech against homosexuals.

“The time has come to ban disgusting, homophobic, discriminatory statements in the public sphere,” declared Śmiszek, who is openly homosexual.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament is calling on EU leaders to include incitement to hatred and hate crimes in the catalog of transnational crimes, which include terrorism or human trafficking.

January 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Israelis opposing war receiving ‘death threats,’ says Knesset member Ofer Cassif

Lawmaker from the Arab-majority Hadas-Ta’al party and a Knesset member, Ofer Cassif in his office in West Jerusalem on January 12, 2024. [Arif Kayacan – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | January 20, 2024

Firebrand Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif, who has been criticized for backing South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, says “there is an assault going on” against those who are opposing Tel Aviv’s military campaign in Gaza.

The vocal politician from the left-wing, Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party, was suspended from the Knesset for 45 days for criticizing the war that began after the Oct. 7 cross-border offensive by Hamas.

The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s more than 100-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip has crossed 24,000 people, most of them women and children.

The initial Hamas attack is said to have killed 1,200 people, and around 240 hostages were taken, some of whom were released during a week-long truce in November.

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Anadolu, Cassif said rejection of Israel’s military response has led to “an assault on freedom of speech,” including death threats.

“People are arrested for tweets and posts, not in support of Hamas, of course, but in supporting ending the war, or before even cease-fire. Students are suspended from the universities and colleges. People are fired from their workplaces. The police are brutally violent towards the demonstrators,” Cassif said.

“There is an assault on freedom of speech of those who raise voice against the war … there are death threats. Because it’s not only violence from above, from the government from the prime minister, legitimization of the violence against the protesters, of course by [Itamar] Ben Gvir (national security minister) and the police, which unfortunately mostly became a kind of a private militia of Ben Gvir. But it also penetrates the society as a whole. And you can see that within the society, a growing a part of the public supports, literally and explicitly, violence against those who oppose the war, including death threats.”

‘Region will explode’ if Netanyahu doesn’t go

Cassif said everyone will pay a “huge price” and the entire “region is going to explode” if Israel does not get rid of the “terrible government” headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to him, the only way to stop the catastrophe from happening is by stopping the war, exchange of prisoners and release of all hostages, withdrawal of Israeli military from Gaza, and the beginning of serious peace process.

“This government should go home, if not to prison” as it has caused a lot of damage to both Israelis and Palestinians, he said. “The only way to live, to have a future, to prosper, is this. No war.”

Israeli contradictions

He also highlighted the contradiction in statements of Israeli authorities over the assault on the blockaded enclave, who on one hand say they never intentionally target civilians, but at the same argue there are no innocents in Gaza.

“A minister said ‘… dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza is an option.’ Another member of the Knesset, although a backbencher, said Gaza be eliminated. He used this term eliminated. Netanyahu himself, the prime minister, said Gaza is like Amalek. Amalek is like a codename, a biblical codename, of a group that deserves extermination.

“The president of Israel, who is supposed to be objective and beyond politics, signed a bomb, before it was sent to Gaza. And he also said that there aren’t any innocent people in Gaza. This is only the tip of the iceberg. So how can you say that you do not target civilians, innocent civilians, and at the same time, you say they aren’t innocent civilians. This contradiction shows exactly how this government behaves, what is the policy of this government, and I emphasize this is against Israel too.”

‘What’s going on in Gaza must be investigated by impartial body’

Cassif said he did not want to claim that the Israeli government is pursuing a genocidal policy in the Gaza Strip, arguing: “The legal definition of genocide is one that I leave experts to analyze.”

But, he added, there are two main reasons for him supporting the genocide case in The Hague: conducting an impartial investigation on Gaza bombing, and to save lives.

“What’s going on in Gaza must be investigated by an impartial body. I do not trust the government of Israel or any branch or proxy of the Israeli government to investigate itself … It’s like asking a thief to investigate oneself whether he or she stole something. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“This terrible assault on Gaza is costing the lives of thousands of thousands of Palestinians, and hundreds of Israeli soldiers and Israeli hostages. They (Israeli hostages) are held in terrible conditions by Hamas in Gaza. I want the lives to be saved.”

But that cannot be done just through protests in Israel, he added.

“We cannot demonstrate, we cannot raise our voice. We are limited. There is a dictatorship now here, practically. What’s left is to look for a refuge in international organizations. So that’s the main reason why I think we should have supported the appeal of South Africa.”

Interests of Palestinians and Israelis ‘not contradictory’

“The interests of Israel, and the interests of Palestinians, as far as I see, are not contradictory. I think it’s in common interest of both the Palestinians and the Israelis to seek peace and to end the war,” Cassif said.

The Israeli government, he said, “totally neglected” the hostages. “The government doesn’t do anything to save the hostages. And everybody knows the only way to save the hostages, who are dying there, is by ending the war.”

The parliamentarian claimed 47% of the Israeli public, according to polls, supports ending the war in order to rescue the captives. “I agree with this specific point. I do hope the ICJ will ensure a decision that will end the war.”

Israeli press ‘betrayed’ profession

Asked why the Israeli army does not allow journalists to enter Gaza, Cassif said: “Perhaps they have something to hide … Normally when you don’t allow someone to get into somewhere. It’s because you don’t want someone to see something.”

About press freedom in Israel, Cassif said there have been situations where authorities “mobilize,” or force the media to “publish something and not to publish something else,” but now a vast majority of journalists are “voluntarily” supporting the policy of the government.

“You can say, there are not many limitations on freedom of the press, but the press itself, most of them, choose not to act freely … this is disgraceful, it’s unprofessional, and it will be remembered once this terrible era is ended and finished. It will be remembered that they betrayed the profession.”

‘They want to silence us’

Commenting over a lawmaker’s efforts to get him expelled from the 120-member Knesset, Cassif said “they want to silence” and “don’t want our voice to be heard … the voices against the war. This is the part of the persecution and silencing of the people who support peace and go against violence and war.”

The opposition lawmaker said he believed the efforts against him will succeed, but he will approach the Supreme Court to get relief as “there is no legal basis.”

“According to the law, a member of Knesset can be expelled only if one supports racism, terrorism, or armed struggle against Israel. Neither of those is relevant to me. I’m against racism, I’m against terrorism. I am against armed struggle against Israel.”

He said the claim is based on political reasons. “The world should understand that the assault on Gaza, and the silencing of peace lovers and the democrats in Israel are two sides of the same coin. They continue with a coup they began before Oct. 7 by other means.”

January 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

PM Orbán: EU parliament wants to rob citizens of a choice on Ukraine funding

MAGYAR NEMZET | JANUARY 19, 2024

By forcing through a four-year, €50 billion aid package to Ukraine just a few months ahead of European elections, members of the European Parliament want to rob people of the right to choose their future, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote on X.

“Liberal MEPs attacked Hungary once again in the European Parliament yesterday. They want to give money to Ukraine for 4 years, while the European elections are just 5 months away. They essentially want to strip people of their rights to make decisions on their future. What an anti-democratic position! Hungary disagrees. If we want to help Ukraine, let’s do it outside the EU-budget and on a yearly basis! This is the only democratic position just 5 months before the elections,” Orbán wrote.

On Wednesday, two key debates were held in Strasbourg. The first focused on the previous and upcoming EU summits, while the second was entitled: “The situation in Hungary and frozen EU funds.”

After the EU parliament discussed funding to Hungary, the agenda was supposed to focus on the EU summit set for Feb. 1. However, MEPs were so fixated on Hungary, that the country dominated their conversations for nearly the entire session, so much so that even Romanian Socialist MEP Maria Grapini pointed out that the debate was fixated on the vilification of Hungary and the previous session’s discussion on Ukraine.

January 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Trump is the Republican’s candidate but the “deep state” has its own plan, says Chronicles editor

By Ahmed Adel | January 19, 2024

It is certain that Donald Trump will be the candidate of the Republican Party, but it is also certain that the establishment, known as the American “deep state,” will not allow him to be the next president of the USA, according to Dr. Srđa Trifković, foreign policy editor of the American magazine Chronicles.

Former American President Donald Trump won the Republican internal party elections in Iowa, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won second place. More than 60% of voters turned out for the elections, and Trump received 50.6% of the votes, while Desantis won 21.4% of the votes. Behind them was the former US ambassador to the United Nations and avid war hawk Nikki Haley.

The intra-party election in Iowa officially started the 2024 US presidential election race, and Trump is clearly popular with the voters but is hated by the top of the party.

“The popularity of numerous challengers in the form of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley cannot be compared to the popularity that Trump enjoys among pro-Republican voters and party members on the ground,” said Trifković.

“This, of course, does not mean that the Republican establishment, that is, the leadership of the Republican Party in the Senate and the House of Representatives of Congress, as well as in the apparatus of the top of the party, is enthusiastic about Trump – on the contrary,” he stressed.

The editor highlighted, as an example, how the late Senator John McCain belonged to the wing of the Republican Party that had the slogan – ‘Never Trump.’ McCain’s legacy is still present today, but it is evident that among registered Republicans, Trump’s popularity remains indisputable.

Nonetheless, this will not exempt Trump from facing immense opposition, in his run to become president again, from the Democratic Party, the FBI, the military-industrial-complex, and the media. According to Trifković, these are different branches of the “deep state,” and they are conspiring to prevent Trump from running in key states, with “an experiment” already made in Colorado after the Supreme Court of that state, which Democrats control, disqualified Trump from the race for president.

“[The court] used an obscure amendment to the Constitution of 1866 that was expressly intended to prevent Confederate officials from running for public office after the North’s victory in the American Civil War,” the editor said, adding that holding Trump accountable for the attack on the Capitol in 2021 was “absurd, but in the politicised world of the American judiciary, anything is possible.”

It cannot be ruled out that since Trump is currently accused of 92 misdemeanours, the former president’s opponents will time some of the court decisions right before the election so that he is disqualified at the last minute by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania or Georgia, which Democrats control. This would mean that he cannot appear on the ballots in those states.

According to a poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia, Trump (45%) leads President Joe Biden (37%) in the swing state of Georgia. Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state since 1992, but it is almost certain that a Republican will win in this year’s election. For this reason, the “deep state” is attempting to disqualify Trump from such key states.

If Trump cannot be prevented from becoming president again by disqualifying him from key states, Trifković said there is a “Plan B,” which is to repeat “the theft from November 2020, when we witnessed the bizarre spectacle that in the key cities of the key counties, the counting stopped around three in the morning, and then at six in the morning continued with additional tens of thousands of votes for Biden that were mysteriously created from a pool of postal votes.”

“It was a blatant theft that is statistically absolutely inexplicable, but you can’t say that publicly in America today because the very claim that the election was stolen is criminalised and demonised,” he added.

It is telling that more than 70% of Republicans would be satisfied with Trump as a nominee in comparison to the 57% of Democrats who would feel the same about Biden being the Democratic Party’s choice. Biden is barely the Democrat’s first choice, which makes it easy to see why he is not Americans overall first choice as president.

Every recent poll finds that most respondents would vote for Trump in a match-up with Biden. As Trump would quickly wind down the war in Ukraine and slowly de-escalate tensions with Moscow, the “deep state” is desperate to ensure he does not come to power.

In conclusion, Trifković said: “The paranoia with which the establishment deals with those who doubt the legitimacy of the election already indicates the extent to which they were dubious.”

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

January 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Jim Jordan Demands Answers After Biden Admin Caught Flagging “MAGA” And “Trump” To Track Political Opponents’ Financial Transactions

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 18, 2024

Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Wednesday, announced that it had obtained documents revealing that federal agencies have flagged financial transactions for financial institutions for people using politically sensitive words such as “MAGA” and Trump.”

In a letter to Noah Bishoff – who was a former FinCEN Director (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) – and now an Anti Money Laundering (AML) officer at fintech company Plaid, Inc. Jordan described situations in which Americans buying bibles or shopping at sporting good stores might find their transactions flagged.

New documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government reveal that the federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP” for financial institutions if Americans used those phrases when completing transactions. Individuals who shopped at stores like Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods, or purchased religious texts like a bible, may also have had their transactions flagged. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious concerns about the FBI’s respect for fundamental civil liberties. – Judiciary.house.gov

“The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents indicating that following January 6, 2021, FinCEN distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outline the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provide financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement,” reads the letter.

“These materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like ‘TRUMP’ and ‘MAGA’ to ‘search Zelle payment messages’ as well as a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators,” the letter continues. “According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”

The Committee announced that it’s seeking interviews with senior intelligence officials, including Bishoff.

January 18, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

The Case of Typhoid Mary

By Jeffrey A. Tucker | Brownstone Institute | January 17, 2024

For four years now, any talk of allowing society to function in the event of a pandemic has called forth cliches about Typhoid Mary. It’s remarkable how this real event, a paradigmatic case of awesome and egregious powers of public health, in which a poor Irish immigrant was scapegoated for typhoid infections in New York, still survives – fully 100 years later.

Even otherwise scrupulous scholars I knew have tossed out her name expecting it to end all discussion of the necessity of lockdowns.

It’s time we examine the case. Typhoid Mary was a real person, Mary Mallon (1869-1938). By all accounts an excellent chef who had served many families and had outstanding skills. She was never symptomatic for typhoid. She was healthy and well. But when there was an outbreak at a home she served, she was hunted down, her stool tested positive, and then she was quarantined in New York as an asymptomatic carrier (1907-1910).

Legal pushback led her to be released three years later on the condition that she check in and never cook again. She defied both conditions and so was hunted down yet again. This time medical authorities demanded to remove her gallbladder which she refused to permit. She ended up spending a total of 26 years in solitary confinement before she died (1915-1938).

There is in fact a large literature on the case. The best are Famous and Difficult Patients: Amusing Medical Anecdotes from Typhoid Mary to FDR, by Richard Gordon (St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Typhoid Mary: Captive To The Public’s Health, by, Judith Walzer Leavitt (Beacon Press, 1996); Typhoid Mary: The Notorious Life and Legacy of the Cook Who Caused a Typhoid Outbreak in New York, by Charles Editors (2020) and many more but above all, Typhoid Mary, by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsberry, 2005), which is a brilliant, engaging, and deeply sympathetic book. For a quick overview, there are many articles online.

All are fascinating and in agreement that Mary likely (probably) spread typhoid, along with many hundreds of others in New York who were never hunted and jailed. She never felt sick. She frequently tested negative and deeply distrusted the authorities that hunted her down. The man who started the whole bit was a lawyer/investigator named George Soper who ended up writing an article and book that caused her to forever live with the moniker. This book became a bestseller and Soper himself became a famous and beloved disease sleuth.

The public was so enthralled with the case that New York kids would skip rope to the line: “Mary Mary, what do you carry?” She tried to sue but her case was rejected by the New York Supreme Court. She was not allowed to see an eye doctor even though her eyelid was paralyzed. She was forced to take unproven treatments that threatened to destroy her kidneys.

No question that tagging her as public enemy number one was a reflection of prevailing bias against Irish immigrants who were seen as dirty and lower class. She was lower class but she wasn’t dirty. I’ve read much about her and find myself not entirely convinced that she was a source of sickness in every case in which she was blamed. The germ in question was spread primarily through water mixed with fecal matter so fixing that problem causes the issue to go away, as people later learned. In addition, the regime of test, track, and trace is notoriously error-prone and plays very much into the hands of the public’s desire to stigmatize the diseased and otherize infection no matter what.

Due to public hatred and unrelenting attacks, Mary very likely eventually came to believe that she was a source but, at some point, she didn’t care much, which is what happens when a whole country blames you alone for disease and the authorities jail you and threaten to cut you open.

In other words, she was treated like an animal, not a patient, and then later experimented upon with random untested treatments. Meanwhile hundreds of carriers of the said bug were out and about, while the water supply remained the main culprit.

Typhoid was ultimately conquered not by jails but by sanitation, hygiene, and antibiotics. Mary was blamed for infecting hundreds but only 3-5 died from cases she was accused of spreading (however inadvertently). Again, maybe.

The point was that she was declared guilty regardless, largely because of her class, her national origin, and ethnicity. She was an easy target, even though typhoid carriers were everywhere. Meanwhile, Salmonella typhi (the source of Typhoid) continued to be a problem until later fixed. Much later typhoid victims were easily treated with antibiotics and the disease prevented with vaccination and, even more importantly, hygiene.

What’s striking is how the case, which is so clearly an instance of public frenzy together with public health authoritarianism and brazen brutality, is so frequently cited as an example of how, of course, we must lock people down when there is a virus out and about. In reality, her case has aroused a century of questions about the power of the state to grab people out of their daily lives and imprison them without trial on the claim that they are disease spreaders.

To say that such powers can be abused is an understatement, as we well know in these post-lockdown times. People who have studied the case of Mary Mallon nearly always come around to having great sympathy for her. These were times when modern medical knowledge was advancing but so was the expectation that the rich whom she served would not be subject to the usual sicknesses that snagged the poor.

She alone among hundreds and thousands of likely carriers in the region was shamed and ruined for a disease she didn’t believe she had and did not intentionally spread. Meanwhile, there were no similar efforts undertaken to hunt down and capture other spreaders of Salmonella typhi.

Again, what did this actually achieve in terms of public health? Did the 30 years of involuntary captivity of this woman save lives? There is no way to know, but certainly people continued to die from the disease after her imprisonment, until good treatments came along. Meanwhile, public health authorities had their archetype of a disease carrier to justify their enormous power.

Eventually, Mary came to accept her plight and became a strong adherent of her Catholic faith, and died a peaceful death. Anthony Bourdain offers a deeply touching account of visiting her grave at St. Raymond’s Cemetery, Bronx, New York.

In 1973, I bought my first chef’s knife, a high-carbon Sabatier with a polished wooden handle. I was so proud of it – and I’ve held onto it all these years, remembering how it felt in my hand when I first unwrapped it, the way the handle rested against my palm, the feel of the blade, the sharpness of the edge. It’s old now, and stained, and the handle is cracked slightly in spots. I long ago gave up using it or trying to maintain it. But it is a beloved object. Something a fellow cook would appreciate, I hoped – a once fine hunk of quality French steel – a magical fetish, a beloved piece of my personal history. And a sign of respect, I hoped, an indicator that somebody, somewhere, even long after her troubles and her dying, took her seriously, understood, if only a little bit, the difficulty of her life as a cook. It’s the kind of gift I would like to receive, one that I would understand.

I looked around the graveyard, making sure that no one else was watching, leaned over and with my hands, pulled back the grass at the base of her stone. I slipped my knife down there, covered it up the way it had looked before and left it for her. It was the least I could do.

A gift. Cook to cook.

January 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

EC Chief Ursula von der Leyen calls for public-private collaboration to fight 2024 election “disinformation”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | January 17, 2024

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, delivered an alarming pro-censorship proclamation at the annual Davos World Economic Forum. She expressed her concern that “misinformation” and polarization in societies pose a serious threat to the international business community.

“For the global business community, the top concern for the next two years is not conflict or climate,” she said in her speech to elites. She argued that the bigger problem is “disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarization within our societies.”

In her exhortation, Leyen said that there needs to be partnerships formed between governments and the private sector to curb “disinformation.”

“Many of the solutions lie not only in countries working together but, crucially, on businesses and governments, businesses and democracies working together,” she said.

Leyen suggested that it was especially important as 2024 will be “the biggest electoral year in history.”

She added: “Even as the insidious spread of misinformation and disinformation threatens the cohesion of societies, there is a risk that some governments will act too slowly, facing a trade-off between preventing misinformation and protecting free speech, while repressive governments could use enhanced regulatory control to erode human rights.”

January 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

Australia: ABC staff threaten strike after Arab journalist sacked

Award-winning journalist and author Antoinette Lattouf
MEMO | January 17, 2024

ABC journalists in the broadcaster’s Sydney offices yesterday threatened to strike unless management addresses concerns over the unlawful dismissal of radio host Antoinette Lattouf, Anadolu news agency reported.

The award-winning journalist and author, who is of Lebanese heritage, was sacked by ABC last month for sharing on Instagram a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The internationally-recognised rights watchdog released a report on how starvation was being used as “a weapon of war” by the Israeli government in Gaza. ABC also published a news item on the report.

On Tuesday, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed a leaked chain of WhatsApp messages from a group called Lawyers for Israel who had lobbied for Lattouf to be sacked.

“The ABC sacked broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf after a high-level and coordinated letter-writing campaign from pro-Israel lobbyists that directly targeted the corporation’s chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David Anderson,” the news daily said.

The report reveals that the Israeli lobby “repeatedly wrote to the ABC demanding Lattouf be sacked, and threatened legal action if she was not.”

Yesterday, about 80 ABC staff members demanded a meeting with Anderson, who is currently on leave.

They threatened to stage a walkout if their concerns were not addressed.

Lattouf has legally challenged her termination, saying she was sacked on the grounds of “political opinion or a reason that included political opinion” and later expanded the claim to include race, due to her Lebanese heritage.

While ABC has denied Anderson was behind Lattouf’s sacking, the broadcaster has told a court that the journalist was removed “because she ignored a direction from managers and shared a controversial social media post from Human Rights Watch.”

Lattouf demands a clear public apology, financial compensation and the offer of a proportionate position.

Hearings are scheduled to begin later this week.

In a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald, Lattouf’s lawyer, Josh Bornstein, said that after “October 7 and the ensuing conflict in the Middle East, it has become common knowledge in the media industry that Arab and Muslim journalists are being subjected to intimidation, censorship and expulsion.”

January 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

TUCKER CARLSON INTERVIEWS BRET WEINSTEIN

TCNonX | January 8, 2024

January 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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