By Ben Pile – September 20, 2023
Rishi Sunak’s ‘watering down’ of certain Net Zero targets is the first time that the green policy agenda has had ANY scrutiny of any consequence, despite many failures, starting with the ruinously expensive Renewable Obligation, extending into the totally failed CfDs that allowed wind farm developers to lie to achieve planning consent over rival generators and technologies. Not one part of the green policy agenda has lived up to any promise to deliver good to the British public.
It was the mildest possible reversal. It is in fact an attempt to SAVE Net Zero, not roll it back.
Complaints that it has left Britain without an ‘industrial policy’ or has left ‘investors’ without ‘confidence’ are for the birds. It has put the UK in the same policy position as the EU (more on which in a bit), and there is no evidence of green policies having delivered any significant industrial development to these shores. No green jobs. No green growth. No green industrial revolution. Not even a BritishVolt. It is a farce.
Politicians, who know nothing of the subject in fact, have been misled into believing that strong climate targets encourage domestic manufacturing. That is a lie. The main beneficiary of UK & EU climate laws has been China, of course, which benefits from cheaper energy prices (among other things) precisely because China does not have energy policies like ours. Strict targets are not industrial policy. Nobody was looking to develop ‘Gigafactories’ in the UK for the fact of the UK having the earliest ICE car sales ban. It’s a nonsense.
Sunak has taken stock of the simplest elements of green policy failure:
1. No politician has any clue how to realise Net Zero targets. To understand this, you need to drill down into the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) advice to Parliament, and advice from wonks and academics to the CCC itself. They speak more candidly the deeper you investigate. The promises of upsides are simply lies. There are no drop-in replacements for the things that make our lifestyles today. That is why the CCC told Parliament that up to 62% of emissions reduction is going to come from ‘behaviour change’, which is to say that Net Zero requires government to use the criminal law and price mechanisms to regulate what people can do. That is what Sunak means when he says that previous governments have not been straight with the public. It is fact.
2. The green lobby has LONG promised lower prices and greater energy security but has failed to deliver. There have been many claims that the costs of wind power have fallen based on low ‘strike prices’ offered by wind farm developers since the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme was introduced in 2017. None of those miraculous strike prices have been achieved. The wind farm developers simply reneged on them. They were never going to take them up. They calculated that they would never have to. This came to crunch in the latest auction, when the government removed the wind farm operators’ ability to walk away from the contract — they called the wind sector’s bluff. No bids were offered. The major promise of renewable energy has been utterly debunked by the green lobby’s own actions.
3. Behind the scenes, the failure of both global and national climate policy has been known for a long time — since the Paris Agreement (PA) at the latest. The PA is not in fact a ‘global agreement’; it allows countries to determine their own commitment. And all that has done in turn is reignite the talking point that beset global climate policymaking in the 1990s and 2000s: the ‘free rider’ problem. Some emerging one-time ‘developing’ economies, are now booming, whereas much of the West/G7 is stagnant and facing deindustrialisation, precisely as critics of climate policy had argued, decades ago. This is why there has been so much emphasis since the PA on LOCAL government, such as LTNs/ULEZ/CAZs, using ‘air pollution’ as a proxy battle in the climate war. This was encouraged by central government, which accelerated this fake ‘localism’ during lockdowns by making large grants available to local authorities to restrict private car use. Sunak has seen the robust response to this in London, in Wales, and in cities that have adopted them, and has realised that the public has been setting down its own red lines. The green agenda is now visible to all and politically toxic.
4. Despite claims that other countries are steaming ahead with boiler bans, car bans, heat pumps, and championing Net Zero policies, especially in Europe, they are in fact creating deep schisms between and within EU member states. Auto manufacturers in Germany are warning that they cannot compete with Chinese rivals. Germany, struggling to find energy, itself is racing towards deindustrialisation, threatening the economic foundations of the Union. Its boiler ban, advanced by psychopathic Greens threatens to destabilise its own political centre of gravity, with a huge surge of interest in the AfD, now biting on the heels of the CDU in the polls. This risks not only the destabilisation of Europe, but geopolitical schism that could ultimately undermine NATO. Poland is pushing back against EU climate targets. The Netherlands, having overextended its green agenda looks set to oust its political establishment at the November election following the growth of the BBB movement, and the even newer New Social Contract party. There is the obvious polarisation of French politics, which needs no repetition here. And there is the case of Sweden’s new right-of-centre government abandoning its Net Zero targets in favour of a technology-first approach. Sunak can see all this green policy failure *everywhere* that green blobbers point to, while claiming such chaos is success.
5. ESG is failing. Former BoE governor Mark Carney, who just this week ranted against Liz Truss, disgraced his former office. Carney was appointed by Johnson to lead the The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which claimed to have aligned financial institutions with $130 trillion AUM. Vanguard and BlackRock seem to be reversing out of the Alliance. And a number of major insurance firms, including Munich Re and Zurich too, have joined the backlash. And Sunak knows about markets.
6. Ukraine, Russia, and the realignment of geopolitics. Who really believes that Western diplomats now have any chance of bringing Russia, China, and India into the Net Zero suicide pact? The drawbridge is up. And the G20 meeting saw Modi humiliate the entire green movement. Sunak offered the climate fund £1.6 billion — roughly speaking a quid per Indian. And as many Indians said “What?!! We’re going to the Moon, mate!”
Sunak can see all of these problems. And none of them are going to be solved by banning petrol and diesel car sales in 2030, or by banning boilers. The world is a fundamentally different place now, post-Brexit, post-covid, post-Russia-Ukraine, after 15 years of Climate Change Act failures, and the deindustrialisation of the West. All that carrying on with Net Zero as usual is going to do is, far from strengthening Britain’s position on the ‘world stage’, is further undermine our economy and industries, and political stability. Nobody else, except countries facing equivalent problems, perhaps, cares about our degenerate political class’s ideological fantasies. Global climate policy is collapsing as global politics shifts, whereas the basis for the UK’s draconian domestic climate policy agenda was ALWAYS global political institutions: the EU & UN etc, not domestic popular support. It’s not 2008 any more. Neither the ROW nor the UK public are as tolerant of being pushed around. And utopian, technocratic, supranational political ambitions look like so much cynical build-back-better bullshit that simply do not wash.
The histrionics that are now the counterpoint to Sunaks mildest possible Net-Zero flip-flop are the chorus of an extremely small, but extremely noisy and over-indulged part of British society that has got far to used to not being slapped down by reality, and, like spoilt infants, they are determined to find the boundaries of their behaviour. They are utterly deranged by ideology, and incapable of allowing their claims to be tested by simple arithmetic. They speak glibly in the most superficial terms about things they know nothing about: how the world must be organised; how the entire economy will be powered; how ordinary people’s lives will be managed. They lie. They try to tell people that banning things and imposing expensive restrictions will make them better off, make them safer and ‘create jobs’. From bottomless bank accounts, they commission idiot wonks at remote think tanks to produce glossy ideological bunk.
Sunak could not have done less to correct this mess. But what he has done is a good thing. And it includes setting a trap for the eco-catastrophists. The more they howl and wail, the more they will expose their utter contempt for ordinary people. It is not in Sunak’s gift, even if he wanted it, to reverse the entire sorry policy agenda. Too much stands in his way. But every scream and tantrum from the blobbers will bring that possibility closer to him or a successor. Because no person with a functioning brain believes that banning the boiler later, rather than earlier, is a good thing. And so the blobbers are set to out themselves, for the duration of this controversy, as brainless ideological zombies. Long may it continue.
A coercive scare story to increase vaccine uptake?
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | September 20, 2023
On 14th September BBC News reported London measles warning ‘Outbreak could hit tens of thousands’
Reading on, you discover this is based on our favourite dislocation from the real world: computer modelling.
‘Mathematical calculations suggest an outbreak could affect between 40,000 and 160,000 people… This is a theoretical risk, rather than saying we are already at the start of a huge measles outbreak. There have been 128 cases so far this year, compared with 54 in the whole of 2022.’
Theoretical is one word for their calculations, scare-mongering is another. Figures for the last 25 years vary widely with the highest being 2000 cases in 2012.
‘The UKHSA also says a large outbreak could put pressure on the NHS, with between 20% and 40% of infected people needing hospital care.’
Ring any PROTECT THE NHS bells?
But worse was to follow. On 15th September, it was reported:
‘Councils in London have written to households to say the capital could be facing a major outbreak unless MMR inoculation rates improve… Measles is highly contagious and severe cases can lead to disability and death… Any child identified as a close contact of a measles case without satisfactory vaccination status may be asked to self-isolate for up to 21 days.’
This threat of sending children home for a disease they don’t have, will resonate with parents whose children were repeatedly sent home for 10 days at a time, for one child with a positive covid test. As also will the inducement of:
‘Parents have been urged to check children’s health records to ensure that their vaccines are up to date.’
A ‘nudge’ technique not a million miles from the threat of vaccine passports for nightclubs, used to increase covid vaccine uptake in 18-25-year-olds but never actually implemented.
MMR vaccine uptake levels have been variable ever since its inception. Herd immunity levels of 95% are quoted as the level required to stop measles completely. But measles has never been a condition listed for total eradication. Cases fluctuate with mini outbreaks every 5-6 years and this was always the case before the availability of the measles and later the MMR vaccine. So how real is the current threat and how could it possibly justify such a discriminatory measure as excluding unvaccinated children from school?
From the headlines, parents may think that measles has a high death rate and whilst that was certainly true in the past and remains true in developing countries, improved nutrition and widespread access to health care in the UK was associated with a huge decline in measles deaths. The death rate declined from over 1,100 per million in the mid nineteenth century to a level of virtually zero by the mid-1960s.
Ninety-nine percent of the reduction in measles deaths in England & Wales occurred before the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1968 and deaths have continued to fall since then.
More recent figures show case reports fluctuating widely and deaths of children from measles varying between 0 and 2 per annum. For example, in 2013 when there were over 6000 reported cases, there was 1 adult and 0 child deaths.
That is not to say that deaths cannot occur and other serious complications such as pneumonia or hearing loss. But for the vast majority of children, measles is what it was always described as, namely a ‘childhood illness’. It is noteworthy that WHO recommends
‘All children or adults with measles should receive two doses of vitamin A supplements, given 24 hours apart. This restores low vitamin A levels that occur even in well-nourished children. It can help prevent eye damage and blindness. Vitamin A supplements may also reduce the number of measles deaths.’
In a systematic review published in 2002, two doses of water based vitamin A were associated with a 81% reduction in risk of mortality (RR=0.19; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.85). Nowhere is this simple measure mentioned in UK guidance.
The parents who have chosen not to get their children vaccinated will accept the possibility of them catching measles, but sending them home for 3 weeks isn’t going to make this go away. A policy which writes in educational discrimination against unvaccinated children is hardly going to improve trust in public bodies. Moreover, the GMC Guidance on Decision making and Consent states in paragraph 48:
‘If you disagree with a patient’s choice of option: You must respect your patient’s right to decide. … you must not assume a patient lacks capacity simply because they make a decision that you consider unwise’
Introducing carrots and sticks is not compatible with NHS Constitution. The seven key principles includes the following:
1. The NHS provides a comprehensive service, available to all
4. The patient will be at the heart of everything the NHS does
Health choices should always be free from coercion and the failure to uptake whatever is on offer should never result in punitive consequences disguised as being ‘for your safety’.
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | September 20, 2023
Amidst a growing controversy surrounding comedian Russell Brand, video platform Rumble has taken a stand against the UK government’s push to penalize the content creator based on recent allegations.
Last week, The Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches covered serious allegations of assault against Russell Brand. While the comedian has yet to be convicted of any wrongdoing and whether the anonymous accusers are victims is yet to be determined, several major platforms, including YouTube, Netflix, and BBC iPlayer, took swift action, either demonetizing or removing Brand’s content.
“We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr Brand is able to monetise his content, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him. If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform,” wrote Dame Caroline Dinenage, in the brazen letter.
“We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behaviour.”
Rumble, however, has chosen a different route from the other platforms. In response to an inquiry by the UK’s “Culture, Media and Sport Committee” regarding Brand’s monetization on the platform, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski issued a statement emphasizing the company’s commitment to a free internet.
In a clear stance against cancel culture and rushes to judgement, Pavlovski responded, stressing that allegations against Brand have no connection with his content on Rumble. He pointed out the importance of a free internet, “where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard.”
From Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski:
“Today we received an extremely disturbing letter from a committee chair in the UK Parliament. While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it is vital to note that recent allegations against Russell Brand have nothing to do with content on Rumble’s platform. Just yesterday, YouTube announced that, based solely on these media accusations, it was barring Mr. Brand from monetizing his video content. Rumble stands for very different values. We have devoted ourselves to the vital cause of defending a free internet – meaning an internet where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard, or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform.
“We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so. Singling out an individual and demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble. We don’t agree with the behavior of many Rumble creators, but we refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.
“Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be a violation of our company’s values and mission. We emphatically reject the UK Parliament’s demands.”
While the letter from Rumble did acknowledge the seriousness of crimes like sexual assault, it underscored the importance of not penalizing creators for allegations unrelated to the platform. Pavlovski also raised concerns over the UK government’s attempt to influence who is allowed to speak or earn on Rumble, especially singling out individuals based on allegations.
The unfolding situation surrounding Russell Brand draws attention to broader discussions on cancel culture, the role of tech platforms, and the overreach in governments in regulating online content.
For now, Rumble remains committed to its principles, rejecting the call to join the growing number of platforms penalizing Brand based on accusations. As the story progresses, the debate over freedom of speech online and the impact of allegations on creators’ livelihoods is likely to intensify.
But it’s for your own safety
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | September 20, 2023
YouTube are excelling themselves at the moment.
Yesterday they demonetised all of Russell Brand’s videos after a joint Channel 4, Times and Sunday Times investigation. For those who have not heard anything about this, Russell Brand is a UK comic with a troubled past full of sex, drugs and rock and roll. He managed to conquer Hollywood and marry pop star Katy Perry before settling down, having children and starting a great podcast.
The joint investigation accused Brand of sexual assault and rape which he strongly denies. Nobody knows what the truth is so there is no point in speculating on whether he is guilty or not. The key point is that he is innocent until proven guilty.
Unfortunately, YouTube have set this principle aside. They have dispensed with police gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses and bypassed going to court. Instead, they have decided that Brand is guilty and that his punishment is the inability to earn a living.
Who cares if he has a team to pay and a family to provide for. YouTube have listened to the mob and decided that Brand needs punishing. And of course they are able to do this because Big Tech is more powerful than most countries. Who is Brand going to complain to? The police?…they couldn’t care less. Politicians?…they are more fickle than Big Tech.
So now we are in a position where Big Tech companies have the power to decide whether you can earn a living or not. A police investigation may takes months or years. And then there will be a further wait until it goes to court. Should somebody have their wages withheld for years on end, perhaps being innocent the whole time? That’s not how innocent until proven guilty works.
Of course YouTube haven’t removed Brand’s videos, they still make a lot of money out of them, they have just stopped Russell getting a share of any of that revenue. ‘We think you’re guilty and we are morally superior so you shouldn’t be able to make a living but we are very happy to still earn money from your videos staying on our platform’.
To be honest, I’m surprised that Russell’s videos have been allowed on YouTube for so long, with so many other smaller accounts being censored over the same topics, but that is for another conversation.
Secondly, Stephen Bowie, who was injured after an adverse reaction to the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, has had one of his videos removed from YouTube. Nothing strange with that you might think, happens all the time.
What is strange and sinister, is that the video he posted was a YouTube live stream of the official UK Government Covid Inquiry. During the inquiry, Anna Morris KC, a Kings Counsel barrister, gave a testimony on vaccine related injuries. But YouTube didn’t like this.
“We reviewed your content carefully, and have confirmed that it violates our medical misinformation policy. We know this is probably disappointing news, but it’s our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all”
Phew, so long as I’m safe.
Even a UK Government Inquiry can’t get past the YouTube censors if it involves a verboten subject.
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | September 20, 2023
The UK has passed its controversial online censorship act known as the Online Safety Bill. The bill, one of the widest sweeping attacks on privacy and free speech in a Western democracy will become law.
The bill seeks to shield internet users, especially youth, from the slingshots of malicious online content. But the bill goes beyond forcing platforms to remove illegal content. It calls upon social media giants to act as custodians, safeguarding users against ill-intent messages, cyberbullying, and explicit material.
Shrouded in a veil of safetyism and paying only lip service to privacy and free speech rights, we cannot cower from highlighting the bill’s overt undertone of censorship, veering into a territory where freedom of speech and privacy might be sacrificed at the altar of digital safety.
Michelle Donelan, Technology Secretary, voiced her support for the bill, branding it as an “enormous step forward in our mission to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online.” Under the proposed law, social media corporations will be forced into swift action, not just for removing violative content but also for hindering its emergence.
The implementation sword will be wielded by Ofcom, the communications regulator, with the law setting a stringent punishment pathway for non-compliers, inclusive of colossal fines and even incarceration.
The bill further pioneers new criminal offenses to its roster, like cyber-flashing and the distribution of manipulated explicit content, or deepfake pornography.
The bill imbues the government with tremendous power; the capability to demand that online services employ government-approved software to scan through user content, including photos, files, and messages, to identify illegal content. Non-compliance can result in severe penalties such as facing criminal charges.
From a free speech and anti-censorship perspective, this legislation is fundamentally disturbing. Critics argue this bill could enhance potential censorship on the pretext of safety.
The backdoor scanning system poses significant threats. It may be exploited by those with malicious intent, mishandled which could lead to false positives, resulting in unwarranted accusations of child abuse.
These alarming flaws render the online safety bill incompatible with end-to-end encryption – a staple for ensuring user privacy and security – and human rights.
The UK government has subtly conceded that it might not harness some elements of this law to their full potential. During the concluding discussion about the bill, a representative confirmed that the government would only order scans of user files when “technically feasible,” and these orders would be subject to compatibility with UK and European human rights law. This acknowledgment seems a subtle retreat from a previously aggressive stance taken by the same representative.
On the same day of these declarations, it surfaced that the UK government conceded privately that technology capable of examining end-to-end encrypted messages while observing privacy rights does not exist.
But, citizens who value their privacy shouldn’t have to rely on weak assurances from the government. The official safeguarding of privacy rights should be a priority. Rather than relying on murmurs of amendments, the government should offer comprehensive assurance through clear regulations and explicit protection policies for end-to-end encryption.
The bill, as it stands, allows the government to scan messages and photos, posing significant threats to security and privacy to internet users globally. These powers are enshrined in Clause 122 of the bill.
Several end-to-end encrypted service providers like WhatsApp, Signal, and UK-based Element have threatened to pull out their services from the UK if Ofcom demands examination of encrypted messages – an extreme but important move. This reaction is a testament to the perceived invasive nature of the Online Safety Bill.
Study Finds Platform is Cleansing Side Effect Information and Promoting Unbridled Use of Experimental Products
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | September 19, 2023
YouTube is the most utilized video platform in the world. Many of my patients ask “doctor, why don’t we hear about vaccine side effects?” People feel blind-sided when they develop myocarditis, stroke, blood clots, or other common vaccine side effects but can can find no information on them with standard Google searches landing on YouTube.
Ng and colleagues performed a rigorous analysis of YouTube COVID-19 vaccine content and found that the platform is having effective content moderation. This means when you do a search, they are wiping vaccine safety information off the platform as “anti-vaccine” and replacing it with either irrelevant health information or pro-vaccine content.
The authors declare this a “success” of content moderation. Others would say this is censorship of valuable health information replaced with propaganda promoting novel, experimental unsafe, ineffective, genetic vaccines. What YouTube is doing is very scary, the authors self-expressed virtuosity is even more alarming.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
Millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on programs that target speech
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 19, 2023
Since the start of September, the Biden administration’s National Science Foundation (NSF) and State Department have awarded grants totaling more than $4 million to programs, studies, and other initiatives that target “misinformation” — a term that the Biden admin has used to demand censorship of content that challenges the federal government’s Covid narrative.
The NSF has awarded the following nine grants since September 1:
The State Department has awarded the following five grants since September 1:
These awards were granted as the Biden admin faces a major lawsuit for pressuring Big Tech to censor content that it deems to be misinformation.
An appeals court recently stated that the Biden regime violated the First Amendment when pushing social media platforms to censor and in an Independence Day ruling on this case, a judge described the Biden admin’s actions as “Orwellian.” The Supreme Court is now considering whether to hear the case.
While some of the grants focus have been awarded to non-American organizations, whose misinformation targeting efforts don’t fall under the scope of the First Amendment, these types of programs can result in the speech of Americans being targeted.
For example, Biden’s State Department has previously funded foreign think tanks that created “disinformation” blacklists. These blacklists were used to target American conservative media outlets.
Both of the agencies that awarded these grants have been involved in prior censorship controversies.
In addition to funding groups that created disinformation blacklists, Biden’s State Department has flagged thousands of accounts to Twitter, now known as X, for censorship.
Meanwhile, the NSF has been accused of funding programs that develop tech that targets vaccine dissent and has funded research on correcting “false beliefs” online.
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | September 18, 2023
A legal challenge has been launched this week by the O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) against Josh Green, the Democratic Governor of Hawaii, as well as the County of Maui. Triggering the lawsuit were restrictions which prohibited OMG from capturing images or footage on public lands as they sought to investigate the aftermath of devastating wildfires that have ravaged the area.
The suit alleges that these restrictions, demanded under the governor’s statewide emergency decree, went far enough to threaten the arrest of James O’Keefe, founder of OMG, should he persist with his recording activities and reporting on the wildfires and their origin.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
In a concealed camera footage captured during their investigative excursion, officers of law enforcement relayed this mandate to the journalists.
In a bold statement captured in the video, O’Keefe disclosed his motivation for filing the lawsuit as an effort to “… invalidate the criminalization of protected First Amendment activity and to also strip Maui County of any ability to criminally charge anyone who exercises their First Amendment rights.”
This legal action seeks to block attempts from the governor to criminalize the fundamental rights of free speech and press freedom protected by both the US and Hawaii constitution.
OMG’s legal pursuit, lodged in the United States District Court of Hawaii, also encompasses the case of John Doe, another plaintiff. During the investigative visit to the wildfire-struck Lahaina on September 1, 2023, somehow John Doe found himself facing criminal charges for his journalistic activities in the stricken region by Maui County through its Sheriff’s Department (MCSD), despite his legally recognized First Amendment rights.
In the suit, it has been noted that Doe was notified by the MCSD that his journalistic work was not criminalized by a law but through “Emergency Proclamations” issued by Governor Green in response to the Maui wildfires. As a result of this pronouncement, OMG sought clarification on this seemingly perplexing overreach on the rights of Doe and all Hawaiian citizens who demand answers to their growing concerns about the handling of the response to the wildfire and its implications on their lives on the island.
The MCSD then cited HRS § 127A-29(a), which concerns emergency period transgressions, misdemeanors and petty crimes in reference to violations committed by the plaintiff. The lawsuit brought forward by OMG argues that Governor Green lacks the authority to issue his own rules.
In essence, OMG’s lawsuit alleges that the enforcement of the governor’s order, which seemingly curtails constitutional privileges and liberties, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
The experts from OMG allege that the photography ban is not about restricting one form of expression, but a larger undermining of press freedom and the loss of the ability to keep our ruling class in check.
“The First Amendment is a built in ‘check’ on the Government because citizens can openly report government wrongdoing,” the complaint reads. “The freedom of the press acts as a bright beacon of light. It is an essential mechanism through which Americans can hold the government directly accountable. Democracy dies in the darkness.”
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | September 18, 2023
Legislation that seeks to tie the hands of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from setting up another Disinformation Governance Board is being launched by House Republicans. Brought about by Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ronny Jackson, and August Pfluger, this move is viewed as the Party’s effort to block limitations on what it deems to be free speech by federal agencies.
The DHS had originally set up a Disinformation Governance Board with a view to counteract, as it claimed, misinformation, malformation and disinformation. Yet, the initiative was met with criticism from conservative groups, leading to the body’s disbandment in 2022. Concerns centered around allegations of stifled free speech and political bias, rather than a focus on national security issues.
Representative Pfluger, who is part of the Homeland Security Committee along with Greene, expressed his skepticism about the previous governance board to The Washington Examiner.
According to him, it was less about maintaining factual discourse and more about controlling public discourse. He described the administration’s attempt to oversee American’s speech as discouraging, adding that the DHS’ energy should rather be directed to improving national security.
“Partisan government officials running a ‘disinformation board’ sounds ridiculous to most people, but yet the Biden administration tried to control the speech of American citizens… DHS should be focused on securing the border and preventing terrorist attacks, not fact-checking social media and censoring Americans.”
Republicans are progressively striking back against attempts by the current administration to regulate alleged disinformation. They are backing funding bills that effectively cut the government’s opportunities to bankroll these programs. This resistance to censorship extends beyond domestic boundaries, with the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee considering refusing authorization to the Global Engagement Center, a State Department-associated body.
It was revealed that this body had funneled $100,000 towards the British-based Global Disinformation Index which allegedly stealthily blacklisted conservative channels. Moreover, this isn’t the GOP’s debut attempt to disable the DHS from governing a disinformation board.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 14, 2023
After shunning COVID vaccines during the early pandemic response, Tanzania became a natural experiment for all-cause mortality rates. Compared to large U.S. states like Texas and California, Tanzania, with one of the lowest COVID vaccination rates in the world, succeeded in having one of the lowest all-cause mortality rates on earth, through the worst of the pandemic.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 14, 2023
Citing a public health emergency, New Mexico governor Michelle Grisham revoked the 2nd amendment rights of residents of her state this week. After citing that constitutional rights and oaths taken by public officials were not “absolute”, she was quickly condemned by some of the highest officials in the state.
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Saudi Arabia on the American chessboard – Part 3
By B. J. Sabri | American Herald Tribune | June 27, 2016
Read part 2: “The occupied mentality Syndrome“
Previously I argued whether Saudi Arabia’s repeated involvements in U.S. interventions and wars stem from free national will or in response to a specific condition. For starters, in Saudi Arabia there is no national will. In Saudi Arabia, the national will is the will of the Al Saud clan. Still, when a major Arab state allies itself with a superpower that committed unspeakable crimes against humanity in almost every Arab country, then something is wrong. This fact alone should compel us to examine the U.S.-Saudi relation for one exceptional reason. As a result of the U.S.-Saudi wars, hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia have lost their lives. Millions became displaced in their own homelands. And millions more rendered refugees.
Attributing the Saudi policies to the bonds of “partnership” with the U.S. is frivolous. There are no bonds between these two thugs except those of business, military deals, secret plots, and wars. Proving this point, bonds such as these have no space for the American and Saudi peoples to share significant cultural or societal exchanges. If partnership is not the reason for the Saudi contribution to the U.S. strategy of empire and imperialism, then another reason must exist.
This leads to three possibilities. … continue
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