Leave Trump Alone (Because It Does Not Matter)
By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | June 26, 2023
The narrative is set. Everything between now and November 2024, absent an actual alien intervention, is filler material.
Trump will ride his narrative to the polls, campaigning even if in hand cuffs and an ankle monitor. He is, he will make clear, the victim of a Democratic plot to weaponize “justice,” dating back to 2016 when Hillary was let off scot-free for her email shenanigans, followed by the FBI’s concocted Russiagate, two impeachments, and now a carousel of indictments. His opponent is Joe Biden, older than Yoda but presenting more like Jar Jar, crooked in cahoots with his scum bag son to hard suck bribe money out of eastern Europe. Sleepy Joe’s narrative is to count on the same FBI going after Trump with both barrels to shuffle its feet investigating him and Hunter through the election, with a final surge under the slogan “Oh who cares, I’m not Trump!” to wrap things up. It’s all a rich tapestry.
The problem is it is compelling; there is a lot of truth underneath the showmanship. There was David Petraeus, Obama’s CIA Director, who leaked secret docs to his girlfriend, and Sandy Berger, Clinton’s NSA Director, who stole secret docs. But it was Hillary who did get away with it all, at the FBI’s discretion (so much for one law for everyone) what Trump has been accused of in Mar-a-Lago. Hillary Clinton maintained an unsecured private email server which processed classified material on a daily basis. Her server held at least 110 known messages containing classified information, including e-mail chains classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level, the highest level of civilian classification. The FBI found classified intelligence improperly stored and transmitted on Clinton’s server “was compromised by unauthorized individuals, to include foreign governments or intelligence services, via cyber intrusion or other means.”
Clinton and her team destroyed tens of thousands of emails, evidence, as well as physical phones and Blackberries which potentially held evidence — obstruction as clear as it comes. She operated the server out of her home kitchen despite the presence of the Secret Service on property who failed to report it. A server in a closet is not as dramatic a visual as boxes of classified stored in a shower room, but justice is supposed to be blind. More recently, what of Mike Pence and Joe Biden, both of whom have escaped indictment so far on similar charges of mishandling classified information. Trump voters know if the FBI is going to take similar fact sets and ignore one while aggressively pursuing another, it is partial and political. No matter which candidate wins and loses, DOJ’s credibility is tanked.
The Stormy Daniels case, and the guilty finding in the Jean Carroll defamation case, reek of politics. Neither case would have seen daylight outside of Democratic hive New York, and neither could have held up outside a partisan justice system that permits it to ignore Jeffrey Epstein’s death in custody or a city in a crime tornado (New York in the past year reduced 52 percent of all felony charges to misdemeanors, opposite of what was done to Trump) while aggressively allowing the system to pursue a decades-old rape case of dubious propriety.
Witch hunt meet Hunter. New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran for office on the promise to prosecute Trump. He fulfilled a campaign promise and paid off his George Soros-connected backers. Bragg, in the words of law professor Jonathan Turley, had a “very public, almost Hamlet-like process where he debated whether he could do this bootstrapping theory [bumping misdemeanors up to felonies in the Stormy case.] He stopped it for a while and was pressured to go forward with it. All of that smacks more of politics than prosecutorial discretion.”
Calling it all a witch hunt is just a starting point. The point here is not innocence; it is whether the justice system is going to take fact sets and ignore one while aggressively pursuing another, risking being seen as partial and political. No matter which candidate wins or loses, credibility is tanked.
Still to come (at the least) are whatever judicial actions will emerge from the Special Prosecutor over Trump’s role in January 6, and legal action over the 2020 Georgia vote count (with another Democratic openly anti-Trump prosecutor.) Trump jokes in his stump speech nowadays every time he flies over a Blue State he gets another subpoena. He could easily head into the Republican convention to accept the nomination with multiple convictions and/or indictments on his shoulders. It won’t matter. The justice system is going to take fact sets and ignore some while aggressively pursuing others, partial and political plain as day. No matter which candidate wins, credibility is tanked. It grinds that most of the serious charges against Trump are under the hoary Espionage Act, seen by many as reviving the now-discredited trope Trump was a Russian agent.
Mostly overlooked for now is how much of the apparent evidence against Trump at Mar-a-Lago came from his own attorneys. Attorney-client privilege is recognized as one of the cornerstones of fairness in our system. In the Trump case, the Justice Department used the one major exception to privilege, when the communication is intended to further a criminal or fraudulent act, to compel Trump’s lawyers to give evidence against their own client. Justice asserted Trump lied to his own team about having no more classified documents, and that this constituted a crime of fraud and maybe obstruction, and thus privilege is not available and Trump’s lawyer can be made to testify against his client. The crime or fraud exception to attorney-client privilege itself has a long history, dating back to English common law. In the United States, the crime or fraud exception was first recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1840 case of United States v. Privileged Communications. But Trump’s supporters are unlikely to read deeply into the case law; all they’ll see is what looks like strong-arm tactics by the Department of Justice. No matter which candidate wins and loses, DOJ’s credibility is tanked.
The thing is no one has to work very hard to convince Trump supporters of the truth of what he is saying, that he is the victim. Trump support remained unmoved by the many investigations that plagued his presidency. Even during peak crises, views of him were static. Post-presidency polls continued the trend. Public opinion of Trump remains remarkably stable, despite his unprecedented legal challenges, and about half of Americans do not see his behavior as disqualifying, sharper if you divide along partisan lines. When asked if Trump’s legal troubles would impact their views of him, two-thirds of his supporters said it would not make a difference. That’s a committed bunch. Perhaps just as important, 57 percent of voters, including one-third of Democrats, said the indictment in New York earlier this year was politically motivated.
No one can say who will win in November 2024, but one loser is certain, faith in the rule of law by a large number of Americans. They will leave the polls certain the system was bent to “get” Trump, either saddened by the fall of blind justice or saddened that it did not work and Trump remined a powerful figure with a large movement behind him, either in or out of the Oval Office.
Robert F Kennedy Jr. Calls CBDCs “Instruments of Control and Oppression”
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2023
In an interview with The New York Post, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic Party presidential candidate, took a deep dive into the topic of currency. He unfolded his candid views on Bitcoin, expressed trepidations over central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and rang the bell of caution around artificial intelligence (AI).
Kennedy plans to “support Bitcoin and the freedom to transact,” and enable individuals to wield command over “Bitcoin wallets, nodes, and passwords.” In his world, regulatory fetters would be whittled down to the bare essentials to curb money laundering.
Kennedy also locked horns with Biden’s proposed crypto tax, a formidable 30%, and sounded the alarm against CBDCs.
His argument on CBDCs was clear-cut – CBDCs, in his estimation, are “instruments of control and oppression, and are certain to be abused.” He’s not alone in this battle-cry; his rival from the Republican stables, Ron DeSantis, shares a kindred spirit.
His disquiet was not merely consigned to the domain of cryptocurrency; artificial intelligence was equally ensnared in his critical lens. Kennedy called for the global harnessing of AI, citing figures like Elon Musk, whose advocacy for free speech he commended. The omens, as he foresees, are grave – where AI’s formidable might could “control narratives, create illusions, surveil our activities to dictate our behaviors and enforce compliance, and ultimately enslave humanity.”
Facebook Trusts Former CIA Analyst To Manage Election Policies
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2023
Meta recently appointed Aaron Berman, an ex-CIA agent, to take charge of its Elections Policies. Berman, who previously led the misinformation team at the company during the 2020 elections, now occupies a prominent position with extensive oversight over elections-related content across the globe.
The move is part of the revolving door between the intelligence community and social media platforms.
Aaron Berman boasts a career that spans nearly two decades with the CIA, from March 2002 to July 2019, Breitbart reported. During his tenure, he wielded significant influence, assuming various roles including editing and writing for the President’s Daily Brief – a high-profile classified document prepared every morning for the President of the United States by the intelligence community. Besides this, he supervised numerous analysts and managed multimillion-dollar budgets. His wide-ranging duties also encompassed providing briefings to members of Congress and the National Security Council.
After his extensive tenure with the CIA, Berman joined Facebook in 2019. Here, he took on the role of Senior Product Policy Manager for “misinformation.” He was instrumental in constructing the misinformation policy team’s workforce in the US and implementing policies during what he refers to as “critical events.” Although Berman has not specified the nature of these events, his stint at Facebook’s misinformation department coincided with the period leading up to the 2020 election, which was marred by controversies such as suppression of voices and news outlets.
Now as the Head of Elections Policies, Berman has wide-ranging responsibilities, as described on his LinkedIn profile: “Leads a team responsible for elections-related content policies worldwide. Oversees policy development, advises senior executives, coordinates with teams on implementation via technical and human workflows, and represents Meta with external stakeholders. Puts policies into practice on key elections.”
Australia mulls ‘fake news’ fines for Big Tech
RT | June 26, 2023
Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook could be hit with substantial fines under new draft legislation from the Australian government to crack down on the spread of “misinformation” and fake news on their platforms, The Age reported.
Under the proposal put forth by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), social media companies will be required to keep records showing their efforts to curb the spread of such information online. Repeated failures to do so could see them facing fixed fines numbering in the millions of dollars.
“Mis- and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust and can threaten public safety,” Canberra’s communications minister Michelle Rowland said on Sunday. She added that “the Albanese government is committed to keeping Australians safe online.”
Under the government proposal, the ACMA would be entitled to impose a new “code” of practice on social media platforms that repeatedly demonstrate an inability to monitor the spread of fake news on their services. It would also establish an industry-wide ‘standard’ to force the removal of certain content, requiring more robust methods to identify misinformation and an increased use of fact-checkers.
Systemic breaches of the code would see a company liable to a maximum fine of AUS $2.75 million (US $1.83 million) or 2% of global turnover – whichever is higher. The maximum penalty for breaking an industry ‘standard’ would be AUS $6.88 million (US $4.6 million) or 5% of global turnover.
A hypothetical fine under the latter terms for Facebook’s parent company Meta would amount to around AUS $8 billion (US $5.35 million), The Age daily noted.
The EU imposed similar rules governing social-media content last year which also saw social media companies liable for fines linked to annual global turnover.
Under the proposed legislation the government in Canberra would not have a role in determining which content online constitutes “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Rowland stressed that the law is designed to “strike the right balance” between curbing fake news and protecting freedom of speech online.
The powers will also not apply to standalone pieces of content, official electoral information and professional news services. Google had previously removed around 3,000 videos uploaded to YouTube from Australia which spread what it referred to as dangerous or misleading information related to Covid-19.
The proposed legislation was published on Saturday and is currently out for public consultation, which Rowland said was an opportunity for Australians and social media companies to air any objections to it.
Democrats Call on YouTube To Bring Back Its Election Censorship Rules
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2023
A ripple of indignation surged through the Capitol this Thursday as some lawmakers pushed against YouTube and its parent colossus, Alphabet Inc. At the heart of the issue is the tech behemoth’s about-face on its election misinformation policy, a move that emerges as a tinderbox in the countdown to the presidential race next year.
The fury emanated from the news that YouTube has decided to slacken its policy reins, no longer acting as the all-mighty censor against videos questioning the the sanctity of the 2020 presidential elections. The revelation, made through an announcement from YouTube, was met with the usual complaints from four high-profile Democrats of the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Among the voices was that of Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D.-NJ) who, along with his cohorts, denounced YouTube’s maneuver and demanded the tech giant retract this new stance.
In a letter, the lawmakers articulated their dissent, stating, “While you claim that taking such action is ‘core to a functioning democratic society,’ we emphatically disagree.”
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
They lambasted the policy relaxation as perilous and branded it a dagger pointed at the heart of American democracy, pressing YouTube to review this “harmful policy decision.”
YouTube’s silent watch was palpable as a spokesperson offered no rejoinder to the avalanche of criticism.
Dissecting the June 2nd announcement, YouTube’s reversal appears to be rooted in an introspective contemplation of its policy’s past efficacy and consequences. After purging of tens of thousands of videos, and a whole election cycle within its purview, the platform seems to have had an awakening. Perhaps censoring stuff isn’t good after all, they suggest, hopefully realizing that they were the baddies all along.
They believe the policy, initially started as a bulwark against election denialism, might inadvertently muzzle political speech without significantly stymieing the risk of violence.
However, the democratic lawmakers rebuked YouTube’s newfound stance as perilous, asserting that content discrediting the legitimacy of recent elections has already wreaked havoc upon democracy.
Since when has free speech been antithetical to democracy?
Zelensky Ratchets Up Culture War with Ban on Russian Books
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 25, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill last week banning the import of books produced in Russia or printed in the Russian language. The new law is Kiev’s latest escalation in its extensive effort to eliminate Russian culture in Ukraine.
Since taking office, Zelensky has led a campaign of “derussification” within Ukraine. Last year, Kiev’s legislature passed a bill that will heavily restrict books manufactured in Russia or printed in the Russian language. Zelensky announced he signed the bill on Thursday, saying, “I believe the law is right.”
Kiev’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko praised Zelensky for approving the ban. “The adoption of this draft law will protect the Ukrainian book publishing and distribution sector from the destructive influence of the ‘Russian world,’” he said.
The bill signed into law last week will ban all imports of books from Russia and Belarus. Additionally, the state will require a permit to import a Russian book from any third country. Zelenskiy’s office said the law would “strengthen the protection of the Ukrainian cultural and information space from anti-Ukrainian Russian propaganda.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Zelensky enacted a series of escalating steps with the goal of erasing, from Ukraine, any and all Russian culture. Kiev has worked to destroy all Russian monuments, rename public spaces that are in the Russian language, erase Russian historical figures, and target a branch of the Christian Orthodox church Kiev believes is too closely tied with Moscow.
Tkachenko has long been an advocate of the culture war in Ukraine. In a 2015 interview, he supported a ban on TV series and movies that are produced in Russia or glorify Russian people. One of Tkachenko’s goals at the time was to replace Russian content on Ukrainian televisions with Western programming.
While Kiev presents Moscow as the target of the culture war, the substantial minority of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers living in Ukraine are subjected to the laws. Zelensky has used the pretext of “derussification” process to consolidate control over Ukraine’s politics and media.
Trump’s 2024 lead widens after latest indictment
RT | June 25, 2023
Donald Trump’s lead over his nearest Republican opponent for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination has nearly doubled since the former US president was indicted on federal charges earlier this month, a new poll has shown.
The NBC News survey, released on Sunday, shows that Trump is the first choice for 51% of Republican primary voters, compared with 22% for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and 7% for former vice president Mike Pence. Trump’s 29-point lead over DeSantis compares with a 15-point margin when the same poll was done in April.
Pollsters began the latest survey on June 16, a week after the ex-president was charged with 37 felonies by a US Department of Justice (DOJ) special prosecutor over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Trump has tried to turn the case to his political advantage, just as he did after a New York City prosecutor charged him in April for allegedly falsifying business records.
“Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage,” Trump told supporters on Saturday at a Christian voter conference in Washington. “I’m being indicted for you, and I believe the ‘you’ is more than 200 million people that love our country.”
A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released earlier this month showed that Trump leads incumbent President Joe Biden by a margin of 45% to 39% in a hypothetical 2024 rematch of their 2020 race. An Emerson College poll released on Thursday found that a third-party candidate, such as philosopher and activist Cornel West, would draw support away from Biden, giving Trump an advantage.
Results of the NBC News survey suggest that the federal indictment has made Trump even more politically polarizing. While 21% of respondents said they have a “very positive” view of him, up from 17% in April, 49% gave a “very negative” assessment, up from 44% previously.
Just 20% of US voters believe the nation is on the “right track” under Biden, down from 23% in January. At the same point in Trump’s presidency, the number was 33%. Just 18% of voters have a “very positive” view of Biden, down from 29% in the early days of his presidency, the poll showed.
The current and former vice presidents, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, have even lower favorability ratings. Only 11% of voters have a “very positive” view of Harris, while Pence’s rate is even worse, at 3%. DeSantis went from a 19% “very positive” rate in September 2022 to 14% this month.
Voters also give low marks to the DOJ, with 14% rating the department very positively, down from 18% in the most recent reading before Trump’s indictment.
Peter Hotez: Why He Won’t Debate
Another Sign that We’re Winning
By Fed Up Texas Chick | Dr. Tenpenny’s Eye on the Evidence | June 24, 2023
“Peter, if you claim what RFK Jr. is saying is misinformation, I am offering you $100,000 to the charity of your choice to debate him on my show with no time limit.”
And the little worm squirmed.
The worm I am referring to is Dr. Peter Hotez, and the quote above is from Joe Rogan. At the writing of this article, Joe Rogan’s challenge to Hotez has been viewed over 25 million times on Twitter. The money is being crowdsourced and has grown to $2.6 million thus far. Apparently, a lot of folks want to see this debate.
It all started with a long three-hour podcast interview between Joe Rogan and his guest, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has done incredible work with the Children’s Health Defense and is an outspoken opponent of vaccines. If you missed it podcast, here is an unedited version.
RFK Jr. expressed all sorts of opinions, which is any American’s right, about autism, the COVID vaccines, and the CIA’s involvement in the murder of his father and uncle President JFK. In particular, he touted the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID in lieu of the vaccines.
Apparently, Hotez took issue with this, which is very interesting, given that he is the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston’s Texas Medical Center. His personal website says he leads a team that is “developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS/SARS-2 coronavirus diseases.” Naturally, he promotes global access to vaccines, because he directly benefits financially. If anyone should know about antiparasitic and antimalarial drugs, it’s Hotez, right? Why wouldn’t he be able to hold his own in a debate on tropical medicine?
Hotez knows about the value of ivermectin, because he wrote a paper on it in 2007 that was published in New England Journal of Medicine that discussed the history of the drug’s effectiveness. But rather than engaging in the challenge to debate RFK and “bury him once and for all,” Hotez took to Twitter. He promptly asked for a $50 million endowment because Rogan and Kennedy are so stinkin’ rich. He tried to get money from them to continue his work “making low-cost patent-free vaccines for the world’s poor.”
Hotez also asked for a public apology from RFK Jr.
Mostly, Hotez is pissed about RFK Jr’s anti-vax status, challenging his work and making him non-essential. Hotez has too good of a gig, actually, and doesn’t want anyone interfering with his gravy train. Let’s explore that gravy train…
Pfizer
Hotez has been in lock step with Pfizer for decades. Redacted News reporter Dan Cohen did a two part deep dive into Hotez and his past; I highly recommend watching it. Cohen reveals that Hotez started receiving money from Pfizer straight out of college, and he hasn’t stopped. And Hotez seems to only appear on Pfizer-backed channels, such as MSNBC.
This explains why Hotez praised Pfizer’s Covid-19 clinical trial results for children aged 12 to 15 as “pretty impressive”. The trial showed 100% efficacy, but we now know that Pfizer lied.
Lofty Colleagues: Gates and Fauci
Hotez also has an international status to protect. In 2022, he and colleague Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to develop and distribute a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine “to people of the world without patent limitation.”
According to his personal bio, Hotez has been developing recombinant protein coronavirus vaccines for SARS and MERS for more than a decade at Texas Children’s Hospital.
In 2020, he developed the first recombinant protein COVID-19 through microbial fermentation in yeast. Hotez has a connection to researcher Zhengli Shi, more commonly known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology “bat lady.” They worked together to develop a lab-generated (i.e. man-made) chimeric SARS-related coronavirus. Their work was was funded through an NIH grant, a grant that also provided funding for two of Shi’s staff.
Hmmm. Is this gain of function research? How about this hot new revelation from Kanekoa News :
In a groundbreaking revelation, it has come to light that Dr. Peter Hotez has been entangled in a web of funding, collaboration, and research with Chinese military scientists potentially involved in the development of COVID-19. The intricate tale weaves together key Chinese military virologists and culminates in the smoking gun evidence surrounding COVID-19’s notorious furin cleavage site.
So far, Hotez’s jab technology has been sent to four countries:
- India (Biological E, CORBEVAX),
- Indonesia (BioFarma, CORONAVAC),
- Bangladesh (Incepta) and
- Botswana (ImmunityBio).
More than 100 million doses have been administered in India and Indonesia. Gosh, he sounds like Bill Gates, doesn’t he? Maybe that’s because they also work together.
Here is an article from 2021 that starts,
“The Bill Gates-funded doctor is very displeased that you aren’t blindly genuflecting before his unassailable brilliance.” This is another article that is definitely worth reading.
There are many videos on the internet where Bill Gates is singing Hotez’s praises. This is blatant propaganda: Hotez is a salesman, not a scientist.
Lately, Hotez’s messaging has turned militant. What is he militant about? Anti-vaxxers. And anti-science promoted by anti-vaxxers, people like RFK Jr. You would think he would be chomping at the bit at the chance to debate him. He sticks to Twitter.
For example, his December 2022 Tweet where the WHO prominently features his militant attitude: Hotez says that anti-vaxxers have become a global killing force, and that anti-science kills more people than “gun violence, global terrorism, nuclear proliferation and cyberattacks.”
Wow, just wow.
He is particularly militant about, and protective of, Dr. Anthony Fauci. After Fauci stepped down from NIH late last year, Hotez was on the short list as a likely successor. In fact, Children’s Health Defense re-published an article, originally written by Dr. Joseph Mercola, wondering if he would assume Fauci’s role. Mercola’s article is a deep dive into Hotez’s world, and highly recommended reading.
In 2021, Hotez actually said it should be a federal hate crime to criticize Fauci and other government-funded scientists. Yes, he really said that. But we know that name-calling is the last resort for those who have no grounds for an argument.
The Clintons and Obama
It is actually perplexing that Hotez didn’t take Rogan up on a chance at a large charity donation, particularly since Hotez has such a penchant for nonprofit work. After all, he worked for the Clinton Global Health Initiative and, in 2006, that helped him found the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to “provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people.” This is not anti-science; it comes from his own bio, linked above.
Take a gander at the rest of Hotez’s resume. From 2014 to 2016, he served in the Obama Administration as a US envoy to focus on vaccine diplomacy between the US government and North Africa and countries in the Middle East.
I literally could go on and on and write an 8,000-word expose on Hotez, but I won’t.
Hotez is a self-proclaimed saint who ‘toils tirelessly’ to develop vaccines for the world’s poor. At the same time, he wants to criminalize the questioning of vaccine safety and use cyberwarfare against anti-vaxxers to literally snuff them out. Journalist Paul Thacker wrote a great piece (2022) entitled, “Peter Hotez Sees Aggression Everywhere But in the Mirror.”
Hotez is a paradox, but many see his true colors. Is Hotez a scientist or a salesman? Is he a prominent physician or a political operative peddling propaganda? Is he a Mother-Theresa-like figure helping the world’s poor, or is he one of the most hateful and dangerous people in medicine today?
You be the judge.
Fed Up Texas Chick is a contributing writer for The Tenpenny Report (at http://www.Vaxxter.com) She’s a rocket scientist turned writer, having worked in the space program for many years. She is a seasoned medical writer and researcher who is fighting for medical freedom for all of us through her work.
Republican Lawmakers Question NYC Reporting of Unvaccinated Teachers to FBI
Sputnik – 23.06.2023
WASHINGTON – A group of Republican US House lawmakers are requesting info from New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks on the city’s practice of assigning “Problem Codes” to teachers who refused a COVID-19 vaccination and sending their data to the FBI, according to a letter sent by the lawmakers on Friday.
“I am writing to request greater information about the New York City Department of Education’s (NYCDOE) practice of assigning ‘Problem Codes’ to the records of New York City educators who lawfully chose not to receive COVID-19 vaccinations,” the letter said. “Moreover, the Department sent educators’ fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the New York Criminal Justice Services.”
The letter was signed by House members including Representatives Nicholas Langworthy, Andrew Garbarino and Elise Stefanik.
Earlier this year, New York City officials incorrectly claimed that the Problem Codes are not part of a permanent personnel record and are not shared with any external organizations, the letter said.
Problem Codes were added to all employees who were placed on vaccine mandate leave, the letter said. The city used the same Problem Code for unvaccinated teachers as it uses for individuals accused of molesting, raping or harming a child, the letter said.
The Problem Codes can have a “profoundly negative impact” on flagged educators and can hinder their future employment prospects, the letter said. Educators are often unaware they have been flagged until they face employment rejections elsewhere, the letter said.
“City Hall’s false and misleading statements regarding the existence, nature, utilization, and impact of Problem Codes on teachers’ livelihoods cannot be accepted at face value. The City has been less than forthcoming about the Problem Codes issued to educators,” the letter said.
The lawmakers are requesting that Banks provide them with information on the purpose and utilization of Problem Codes by the city, explain discrepancies in their claims and clarify the transfer of fingerprint information to law enforcement, according to the letter.
The letter also requests information on what measures may be taken to rectify any “unjust consequences” faced by educators as a result of the Problem Codes, as well as whether the city has any plans to revise their practices.
The Administrative Man
On the view of humanity adopted by the state and its agents
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | June 23, 2023
There is a pattern, a recurring blindness, in the approach of the administrative state to everyday human life.
Let’s consider a few examples of recent political idiocy and the common thread that unites them:
1. The Scholz government hopes to convince more Germans to opt for public transit by tinkering with fares and introducing a universal 49-Euro ticket. The offering, which collapses regional ticket schemes into one simple, relatively cheap monthly subscription, is now more than 50 days old, and preliminary data show it’s changed hardly anybody’s habits. The vast majority of the 11 million subscriptions sold so far have gone to longstanding public transit users; less than a tenth have been purchased by new customers. Surveys show that interest is concentrated in the urban centres, while rural populations have no use for the ticket because everybody drives cars there. Calls for improving transit offerings in the countryside are half-hearted and bizarre; the whole concept of public transit requires dense, concentrated populations.
2. For some years now, the German state has deployed extravagant subsidies to convince consumers to buy electric vehicles. While adoption has been substantial, the dream of 15 million EVs by 2030 remains very far off. Subsidies aren’t enough to counterbalance the substantial cost of the batteries, leaving conventional automobiles with an enormous competitive advantage at the cheaper end. Also too, it seems that the core market for EVs – relatively well-off Germans who take mostly short trips and primarily charge their vehicles at home – will soon be saturated. For those who have longer commutes or must frequently travel long distances, the limited range and insufficient charging network are disqualifying.
3. I’ve already written about proposed government legislation to compel all Germans to transition to heat pumps beginning in 2024. Massive controversy compelled substantial changes in the law, which has been blunted in many respects, but remains worrying. Because not everybody lives in buildings that are suitable for heat pumps, the law in its original form would’ve required massive renovations across broad sectors of the housing market, effectively wiping out billions of Euros in personal wealth. If enacted in its original form, it might well have rendered many prewar buildings basically uninhabitable.
4. Bizarre proposals to mitigate the dangers of warm summer weather, accompanied by strange state media hysteria about recent warm summer temperatures, are similarly oblivious. The proposals are based on French plans, which foresee imposing bans on school trips and large gatherings in the event of extended heat waves. While rules like these have the potential to destroy ordinary summer activities for millions of people, they won’t save any lives. Summer mortality spikes are confined almost entirely to the old and the sick, not schoolchildren or sports fans.
5. Lockdowns and mass vaccination also belong in this list. These policies arose from the myopia of public health mandarins, who regarded everyone in their jurisdiction as equally likely to spread SARS-2, equally likely to die from it and equally able to endure months of rolling house arrests and an indefinite marathon of mRNA injections. They were wrong in every respect: The virus was only ever dangerous to a very small segment of the population, there was never any purpose in vaccinating the millions of people who had recovered from SARS-2 infection, and even according to officially accepted, heavily massaged statistics, the vaccines have no measurable upside for any healthy person under 50.
Underlying these policy initiatives and many others is a highly abstract bureaucratic conception of the individual, what I’ll call the Administrative Man. This is how state bureaucrats everywhere approach their subject populations, and it is an unavoidable artefact of routine bureaucratic processes like regulation and taxation. In this conception, everybody is more or less the same, subject to nudging via the same incentives, requiring the same protections from the same risks, and likely to benefit from the same one-size-fits-all solutions. The highly differentiated lives that people actually lead – their vast differences in personal circumstances, wealth, individual preferences, religious beliefs and political opinions – are at best ignored, at worst considered a massive inconvenience. There is an unstated, unconsciously harboured bureaucratic vision of a country made up entirely of Administrative Men as the ideal receptacles of bureaucratic solutions, which are of course always correct, except when the people fail them.
The image of the Administrative Man, while heavily abstracted, is not without some intriguing specific characteristics. These will vary from country to country, but we can derive some of the features of the German Administrative Man from our five examples. He appears to live in cities or at least in towns, not in the countryside. He’s certainly an apartment dweller, and he’s more likely than not to rent. He’s actually somewhat well-off, but not wealthy; he’s older and probably not in the best of health. He leads a fairly withdrawn, local life, with limited interest in public events. All in all, it seems fair to call him a composite figure, combining features of the civil servants most responsible for this vision and of the aging voters who support the major political parties.
Our states are some of the most powerful and overextended in history; no system has been so well positioned to impose its vision of politics and culture on its subjects ever before. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the political mechanics of the rainbow revolution, but the all-consuming interesting of Western politicians in ethnic and sexual diversity surely admits of other interpretations as well. You could say that there is an eagerness to confine human variation to those areas of least concern to the institutional apparatus, and thus to “celebrate,” or actively promote, all those diversities which are of least consequence to the administrative ideal. Modern states actually want highly uniform, undifferentiated populations, and they hope to confine personal expression to sexual, ethnic and consumerist spheres. The Administrative Man may be straight or gay, he may be from any continent; these details hardly matter for the regulators.
The Administrative Man is not real, and no amount of bureaucratic intervention can ever bring him into being. What’s more, the state itself seems only intermittently conscious of and profoundly uninterested in the distance between its abstract administrative model of humanity and the reality of human variation. Ours aren’t the hard authoritarian regimes of the Warsaw Pact countries, which sought to beat their subjects into a uniform mass via economic deprivation and overt repression. They’re rather soft authoritarian systems, which operate via sophisticated messaging campaigns and realigning incentives – approaches which are always limited from the beginning by the deep inaccuracies of the administrative vision.
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From the Archives
Is Israel to blame for the Iraq War?
American Goy | March 10, 2008
I am so tired of this old canard that “Israel had nothing to do with USA’s war with Iraq – in fact, it officially advised America against it”.
Bullshit. … continue
Blog Roll
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- If Americans Knew
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- A sigh of relief over Iran, but Gaza and Lebanon in dire straits – Daily Update
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- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
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