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Repeal All Laws Against the Phony Crime of ‘Seditious Conspiracy’

By Ryan McMaken | Mises Wire | December 3, 2022

On Tuesday, a District of Columbia jury convicted Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol building. Three other defendants were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other felonies. Convictions of seditious conspiracy represent a political victory—not just a legal one—for those who have long insisted that the January 6 riot was no mere riot, but an organized armed rebellion of some sort. This claim has been key in the administration’s ongoing vague claim that “democracy”—however defined—is somehow “at risk.”

Yet, few of the legal proceedings arising out of the Justice Department’s prosecutions of rioters have done much to forward this narrative. Out of the approximately 850 people charged with crimes of various sorts, only a small number have been charged with anything close to treason or violent insurrection. Specifically, the closest the Justice Department has come is the charge of “seditious conspiracy” applied to 11 defendants total. So far, only 2 have been convicted of the charge.

Seditious conspiracy must not be confused with the act of treason legally defined in the US Constitution, however. Generally speaking, while treason requires an overt act of some kind, seditious conspiracy is a charge that a person has said things designed to undermine government authority. In other words, it is a “crime” of intent as interpreted by state authorities. This is fundamentally different from picking up a weapon and using it against agents of a government.

Of course, as we’ve noted here at mises.org before, the very idea of treason is itself problematic since it assumes that violence against a government agent is somehow worse than a crime against a private citizen. Governments love this double standard because it reinforces the idea that the regime is more important than the voluntary private sector. Ultimately, however, violence against a person or property should be prosecuted as exactly that, and not as some separate category of crime against the “special” human beings who work for a regime.

Seditious conspiracy suffers from this same problem but is even more problematic because it relies primarily on circumstantial evidence to “prove” that a person was saying things in favor of obstructing or overthrowing a government. Indeed, the supposed necessity of such a “crime” is belied by the fact that no such crime even existed in federal law between the repeal of the hated Alien and Sedition Acts, and the advent of the Civil War. Nor did seditious conspiracy laws play an important role in the U.S. regime’s military success against the secessionists in the Southern Confederacy.

Instead, what we find is that seditious conspiracy is a crime that is both prone to abuse by state authorities and is unnecessary in terms of preventing violence to life and property. In cases such as the January 6 riot, crimes against persons and property ought to simply be considered violent crimes and property crimes of the usual sort. Contrary to absurd romantic notions that the January 6 rioters struck some sort of blow against “democracy” the fact is that any disruptions against Congressional proceedings can be addressed as assault, trespassing, and other related crimes. Seditious conspiracy, in contrast is merely a type of “thoughtcrime.”

The Origins of Seditious Conspiracy 

When the framers of the United States constitution wrote the document’s text, they defined treason in very specific and limiting terms:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Note the use of the word “only” to specify that the definition of treason shall not be construed as something more broad than what is in the text. As with much of what we now find in the Bill of Rights, this text stems from fears that the US federal government would indulge in some of the same abuses that had occurred under the English crown, especially in the days of the Stuart monarchs. Kings had often construed “treason” to mean acts, thoughts, and “conspiracies” far beyond the act of actually taking up arms against the state. Instead, in the US constitution, the only flexibility given to congress is in determining the punishment for treason.

Naturally, those who favored greater federal power chafed at these limitations and sought more federal laws that would punish alleged crimes against the state. It only took the Federalists ten years to come up with the Alien and Sedition Acts which stated:

That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor.

Note the references to “intent,” “counsel,” and “advise” as criminal acts so long as these types of speech are employed in a presumed effort to obstruct government officials. This part of the Act however, was never used by the regime. Those prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Acts were charged under the section on seditious libel which were heartily opposed for being obviously and blatantly against basic rights of free expression. Nonetheless, the Sedition Act was allowed to expire thanks to the election of Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans (later known as Democrats).

For sixty years, the United States government had no laws addressing sedition on the books. But the heart of the 1798 Sedition Act would be revived. As passed on July 1861, the new Seditious Conspiracy statute stated

That if two or more persons within any State or Territory of the United States shall conspire together to overthrow, or to put down, or to destroy by force, the Government of the United States, or to oppose by force the authority of the Government of the United States; or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States; or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States against the will or contrary to the authority of the United States; or by force, or intimidation, or threat to prevent any person from accepting or holding any office, or trust, or place of confidence, under the United States . . . shall be guilty of a high crime

Given the timing of the legislation—i.e., in 1861 following the secession of several southern states—it is assumed the origins of the legislation at the time was in addressing alleged Confederate treason. This is not quite the case. Indeed, the legislation enjoyed considerable support from those who were especially militant in their opposition to the confederacy. For example, Rep. Clement Vallandigham of Ohio—who would later be exiled to the Confederacy for opposing the war—supported the bill precisely because he thought it would help in punishing those engaged in “conspiracies to resist the fugitive slave law.” Indeed, the Congress had initially become serious about punishing “conspiracies” not in response to southern secession, but in response to John Brown’s 1859 raid in Harper’s Ferry.1

Southern secession and fears of rebellion helped enlarge the coalition in favor of a new sedition law. The new sedition law represented a significant expansion of the idea of “crimes against the state” in that the sedition law did not require overt acts against the government, but merely “conspiring” vaguely defined. Douglas understood this perfectly well, explaining the benefits of his bill as such:

You must punish the conspiracy, the combination with intent to do the act, and then you will suppress it in advance. There is no principle more familiar to the legal profession than that whenever it is proper to declare an act to be a crime, it is proper to punish a conspiracy or combination with intent to perpetrate the act. . . . If it be unlawful and illegal to invade a State, and run off fugitive slaves [for example] why not make it unlawful to form conspiracies and combinations several States with intent to do the act?

Others were more suspicious of expanding federal power in this way, however. Sen. Lazarus Powell and eight other Democrats presented a statement opposing the passage of the bill.2 Specifically, Powell and his allies believed the new seditious conspiracy law would be a de facto move in the direction of allowing the federal government to effectively expand the definition of treason offered by the federal constitution. The statement read:

the creation of an offense, resting in intention alone, without overt act, would render nugatory the provision last quoted, [i.e. the treason definition in the Constitution] and the door would be opened for those similar oppressions and cruelties which, under the excitement of political struggles, have so often disgraced the past history of the world.

Even worse, the new legislation would provide to the federal government “the utmost latitude to prosecutions founded on personal enmity and political animosity and the suspicions as to intention which they inevitably engender.”

Seditious conspiracy legislation gives the federal government far greater leeway to punish political opponents. Certainly, such legislation could have indeed been used against opponents of the fugitive slave acts, as well as against opponents of federal conscription. After all, opponents of both the Civil War draft and the Vietnam War draft—as with the heroic draft-card burnings of the Catonsville Nine, for example — ”conspired” to destroy government property. It would be far harder to prove in court that such acts constituted treason. Unfortunately, the new legislation was ultimately approved in 1861, and the United States government had its first permanent laws against seditious conspiracy.

We now have the same reasons to fear seditious conspiracy laws as Powell did in 1861. Such measures allow the federal government to construct laws addressing intent, thoughts, and words, rather than overt acts. This greatly expands federal power and allows for prosecution of mere inflammatory rhetoric against the federal government. Indeed, prior to his conviction this week, Rhodes’s attorneys reminded jurors that Rhodes never even entered the capital on January 6. They also noted that Rhodes had expressed verbal opposition to entering the capital. Yet, he was apparently convicted because “conspiracy” can encompass so many acts, especially in the minds of jurors.

A common-sense foundation for addressing violence in the Capitol building, however, would be to simply prosecute those who engage in actual violence and trespass. It is clear, however, that gaining convictions for seditious conspiracy has been an important goal for the administration because it assists in the narrative that Donald Trump’s supporters attempted some sort of coup. Unfortunately, These sorts of political prosecutions are just the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from the Justice Deptrtment. While the FBI can’t be bothered with investigating sex criminals such as Larry Nassar, they’ll pull out all the stops to prosecute hundreds of those who entered the Capitol on January 6, many of whom simply stood around gawking at the scenery. But when Congress gives the FBI a near carte blanche as it has done with seditious conspiracy laws, we should expect as much.

  • 1. Catherine M. Tarrant, “To ‘Insure Domestic Tranquility’: Congress and the Law of Seditious Conspiracy, 1859-1861,” The American Journal of Legal History 15, no. 2 (April 1971): 112, 119.
  • 2. Ibid., p. 119.

Ryan McMaken is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

December 5, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Multinational Agrichemical Corporations and the Great Food Transformation

By Birsen Filip | Mises Wire | November 5, 2022

In July 2022, the Canadian government announced its intention to reduce “emissions from the application of fertilizers by 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030.” In the previous month, the government of the Netherlands publicly stated that it would implement measures designed to lower “nitrogen pollution some areas by up to 70 percent by 2030,” in order to meet the stipulations of the European “Green Deal,” which aims to “make the EU’s climate, energy, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.”

In response, Dutch “farm and agriculture organizations said the targets were not realistic and called for a protest,” which led farmers and their supporters to rise up across the country. The artificially designed Green Deal is one of the goals of Agenda 2030, which was adopted by 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) in 2015.

In addition to the UN, Agenda 2030 is also supported by a number of other international organizations and institutions, including the European Union, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Bretton Woods Institutions, which consist of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It is also endorsed by some of the most powerful agrichemical multinational corporations in the world, such as BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical, DuPont, and Syngenta, which, together, control more than 75 percent of the global market for farm inputs. In recent years, “the acquisition of Syngenta by ChemChina, and the merger of Bayer and Monsanto” have “reshaped the global seed industry.” Additionally, “DuPont de Nemours was formed by the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont in 2017.” However, “within 18 months of the merger the company was split into three publicly traded companies with focuses on the following: agriculture with Corteva, materials science with Dow and specialty products with DuPont.”

In recent years, all of these corporations have issued statements suggesting that the agriculture sector will undergo major changes over the upcoming three decades, and that they are committed to doing their parts to accelerate the transition to so called green policies. Accordingly, they advocate for governments to redirect public finance away from conventional farming and toward regenerative agriculture and alternative protein sources, including insect farming and lab-grown meats.

Moreover, BASF, Syngenta and Bayer are members of “the European Carbon+ Farming Coalition,” which includes a number of “organizations and stakeholders along the food value chain,” such as “COPA-COGECA, Crop In, European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF), European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food, HERO, Planet Labs,” “Swiss Re, University of Glasgow, Yara, Zurich and the World Economic Forum.” Originally, this “coalition emerged as a partnership between the World Economic Forum’s 100 Million Farmers platform and its CEO Action Group for the European Green Deal.”

Its objective is to “decarbonise the European food system” by accelerating the transformation of farming and agricultural practices. More specifically, the European Carbon+ Farming Coalition seeks to attain “zero gross expansion in the area of land under cultivation for food production by 2025, reduction in total territories used for livestock of about one-third by 2030, and a consequent freeing up of nearly 500 million hectares of land for natural ecosystem restoration by the same date.” According to the WEF, in addition to benefitting the environment, such changes will also be economically advantageous, as “changing the way we produce and consume food could create USD 4.5 trillion a year in new business opportunities.”

In order to accelerate the transformation of farming over the coming decades, BASF calls for requiring “farmers to decrease their environmental impact” by reducing “CO2 emissions per ton of crop by 30 percent,” and applying “digital technologies to more than 400 million hectares of farmland.” BASF also supports the wide use of a number of new products, including “nitrogen management products,” herbicides, “new crop varieties,” “biological inoculants and innovative digital solutions,” so as to make farmers “more carbon efficient and resilient to volatile weather conditions.” It is estimated that such changes would “contribute significantly to the BASF Group target of €22 billion in sales by 2025.”

Meanwhile, Syngenta, the world’s second-largest agrochemical enterprise (after Bayer), which is owned by a Chinese state-owned company called ChemChina, focuses on “carbon neutral agriculture” under the pretense of “combatting climate change.” More precisely, it supports “providing technologies, services, and training to farmers,” as well as the further development of new gene-edited seeds that would lower the emission of CO2. According to Syngenta, “gene-edited crops” will be widely used and cultivated across the globe “by 2050.”

This company also promotes “a transformation toward regenerative agriculture,” which is claimed to “lead to more food grown on less land; reduced agricultural greenhouse gas emissions; increased biodiversity; and enhanced soil health,” though there is scant scientific evidence or long-term data to back up these assertions. Nonetheless, Syngenta argues that the world needs “governments and media … to encourage widespread adoption” of regenerative practices by as many farmers as possible.

Bayer also advocates for regenerative agriculture to help “farmers significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas their operations emit, while also removing carbon from the atmosphere.” It further claims that it is necessary “to shift to a regenerative approach and make crops more resilient to climate impacts.” Additionally, much like Syngenta, Bayer supports the development of “new gene editing technologies” in order to reduce “the environmental footprint of global agriculture.” Looking ahead, Bayer foresees that, “in agriculture, biotechnology will be a critical enabler” that will be used to “feed the 10 billion people that will be on the planet by 2050 while at the same time fighting the impact of climate change.”

Similar to Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta, DuPont also seeks to contribute to decreasing “dependence on fossil fuels, and protecting life and the environment.” Its response primarily focuses on facilitating the production and consumption of alternative protein sources that can reproduce “the texture and appearance of meat fibers, and can be used to extend or replace meat or fish.” DuPont pointed out that “in 2016, Americans consumed about 26 kg of beef per capita, at least half of which was eaten in the form of a hamburger. Replacing just half of America’s burger meat with SUPRO® MAX protein,” which has a carbon footprint that is up to eighty times lower than dairy and meat proteins, is equivalent to removing “more than 15 million mid-sized cars from the road.”

Some of the world’s most powerful multinational agrichemical corporations have benefitted immensely from international trade agreements that put their interests ahead of those of small – and medium – size farms, as well as the masses, when it comes to transforming the food and agriculture sectors. In particular, the World Trade Organization’s agreement on trade – related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), which was adopted in 1994, played a major role in destroying the livelihoods of many farmers, while proving lucrative to agrichemical giants like BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical, DuPont, and Syngenta. This is mainly because TRIPS has allowed for the patenting of seeds and plants.

As a result, native herbs and plants in a number of different countries, many of which had previously been farmed for generations, became the sole properties of powerful agrichemical multinational corporations. After plants and herbs have been patented, local farmers are forbidden from engaging in the traditional and longstanding practices of saving and replanting their own seeds. Instead, they are required to pay the patent holding corporations for the same seeds that they had previously produced, saved, replanted, and exchanged at no cost.

Powerful agrichemical multinational corporations have also furthered their own interests and agendas by exerting unprecedented influence over research and development in the food industry, while ignoring any findings demonstrating that their business practices were harmful to the natural environment. In particular, some of these major agrichemical corporations have focused their efforts and resources on studying “genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the creation of stronger pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, and defending the performance of these products.”

They have also supported the expansion of GMO crops with the knowledge that their cultivation involves “the application of larger quantities” of “synthetic fertilizers and pesticides,” which has led to large amounts of toxic chemicals contaminating soil and water sources. Basically, these agrichemical corporations have been largely responsible for creating many of same environmental problems that they now claim need to be urgently solved through Agenda 2030.

There is a real possibility that the radical and large-scale transformations of the entire food industry and human eating habits being pushed by the social engineers of Agenda 2030 are leading the masses toward a dramatic decrease in living standards. Lessons from the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century revealed that it is very difficult to fix big mistakes attributed to the large-scale central planning of social engineers, because doing so often requires “major social transformation” or “remodelling the whole of society,” which can result in widespread unforeseen consequences or events, major destructive outcomes, and “inconvenience to many people,” in the words of Karl R. Popper.

The intense and coordinated international effort to facilitate an artificially designed transformation of the global food industry, based on Agenda 2030, is a testimony to the fact that we are witnessing the pendulum of civilization swinging back in many advanced societies, where striving to achieve a comfortable life could rapidly be replaced by a struggle for bare necessities in a lower level of existence, which is not supposed to occur in advanced societies.

The masses need to be made to realize that the social engineers of Agenda 2030 are “false prophets,” who are misguiding them to the point where they will be “haunted by the specter of death from starvation.” This may well lead to the emergence of “irreconcilable dissensions within society,” whereby food riots, conflicts, and violence could inevitably “result in a complete disintegration of all societal bonds,” as Ludwig von Mises put it.

Birsen Filip holds a PhD in philosophy and master’s degrees in economics and philosophy. She has published numerous articles and chapters on a range of topics, including political philosophy, geo-politics, and the history of economic thought, with a focus on the Austrian School of Economics and the German Historical School of Economics. She is the author of the upcoming book The Early History of Economics in the United States: The Influence of the German Historical School of Economics on Teaching and Theory (Routledge, 2022). She is also the author of The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

December 4, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Macron wants more Twitter censorship to stop people saying “crazy things” about vaccines, pandemics, and war

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 2, 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized ’s owner  for relaxing content censorship policies on the platform, arguing that content on Twitter needs more regulation. Macron made the comments in an appearance on ABC News ahead of his visit to The White House.

Macron said that democracies are under “very strong pressure” from forces like social media where users can say “crazy things about a vaccine, a pandemic, the war.”

This week, Musk said he would relax content moderation policies surrounding topics like the coronavirus.

Good Morning America and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “He’s making it worse, isn’t he?”

“I think this is a big issue,” Macron responded. “I think it deserves to be largely engaged. What I push very much for, want, is exactly the opposite – more regulation.”

Macron further argued that speech in a democracy has to be “based on respect and political order.”

The French President added: “You can demonstrate, you can have free speech, you can write what you want – but there is responsibilities and limits. The limits is you cannot go in the streets and have racist speech, or antisemitic speech, you cannot put at risk the life of someone else. Violence is never legitimate in democracy.”

Macron also criticized former US President , whose Twitter account was recently restored after an almost two-year ban after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US capitol.

“When in one of the biggest democracies and oldest democracies in the world, you can have a leader and supporters deciding on purpose to refuse the results because this is the one they didn’t want to see, this is just the beginning of the end of the democracy,” Macron said.

Earlier this week, regulators in the European Union warned Musk that Twitter could be banned in the region or face fines if it does not enforce content censorship policies. Musk was also warned about the arbitrary reinstatement of previously banned accounts. The new owner said he would grant “general amnesty” to banned accounts that had not broken the law or spammed.

December 3, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

New Zealand admits it has direct access to Facebook takedown portal where it can flag content for censorship

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | December 2, 2022

New Zealand’s government has officially admitted that it has partner access to ’s controversial content takedown portal.

This portal is designed specifically for government agencies to flag content to Facebook for censorship. According to The Intercept, which reported on the portal in October, government partners can also use the portal to “report disinformation directly” to Facebook.

And in a recent response to a New Zealand Official Information Act (OIA) request, which asked whether the government has partner access to Facebook’s takedown portal, the New Zealand government confirmed that the Department of Internal Affairs has access. While this was the only government department that was confirmed to have access to the portal, the OIA response also said “we cannot advise if any other government agency has access to the takedown portal.”

We obtained a copy of the OIA response for you here.

The OIA response didn’t detail how much content had been censored via this Facebook takedown portal. However, other reports on similar types of backdoor content takedown arrangements between governments and Big Tech have shown that governments regularly use them to target legal content such as parody accounts, accounts questioning the effectiveness of Covid vaccines, and so-called election misinformation.”

Publicly, the New Zealand government has endorsed the censorship of legal content with Prime Minister  saying “disinformation” should be regulated like guns, bombs, and nuclear weapons. Big Tech companies have also agreed to a censorship pact in the country where they suppress “misinformation” and “harmful content.”

Most other governments haven’t admitted that they have access to these portals. However, last year The White House did admit that the United States (US) Surgeon General’s Office is flagging posts for Facebook to censor.

The Intercept’s report on this Facebook content takedown portal claimed that several other United States (US) government agencies have access to the portal, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Documents released as part of 2021 lawsuits suggest that the  Secretary of State’s Office of Elections Cybersecurity (OEC) also has access to the Facebook takedown portal and a similar type of portal on Twitter.

December 2, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Rumble files lawsuit to challenge New York’s social media censorship law

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | December 1, 2022

Free speech video sharing platform  and its subscription platform  have sued New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James to challenge a social media censorship law that they say would force platforms to target constitutionally protected speech.

Rumble and Locals are being represented by the free speech nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and are joined in the lawsuit by constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh, the co-founder of the Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

“The law is titled ‘Social media networks; hateful conduct prohibited,’ but it actually targets speech the state doesn’t like — even if that speech is fully protected by the ,” FIRE said in a statement.

The law forces a wide variety of internet platforms to publish a policy detailing how they’ll respond to posts that are deemed to “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence” based on protected classes such as religion, gender, or race.

It also requires platforms to create a way for visitors to complain about “hateful content” and requires them to respond to complaints directly. Platforms that refuse to comply can be investigated by the AG’s office, subpoenaed, and fined up to $1,000 per violation.

It comes into force on Saturday, December 3, 2022.

As is often the case with censorship laws, this Social Media Networks; Hateful Conduct Prohibited law doesn’t define “vilify,” “humiliate,” or “incite.”

Rumble suggested that this means it would “cover constitutionally protected speech like jokes, satire, political debates, and other online commentary.”

FIRE noted that the law’s scope is “entirely subjective” and suggested that it could target a wide range of First Amendment-protected speech such as “a comedian’s blog entry ‘vilifying’ men by mocking gender stereotypes” and most comments on almost any website “that could be considered by someone, somewhere, at some point in time, as ‘humiliating’ or ‘vilifying’ a group based on protected class status like religion, gender, or race.”

FIRE added: “Bloggers, commenters, websites, and apps around the country are ensnared by the New York law due to its broad definition of ‘social media networks’ as for-profit ‘service providers’ that ‘enable users to share any content.’ This vague wording means that the law can impact virtually any revenue-generating website that allows comments or posts and is accessible to New Yorkers — but no government entity can legally compel blogs or other internet platforms to adopt its broad definition of ‘hateful conduct.’”

“New York politicians are slapping a speech-police badge on my chest because I run a blog,” Volokh said. “I started the blog to share interesting and important legal stories, not to police readers’ speech at the government’s behest.”

Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski added: “New York’s law would open the door for the suppression of protected speech based on the complaints of activists and bullies. Rumble will always celebrate freedom and support creative independence, so I’m delighted to work with FIRE to help protect lawful online expression.”

This law is one of several attempts by New York to encroach on the First Amendment and push for the censorship of constitutionally protected speech. Other laws and proposals from the state have pushed to ban the sharing of violent crime videos online, ban gendered language in law, and allow officials to sue platforms that are suspected of “contributing” to the “knowing or reckless” spread of “misinformation.

December 2, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Are we still expected to put blind trust in health authorities?

By Jenny Brown | TCW Defending Freedom | December 1, 2022

So many of us watching the Parliamentary Vaccine Safety Petition Debate on October 24, 2022 were left exasperated and deeply contemplating exactly what it will take to penetrate the corridors of power with valid representations of reality.

During the debate, incredibly well researched critical thinking and common sense was championed by courageous MPs as detailed previously in TCW. The debate transcript is available here, demonstrating how even the most sceptical of observers heard 90 minutes of evidence outlining a clearly urgent need for thorough review of vaccine safety.

The debate concluded with the Government saying that there were no plans to specifically investigate the petition relating to the safety of the Covid vaccine as requested that it was the ‘duty of government to ensure that the prescribed medication interventions of its response to coronavirus are safe.’

Instead, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, Dr Caroline Johnson, stated that a ‘module’ of the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry would, at a non-urgent time in the future, consider evidence to ‘understand the impact of the pandemic and the response,and any lessons to be learned’.

Conservative MP Elliot Colburn, moving the motion on behalf of the Petitions Committee, even declared that it would be ‘a waste of taxpayers’ money’ for the Government to launch a public inquiry into vaccine safety. His opening statement was a surprising way to show compassion for the 470,000 people who have experienced a Yellow Card worthy adverse event, including 2,330 deaths, following Covid-19 vaccination.

The presumptive overtone of the debate was of accepting blind trust in the ‘approved experts’, despite the overwhelming evidence presented to the contrary. This I have examined in a full, detailed critical exploration of the debate which you can read here.

As we await the second reading of the Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Payments Bill tomorrow, a thorough statement by statement review of the debate, exploring the mounting evidence of grave concern, is warranted.

We need to stop andreally look at the sentences that whizz over our heads and fall into our consciousness as presumed truth. In this essay, I ask where is the definitive evidence for these and many other assertions – see below – liberally reeled off by the Petition’s antagonists during the debate commentary? And if the supportive evidence is not forthcoming, we really need to ask why has this narrative been so robustly constructed?

·         ‘All vaccines used in the UK Covid-19 vaccine programme are safe’ – Dr Caroline Johnson MP

·         ‘The proof is that they work, they are saving lives and they protect us and others’ – Elliot Colburn MP

·         ‘Vaccination is the best course of action, because the danger of injury from coronavirus significantly outweighs the chance of harm from vaccines’ – Steven Bonnar MP

I also delve into vital topics raised including the Yellow Card adverse event reporting data, whistle-blower persecution, misinformation and censorship, vaccinating children, pregnant women, the elderly and healthcare workers, and the vast emerging global evidence of harms including excess deaths.

Was this a debate? Or more accurately, a very well utilised opportunity for valuable demonstrations of cognitive dissonance and serious concerns to be placed on public record? The incredibly revealing discourse did nothing to quell concerns, rather it amplified and galvanised awareness of the vast chasm between the official narrative line and the real world, based on true lived experience.

In the full essay, I report on Dr June Raine’s response to a question put to her at a lecture for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in July 2022. The enquirer asked the Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency how the MHRA looked into the weighing up of harms and benefits from overlapping of Phase I, II and III vaccine trials. Spoiler alert: MHRA appears to have not gone back to examine this . . .

Those adversely affected, and many families grieving for those who died after taking the ‘vaccine’, are continually met with disbelief. Many people report feeling left unsupported by medics and the government, relying on family, friends and those healthcare professionals with enough integrity to pick up the pieces, whilst waiting for those in power to shift out of vaccine injury denial.

We have recently been informed that ‘vaccine’ effectiveness in preventing transmission was never fully studied, a key theme of coercion and informed consent decision-making upturned.

As the booster programme and flu vaccine co-administration continues unabated, the concept of regulatory capture and the influence of Big Pharma are subjects of paramount importance to study. With Pfizer roughly quadrupling their vaccine price to $110 – $130 per dose, and with liability indemnity, the outcome of vaccine administration and safety becomes a matter of conscience.

With that explored in my evidenced rebuttal, it surely takes a certain type of naivety or perhaps arrogance to still state that vaccines are ‘safe and effective’. As the Alliance for Natural Health has put it, the narrative around the safety of Covid shots is cracking. Here they set out the basis for launching a legal action campaign.

Holding the line of accountability are courageous individuals and independent media outlets reporting real world consequences, with integrity, in the face of complete obfuscation from the official authoritative bodies who appear to have completely neglected their duty of care to the public at large.

Despite Elliot Colburn MP feeling ‘lambasted by colleagues’ during the debate, perhaps it was a karmic twist of events considering his introductory tone. He may have experienced a taster of what it is like to be vaccine-injured and seeking help, and for medical professionals in dire conflict as their obliged professional position, duty of care and real-life opinion collide.

‘First do no harm’ is the cornerstone of medical ethics and professional practice, to be patient advocate and respecting the right for an individual to make an autonomous decision about their own health.

In this unprecedented situation, as a society, it is vital to listen to those who have much more to lose than gain by sharing their experience and carefully considered perspective. Whether that be career-jeopardising expert opinion, ridicule-eliciting personal suffering or just applied common sense.

In any case, the situation demands more than debate. It is a matter for swift medical, scientific, regulatory and legal duty of care action with the utmost urgency applied. And if that is not the view, then surely critical thinking has fully given way to authoritarian filtered scientism, ‘the improper use of science or scientific claims’, an incredibly dangerous and precarious position for all UK citizens.

You can read my full essay here.

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

People of the World are Dramatically Losing Years of Life

By Sven Román | The Brownstone Institute | December 1, 2022

Covid-19 vaccines and lockdowns are associated with years of life lost on a scale that is unprecedented. EuroMomo includes European mortality monitoring activity data from 22 European countries as well as Israel, representing a total population of around 450 million people.

Since the pandemic began, life years lost reported by EuroMomo have increased by 60%. Compared to the 1.5 years before the pandemic, the number of life years lost after Covid vaccinations were introduced has increased by 384%.

EuroMomo presents weekly statistics of possible excess mortality. The graph below shows data plotted for cumulative excess deaths over the period from 2018 to 20th November 2022 for all ages.

Excess mortality was evident in the pandemic year of 2020 (grey line), and in 2021 (dark blue line) when mass vaccination began, but even higher in 2022 (light blue line), despite the fact that the Omicron variant, with a modest mortality rate, began to dominate at this time.

An interesting pattern is seen when comparing age groups. According to Professor of Epidemiology John Ioannidis, the rate of Covid-19 mortality for those aged <60 years is only 0.035%. However, in the groups aged 0-14 years and 15-44 years, in which the Covid-19 mortality rate is even lower, excess mortality has been extremely high since mass vaccination was introduced.

Considering the fact that excess mortality is more serious for a younger person than an older person, we determined the effects of lockdown measures and vaccine deployment by calculating the number of life years lost before and after these interventions.

The average age of death for all persons recorded in EuroMomo is 82 years. The average number of remaining years of life for all persons that died before this age was estimated. For example in the 0-14 years age group, on average 82-(0+14/2) = 75 years were lost for each person. In the 85+years group, this calculation would mean years of life gained, which is of course unreasonable. In this age group, 1 year of expected survival was assumed.

The chart below shows excess mortality in each age group for three periods: 1) the 1.5 years immediately before the pandemic, 2) the pandemic period before mass vaccination was initiated, 3) the pandemic period after mass vaccination was initiated. For all age groups, the highest degree of excess mortality is in the period after mass vaccination was initiated.

The next chart shows the years of life lost in each age group. The greatest number of years of life lost after the start of vaccination are in the 45-64 and 65-74 years age groups.

The last chart shows the total number of life-years lost for the same 3 periods.

The trend of increasing life-years lost is contrary to what would be expected for effective Covid-19 countermeasures, including mass vaccination and lockdowns. The damage in terms of reduced longevity is becoming greater with each passing week. How much longer should we proceed down this road of failed public health policy before we start to reverse the trajectory?

Sven Román is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and since 2015 a consultant psychiatrist working in child and adolescent psychiatry throughout Sweden. He is also one of three physicians who in March 2021 founded Läkaruppropet (The Physicians’ Appeal), a Swedish response to The Great Barrington Declaration, and since then this appeal has become a non-profit association whose work is carried out by physicians, researchers, lawyers, other health care clinicians and academics, in the same spirit as the Brownstone Institute.

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Western University Drops ALL Vaccine Mandates

By Igor Chudov | November 29, 2022

Remember the scandal with Western University in Ontario, Canada, that was requiring boosters from its students?

That’s the college that required bivalent boosters for fall classes.

The uproar was momentous. How can a college require completely unproven “boosters” to be taken by young, healthy students who had one or more Covids anyway?

The college finally relented and fully discontinued Covid vaccination requirements:

Note the BLUE highlighting of “medical experts” in both above images. In three months, the brilliant “medical experts” have completed a 180-degree turnaround in their deep evidence-based scientific thinking and no longer demand the boosters.

What made them change their minds?

I am sure it is you, the protesters, the public, substack authors, etc.

The experts are possibly starting to worry that their role in the “pandemic” will soon be subject to pointed questions from the disappointed public worried about health and fertility.

Personally, I will do my best to continue exposing Covid criminals so that they are not let off the hook and their crimes are not forgotten.

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

January 6 Was Not a Seditious Conspiracy

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 1, 2022

It’s a shame that a course in logic is not offered in law school. If it was, maybe, just maybe, attorney Harry Litman would not have written an op-ed entitled “A Jury Delivers the Truth about Jan. 6. It Was Seditious Conspiracy,” which appeared in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times. 

In his article, Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy attorney general, claims that the recent  federal conviction of Oath Keepers leaders Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs for seditious conspiracy “will go a long way toward defining the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol melee, once and for all, as a heinous crime orchestrated by enemies of democracy.”

Well, actually, it does no such thing. My hunch is that Litman’s prosecutorial mindset is clouding his thinking.

The jury’s verdict of seditious conspiracy applies only to Rhodes and Meggs, not to anyone else. In fact, in the same trial the jury acquitted other defendants of seditious conspiracy and instead convicted them of the lesser charge of obstructing a government proceeding. 

Simply because two people are convicted of seditious conspiracy doesn’t mean that the thousands of other people involved in the Capitol protests are also guilty of seditious conspiracy. The convictions apply only to the people who are convicted, not to the thousands of other people who aren’t convicted. 

In other words, you can have a situation where thousands of people have no intention whatsoever of committing seditious conspiracy and who are simply protesting some governmental action. At the same time and in that same situation, you can have two people who are conspiring to commit sedition. 

Under the law, the fact that those two people are conspiring to commit sedition does not convert the thousands of other people into people who are also conspiring to commit sedition. If the law permitted the feds to convict innocent people in that manner, then everyone involved in the January 6 protests would have been charged with seditious conspiracy and convicted. The fact that federal prosecutors did not charge most of the protestors with seditious conspiracy and the fact that the jury acquitted some of the defendants in the recent sedition case of seditious conspiracy demonstrate the legal principle that only those who are guilty of a crime should be prosecuted and convicted of the crime. 

Litman also reveals his deeply set prosecutorial mindset by suggesting that other people who are still facing trial for the January 6 event “may want to think hard about pleading guilty and offering to cooperate with the government investigation.’

Really? But what if they’re innocent, Litman? Do you still think they should think hard about pleading guilty? As a criminal-defense attorney, would you permit a client in the January 6 event to plead guilty knowing that he was claiming to be innocent? Or are you saying that your client would automatically be guilty, regardless of what he claimed, simply because Rhodes and Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy? 

Moreover, what’s wrong with going to trial? Isn’t that a person’s right? Well, not exactly. Litman knows that it is long-established policy in the federal courts to hit people who go to trial and are convicted with higher sentences than those who simply plead guilty. In other words, in the federal court system, you have a right to a jury trial but if you exercise it and lose, you are going to receive a double penalty for making those federal judges and federal prosecutors work for their generous tax-funded salaries.

The fact that two people are convicted of seditious conspiracy does not mean that everyone else involved in the January 6 protests is guilty of seditious conspiracy or, for that matter, any other crime. Moreover, people who are claiming to be innocent should never be encouraged or permitted to plead guilty. Everyone has the right of trial by jury and should never be punished for exercising that right. 

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Doctors who are accused of spreading “misleading information” could be jailed under new British Columbia law

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | November 29, 2022

During the pandemic, several doctors in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) hit the headlines for opposing Covid measures. State-sanctioned medical authorities responded by warning physicians that if they “put the public at risk with misinformation,” they may face investigations and regulatory action. Now, just 18 months later, these threats from medical authorities have evolved into a sweeping piece of legislation that includes two-year jail sentences for doctors who are deemed to be spreading certain types of “false or misleading information.”

The new legislation, Bill 36 — Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA), was approved by the legislature last Thursday and immediately received Royal Assent. A Cabinet order will determine when it comes into force.

According to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that defends the freedoms of Canadians, the bill will permit BC’s Health Minister to appoint College Boards who have the power to enforce many of the bill’s provisions. The bill also gives the Health Minister powers to enforce some provisions.

These combined powers can be used to jail, fine, and suspend doctors who are deemed to have spread certain types of “false or misleading information to patients or the public” and force doctors to get vaccinated as a condition of being eligible to practice. These powers are outlined in sections 259, 514, 518, 506, 511, and 200.

You can see the full text of Bill 36 here.

Powers to suspend and impose limits on health practitioners

Section 259 (“Summary protection orders”) states that health practitioners can be suspended or have limits imposed on their practice authority if they provide “false or misleading information to patients or the public” and it’s deemed that “a person who acts on the information is significant risk of harm” or providing the information is deemed to be a “health hazard” under the Public Health Act.

The Public Health Act classifies any activity that “is likely to interfere, with the suppression of infectious agents or hazardous agents” as a health hazard. This definition is broad and could easily be applied to criticism of vaccines, masks, lockdowns, thermal surveillance, lateral flow tests, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, antibody tests, and any other measures that authorities claim are necessary to stop the spread of Covid or another infectious disease.

Bill 36 also doesn’t define “false or misleading information” which raises the possibility that doctors could be suspended for sharing something that challenges the current narrative and later turns out to be true.

During the pandemic, multiple statements that were branded false later turned out to be true, such as those related to vaccines. Initially, high-ranking public health officials praised the purported 90% Covid-19 vaccine efficacy rate and said the vaccine will protect against the delta variant. Big Tech platforms made questioning the effectiveness of the vaccine a bannable offense. Yet this year, high-ranking health officials have reversed their stance and admitted that they “knew” Covid-19 vaccines wouldn’t prevent infection.

Powers to jail and fine health practitioners

Section 514 (“Offences”) and Section 518 (“Penalties”) permit fines of up $200,000 per individual or $500,000 per company and prison terms of up to two years for those that “knowingly” disclose information that contravenes a provision of Bill 36.

This seemingly suggests that someone who “knowingly” violate’s Bill 36’s rules on false or misleading information can be jailed or fined.

Just like the term “false or misleading information,” the term “knowingly” isn’t defined in Bill 36 and there’s no methodology or test in the bill that describes how courts will determine whether someone knowingly violated the rules.

Section 506 (“Search and seizure order”) permits judges to authorize a person to search and seize items from a health practitioners’ premises on the pre-crime-esque premise that the target will “likely contravene” a provision of Bill 36.

And section 511 (“Warrantless search”) allows those petitioning the judge for a search and seizure order to perform warrantless searches if they deem there to be “grounds for a search and seizure order” and “the delay necessary to obtain the order would result in the loss or destruction of evidence.” Those performing warrantless searches are also allowed to prevent the lawful owner of the premises from entering and seize items if they deem there to be “reasonable grounds” for it.

This seemingly means that if a health practitioner is deemed to be “likely” to break the bill’s false or misleading information rules or “likely” to push back against the bill’s mandatory vaccine provisions, even when they haven’t actually done any of these things, they could have their premises searched and items seized without a warrant if the person performing the search decides that there are grounds and that evidence could be destroyed.

Powers to force health practitioners to get vaccinated

Section 200 (“Eligibility to practise”) allows the Health Minister to introduce regulations that make being “vaccinated against specified transmissible illnesses” a condition of eligibility to practice. This means that doctors could be forced to get the Covid vaccine and any other vaccines specified by the Health Minister in order to continue practicing.

“An end run around democratic checks and balances”

Bill 36 has been blasted by legal groups and political parties.

“The legislation represents an end run around democratic checks and balances,” the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote in a statement on Bill 36.

BC lawyer Charlene Le Beau added: “The enactment of Bill 36 would evidence a further erosion of the rights and freedoms our Charter is supposed to protect, particularly individual liberty. As Aristotle posited, ‘The basis of a democratic state is liberty.’”

David Leis, the vice president of engagement and development at the public policy think tank the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, called the bill “a full-frontal assault on the professional integrity and freedom of the health-care professions” and said the bill is “entirely inappropriate.”

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Covidification of Influenza

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | November 30, 2022

Two weeks ago, NBC News posted a long and disturbing article about “What Covid taught scientists and the public about the flu.” It’s basically as bad as you can imagine. It taught them that “Flu transmission can be stopped” and thus that “Nonpharmaceutical interventions work,” that “Flu can spread via aerosols,” that “‘Long flu’ may be a risk,” that “Asymptomatic flu infections may be underappreciated” and that “People want to test – and they’re good at it.” In short, scientists have learned that if an excess of hygiene hysteria can be stirred up over one unremarkable virus, it can be stirred up over another, and there’s every reason to hope for a new pandemic party in the near future.

A great part of the article is written around the statements of an obscure virologist named Seema Lakdawala, who specialises in influenza and is eager to see Covidian approaches applied to her field:

Before Covid, experts put limited stock in so-called nonpharmaceutical — that is, nonvaccination — strategies for preventing flu transmission. While behaviors such as hand-washing, wearing masks and air filtration were considered good ideas, they weren’t believed to move the needle significantly in stopping the spread.

“Prior to the pandemic, we were very focused on promoting vaccination as the primary way to decrease transmission of flu,” said Seema Lakdawala, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University in Atlanta. “Now what we realize is that, yes, vaccinations are really important, but additional measures can really bring down the public health burden of influenza.”

Before 2020, she said there had been a handful of studies attempting to measure how well these interventions work, but they were inconclusive. “Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, we now have conclusive evidence that mitigation strategies like masking, social distancing and staying home when you are ill can drastically impact the transmission of influenza viruses,” she said.

It also features Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech who has spent most of the pandemic whining about airborne transmission and masks; and also recurrent plague chronicle villain Akiko Iwasaki, who is brought in to raise concerns about Long Flu:

“Covid is definitely not alone in having these long-term consequences, even after a mild infection,” she said. After the flu, it’s not unheard of to experience symptoms, especially lingering fatigue and brain fog.

According to Iwasaki, seasonal flu is less likely to cause lasting symptoms than pandemic flu strains like the 2009 H1N1 virus, but more research is needed to say for sure.

She said that for the 2009 pandemic flu and “even the 1918 flu, there are a lot of stories about people developing psychosis or neurological diseases over a long period.” …

If you start testing everyone for influenza, you’ll soon count hundreds of thousands of influenza deaths. From there, it’s a short leap to paranoia about asymptomatic transmission, followed by closures and vaccine mandates during every worse-than-average flu season. Arguments that the young and healthy should be spared these burdens, as they are little risk of dying from flu, will be shot out of the sky by vague appeals to Long Influenza.

All of this is downstream of the massive overreaction to Corona. Rather than admitting their mistake and backing down, the public health establishment spent two years progressively lowering the standards of acceptable risk to justify their ruinous measures. Perversely, this has positioned them to demand equally catastrophic containment measures in response to literally any other virus, which is precisely what they’re trying to do now. Whole careers and research programmes, after all, hang in the balance.

People like Iwasaki, the journalists who print her statements, and the politicians who pay attention to her research, all represent a grave, long-term danger to basic human well-being. This is particularly the case in countries like Italy and Germany, where older populations are far more susceptible both to media propaganda and to virus hysteria.

I don’t think the pandemicists will get their way any time soon. We’ve entered a refractory period, marked by an unacknowledged exhaustion with the virologists and their assorted snake oils, but the danger is far from over. These people will lurk underground in their institutions for years until the next opportunity presents itself. They know as well as I do that all the exotic fundraising pathogens they dine out on are no serious risk to humanity; and that, realistically, seasonal influenza is their best chance at another panic.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Tensions grow between Apple’s censorship practices and Elon Musk’s Twitter

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 29, 2022

 has claimed that  has threatened to “withhold”  from the App Store without giving a reason.

“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” Musk tweeted on Monday.

The announcement came after Musk said that the iPhone maker had “mostly stopped advertising” on Twitter. He also posted a poll asking users if Apple should “publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers.”

Apple is yet to respond to Musk’s claim. It is unclear what “withhold” means. In most cases, it could mean refusing updates to the app or even removing the app from the App Store completely until Twitter obeys its demands.

There have been various clues about Musk’s growing annoyance at Apple’s monopolistic practices. The Twitter owner criticized the App Store’s in-app purchases fee, calling it a “hidden 30% tax.”

Musk has said he is going to loosen the platform’s content censorship guidelines, and has already begun reinstating banned accounts.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

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