By Dr. Joseph Mercola | September 15, 2022
In a September 1, 2022, article,1 the Post Millennial reveals how federal officials in the Biden administration have held secret censorship meetings with social media companies to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and to ban or deplatform those who share unauthorized views about COVID and vaccines.
The evidence for this comes out of a lawsuit2 brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry) against President Biden, filed in May 2022.
During the discovery process, the plaintiffs sought to identify “all meetings with any social media platform relating to content modulation and/or misinformation,” which is how we now know that such illegal meetings did, in fact, take place.
Illegal Collusion to Suppress Free Speech
Monthly, a Unified Strategies Group (USG) meeting took place — and may still be taking place — between a wide variety of government agencies and Big Tech companies, during which topics to be censored and suppressed were/are discussed.
Censored topics included stories involving COVID jab refusal, especially those involving military refusals and consequences thereof, criticism against COVID restrictions and their effects on mental health, posts talking about testing positive for COVID after getting the jab, personal stories of COVID jab side effects, including menstrual irregularities, and worries about vaccine passports becoming mandatory.3 According to the New Civil Liberties Alliance:4
“… scores of federal officials … have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.
Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has done — and is still doing — on a massive scale not previously divulged.
Multiple agencies’ communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies — pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed …
Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies’ ‘hesitation’ to work with the government …
This unlawful government interference violates the fundamental right of free speech for all Americans, whether or not they are on social media. More discovery is needed to uncover the full extent of this regime — i.e., the identities of other White House and agency officials involved and the nature and content of their communications with social-media companies.”
Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance added:5
“If there was ever any doubt the federal government was behind censorship of Americans who dared to dissent from official COVID messaging, that doubt has been erased. The shocking extent of the government’s involvement in silencing Americans, through coercing social-media companies, has now been revealed …”
Federal Agencies Involved in Free Speech Suppression
Documents obtained so far have identified more than 50 federal employees across 15 federal agencies, who participated in these censorship meetings or otherwise engaged in illegal censorship activities.6 This includes officials from:
Emails from a strategic communications and marketing firm called Reingold7 also reveals that outside consultants were hired to manage the government’s collusion with social media to censor Americans. For example, Reingold set up a “partner support portal” for the CDC so that CDC officials could link emails to the portal for easier flagging of content it wanted censored by social media companies linked to the portal.
Big Tech Companies Involved in Government Censorship
On the private industry side, notable tech participants in the censorship meetings include:
While some social media companies may have “hesitated” to censor on the government’s behalf at times, Facebook was certainly an eager beaver from the get-go. As early as February 2020, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in contact with the State Department, offering its services to help “control information and misinformation related to coronavirus.”8
Biden Administration’s ‘Executive Privilege’ Denied
As you might expect, the White House has not cooperated with discovery and have fought to keep communications secret — especially with regard to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s correspondence — claiming all White House communications as “privileged.”
However, executive privilege does NOT apply to external communications, so the plaintiffs called on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to “overrule the government defendants’ objections and order them to supply this highly relevant, responsive and probative information immediately.”
September 7, 2022, Judge Terry Doughty did just that. The Biden administration’s claim of executive privilege was rejected and Doughty ordered the White House to hand over any and all relevant records.9 That includes correspondence to and from Fauci, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and many others. According to the judge’s order, they have three weeks to comply.
Examples of Illegal Government Censorship
On Twitter,10 Missouri AG Schmitt has shared a long list of examples of government censorship, including one document in which Clarke Humphrey, COVID-19 response digital director at the White House, asked Facebook to take down the Instagram account “anthonyfauciofficial,” a parody account dedicated to making fun of Fauci.11 Facebook complied.
Schmitt also shared emails12,13 between a senior Facebook official and the surgeon general, stating, “I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” This email came on the heels of the surgeon general’s July 2021 “misinformation health advisory.”
The CDC also coordinated with Facebook, providing them with talking points to debunk various claims, including the claim that spike protein in the COVID shots is dangerous and cytotoxic. In a July 28, 2021, email, a CDC official provided Facebook with the following counter-narrative, taken straight from the “How mRNA Vaccines Work” section on the CDC website:14
“Messenger mRNA [sic] vaccines work by teaching our cells to create a harmless spike protein …” (Emphasis in the original.)
Fast-forward to mid-June 2022, and the CDC was suddenly less sure about the harmlessness of the spike protein.
Up until then, the words “harmless spike protein” had always been bolded, but in this June revision, they removed the bolding, along with an entire section in which they’d previously claimed that mRNA was rapidly broken down and spike protein did not last more than a few weeks in the body.15 Clearly, the truth was catching up to them and certain lies were getting too risky to hold on to.
CISA also reached out to Google, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Microsoft and Twitter for help, shortly after the DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board was announced.16 Fortunately, public outcry put an end to this Orwellian Ministry of Truth before it got started.
When Censorship Becomes Election Interference
According to The Washington Times :17
“Details about the Biden administration’s conduct raised the hackles of Republican lawmakers. ‘Confirming that this is the most dangerously anti-free speech administration in American history AND that Facebook … is nothing but an appendage of the deep state,’ Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said on Twitter as he shared news of the court filing.”
Other lawmakers are also getting involved. In an August 29, 2022, letter18,19 to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin requested records of the government’s contacts with social media companies to ascertain whether the FBI and/or DOJ did, in fact, instruct them to censor information about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by falsely referring to it as “Russian disinformation.”20
Zuckerberg has also been asked21 to provide any correspondence involving the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, especially as it pertains to the FBI’s instructions to censor this political hot potato — something he openly admitted in a recent Joe Rogan interview (see video above).22
Lawmakers Pursue Legislation to Penalize Gov’t Censorship
Three Republican House Representatives on the House Oversight and Reform, Judiciary, and Commerce committees — Reps. James Comer of Kentucky, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington — have also introduced the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act23 (HR.8752), aimed at preventing federal employees from using their positions to influence censorship decisions by tech platforms.
The bill would create restrictions to prevent federal employees from asking or encouraging private entities to censor private speech or otherwise discourage free speech, and impose penalties, including civil fines and disciplinary actions for government employees who facilitate social media censorship.
While the U.S. Constitution clearly forbids government censoring and restricting free speech, HR. 8752 could be a helpful enforcement tool, as people might tend to think twice when they know there’s a real and personal price to pay.
Sources and References
Many think “American democracy” is turning into a dictatorship
By Drago Bosnic | September 15, 2022
For over three decades, the United States of America has been chest-thumping about being the world’s “sole remaining superpower.” Some in the US establishment have even claimed that the US has become the world’s first “hyperpower.” And indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet dismantlement, the US-led political West seemed unbeatable, unilaterally starting wars across the globe, all under various pretexts such as “humanitarianism” and the much-touted “War on Terror.” The US and NATO used both of these excuses to invade dozens of other countries, be it former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc. The US military seemed unstoppable and able to overcome any opponent, oftentimes by using air power only, with minimal ground engagements, at least until it got bogged down, which in itself was very useful for the ever-profit-hungry Military Industrial Complex.
Although many in the US establishment seemed convinced this will be a perpetual state of affairs, luckily for the world, the last decade proved the power of the belligerent thalassocracy is waning. While the Pentagon could count on hundreds of thousands of battle-ready soldiers during most of the 1990s and early 2000s, in recent years, there has been a significant drop in young Americans’ interest to go die or get maimed for life in one of America’s many pointless invasions and general aggression against the world. Even though the Pentagon found other ways to continue with its imperialist belligerence, primarily through an exponential increase in the use of unmanned combat systems around the globe, indiscriminately targeting civilians under the ever-convenient pretext of the “War on Terror,” most Americans have become aware of the fact that the US power (albeit still significant) is fading away faster than anyone would’ve expected just a decade ago.
A new poll conducted by the YouGov/Economist is the latest proof of this public opinion shift. The project polled Americans about the probability of various “dire political scenarios“ and found that 50% of the US population considers that America will lose its global superpower status within a decade. The poll also found that nearly half (47%) of Americans think that a “total economic collapse“ is inevitable.
“Among 15 potential future scenarios involving instability or political violence, the one that most Americans consider likely in the next decade is that the U.S. ceases to be a global superpower (50% say this), followed by a total collapse of the U.S. economy (47%). Each of the 15 dire scenarios is considered somewhat or very likely in the next decade by at least 20% of Americans. […] 37% of Americans say [a civil war] is at least somewhat likely to occur,“ the YouGov poll found.
The most surprising aspect of the poll must be the staggering nearly 40% of US citizens who consider civil war “at least somewhat likely.“ With a population of approximately 330 million people and being among the world’s most armed nations, such a prospect seems rather terrifying. However, it’s hardly surprising, especially given the sheer level of polarization of the US society, regardless if it’s based on race, religion, sex/gender, identity, ideology or any other parameter which the parties and various interest groups in the US are trying to exploit and use for political, financial and power gain.
“[…] After an end to the U.S.’s global-superpower status and economic collapse, the next scenario is that the U.S. will cease to be a democracy (39%). Democrats believe the U.S. will become a fascist dictatorship (31%), while Republicans think it will be a communist one (21%). Two-thirds of Republicans (65%) believe that total economic collapse is at least somewhat likely, compared to only 38% of Democrats. Around half of Republicans (48%) say it’s likely that the government will confiscate citizens’ firearms; only 17% of Democrats say this. Republicans are also more likely than Democrats to believe there will be a total breakdown of law and order (49% vs. 31%),“ according to the poll.
Although it’s expected to see a larger number of Republicans being more pessimistic about the country’s future under a Democrat president and government, the percentage of Democrats who aren’t particularly optimistic is quite telling. It’s more than clear that many DNC voters themselves are unsatisfied with the policies of the current US government.
“[…] In terms of the possibility of a civil war, Republicans are likelier to believe there will be one between members of each party (45% vs. 35%) or between people from red and blue states (36% vs. 30%). Democrats are slightly more likely to believe there will be a war between the poor and rich (37% vs. 25%) or between cities and rural areas (23% vs. 20%). Democrats and Republicans are equally likely (31%) to expect a civil war between racial groups,“ the poll concluded.
Although the opinions vary significantly based on the ideological/party background, the very fact so many Americans think the US is turning into a dictatorship and that a civil war is a likely scenario speaks volumes of the unflattering state of the much-touted “American democracy” which has often been used as yet another pretext for America’s war against the world.
Drago Bosnic independent geopolitical and military analyst.
By John Roberts | TCW Defending Freedom | September 13, 2022
There have been calls for those who championed lockdown to apologise or at least admit they were wrong – to accept the overwhelming evidence that the imprisonment of pretty much the entire population did far more harm than good. With few exceptions that hasn’t happened.
Well, I have a confession to make. I was a committed Europhile. My name is John and I loved the EU. I voted Remain in the referendum and was upset and dismayed when the result came through. Actually I was beside myself. I really could not understand how so many people could be antagonistic to something that I thought was such a force for good.
Surely, I reasoned, a closer union of European peoples would help change our centuries-long habit of killing each other. I have always enjoyed travelling around Europe, experiencing the various cultures and at the same time been proud of our common European heritage. To be able to explore in this way with relatively little bureaucracy, and perhaps eventually without currency exchanges, was to my mind wonderful. I also thought that Britain’s membership would be a bulwark to French and German domination, which some of the smaller EU countries hoped would be the case. Then there was the frequent banner-waving for freedom, democracy and human rights. What’s that you say? How could I have been so naive? Perhaps you might say something less polite. Anyway, I’m not going to argue; maybe I was too idealistic. I knew there was corruption and stupidity but there is in most governments and although I didn’t think the EU was benign I didn’t think it was evil either. Now I delight when I hear of the EU in difficulty, not because I wish ill on the people but because of the discomfort it would cause the globalist bureaucrats. I would be happy for the Union to break up.
What changed me? The last two and half years. Through the so-called pandemic nearly all countries have become increasingly authoritarian, ours included. Most countries in the EU took the biscuit with longer and stricter lockdowns and draconian vaccine mandates. Piers Morgan may have called for the unvaccinated to be made to suffer but it never really happened here except perhaps through the actions of our ‘friends’ and family members and, of course, care workers in England who were sacked for not taking the jab, too low on the social scale to worry about.
In countries such as Italy, France, Germany and others the vaccine mandates were forced through with fascistic brutality, applauded and encouraged by the EU. Travel and restaurant bans were commonplace; an apartheid reminiscent of Germany in the late 1930s. Many states in Europe suffered greatly from one kind of dictatorship or another in the last century so you would have thought that their leaders might have found imposing vaccine mandates on their populations difficult – but not so. Despite some ministers and officials here, drunk on dictatorial power, wanting to go full-on China, they never quite managed it. What happened here was bad enough but never as bad as much of Europe.
I would like to say that the marches, the resistance that rose through the internet and the thousands of nurses and other health professionals who refused to be intimidated, albeit too late to stop the care workers from being sacked, were the reasons for this, but I think there is more to it. There were plenty of examples of resistance and indeed solidarity between the vaxxed and unvaxxed in EU countries but the jackboots marched onward. There has now been a move away from the health apartheid but that’s because in the real world the vaccines have been shown to be useless at preventing spread; the majority of the vaccinated know this because they and their friends and families have caught the virus, sometimes more than once. In such circumstances even avid watchers of mainstream propaganda will spot the insanity of compulsory vaccination.
The last couple of years have shown that the EU is a piece of the globalist jigsaw puzzle and a large one at that, and it hasn’t just been hijacked as some countries have – its founders were going in that direction right from the start. It is obvious to me that the orchestrated pandemic with its lockdowns and vaccine mandates was part of that age-old weapon of tyrants: fear. Fear so that we will ask the globalist elites to protect us from disease and climate change. In return we have only to give up our culture, our national sovereignty and eventually our families. This is how I see the EU now; I was late coming to the party.
My estrangement from the EU led to a growing warmth towards my country. For all its faults and frustrations I believe the ideals of liberty are more deeply ingrained here than in many places. I wonder if those of our politicians who are closet tyrants realised they couldn’t impose an EU-style authoritarianism on us. I find it ironic that the French national motto is: ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. We don’t have a national motto; we have the monarch’s ‘Dieu et Mon Droit’: My God and my Right. Nothing about liberty there or equality either, decidedly autocratic, yet I would suggest that the British have been much less inclined to accept dictatorial government than the French. We are known to be a polite and placid people and we have not had the violent revolutions that our continental neighbours have suffered. We like order but not perhaps in the way the Germans do, not forced on to us from above but that which grew over the centuries from the ordinary people.
By Lucy Wyatt | TCW Defending Freedom | September 14, 2022
We are at war in Europe. But not with Russia. The enemy does not have boots on the ground, tanks, machine guns or bombs; we cannot see it.
It is a devious, insidious many-headed hydra shaping our lives, aided by those who are meant to represent us. A critical battle line has opened up against this amorphous enemy in the heart of Europe. In the Netherlands.
Brave Dutch farmers have mobilised their tractors, their slurry tankers and their bales of straw; they have taken to the streets to protest, as we first reported here and they have not let up.
After a tumultuous summer of protests by farmers over so called ‘pollution’ regulations – the Dutch government’s edict that will require farmers to curb their nitrogen emissions by up to 70 per cent in the next eight years – the Dutch agriculture minister, Henk Staghouwer, has resigned after only nine months in office telling reporters that he wasn’t the right person for the job. Indeed.
We would do well to pay attention. They are protesting on our behalf. They are taking on what’s been aptly described as ‘a corporatised “sustainability” agenda crafted by a billionaire-backed “green” elite with no popular constituency’.
Invisible institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a bevy of transnational corporations, are key ‘stakeholders’ in this closely-knit network. These are the unelected figures who are influencing government policy in supposedly sovereign states across the globe.
The Dutch government plans to spend 25billion euros expropriating 11,200 farms – allegedly to cut nitrogen emissions in half by 2030. This will mean the loss of 20 per cent of farms, while another 33 per cent will be forced to scale back and reduce livestock.
The madness of these cuts comes at a time of global food and fertiliser shortages, when Holland is the second-largest food exporter after the US. It now risks following Sri Lanka in becoming a major importer as opposed to an exporter of food.
As well as the timing, what makes Dutch farmers so suspicious is that the curb on nitrogen emissions falls disproportionately on farming, when industry and transport are also major polluters. There is however a logic to this if the specific motive for this appropriation of their land and livelihood is the Tristatecity.
The Tristatecity is a ‘smart city’ project which began to emerge as a concept in 2015. It is the vision of Peter Savelberg, a Dutch consultant, to create a giant megalopolis from Holland through Belgium to the Ruhr in Germany, incorporating 30million to 45million people.
How in this carbon-conscious age could such a project have survived the eco piety of the environment zealots? It is hardly obvious how building skyscrapers and covering large areas in concrete can be more sustainable than farmland, but the project boasts that it supports all of the United Nations sustainability goals.
Of course it does – on paper. It is also keen to promote agritech, centred on the region of Brabant, which includes vertical farming (eg hydroponics). It is possibly no coincidence that, according to the Financial Times, the Belgian government has also begun buying up farmland, allegedly to avoid the Dutch ‘crisis’. In other words, the Tristatecity is a classic World Economic Forum ‘fourth Industrial Revolution’ concept.
Peter Savelberg is backed by the Dutch employers’ organisation VNO-NCW, pension funds and property developers. They believe that Tristatecity, with its 45million inhabitants, would be able to better compete for investment and talent with other global megacities, particularly those in China. And so, inevitably, the Tristatecity needs Dutch farmland for housing.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the Tristatecity will presumably live on bugs – because there would be less farmland to produce food for them. Hence the need for vertical farming. There would be little other industry for them to work in, because the fossil fuels needed for industry to function are drying up.
Germany is already experiencing signs of de-industrialisation as Russian gas disappears and the dried-up Rhine ironically prevents the movement of coal. Zero carbon is becoming a reality.
Despite a growing pushback against the UN’s ‘sustainable development’ programme Agenda 2030, against WEF and the Great Reset, the Dutch government, among others spurred on perhaps by the recent UN High-Level Forum in which the Netherlands participated this summer, has resorted to using so-called ‘climate change’ and ‘nature protection’ virtue-signalling as the devious and specious excuse for acquiring the land needed to implement its goals.
It is noticeable that the marketing hype around Tristatecity itself has gone quiet (only a few hundred follow its Facebook page), and the project has felt the need to issue a public statement claiming that it has no connection with nitrogen reduction programmes.
Here in the UK, we may have avoided the fate of the Dutch farmers for the time being, although our government’s financial incentive for farmers to leave their farms was on offer up till August 11. There is still a need for vigilance.
While Welsh schools are encouraging children to eat bugs, France has become the innovation nation for insect production and hosts the world’s largest insect farms.
A start-up called Ynsect has raised 224million dollars from investors – including Hollywood star Robert Downey Junior’s FootPrint Coalition – to build its second insect farm in Amiens in northern France.
The company breeds mealworms that produce proteins for livestock, pet food and fertilisers. The ‘40-metre tall plant spread over 40,000 square metres’ was promised by CEO and co-founder Antoine Hubert to be ‘the highest vertical farm in the world and the first carbon-negative vertical farm in the world’.
We are still under attack from the many-headed hydra in other ways. Gaslighting takes many forms. One recent example was the granting of the top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show to a garden whose central feature was beaver-chewed wood and not flowers – as though untouched nature trumped cultivation and creation.
In June, we only narrowly missed the loss of 700,000 acres of farmland when the budget for ‘landscape recovery’ (aka ‘rewilding’) was slashed from £800million to £50million.
This war is not over and we should support our European allies as we did in the Second World War.
Recommended viewing is Jordan Peterson’s apocalyptic warning on what ‘sustainability’ really means and Michael Yon’s programme from July, when he was embedded with the Dutch farmers.
Their fight is our fight. ‘Useless eaters’ unite. Pitchforks at the ready.
By David Wojick | CFACT | September 8, 2022
In the name of “inflation reduction” Uncle Sam is giving away four and a half billion dollars worth of rebates on electrical appliances and related juicy stuff. Okay the Federal Government is not actually giving it away; they are just paying for it. The taxpayers are paying the multi-billion dollar bill.
What is truly ironic is that this Act discriminates heavily against the poor. Many relatively low income households are systematically excluded from the rebate program, while much wealthier households qualify simply because their neighbors make more money. I am not making this up.
First the basics. This is the “HIGH-EFFICIENCY ELECTRIC HOME REBATE PROGRAM” (all caps on the Act). Despite the name there is not much about energy efficiency in this. It is mostly about electrification of residential properties.
The rebates are huge, specifically either 100% or 50% of cost, up to $14,000. That’s right, the Feds will pay 100% in many cases, making the stuff free. The big difference between these two numbers is where the discrimination comes in, but first more basics.
Here is the official list of big tickets that are covered:
“(1) an electric heat pump water heater
(2) an electric heat pump for space heating and cooling
(3) an electric stove, cooktop, range, or oven
(4) an electric heat pump clothes dryer
(5) an electric load service center
(6) insulation
(7) air sealing and materials to improve ventilation
(8) electric wiring“
Insulation and air sealing may improve efficiency but the rest is just electrification. To qualify, the new appliance must either replace a gas fired one, be a first time purchase or be part of new construction. Note that where new gas appliances are outlawed, which is increasingly the case, people are being paid handsomely for doing what they have to do anyway. Free riders get it free!
Who qualifies for these two rebate amounts is where the discrimination comes in. The formula is quite simple, as follows.
The rebate is 100% if the annual household income is less than 80 percent of the “area median income.”
The rebate is 50% if the annual household income is between 80 percent and 150% of the “area median income.”
I have quoted “area median income” because that is the kicker. Obviously poor areas have relatively low area median incomes while wealthier areas have higher ones, in some cases a lot higher. Much follows from this.
Here is a simple example that makes the point very clearly. We have two areas, one poorer and one wealthier. The poorer area has a median annual household income of $50,000. In some States two people working full time making minimum wage would exceed this, so it is very low. The wealthier area has a median annual household income of $100,000. (Truly wealthy areas may have incomes much larger than this, making the discrimination much worse.)
Who qualifies for the 100% rebates in the poorer area? Any household with income less than $40,000. But in the wealthier area folks making up to $80,000 qualify! People making that kind of money in the poorer area are disqualified just because of that poverty. The same is true for the 50% rebate.
In short, relative poverty disqualifies a lot of people from getting these fancy rebates. The richer the area the more money people can make and still qualify.
Local poverty disqualifies low income people. Surely this is wrong, in fact it is nuts.
My guess is this colossal blunder is because the law was written in a huge rush. Senate staffers were working around the clock to craft a compromise bill. The fact that different areas can have very different median household incomes did not occur to them.
Personally I think these rebates are a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money (especially in areas where gas appliances are prohibited by law). But if they are going to exist, then who qualifies should be the same for everybody. Disqualifying people for living in a poorer area is just wrong.
Congress should repeal or rewrite this nutty law.
David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy.
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | September 13, 2022
A new Twitter “whistleblower” has come forward. Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, allegedly a former hacker and Twitter’s ex-head of security, testified in front of congress today, with dire warnings about the business practices of the social media giant.
Did he talk about the company’s egregious attacks on their users’ free speech under the guise of “protecting” the public?
Did he mention the suppression of alternative and independent journalism through practices such as “shadow-banning” and discretely removing followers?
Perhaps he told them about how, like all major social media platforms, it is so cross-pollinated with intelligence assets it may as well be considered just another branch of the Deep State.
No, none of that. His main concern is that Twitter’s security is too lax, and that the platform’s “cyber-security failures” leave it potentially open to “exploitation” that can “cause real harm to real people”.
NOW – Former Twitter security chief says the platform’s leadership “is misleading the public, lawmakers, regulators, and even its own board of directors.” pic.twitter.com/rk5EulVid5
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 13, 2022
According to the write-up of his testimony in The Guardian, “Zatko said Twitter runs out-of-date and vulnerable software on more than half of its data center servers and that in “multiple episodes” the platform was breached by foreign intelligence agencies.”
Adding, “Zatko has also accused Twitter of doing little to combat problems with spam bots – an allegation that bolsters Elon Musk’s case for backing out of his Twitter acquisition.”
Do you see how this works? It’s gearing up the machinery to label anyone who dissents as either a “spy” or a “bot” (and perhaps reveals something of the purpose behind Elon Musk’s “revelation” about the number of “fake accounts” on twitter).
If this all sounds eerily familiar, don’t worry you’re not experiencing deja vu, you’re just remembering Frances Haugen, the facebook “whistleblower” from last year. She said very similar things in a very similar way.
We’ve seen this dance before, we know the steps. As I wrote only last year:
Like so many other testimonies before congress in the past, the entire event looks fake and probably is. A stage-managed exercise involving some “expert witness” telling a bunch of politicians exactly what they want to hear, so they can go ahead push the legislation they were going to push anyway. It’s all leading up to loud bipartisan calls for “regulation”, and that’s not a good thing.
They wheel out some person – who may or may not be real, and may or may not have an axe to grind – prop them up in a nice suit in front of some po-faced senators and have them reel off a few thousand serious sounding words.
Their pay-off is a few minutes of fame, a ghost-written book deal and being called “brave” by moist-eyed liberal pundits, their hands white-knuckling around their pearls.
While they prattle on at length about the supposed “problem”, the “solution” is already planned and ready to roll out. Such is the crushingly predictable nature of the Hegelian dialectic.
And, just in case any of you hadn’t already figured out what that was, The Guardian is more than clear [emphasis added]:
In his testimony, Zatko said there had not been enough government enforcement when it comes to the operations of big tech, and that the federal trade commission (FTC) is “in over its head” when going up against huge tech firms.
More “government enforcement”.
It’s all so tiresome.
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 9, 2022
A Wisconsin hospital this week said it is withdrawing medical and religious exemptions for some employees from the hospital’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, giving those employees until Sept. 21 to get the Novavax vaccine.
Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, which operates 11 hospitals and more than 45 health centers and clinics throughout the midwest and employs more than 2,000 physicians, in an email said the Novavax vaccine option “eliminates conflicts” for those who originally declined COVID-19 vaccination for religious or medical reasons.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July granted Emergency Use Authorization of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults ages 18 and up. While the prior COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson used fetal cell lines from unborn fetuses in various stages of development and testing, the Novavax vaccine is made differently and does not use human fetal cell lines.
Froedtert employees who don’t get the first Novavax dose by Sept. 21 will be terminated as Froedtert will consider them to have “voluntarily resigned,” the company said.
The hospital said in a statement:
“Froedtert Health requires staff and providers be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a federal requirement that is monitored for compliance. We join many other health systems around southeast Wisconsin and the U.S. that have made vaccination a condition of employment.
“The Novavax vaccination for COVID-19 is now available. This protein-based vaccination option eliminates conflicts for those staff with religious or medical exemptions caused by mRNA-based vaccines and other concerns.
“Since those staff are now eligible for a vaccination that does not conflict with their religious beliefs or medical situation, their exemption will expire. This affects a small percentage of staff with a vaccine exemption. Eligible staff continue to be exempt from a COVID-19 vaccine for religious and medical reasons.
“Froedtert Health respects the right of staff and providers to engage in activity protected by state and federal law.”
A Froedtert employee who spoke anonymously to WISN 12 News on Wednesday said Froedtert’s abrupt demand will have negative repercussions.
“Anyone in healthcare knows we’re very understaffed and overworked right now and this is just going to take away a lot of nurses from the bedside,” she said. “This will affect patient care and safety.”
Although according to Froedtert, as of October 2021 — their most recent count — nearly 99% of their employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19, the employee said she thought about 100 nurses would be affected.
The employee, a Catholic, said the previous vaccines were against her religious beliefs because of the ingredients. However, the Novavax vaccine also goes against her religious beliefs, she said.
“Now that we’re two, almost three years into this [COVID-19 pandemic] and we know more, we should be able to make our own educated decision,” she said.
She added:
“It’s my body, my temple. God is within us. If we’re uncomfortable, or not sure about something, then we shouldn’t do it.”
The employee said she’s presently unsure what she will do.
“I carry the health insurance for our family. I have a week to decide if I feel comfortable taking this vaccine otherwise I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if any other healthcare facilities in this area even take exemptions,” she said.
Froedtert officials said their recent exemption withdrawal complies with federal regulations that mandate all employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or have legitimate religious or medical exemptions.
Mark Goldstein, an employment lawyer, told WISN 12 News employees affected by the mandate could “attempt to recast their religious exemption as a more generalized claim.”
“Quite frankly,” he added, “some of it depends on how strident they are in that regard.”
The hospital’s requirement is that employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but not that they have to get the new Omicron-specific booster shot made by Pfizer and Moderna.
Novavax pushed on unvaccinated despite safety concerns
As The Defender reported in late July when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults age 18 and up, Operation Warp Speed in 2020 awarded Novavax — which like Moderna, had never brought a product to market before COVID-19 — a secret contract worth $1.6 billion (now being reported as $1.8 billion).
It was one of the largest taxpayer handouts channeled through Operation Warp Speed.
The media characterized the Novavax injection as a “game changer” in comparison to the mRNA and adenovirus-vectored gene therapy shots, claiming it should be “reassuring to those who are hesitant.”
In fact, according to the CDC’s advisors, the unvaccinated represent the “primary target population for Novavax.”
Some media outlets claimed Novavax — made with recombinant moth-cell-based nanoparticle technology, the problematic surfactant polysorbate 80 and a never-before-approved nanoparticulate adjuvant called Matrix-M — is “free of side effects.”
However, the day after the FDA issued its Novavax authorization, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) updated its product information for the Novavax shot to disclose “new” side effects.
The EMA’s list of side effects included “severe allergic reaction [anaphylaxis] and unusual or decreased feeling in the skin” (called paresthesia and hypoesthesia, respectively).
In addition, the EMA said it would assess myocarditis and pericarditis as Novavax side effects — safety signals that also were on display in the FDA’s briefing document on Novavax.
And in clinical trials, older adults who received the Novavax vaccine experienced an increased incidence of hypertension compared to those in the placebo group.
Not as ‘traditional’ as portrayed
The Novavax vaccine relies on a protein-based technology used for decades, leading some media outlets to portray it as a “traditional” vaccine compared with other COVID-19 vaccines that use newer technologies.
But according to Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist with a special interest in vaccine-induced illnesses, chronic fatigue syndrome and toxicology, the media’s portrayal of Novavax as a more traditional vaccine is not accurate.
Nass, a member of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory committee, pointed out that the Novavax shot contains a novel adjuvant, Matrix-M, “so it is not really an old-fashioned shot.”
Nass raised safety concerns specific to the adjuvant, while others voiced concerns about Novavax being linked to heart inflammation and blood clots, and the fact that the vaccine was designed for use against the original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2 — not the Omicron variants that are dominant today.
Adjuvant used in Novavax linked to autoimmune disease
Because Novavax is a protein subunit vaccine, it uses just the spike protein as the antigen rather than the whole pathogen (an inactivated or attenuated virus). Using the whole pathogen would expose the host to the virus’ entire protein coat instead of just one protein.
Protein subunit vaccines are often less immunogenic (less likely to provoke the immune system) than vaccines that use whole pathogens as the antigen, and may not generate a strong enough immune response.
That’s why they require the use of an adjuvant — in this case, Matrix-M — in addition to the antigen to get a stronger immune response.
However, few adjuvants are both potent and non-toxic enough for clinical use.
The proposed primary series for Novavax is two intramuscular injections 21 days apart at the dose level of 5 µg of the recombinant spike protein and 50 µg of the Matrix-M adjuvant.
Matrix-M, originally called QS-21, was one of the saponins derived from Quillaja saponaria, which is the soap bark tree native to Chile.
Some reports point out that the Matrix-M adjuvant — unlike the polyethylene glycol (PEG) lipid used in mRNA vaccines — is not linked to anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction), making it more attractive to people who are allergic to PEG.
But according to Nass, while it’s true that Matrix-M — which is not found in any other vaccines in the U.S. — isn’t linked to anaphylaxis, it is linked to autoimmune diseases.
“While touted as a replacement for the PEG lipid found in the mRNA vaccine, Matrix-M is less likely to cause anaphylaxis but more likely to cause autoimmune diseases,” Nass said.
Nass voiced other safety concerns about Novavax technology, including the use of moth cells.
According to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where Novavax Phase 3 clinical trials were conducted, the Novavax vaccine uses moth cells to create a nanotechnology version of the COVID-19 spike protein.
Nass said insect cells can be used to grow proteins rapidly. “There is one flu vaccine made the same way: Flublok,” Nass said. Flublok is one of two egg-free flu vaccines licensed for use in the U.S.
“How many insect and viral proteins or other molecules are being injected into you when you get the Novavax vaccine — which is a function of how purified the vaccine is — is unknown,” Nass said.
Novavax still uses the spike protein
The SARS-CoV-2 virus encodes 29 proteins, but Novavax — like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — chose to target only the spike protein.
As previously reported in The Defender, it is not known if the spike protein itself is safe.
“We have known for a long time that the spike protein is a pathogenic protein,” said Byram Bridle, Ph.D., associate professor of viral immunology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. “It is a toxin. It can cause damage to our body if it gets into circulation.”
According to Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., CHD’s chief scientific officer, “If you wanted to pick the most toxic protein, you know what represents the highest virulence, the highest amount of damage on the COVID-19 virus? You would pick the spike protein.”
The spike protein “has been consistently shown to create clotting issues in the blood,” Hooker said.
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | September 10, 2022
Simone Gold is a fighter for medical freedom. Many Americans first learned of her when in July of 2020 Gold, who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, spoke along with other doctors at a Washington, DC press conference. The doctors challenged the coronavirus party line that had been pushed relentlessly in America over the preceding few months. That press conference, at which Gold spoke first among the doctors and served as the master of ceremonies, was a refreshing breakthrough of the voice of dissident doctors challenging the coronavirus crackdown and the accompanying propaganda campaign.
Gold and her organization continued fighting for medical freedom and against extreme coronavirus crackdown measures since. Among other things, America’s Frontline Doctors came out in opposition early on to the heavily pushed by politicians and media insistence that the experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots were safe and effective and something everyone should take. The organization also helped people obtain early treatment for coronavirus so they could avoid serious sickness. Meanwhile, the coronavirus scare propagandists said there was nothing to do but wait until sickness becomes so bad that hospital admission is required.
On Friday, Gold was released from prison. Her crime? None. It was just a misdemeanor for, as reported in the Washington Times, “entering and remaining in a restricted building.” Yet, the building was the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, so the full force of the US government was employed to cause the great harm to Gold and many other people who walked into that building and did nothing destructive.
While in the building, the Washington Times notes that Gold “gave a speech in Statuary Hall about her opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates and government-imposed lockdowns.” Ordinary people would not find her doing this worrisome. But, for the Biden administration devoted to coronavirus tyranny it is downright threatening.
In addition to her 60 days prison sentence, the Washington Times article reports that Gold was punished with a 9,500 dollars fine and 12 months of supervised release starting after her time in prison. Gold is among the many victims of a very harsh crackdown on people presented as opponents of President Joe Biden and repeatedly, though farcically, painted as taking part in an “insurrection” on January 6 of last year.
Here’s to Gold returning to her work fighting for medical freedom. We can use her help.
By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | September 6, 2022
What would you do if you were Merrick Garland? Would you prosecute Trump? Or would you walk away, concerned about accusations you and the FBI were playing politics?
Step One appears easy, put off any decision until after the midterms. Trump is not a candidate, key issues driving the midterms (inflation, Ukraine, Roe) are not his issues and though Trump is actively stumping for many candidates, initiating any prosecution before the midterms is just too obvious. Nothing else about Mar-a-Lago has had an urgency to it (months passed from the initial voluntary turnover of documents and the forced search) and announcing an indictment now would be a terrible opening move. So if you’re Garland, you have some time.
On the other hand waiting until after the midterms can be dangerous if as expected the Republicans do well and take both the House and the Senate. Even with slim majorities Republicans are expected to initiate their own hearings, into Hunter Biden’s laptop and how the FBI played politics with that ahead of the 2020 election. Holding off an indictment until that is underway risks making your case look like retaliation for their case. That’s a bad look for a Department of Justice which claims it is not playing politics. It would look even worse if the Republicans try and cut you off, opening some sort of hearings into the Mar-a-Lago search prior to an indictment. Nope, if you’re Merrick Garland you are caught between a rock and a hard place.
But there is a bigger question: if you are Garland and you indict Trump, can you win? Candidate Trump is already earning a lot of partisan points claiming he is the victim of banana republic politics, and his indictment ahead of 2024 (it matters zero if he has formally announced or not, he is running of course) will allow him to claim he was right all along. An indictment will allow Trump to fire both barrels, one aimed at Garland and the other at the FBI and these, coupled with the dirty tricks a Republican investigation into the FBI and Russiagate will expose will make Trump look very right. He was the victim of partisan use of justice, and the FBI did try to influence both the 2016 election (with Russiagate) and the 2020 (by deep-sixing Hunter Biden’s laptop claiming falsely it was Russian misinformation) and now is taking a swing at 2024 with the Mar-a-Lago documents. If public opinion moves further to Trump’s side, Merrick Garland through his indictment just reelected Trump to the White House as a sympathy candidate. The spooks call that blowback, and it is a real threat in this instance.
Any action against Trump must preserve what is left of faith in the rule of law applied without fear or favor, or risk civil disenfranchisement if not outright civil unrest. Garland will have to address the most obvious precedent case involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who maintained an unsecured private email server which processed classified material. Her server held e-mail chains classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level which included the names of CIA and NSA employees. The FBI found classified intelligence improperly stored 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, potential evidence, as well as physical phones and Blackberries which potentially held evidence. She operated the server out of her home kitchen despite the presence of the Secret Service on property who failed to report it. Her purpose in doing all this appeared to have been avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests during her tenure as SecState, and maintaining control over what records became part of the historical archive post-tenure.
Clinton seems to have violated all three statues Trump was searched under. If the FBI is going to take similar fact sets and ignore one while aggressively pursuing another, it risks being seen as partial and political. Any further action against Trump and certainly any prosecution of him must address why Hillary was not searched and prosecuted herself. Fair is fair, and after all nobody is above the law.
The other fear holding Garland back would be that of losing the case outright in court. Classified documents are typically dealt with either via administrative penalties (an officer is sent home for a few days without pay) or as part of some much larger espionage case where the documents were removed illegally as part of the subject spying for a foreign country. Rarely is a case brought all the way to court for simple possession. Most of the laws Trump may have broken require some sort of intent to harm the United States. In other words, Trump would have had to have taken the documents not just for ego or his library or as some uber-souveniers but with the specific intent to commit harm against the United States. Garland certainly does not have that.
Other factors which typically play into documents cases are also not in Garland’s favor. Despite not being kept in line with General Services Administration standards, the documents appear to have been locked away securely at Mar-a-Lago, the premises itself guarded by the Secret Service. Trump has already turned over surveillance video of the documents storage location, which presumably does not show foreign agents wandering in and out of frame. It is much harder to prosecute a case when no actual harm was shown done to national security.
Another factor in documents cases involves the content of the documents themselves. The uninformed press has made much of the classification markings, but Garland will need to show the actual content of the docs was damaging to the U.S., and that Trump knew that. Overclassification will play a role, as will the age and importance of the information itself; after all, it is that information which is classified, not the piece of paper itself marked Secret. Garland will know Trump will fight him page by page, meaning much of the classified will be exposed in court and/or the trial will move to classified sessions to shield the information but feed the conspiracy machine. One can hear Trump arguing his right to a public trial being taken away.
Hyperbole aside, the critical question returns to whether or not prosecutors could prove specific intent on Trump’s part for the more serious charges. Proving a state of guilty mind — mens rea — would be the crux of any actual prosecution based on the Mar-a-Lago documents. What was Trump thinking at the time, in other words, did he have specific intent to injure the United States or to obstruct some investigation he would have had to have known about? Without knowing the exact nature of the documents this is a tough prediction but even with the documents on display in front of us proving to a court’s satisfaction what Trump wanted to do by keeping the documents would require coworkers and colleagues to testify to what Trump himself had said at the time, and that is unlikely to happen. It is thus unlikely based on what we know at present that Trump would go to jail for any of this.
Take for example the charges of tax evasion now levied again the Trump Organization (i.e., not Trump personally and not part of the Mar-a-Lago case.) Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, as part of a plea deal, will testify against the Organization but not Trump himself as to why the Organization paid certain compensation in the form of things like school tuitions, cars, and the like, all outside the tax system. It will be a bad day for the Organization but loyal to the end, Weisselberg will not testify as to his boss’ mens rea. It is equally unclear who would be both competent and willing to do so against President of the United States Trump. Blue Check enthusiasm aside, he won’t go to jail over this.
The final questions are probably the most important: DOJ knows what the law says. If knowing the chances of a serious conviction are slight, why would the Justice Department take the Mar-a-Lago case to court? Then again, if knowing the chances for a serious conviction are slight, why would the FBI execute a high-profile search warrant in the first place? To gather evidence unlikely ever to be used? No one is above the law, but that includes politics not trumping clean jurisprudence as well.
And then what? If Garland successfully navigates the politics, if he proves his case in court, and if he secures some sort of conviction against Trump which withstands the inevitable appeal, then what? Trump’s Mar-a-Lago “crimes” are relatively minor. Could Garland call Trump having to do some sort of community service during the 2024 campaign a win? Pay a fine? It seems petty. It sure seems Trump wins politically big-picture whether he wins or loses at Mar-a-Lago. If you were Merrick Garland, what would you do?
MEMO | September 10, 2022
The US and the Israeli Ministry of Public Security have imposed restrictions and sanctions on Israeli spyware company NSO. It was placed on the US blacklist, resulting in a decline in its deals and income.
However, it wasn’t the politicians, opposition activists and journalists who were spied on who benefitted from these restrictions, but rather another cyber-attacker Tal Dilian, a former combat fighter in an elite Special Operations Unit of the Intelligence Corps in the Israeli army and held a senior position in the Israeli Military Intelligence Division “Aman”.
One of the spyware companies that Dilian founded is Intelexa, which developed the Predator software. Dillian focused on selling this spyware programme to countries where the Israeli Defence Ministry does not issue permits to export cyber-attack software, such as Bangladesh, Sudan and Ukraine, according to a report in Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published on Friday.
Unlike cyber-attack companies registered and operating in Israel, which are subject to the supervision of the Security Export Supervision Division in the Ministry of Defence, Dilian believes he is not under the Ministry of Security’s supervision and can supply his goods to any country or entity.
About a year ago, the phone of Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was behaving oddly, as his battery began to die quickly and phone calls were being disconnected. The journalist, who criticised the Greek prime minister’s economic policy, became suspicious that he was being watched. A month later, a Canadian cyber security research institute, Citizen Lab, discovered that the Predator programme had hacked Koukakis’ phone.
It was also found, following the formation of a commission of inquiry into the matter by the European Parliament and after examining 200 of its members’ phones, that an unsuccessful attempt had been made to hack the phone of the head of the Greek opposition, Nikos Androulakis, which caused a scandal described as the “Greek Watergate”.
Citizen Lab published a report last December confirming that two Egyptian dissidents in exile, politician Ayman Nour and a popular programme host who wishes to remain anonymous, had been hacked by the Predator spyware.
The newspaper added that investigations into the Greek scandal revealed the source of the Predator programme as Israel. Several weeks ago, members of the investigation commission set up by the European Union secretly visited Israel and met with officials in the Ministries of Justice and Public Security, as well as with Director General and founder of NSO Shalev Julio. The investigation committee announced that it had not found evidence linking Pegasus to a spying scandal in Spain.
While the US and Israeli authorities imposed sanctions and restrictions on Israeli cyber companies, an official in the Israeli cyber intelligence company Verint, Sam Rabin, resigned to appoint the deputy general manager of Intelexa, based in North Macedonia. However, most of its employees and director, as well as the hackers, are individuals dismissed from Israeli intelligence services. Dilian held the rank of colonel in the Israeli army and was the commander of the 81st Technological Unit and a senior officer in the army’s special operations unit.
Samizdat | September 10, 2022
US President Joe Biden has renewed the national emergency declared by former president George W. Bush in the days following the events of September 11, 2001 for another year.
The “terrorist threat” behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people “continues,” Biden wrote in a Thursday memo published in the Federal Register, adding that the “powers and authorities adopted to deal with” the attacks “must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2022.”
The 9/11 emergency declaration is just one of several Biden has extended this week alone. Also on Thursday, the president prolonged a national emergency he had declared the previous year regarding sectarian violence and human rights abuses in Ethiopia, while on Tuesday he announced the renewal of an emergency declared by his predecessor Donald Trump in 2018 regarding the threat of “foreign interference in or undermining public confidence in” US elections.
Biden has declared at least six national emergencies since taking office in January 2021 and extended several more, including the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. The National Emergencies Act endows the president with over 136 powers, most of which do not require congressional approval to wield. Since its passage in 1976, more than 60 national emergencies have been declared, with only about half of them officially concluded.
The president has largely abandoned predecessors’ focus on external terrorist threats like the al-Qaeda hijackers held responsible for 9/11, opting to focus attention instead on domestic terrorism, which the FBI has declared to be the primary threat facing the nation.
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By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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