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‘Germany investigates Russia supporters’

Samizdat | April 18, 2022

Since February 24, authorities across multiple German regions have launched more than 140 investigations into acts seen as endorsements of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) reported on Monday, citing regional internal and justice ministers.

In the majority of cases, those suspected had displayed the letter ‘Z’, the ubiquitous marking on Russian equipment in Ukraine that has become a sign of support for Moscow’s offensive. In Saxony-Anhalt, for instance, 17 out of 19 such cases revolve around the letter, while in the city-state of Hamburg, 16 out of 17 probes were launched for that reason.

In a number of German regions, the ‘Z’ symbol has been deemed off limits since late February. A spokesperson for Saxony-Anhalt’s interior ministry told RND that “display of this symbol in public in connection with the Russian aggressive war leads to the launch of an investigation,” if the authorities construe the letter as an endorsement of Moscow’s actions.

German authorities invoke Section 140 of the country’s criminal code, according to which people endorsing the criminal acts of others can face a fine or even up to three years behind bars.

The outlet notes that the total number of probes into Russian sympathizers launched across Germany since late February is likely higher than the cited 140, given that not all regions are keeping a tally of these specific instances. Bavaria is a case in point; however, its Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich hastened to assure the journalists that just because the region was not singling out such investigations did not mean that this kind of behavior was going unchecked by the authorities. He pointed out that while “freedom of expression is cherished in our constitution,” with everyone having the right to express their opinion in Germany, this “freedom of expression, however, ends where criminal law begins.” Eisenreich added that the Bavarian authorities would not brook it “when crimes against international law are endorsed.”

Earlier this month, rallies in support of Russia were held in several cities across Germany. The majority of participants were either immigrants from the former Soviet Union or their children, but there were also German supporters of the Kremlin’s military operation present at the events. The demonstrators denounced the perceived rise of Russophobia in Germany.

Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state. The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

April 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Twitter faces the ‘nightmare’ of being forced into free speech

BY JONATHAN TURLEY – THE HILL – 04/16/22

Twitter’s board of directors gathered this week to sign what sounds like a suicide pact. It unanimously voted to swallow a “poison pill” to tank the value of the social media giant’s shares rather than allow billionaire Elon Musk to buy the company.

The move is one way to fend off hostile takeovers, but what is different in this case is the added source of the hostility: Twitter and many liberals are apoplectic over Musk’s call for free speech protections on the site.

Company boards have a fiduciary duty to do what is best for shareholders, which usually is measured in share values. Twitter has long done the opposite. It has virtually written off many conservatives — and a large portion of its prospective market — with years of arbitrary censorship of dissenting views on everything from gender identity to global warming, election fraud and the pandemic. Most recently, Twitter suspended a group, Libs of Tik Tok, for “hateful conduct.” The conduct? Reposting what liberals have said about themselves.

The company seemingly has written off free speech too. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was asked how Twitter would balance its efforts to combat misinformation with wanting to “protect free speech as a core value” and to respect the First Amendment. He responded dismissively that the company is “not to be bound by the First Amendment” and will regulate content as “reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.” Agrawal said the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.”

Not surprisingly, selling censorship is not a big hit with most consumers, particularly from a communications or social media company. The actions of Twitter’s management have led to roller-coastering share values. While Twitter once reached a high of about $73 a share, it is currently around $45. (Musk was offering $54.20 a share, representing a 54 percent premium over the share price the day before he invested in the company.)

Notably, Musk will not trigger the poison pill if he stays below 15 percent ownership of the company. He could push his present stake up to 14.9 percent and then negotiate with other shareholders to take greater control.

Another problem is that Twitter long sought a private buyer under former CEO Jack Dorsey. If Musk increases his bid closer to $60, the board could face liability in putting its interests ahead of the company’s shareholders.

Putting aside the magical share number, Musk is right that the company’s potential has been constrained by its woke management. For social media companies, free speech is not only ethically but economically beneficial — because the censorship model only works if you have an effective monopoly in which customers have no other choice. That is how Henry Ford could tell customers, back when he controlled car-making, that they could have any color of Model T “as long as it’s black.”

Of course, the Model T’s color was not a critical part of the product. On the other hand, Twitter is a communications company selling censorship — and opposing free speech as a social media company is a little like Ford opposing cars.

The public could be moving beyond Twitter’s Model T philosophy, however, with many people looking for access to an open, free forum for discussions.

Censorship — or “content modification,” as used in polite company — is not value maximizing for Twitter, but it is status enhancing for executives such as Agrawal. It does not matter that consumers of his product want less censorship; the company has become captive to its executives’ agendas.

Twitter is not alone in pursuing such self-defeating values. Many in the mainstream media and many on the left have become some of the loudest advocates for corporate censorship. The Washington Post’s Max Boot, for example, declared, “For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.” MSNBC’s Katy Tur warned that reintroducing free speech values on Twitter could produce “massive, life- and globe-altering consequences for just letting people run wild on the thing.”

Columnist and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich went full Orwellian in explaining why freedom is tyranny. Reich dismissed calls for free speech and warned that censorship is “necessary to protect American democracy.” He then delivered a line that would make Big Brother blush: “That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.”

The problem comes when you sell fear for too long and at too high a price. Recently, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) agreed with MSNBC analyst John Heilemann that Democrats have to “scare the crap out of [voters] and get them to come out.”

That line is not selling any better for the media than it is for social media, however. Trust in the media is at a record low, with only 7 percent expressing great trust in what is being reported. The United States ranks last in media trust among 46 nations.

Just as the public does not want social media companies to control their views, it does not want the media to shape its news. In one recent poll, “76.3% of respondents from all political affiliations said that ‘the primary focus of the mainstream media’s coverage of current events is to advance their own opinions or political agendas.’”

Thus, an outbreak of free speech could have dire consequences for many in the political-corporate-media triumvirate. For them, the greatest danger is that Musk could be right and Twitter would become a more popular, more profitable company selling a free speech product.

Poison pill maneuvers are often used to force a potential buyer to negotiate with the board. However, Twitter’s directors (who include Agrawal and Dorsey) have previously limited their product to advance their own political preferences. This time, federal law may force them to fulfill their fiduciary duties, even at the cost of supporting free speech. The problem for the board will occur when the “nightmare” of free speech comes in at $60 a share.

April 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

EU Exhumes 18 Year Old Embezzlement Charges to Derail Le Pen Presidential Bid

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | April 18, 2022

Presumably as part of a deliberate effort to derail her presidential chances, the European Union has exhumed 18-year-old embezzlement charges against Marine Le Pen.

“The EU’s anti-fraud body has accused French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and associates of embezzling around 600,000 euros during their time as MEPs,” reports AFP.

The National Rally leader is personally accused of embezzling “around 137,000 euros ($150,000) worth of public money from the Strasbourg parliament when she was an MEP between 2004 and 2017.”

Le Pen’s lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut dismissed the charges, adding that the “timing” of them was suspicious.

Noting that the report relates to “old facts more than ten years old,” Bosselut highlighted how Le Pen “has not been summoned by any French judicial authority” to answer the charges.

“I’m surprised by the timing of such a strong disclosure and the instrumentalisation,” said Bosselut.

The EU has chosen to resurrect the old claims just days before the final round of the French presidential election, in which Le Pen will face off against incumbent Emmanuel Macron.

Although still a long shot, recent polls had shown Le Pen closing the gap on Macron, causing consternation amongst globalist technocrats.

Given the context, the EU dragging up old charges is clearly an act of election interference intended to tarnish Le Pen before this weekend’s vote.

As we previously highlighted, after Hungary’s Viktor Orban won re-election in a landslide, the EU responded by slapping sanctions on the country as a form of punishment for the electorate exercising their democratic will.

April 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

COVID persists, but the COVID vaccine narrative has taken on so much water, the powers that be have stopped bailing

They are going to let these vaccines slowly sink

By Meryl Nass, MD | April 16, 2022

There has been so much bad news about the vaccines in the last few months, it even leaked into the mainstream media. I think the cabal’s plan, at least in the US but probably everywhere, is to stop propping the ludicrous vaccine claims up and allow them to die a natural death. I explain why below.

There was just too much bad news, too few getting boosted, too much resistance from parents. Getting 8 or 10 doses into everyone was not going to happen. The terrified obedient masses were becoming fewer and fewer.

For example, here is one story that got lots of traction: ABC News covered the fact that “At least 72 COVID cases in the fully vaccinated resulted from the Gridiron dinner.” Not only did Nancy Pelosi test positive, but several other members of Biden’s Cabinet and many other Washingtonian glitterati did too. All of whom had to have been vaccinated in order to attend.

There was plenty of happy talk that the afflicted politicians in DC had only mild COVID cases. Good for them. But, if vaccinations caused them to become asymptomatic spreaders instead of spreaders with symptoms, who would know to stay home while sick, the vaccines could actually be doing more harm than good in terms of transmission. They could be causing more COVID cases, not less.

By now, it has to be apparent to everyone who walks by a newsstand or turns on the TV that the media are begging much too hard for more shots.

It must be obvious to all that the shots do not prevent spread and therefore there is no logical way you can mandate them. Because if my shot does not protect you (and only with lots of fairy dust will it protect me) why would you have any interest in whether or not I am vaccinated?

Once you stop caring about my vaccination status, the cabal’s nexus of control starts to fall apart. That was their ace in the hole. Time for them to move on to something else.

The kicker for childhood vaccines: the NY state Department of Health study of vaccine efficacy in children. After 2 months, efficacy in the 5-11 year olds had fallen to 12%. In other words, 7 out of 8 vaccinated kids derived no benefit after 2 months, only risk. The data were derived from 365,000 children, and apparently there was no way CDC could spin them, or 12% was the best spin they could put on the data. This report is a huge obstacle to universal child vaccinations. The cabal cannot surmount it.

It is important to mention again–because we keep forgetting–that while the vaccines are nominally licensed for adults, in fact you can only find the EUA (unlicensed) product in the US, and legally an EUA is experimental–and therefore forcing someone to be vaccinated is a Nuremberg violation and a violation of federal law.

The imposition of mandates for these experimental gene therapy products is therefore a crime, being committed by states, federal government and certain companies and other institutions. It seems that because US law was not designed for situations in which the government is the criminal, it has been very difficult to use the judicial system to change what is happening. But surely if this persisted much longer an honest judge somewhere would finally rule that the vaccines are experimental and the COVID mandate house of cards would then collapse. Like Humpty Dumpty (it is Easter today after all):

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put COVID mandates together again

What else has been happening that undermines the vaccine story? Well, in addition to all the collapsing athletes, there is now a large collection of mayors suddenly dropping dead throughout Germany.

In Australia, Queensland’s health minister just admitted that ambulances are being summoned for a lot more calls for cardiac events and sudden deaths: 40% more to be exact.  Thanks to Igor Chudov for following this story, and including a video of the clueless minister admitting it, but having no idea why…

Then there were the 3 insurance companies, one each from the US, India and Germany, that admitted there were about 40% more deaths than expected in working-age people in the second half of 2021. The German official who blew the whistle, a CEO or VP, was immediately fired, which is a strong indication he was telling the truth.

Three doctor whistleblowers released a large cache of data from the military’s DMED database showing huge increases in service-member deaths. There has been a lot of confusion about these data. In part, that is because the military then reissued its data for the preceding several years, making the 2021 comparison look less dire. Mathew Crawford has some ideas about what really happened to the data. The only thing that is absolutely clear so far is that there has been a coverup, and the health of vaccinated members of the military appears to have taken a dive. But we don’t know how deep.

Everyone in the world must have heard the term ‘myocarditis’ by now, and knows that it is a vaccine injury. A lot of people also know that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said post-vaccination myocarditis was extremely “rare but mild,” except it isn’t and she lied. The rate of myocarditis she cited is at least 10 times too low. About 1 in 2000 young men aged 18-24 sought care for this diagnosis after getting their second mRNA shot.

In fact, CDC was so intensely worried about blowback regarding its recommendation to vaccinate teens (despite the risk of myocarditis) it got the heads of about 20 professional medical organizations to sign on to a declaration supporting CDC’s recommendation. Wonder how much CDC paid for that. Getting such back-up was an unusual move, but perhaps unsurprising for risk-averse bureaucrats who worry about their own butt but not anyone else’s. Rochelle even mentions these “cosigners” from many medical organizations in her ABC-TV interview. Collecting a bunch of “co-signers” is actually the proof that CDC knew its vaccine recommendation was going to considerably harm children.

While no one in a federal health agency has admitted it, many people must be aware that myocarditis is only the tip of the COVID vaccine injury iceberg. Myocarditis got attention because it’s life-threatening and almost always happens within 4 days of the second shot–it can’t be written off as coincidence, the way heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary emboli, sudden deaths and perhaps many other diagnoses have been.

As if there wasn’t enough bad vaccine news, there was information from the Medicare database that FDA posted last July, but it only recently got attention. FDA revealed that heart attacks, pulmonary emboli, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC, a life-threatening, bleeding plus clotting disorder) and ITP (another bleeding disorder) were related to the Pfizer vaccination in Medicare beneficiaries. FDA promised to study this rigorously, but instead remained silent, and subsequently has never denied the relationship.

And then there is ivermectin. So many ivermectin stories have been leaking into the popular press. Tennessee’s legislature made ivermectin essentially an over-the-counter drug last week. New Hampshire’s house voted in favor of this as well, while the NH Senate is now taking it up. Kansas and several other states gave healthcare providers an immunity guarantee for the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID. Kansas also strengthened religious exemptions, effectively undermining school vaccine mandates.

Coupled with stories about lawsuits against hospitals for refusing to supply ivermectin to dying relatives, like this one, people are finally realizing there is probably something to this drug, and they have been cheated. They were given a shot that barely works, is unsafe, and they were stopped from getting the good drug. And what if they lost their business to the lockdowns? There must be a lot of anger simmering by now. I imagine the Great Reset cabal must be worried about this, and has decided to loosen its grip for the moment and hopefully let off some citizen steam.

There is more surprising vaccine news. While many institutions are still imposing mandates (and we need to find out what $ carrots were given to universities and other entities to impose illegal mandates of experimental vaccines) in other, surprising places the mandates are disappearing. Out west in Woke Land, the Washington state Department of Health said it would not require COVID vaccines to attend school after all. Despite Gavin Newsom’s 2021 executive order mandating vaccines for school kids as soon as they are licensed, California’s Department of Health has just done the same thing that Washington’s did: killed the COVID vaccine mandate for the 2022-23 school year.

This is why I am convinced the ship is turning. Those states’ health departments take their orders from CDC and DC. I do not think FDA is going to be issuing any more fake licenses for COVID vaccines. [I say fake because a) the vaccines do not meet licensure criteria, and b) after issuing the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines licenses for adults, neither licensed product has been distributed in the US for actual use.] The unvaxxed kids will be spared. Hallelujah!

During the April 6, 2022 Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting, which I live-blogged and summarized, both briefers and committee members acknowledged that the neutralizing antibody titers that have been used as a surrogate for immunity in order to issue EUAs, were in fact not valid surrogates.

This had been obvious for awhile, but a recent Israeli study in healthcare workers made it crystal clear. While neutralizing antibody titers rose tenfold after a fourth vaccination, by 2 months out the Pfizer vaccine had only 30% efficacy against infection, and the Moderna vaccine had only 11%. So the high antibody titers were, in fact, meaningless.

This is really important, because Pfizer and Moderna have been relying on titers to get their vaccines okayed for the younger age groups, those below 16 and 18 respectively. They don’t have data showing the vaccines are actually reducing cases by 50% or more, which is the standard FDA said was necessary. They don’t have data showing that the vaccines prevent serious cases or deaths, another standard.

Up until now, FDA accepted titers in lieu of actual efficacy results from clinical trials to issue its EUAs for children–but with the recent VRBPAC admissions, which must have been planned in advance (otherwise why did multiple people at the meeting discuss it as settled fact when they had never mentioned it before?) FDA can no longer do so.

Another thing that happened at the VRBPAC meeting was that Peter Marks, the head of FDA’s Center for Biologics and highest FDA official there, said that if a new type of COVID vaccine is developed for the next booster, then the current vaccines would no longer be used, because it would be too confusing (according to STAT). I believe this was another effort to prepare us for the demise of the current mRNA vaccines.

The fall of the vaccines means the fall of the vaccine passports. This ought to slow down the imposition of CBDCs and all-digital money for a bit. If we don’t have to show our vaccine certificate to go shop, eat, etc., (and people stop being fearful of catching something from each Other) people will be a lot less inclined to “show their papers” to go about their lives. It’s our job to explain over and over that this was how the Nazis maintained control.

Here I read the tea leaves

If there is a new vaccine waiting in the wings, FDA and its briefers were not telling us about it at the VRBPAC meeting, which was the time to do so. For right now, I think the current crop of vaccines and the vaccine passports are going away. I don’t think the authorities anticipate another severe COVID wave in the foreseeable future… as most people now have Omicron immunity. The COVID fear will dissipate.

The original Wuhan strain appeared out of nowhere. No natural progenitor could be found. And the original Omicron strain appears to have also originated in a lab. If I was a member of the Great Reset cabal, I would be quite hesitant about releasing yet a third lab-engineered virus on the population. Because millions of people will be looking for one, and it won’t take long before its laboratory provenance is discovered. Then the pitchforks might really come out.

On the other hand, I do believe the cabal has bet the farm on their Reset, they can’t go back, and they are simply moving on to another means of accomplishing it besides COVID.  The over-the-top WHO Treaty/Constitution and its amendments designed to assume sovereignty over the world in the event of a pandemic is an ambitious Plan B.

But I don’t think it will fly. Too many people know the WHO was wrong about virtually everything regarding management of this pandemic, not to mention the 2009 swine flu. And then there was that little matter of WHO undertaking the SOLIDARITY Trial, in which WHO officials deliberately poisoned over 1,000 COVID patients with excessive doses of hydroxychloroquine and in many cases failed to obtain signed informed consents. The WHO could be liable for manslaughter.

Will Russia and China really agree to give up their sovereignty to Tedros? China, maybe. Brazil? India? Indonesia? Japan? Nigeria? Can all of their leaders, and their local power centers, have been sufficiently corrupted to turn over their nations to the cabal? I think that could be a stretch.

I suspect the cabal will try their best to get a legal OK to take over the world with the upcoming WHO pandemic treaty, but it won’t fly. Too many people already know about these plans.

After the WHO, the cabal will move on to something else, Plan C. Climate catastrophe? Aliens? I’m guessing it will be a few years before we get hit with another nasty bug. By then maybe the fiat currencies will have finally crashed, and the cabal won’t have as tight control of the reins. By then, Fauci, Walensky, Biden, Macron, Johnson, Trudeau, Draghi will hopefully be unpleasant memories.

I am not thinking we will all sing kumbaya. I expect a good deal of misery as the cabal pushes all the levers at its disposal.

The Shanghai city and port closure (China’s largest city and the world’s largest port) seems to me a deliberate attempt to interfere with worldwide transit of goods and to reduce food availability. The Chinese know how to treat COVID. They make the drugs and herbs. There is no need for them to lock down.

We are finally understanding that all these awful government policies were deliberate — intended to cement control over and impoverish us. But maybe we can start to build something a whole lot better.

We are shaking loose of the educational indoctrination system, the ruination of our foods, the user-unfriendly and health-damaging healthcare system. We are starting to grasp that our governments acted with malice aforethought to stupefy and eventually enslave us.

People are breaking free and taking responsibility for their future. Where I live, people are learning self-sufficiency skills, creating home-schooling coops, building greenhouses and growing food. The migration to the countryside was deliberate.

A better life? It just takes everybody waking up. Despite all the acrimony we have faced, the time is ripe to help our fellows see things clearly. We have to love them, help them, meet them where they are at. Maybe it is just to talk about the Gridiron dinner. Or ivermectin. They won’t get it in a day. But keep trying. It is our only solution.

April 17, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Musk has means to thwart Twitter’s ‘poison pill’ – reports

Samizdat | April 16, 2022

Billionaire and Twitter habitué Elon Musk is considering bringing in business partners to help him buy out the social media platform, the New York Post reported on Friday, citing sources.

According to the publication, Musk has been in talks with investors who could partner with him on his bid for Twitter. A new plan that draws in partners may be announced within several days, NY Post sources said, noting that there is a chance Musk will team up with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. He has a history of working with the company, which was planning to co-invest in Musk’s plan to take his electric vehicle company, Tesla, private in 2018. Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban is also a member of Twitter’s board of directors.

Both Silver Lake and Musk’s spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

Analysts say that teaming up with private equity firms could help Musk get around Twitter’s ‘poison pill’, a corporate move designed to prevent potential buyers from acquiring more than 15% of a company. It was adopted by Twitter on Friday, as some members of Twitter’s board say Musk’s bid undervalues the company.

Musk is the richest person in the world. His net worth is estimated at over $200 billion, with most of the money tied up in Tesla stock. Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder in late March by acquiring a 9% stake in the company. On Thursday, he offered to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share in cash, valuing Twitter at roughly $43 billion.

Experts say it is unlikely Musk will raise his offer after he said it was his “best and final offer.” However, if all other options fail, he could take his bid directly to other Twitter shareholders and buy their shares through a tender offer.

April 16, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Twitter’s Poison Pill and Gab’s Offer to Elon Musk

By Stephen Lendman | April 16, 2022

A previous article discussed Elon Musk’s offer to buy most outstanding Twitter shares he doesn’t already own at a significant premium to its current market value.

In response to prevent his gaining control of the company, Twitter’s board unanimously adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan, a so-called (hard to swallow) poison pill.

It’ll remain in place until expires on April 14, 2023.

The strategy aims to prevent a firm’s hostile takeover by making it appear less attractive to a potential buyer’s so-called bear hug.

The latter involves offering a much higher price than the target company’s current market value.

As a defense against hostile takeovers, poison pills usually work.

They let current shareholders by additional shares of a targeted company’s stock at a discount.

It’s to dilute the equity value of the stock to make it less attractive to a potential buyer.

Or conversely to get a higher price than was offered from the suitor or potential others.

At the same time, poison pills discourage institutional investors from buying shares in a firm with aggressive defenses.

And by diluting market value, current shareholders are adversely affected.

Still at this time, Twitter is in play.

In after hours trading ahead of Good Friday, Twitter closed at $46.66 a share — up $3.50 after being down nearly 2% at the closing bell.

Musk’s offer may be followed by others, perhaps at a premium to what he proposed, a so-called white knight strategy.

While he called his offer “best and final,” he could raise it to compete with other takeover bids.

Saying if Twitter rejects his offer he has a Plan B in mind, he stopped short of explaining it.

In response to the above, Gab.com urged Musk to choose an alternative option.

Calling itself “a social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online, it said the following:

“Twitter has legacy problems that Gab doesn’t.”

“They are fully dependent on third-party infrastructure. We are not.”

“We ‘built our own, everything…our own servers, our own email services, our own payment processor, and so much more…”

“Hosting, email services, analytics tools, ecommerce, payment processing, all of it. We built it all.”

“(B)ringing free speech to Twitter isn’t as simple as buying it.”

“Apple and Google do not allow free speech, so if you stop the censorship they will kick Twitter from both app stores.”

“We already solved that problem and overcame it.”

“Twitter operates in countries where mass censorship is required by law.”

“They have no choice but to comply with the censorship demands of those countries or risk being shut down, fines, etc.”

“Gab’s business model is not 100% dependent on advertising” like Twitter’s.

Its poison pill strategy reflects opposition to Musk’s takeover bid.

Gab made Musk a counteroffer.

Building its own “everything” fell short of its own ISP to provide internet connections and services.

According to Gab CEO Andrew Musk by letter to Musk:

“(T)o provide a free speech platform you must also have free speech internet infrastructure.”

“I fear that the next big leap of censorship is at the ISP level, with ISP’s blocking access to Gab.com.”

“You solve that problem with Starlink.”

“Together we can build infrastructure for a free speech internet.”

“I am willing to offer you a Board seat along with equity in the company in exchange for you selling your Twitter position and investing $2B into Gab.”

“My offer is my best and final offer.”

“Gab has extraordinary potential. Let’s unlock it together.”

I don’t know if Musk responded to Torba so far.

It remains to be seen if he’s interested, especially since his attempted takeover of Twitter may not succeed.

April 16, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Why Biden and Johnson should be treated as War Criminals

By Dr Vernon Coleman | April 16, 2022

1 – On the surface, the sanctions imposed on Russia appear to be part of a new type of warfare – designed to punish innocent Russian people. Putin and his pals aren’t going to be hurt by sanctions but ordinary people will be. Politicians and journalists complain bitterly when civilians are bombed but don’t seem to care about civilians being impoverished or starved to death.

Nor do politicians or journalists care that the sanctions were also designed to bring in a global recession that will result in billions of deaths. The sanctions brought in by leaders around the world such as Johnson and Biden have caused massive price rises for fuel and food. The sanctions will cause most damage to the very poor in Africa and Asia. Huge numbers will die in Africa and Asia as a direct result of these sanctions which were designed by mad, bad, dangerous people. Why aren’t Biden, Johnson et al being treated as war criminals?

2 – Governments have created a perfect storm for travellers. Flights have been cancelled because of the millions of people unable to work because they have colds or think they have a disease called ‘long covid’ (which good research has shown is either malingering or hypochondria). The cost of fuel has risen to the highest price ever known, and motorists are unable or unwilling to buy enough fuel to take them more than a few miles from home.

Even when motorists can afford to buy fuel there may not be any available because refineries have been shut by insane and woefully ignorant and selfish protestors who want to make people as miserable as they are and to bring about economic ruin. (Curiously, the police seem unable to move the protestors very efficiently. I don’t know whether this is because the protestors are too fat to be moved without lifting equipment or because the police have been instructed to move only those protestors who are concerned with telling the truth about the covid fraud.)

Finally, the weather is colder and more miserable than ever. Coincidentally, there have been a good many chemtrails around recently. Oh, and anyone thinking of trying to go abroad needs to have their passport already because the Passport Office is advising travellers to allow ten weeks to get a new passport.

3 – Investment in oil and gas has crashed because banks and governments are too frightened to lend money to oil companies. The result is that discoveries of oil and gas are at the lowest for 75 years. We will run out of oil and gas very quickly. The consequences are described in my book `A Bigger Problem than Climate Change: The End of Oil’.

4 – The UK and Europe are now importing liquefied natural gas from the United States. The imported gas was produced using fracking. This will doubtless delight the cultists who believe that we should all keep warm by shivering.

5 – Sunak, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer has been whingeing about criticisms of his wife’s financial affairs. With astonishing cheek, he’s been turning the story round to make himself and his family the victim! Most of the mainstream media supported his whingeing.

The Times noted that reporting his wife’s tax affairs is a potential criminal offence. With any luck Sunak will quickly disappear from public life. He has been a disastrous Chancellor and will not be missed. Even in the polluted waters of public life he is a disgrace.

6 – The French Government has paid private consultants 2.4 billion euros for advice since 2018. When the French were questioned about this, their defence was that the British Government spent around £100 billion on private consultants in the same period. If the army of highly paid civil servants did some of the work they’re paid to do, the British taxpayers would save £25 billion a year.

7 – Government officials who attended parties during the lockdown included Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary and Whitehall ethics chief (who provided a karaoke machine for a `gathering’) and Kate Josephs, who was the director general of the covid-19 task force and who wrote the regulations that made the gatherings illegal.

We don’t know if either of them had to pay a fine but if they were then the fines would have been no more than £50 (less than a parking fine round our way). Once again we see that the privileged few are treated differently. `Ordinary’ people who attended gatherings during lockdowns, and some who had a snowball fight in a park, were fined maximum amounts of £10,000.

8 – Bitcoin mining (possibly the most useless of all human activities) uses around 0.5% of global energy consumption.

9 – There is much talk among the loony lefties about free speech on social media – specifically Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on. The truth, of course, is that there is no free speech on any of these sites. They are all oppressive, faux communist platforms allowing only the fettered to speak. These sites belong to the enemy.

10 – The willingness and ability to break rules is what differentiates free men from slaves. And as many have said in the past, it is the duty of every free man and woman to speak out against bad laws and injustice. In the New World Order we won’t be told what we cannot do, but what we are allowed to do. There’s all the difference in the world.

11 – The global economy has been deliberately turned upside down, inside out and back to front. Investment companies and pension companies bought $18 trillion worth of sub-zero bonds. These are bonds with a negative interest rate – so the investors and pensioners who own them are paying governments and companies for the privilege of lending them money.

12 – A number of bankers at Goldman Sachs (frequently voted one of the world’s most evil companies by me) each received $30 million bonuses this year.

April 16, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

The worst of Covid advertising

The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | April 16, 2022

Advertising / propaganda played a massive part in keeping citizens compliant and afraid. Quite frankly, advertising companies should feel ashamed with the amount of societal manipulation they caused in exchange for government coin.

Early on in the pandemic, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) in the UK called for an increase in the perceived threat of Covid by using hard-hitting emotional messages. However, it has since been revealed that government contracts and messages were in place weeks before lockdowns were even suggested.

These adverts were produced in collaboration with behavioural scientists, trying to nudge people to do what they wanted using tactics that operate below the level of awareness.

The UK spent over £240 million on these adverts in 2020 and up to £320 million in 2021. Obscene amounts of money. To put this in context, the government spent £46 million on advertising “Get Ready for Brexit” in 2019, the biggest spend since the second world war.

I have posted some of the worst images from the UK below. They made people feel guilty, ashamed, worried that they would kill people and angry against those who did not precisely follow the rules.

April 16, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Google limits what publishers can say about the Ukraine war if they want to stay monetized

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | April 14, 2022

Google’s Adsense this week sent an email to publishers reminding them of the new policy about monetization of content related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Google will not allow publishers to show ads on content that condones the war.

“Due to the war in Ukraine, we will pause monetization of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war,” the email read.

“This pause includes, but is not limited to, claims that imply victims are responsible for their own tragedy or similar instances of victim blaming, such as claims that Ukraine is committing genocide or deliberately attacking its own citizens.”

The email was a reminder of a previous policy that stated: “Due to the war in Ukraine, we will pause monetization of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war.”

If a publisher insists on posting content that condones the war, Google ads will be removed from such pages, and Google has a monopoly on website advertising infrastructure.

“Google helps to enable a free and open web by helping publishers monetize their content and advertisers reach prospective customers with useful, relevant products and services,” the policy states. “Maintaining trust in the ads ecosystem requires setting limits on what we will monetize.”

Failure to comply with the policy could result in a publisher’s monetization being terminated.

“Failure to comply with these policies may result in Google blocking ads from appearing against your content, or suspending or terminating your account,” the policy says.

April 14, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

The question MSM should be asking about Partygate

The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | April 14, 2022

Partygate, as the name suggests, concerns parties and in particular parties in Downing Street during lockdowns. For those who don’t know no. 10 Downing Street is where the current Prime Minister works and resides, in this case, Boris Johnson. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, lives and works next door at number 11. Number 10 may look small from the outside but actually comprises of more than 100 rooms.

From March 2020, the UK had a number of lockdowns and until recently some form of restrictions in place. As with most countries, many of these restrictions included who you could and couldn’t visit or numbers of people allowed indoors or outdoors.

It has since transpired that whilst authoring and implementing all of these draconian rules, along with the harsh penalties if the rules were broken, Boris, his wife Carrie, Rishi and other staff at Downing Street had at least 12 parties. At least 50 penalty notices are being handed out to Boris, Carrie, Rishi and others.

The MSM is focussing on Boris breaking the rules and lying when asked if he had broken them. However, the question they should be asking is:

Why was the government desperately trying to scare the public about Covid when they themselves weren’t scared in the slightest?

Were they so stressed and tired of it all that they were happy to risk their lives just to have a few parties or did they know, the whole time, that Covid would mainly kill the elderly and vulnerable so they themselves were perfectly safe. Or perhaps they knew of the potential dangers a lab made virus could pose but had access to an already prepared inhibitor which targeted the spike protein?

If the correct answer is that they knew Covid was not as deadly as being made out, then the MSM should be investigating why they continued to scare the public. Where did the idea come from? Why was it pushed so hard if they knew it was rubbish? Why was no cost/benefit analysis undertaken and if it was why did they continue to destroy the economy?

Another anomaly, which verges into conspiracy theory territory, is why was Boris Johnson partying after he came out of intensive care less than a month previously? Surely you would take it easy for a while after such a big scare? Even if Boris wasn’t bothered, staff would have been shell shocked and scared for their own safety? Politicians and Journalists voiced rumours at the time but they were quickly retracted.

Come on MSM, step up and ask the correct questions.

April 14, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Canadian Despot Justin Trudeau Seeking To Forcibly Silence News Outlet

FOX News | April 13, 2022

Rebel News founder Ezra Levant speaks out to Tucker after government denies newly-created journalism ‘license’. #tucker #foxnews

Watch more Fox News Video: http://video.foxnews.com

Tucker Carlson Tonight: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…

April 14, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy on Ukraine is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign is Extreme

Preventing us from asking who benefits from a protracted proxy war, and who pays the price, is paramount. A closed propaganda system achieves that.

By Glenn Greenwald | April 13, 2022

If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.

What makes this outburst of Western censorship so notable — and what is at least partially driving it — is that there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources, ones which loyally and unquestioningly mimic claims from the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukrainian officials. As The Washington Post acknowledged when reporting Big Tech’s “unprecedented” banning of RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources of news: “In the first four days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, viewership of more than a dozen Russian state-backed propaganda channels on YouTube spiked to unusually high levels.”

Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.

Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation. The “Russians With Attitude” Twitter account became popular in part because they sometimes criticized Russia, in part because they were more careful with facts and viral claims that most U.S. corporate media outlets, and in part because there is such a paucity of outlets that are willing to offer any information that undercuts what the U.S. Government and NATO want you to believe about the war.

Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.

It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.

But one question lingers: why is there so much urgency about silencing the small pockets of dissenting voices about the war in Ukraine? This war has united the establishment wings of both parties and virtually the entire corporate media with a lockstep consensus not seen since the days and weeks after the 9/11 attack. One can count on both hands the number of prominent political and media figures who have been willing to dissent even minimally from that bipartisan Washington consensus — dissent that instantly provokes vilification in the form of attacks on one’s patriotism and loyalties. Why is there such fear of allowing these isolated and demonized voices to be heard at all?

The answer seems clear. The benefits from this war for multiple key Washington power centers cannot be overstated. The billions of dollars in aid and weapons being sent by the U.S. to Ukraine are flying so fast and with such seeming randomness that it is difficult to track. “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine,” Reuters said on February 26; “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine,” announced The New York Times on March 16; on March 30, NBC’s headline read: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”; on Tuesday, Reuters announced: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say.” By design, these gigantic numbers have long ago lost any meaning and provoke barely a peep of questioning let alone objection.

It is not a mystery who is benefiting from this orgy of military spending. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that “the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight U.S. weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years.” Among those participating in this meeting about the need to increase weapons manufacturing to feed the proxy war in Ukraine is Raytheon, which is fortunate to have retired General Lloyd Austin as Defense Secretary, a position to which he ascended from the Raytheon Board of Directors. It is virtually impossible to imagine an event more favorable to the weapons manufacturer industry than this war in Ukraine:

Demand for weapons has shot up after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 spurred U.S. and allied weapons transfers to Ukraine. Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. . .

Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting. . .  The White House said last week that it has provided more than $1.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, including over 5,000 Javelins and more than 1,400 Stingers.

This permanent power faction is far from the only one to be reaping benefits from the war in Ukraine and to have its fortunes depend upon prolonging the war as long as possible. The union of the U.S. security state, Democratic Party neocons, and their media allies has not been riding this high since the glory days of 2002. One of MSNBC’s most vocal DNC boosters, Chris Hayes, gushed that the war in Ukraine has revitalized faith and trust in the CIA and intelligence community more than any event in recent memory — deservedly so, he said: “The last few weeks have been like the Iraq War in reverse for US intelligence.” One can barely read a mainstream newspaper or watch a corporate news outlet without seeing the nation’s most bloodthirsty warmongering band of neocons — David Frum, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Wesley Clark, Anne Applebaum, Adam Kinzinger — being celebrated as wise experts and heroic warriors for freedom.

This war has been very good indeed for the permanent Washington political and media class. And although it was taboo for weeks to say so, it is now beyond clear that the only goal that the U.S. and its allies have when it comes to the war in Ukraine is to keep it dragging on for as long as possible. Not only are there no serious American diplomatic efforts to end the war, but the goal is to ensure that does not happen. They are now saying that explicitly, and it is not hard to understand why.

The benefits from endless quagmire in Ukraine are as immense as they are obvious. The military budget skyrockets. Punishment is imposed on the arch-nemesis of the Democratic Party — Russia and Putin — while they are bogged down in a war from which Ukrainians suffer most. The citizenry unites behind their leaders and is distracted.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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