Silencing criticism of Israel
PSA vs. Nazim Ali—What it means for the pro-Palestine Activists
By Massoud Shajareh | MEMO | November 9, 2021
Many of you will have seen the recent news about Nazim Ali’s loss at the High Court. A detailed timeline can be found elsewhere. I want to discuss the three main consequences of this judgment.
First, a quick summary of the case itself. In June 2017, Ali took part in the annual Al-Quds Day parade, during which he made several ill-advised comments about Zionists and Zionism. The Campaign against Antisemitism (CAA) complained to the police and to the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC). The police complaint was passed to the CPS, who decided not to press charges; this was appealed and, again, the CPS declined to prosecute Ali. So, the CAA brought a private prosecution against Ali, which the CPS took over and discontinued. This decision was challenged by way of judicial review, which the CAA lost, as the court agreed with the CPS that Ali’s comments were anti-Israel -Zionist in nature and not anti-Semitic.
The GPhC complaints team subsequently decided that Ali’s words were anti-Israel political speech, that they were not anti-Semitic or racist, and dismissed the CAA’s complaint. Ali was notified that the complaint was closed. However, in the summer of 2019, the GPhC reopened the case, justifying its decision on the basis that it had to evaluate Ali’s comments based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
Late last year, those proceedings culminated in the GPhC finding the comments made by Mr Ali to be offensive but not anti-Semitic. They held that, a reasonable bystander who was apprised of all the facts would not consider his speech in their context (a pro-Palestine rally) to be anti-Semitic. They took account of the context, Ali’s explanation of his words and his upstanding character. It issued him with a warning, on the grounds that his words were offensive and his behaviour amounted to misconduct.
Pro-Israel campaigners prevailed upon the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) to appeal the GPhC decision to the High Court, which has now decided the GPhC reconsider afresh the allegations of anti-Semitism against Mr Ali, on the grounds that the body had erred by taking into account Ali’s explanation for, and intention behind, the words. The High Court held that Ali’s intention and explanation could not form part of the analysis of whether his words were anti-Semitic. Instead, an “objective” test should be used—something the learned judge does not define; he only elaborates on what it cannot include, i.e., the intention of the speaker.
So why is this dangerous?
- Once you remove intention, all criticism of Israel and Zionism is potentially anti-Semitic: Intention behind words is important. They tell us what the speaker intended, or meant, to say. In the context of controversial subjects, such as Israel/Palestine, they become crucial to understanding what the speaker means. The CAA/UKLFI and others want the courts and tribunals to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism as the “objective” definition. This is a controversial definition, one which puts substantial emphasis on criticism of Israel. Once an “objective” definition is accepted, where intention is not relevant, pro-Palestine activists will find there is little they can say about Israel without being labelled anti-Semitic.
- The “objective” definition will be wielded as a weapon to harass and silence professionals who criticise Israel. Pro-Israel groups will target any and every one they can identify as a regulated professional who has the temerity to criticise Israel in public. As the definition is “objective”, pro-Israel groups will simply start framing their complaints as the “person’s words are objectively anti-Semitic” in each case, thereby, avoiding the need to discuss the speaker’s intention. The regulators themselves seem uninterested in the politicised nature of the complaints and will bring to bear their full regulatory weight on the individual— involving a complaints process, a tribunal, lawyers’ fees, appeals and counter appeals. The thought of such an overwhelming process will be enough to stop any regulated professional from publicly criticising Israel or Zionism.
- Regulated professionals are just the start— this will set a chilling benchmark that can be replicated in many other regulatory and disciplinary settings. Labour party members accused of anti-Semitism, university disciplinary proceedings, employment tribunals and others will find this case being cited as a precedent. Suddenly, union members are accused of “objective” anti-Semitism as they believe Israel is an apartheid state. Their intent is irrelevant, as the complaint will be framed as the meaning of their words is anti-Semitic— and it is according to the “objective” IHRA definition: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.” Teachers, students, employees of any major company, anyone who criticises Israel in public, will find complaints being made against them by pro-Israel groups. These groups know most people do not want their livelihood taken from them; they calculate most people will just remain silent about Israel’s crimes rather than face being disciplined and being removed from employment.
Ali’s words were inappropriate and, on occasion, factually inaccurate (Israel and Zionism are guilty of a lot, but they did not set fire to Grenfell), but they were not anti-Semitic. Our purpose in fighting this judgment is not to defend Ali’s words. Rather, it is to stop the creation of a precedent that will silence virtually all criticism of Israel. Pro-Israel groups wish to proscribe all criticism of Israel; this judgment gives them the tools with which to achieve their goals. Free speech on Israel will be eroded if we do not fight back now.
The courts are backing the Covid vaccine madness
By Sally Beck | TCW Defending Freedom | November 9, 2021
IN THE last few weeks the High Court has thrown out two big Covid vaccine legal challenges. Last Tuesday they said No to a judicial review to stop mandatory vaccination for health care workers, and in September they threw out a bid to injunct and pause the vaccination of children and teenagers aged 12 to 17.
I was in court for both cases, and heard the judges put intelligent and insightful questions to the claimants’ legal teams. Both justices clearly found their well-constructed arguments on the vaccines’ questionable efficacy, and arguments about bodily autonomy, compelling and unsettling. Despite this, they sided with the government using the pandemic as a get-out clause.
Solicitor Stephen Jackson, whose firm Jackson Osborne brought both cases, said: ‘The court absolved itself from any need to consider the extent of the investigation made by the government into Covid vaccines and the analysis they’ve made. So basically, what they are saying is that the government have consulted experts and are not going to look at it any further.
‘The court’s position is that there’s a particularly wide margin of discretion where the government is considering complex data and science. They say that the Secretary of State for Health, Sajid Javid, is entitled to rely upon the advice of the experts he goes to.
‘It gives the government a blank cheque. As long as they have taken advice from an expert body, the court assumes their advice is correct. If you turn up to court and seek to challenge that advice, they say you are simply presenting an alternative expert view, but you cannot establish that the expert advice seen by the government is unreasonable or irrational.’
It seems that the vaccine juggernaut is unstoppable, despite growing evidence of irreparable harms and even death, with more than 1,700 fatalities reported. The argument is that this is a minuscule number considering that 55.6million doses have been given.
The government is fully aware of vaccine harm and has known about it since the 20th century childhood vaccination schedule was introduced in 1959. It considers that collateral damage, however severe, serves the common good. We should just shut up and take one for the team.
Each vaccine can leave its own deadly calling card and Covid jabs are no different. The ones used in the UK are produced by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Their particular signature is blood clots and low platelets (VITT), inflammation of the heart in the form of myocarditis and pericarditis (particularly affecting young men), Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune disorder that attacks the nerves and can cause paralysis), and Bell’s palsy (temporary paralysis affecting one side of the face).
None of these horrors concern the judiciary yet, which is endlessly frustrating for Stephen Jackson and barrister Francis Hoar QC, who was involved in both cases.
Jackson said: ‘The courts are very reluctant to interfere with government decisions. If they feel they might be treading on political ground, then they steer a wide course.
‘The way they avoid interference is to cite the pandemic. The pandemic trumps everything.’
Millionaire entrepreneur Simon Dolan failed in his bid to obtain a judicial review earlier this year. He planned to challenge the government over lockdowns and mask wearing, claiming that Boris Johnson and Co had acted illegally and disproportionately. His defeat set the tone.
‘In the Simon Dolan case they basically said that there’s a two-stage process; first stage: it’s a pandemic, next stage is that the government has a very wide discretion as to their response,’ Jackson said.
‘In the care home case, they went further and said they had looked at a European Court of Human Rights case, heard in April, where Czech parents challenged the state’s mandatory vaccine schedule for nursery school children. It was a case where children were excluded from premises of education unless they had their vaccines. The judge who heard the care workers case said that what the government is doing now is nothing very different.
‘What the court doesn’t recognise in that analogy is that in the Czech case you are talking about very well-established vaccines with long safety records. By comparison we’re still looking at experimental technology with Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines, which remain under trial until 2023. We still don’t know the long-term effects.’
The same applies to children. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said covid vaccines offer very little benefit to the under-18s and recognised that they have the potential to harm. They recommended against routine vaccination for this age group, but the UK’s four chief medical officers (CMOs) overruled them saying that the JCVI hadn’t taken into account the school days they might lose, and the effect that being locked out of education would have on their mental health. In contrast, the CMOs did not take into account potential vaccine damage, days off school because of adverse reactions and time spent away from class to receive the jabs.
A judicial review is where the courts are asked by citizens adversely affected by government rules to review the decisions made by them. In 2018 there were 3,597 claims lodged but only 184, or 5 per cent, proceeded to a full hearing. Of the cases heard, 50 per cent were won, so there are chances at victory. The government knows this, abhors challenge and feels that the judicial review process is being used to excess, having lost two high profile cases, one on Brexit and the other on the prorogation of Parliament.
Bloodied, battered and humiliated, the Conservatives now want to change the law to restrict judicial reviews. In July, Johnson introduced the Judicial Review and Courts Bill which former Secretary of State David Davis called ‘a worrying assault on the legal system and an attempt to avoid accountability’.
Covid cases are challenging, based on complex science which judges do not necessarily have the skills to weigh up. Both Justice Robert Jay, who heard arguments in the child vaccination hearing, and Justice Philippa Whipple, appointed to rule in the care home challenge, indicated this. Jay almost threw up his hands at one point saying in effect, I don’t understand this, this is all science. Whipple modestly asked for the arguments to be kept simple saying: ‘I am a bear of very little brain. These are matters of complex data and science.’
Listening, it felt both were looking for a back door escape route.
The care home case was brought by two care home workers. One, Julie Peters, from Poole, a former programme director of Barchester Healthcare, a large provider with over 200 locations, was sacked for refusing the jab. She said: ‘I’ve lost my job, the government has changed the law so that although technically, I can fight for unfair dismissal, it’s likely I would lose. I also lost the challenge to overturn the legislation making vaccination mandatory for care home workers. So, any hairdresser, electrician, cleaner, occupational health care worker, or care home staff now has to have a vaccine to enter a care home. I’m pretty devastated.’
Dr. Mercola Files Lawsuit Against US Sen. Elizabeth Warren
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | November 8, 2021
In early September 2021, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter1 to Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.com, demanding an “immediate review” of Amazon’s algorithms to weed out books peddling “COVID misinformation,” stressing that Amazon’s sale of such books was “potentially unlawful.”2,3,4
Warren specifically singled out my book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” co-written with Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), as a prime example of “highly-ranked and favorably-tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures” that she wanted banned.
“Dr. Mercola has been described as ‘the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online,” Warren wrote,5 adding: “Not only was this book the top result when searching either ‘COVID-19’ or ‘vaccine’ in the categories of ‘All Departments’ and ‘Books’; it was tagged as a ‘Best Seller’ by Amazon and the ‘#1 Best Seller’ in the ‘Political Freedom’ category.
The book perpetuates dangerous conspiracies about COVID-19 and false and misleading information about vaccines. It asserts that vitamin C, vitamin D and quercetin … can prevent COVID-19 infection … And the book contends that vaccines cannot be trusted …”
Warren Fancies Herself Above the Law
Warren should know that as a government official, it is illegal for her violate the U.S. Constitution, and pressuring private businesses to do it for her is not a legal workaround.
Since she willfully ignores the law, Cummins and I, along with our publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who wrote our foreword, are suing Warren, both in her official and personal capacities, for violating our First Amendment rights. The federal lawsuit, in which Warren is listed as the sole defendant, was filed in the state of Washington. As noted in our complaint:
“Once upon a time, the First Amendment was understood to guarantee that books challenging governmental orthodoxy could be sold without fear of governmental intimidation or reprisal.
Almost sixty years ago, in Bantam Books v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58 (1963), the Supreme Court held that state officials violated the First Amendment by sending letters to booksellers warning that the sale of certain named books was potentially unlawful.
The ‘vice’ in such letters and in the ‘veiled threat’ of legal repercussions they communicated, explained the Court, is that they allow government to achieve censorship while doing an end-run around the judiciary, ‘provid[ing] no safeguards whatever against the suppression of … constitutionally protected’ speech, thus effecting an unconstitutional ‘prior restraint.’
It made no difference that the officials who sent the letter lacked the ‘power to apply formal legal sanctions’ — i.e., that the officials did not themselves have the power to sanction or prosecute the booksellers in any way. Indeed this fact made the unconstitutionality more apparent.
The officials ‘are not law enforcement officers; they do not pretend that they are qualified to give or that they attempt to give distributors only fair legal advice … [T]hey acted … not to advise but to suppress.’
It also made no difference, the Court expressly found, that the letters were framed as mere ‘exhort[ation]’ or that the booksellers were in theory ‘free’ to ignore the letters, because the officials had ‘deliberately set about to achieve the suppression of publications deemed ‘objectionable’,’ and ‘people do not lightly disregard public officers’ veiled threats.’
Today, certain members of the United States Congress have apparently forgotten, or think they are above, the law set forth in Bantam Books.”
Warren’s Attack on Constitutionally Protected Speech
There’s no doubt our book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” is constitutionally protected speech, and that Warren’s letter is calling on Amazon to suppress protected speech.
In our book, we share viewpoints, ideas, opinions, verifiable facts and factual hypotheses that our federal government just so happens to disfavor, as it counters their chosen narrative that SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally, cannot be prevented by any means other than experimental gene therapy, and cannot be treated by any other means than certain experimental and exorbitantly costly drugs.
Since the start of the pandemic, government has systematically sought to suppress the kind of information shared in our book, using the same tactic as Warren used against us here — warning Internet-based companies that if they don’t censor these views, the full weight of the government’s wrath will be turned against them. As explained in our complaint:
“The term ‘vaccine misinformation’ as Warren uses it is propagandistic and false. As she uses it, ‘vaccine misinformation’ refers to any speech challenging the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines, even when that speech consists of factually accurate information or protected opinion …
On September 10, 2021, as a direct result of Warren’s letter, a major national bookseller chain, Barnes and Noble, notified the publisher of The Truth About COVID-19 by email that it would no longer sell the work as an e-book. Barnes and Noble has — for now — reversed that decision.
It is impossible for Plaintiffs to know with certainty whether, as a result of Warren’s letter, Amazon is now covertly demoting, downgrading, or otherwise suppressing The Truth About COVID-19 in numerous ways that would be hidden from view, but Plaintiffs believe that Amazon is in fact covertly taking such action.
Even if no bookseller in the country had yielded to Warren’s threats, her letter would still be actionable as a clear violation of the First Amendment.
In Backpage.com, LLC v. Dart, 807 F.3d 229 (7th Cir. 2015) (Posner, J.), relying on Bantam Books, the Court held that a governmental official ‘violates a plaintiff’s First Amendment rights’ if by ‘threat’ or ‘intimidation’ the official attempts to induce ‘a third party’ to stop ‘publishing or otherwise disseminating the plaintiff’s message,’ and emphasized that ‘such a threat is actionable and thus can be enjoined even if it turns out to be empty — the victim ignores it, and the threatener folds his tent.’
Such threats go ‘by the name of ‘prior restraint,’ and a prior restraint is the quintessential first-amendment violation.’ Accordingly, Plaintiffs ask this Court to vindicate clearly established law, to vindicate Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, to vindicate the First Amendment itself, by declaring Warren’s conduct unconstitutional and by enjoining her from repeating such conduct in future.”
Warren Calls Out ‘Misinformation’ With Misinformation
In our complaint, we also emphasize the fact that Warren’s claims of misinformation are themselves misinformation. For example, Warren claims our book falsely “asserts that … vitamin D … can prevent COVID-19 infection.” According to Warren, this claim has no scientific basis. This is clearly and verifiably false as there are many studies, published in 2020 and 2021, supporting this claim.
For example, in May 2021, the National Institutes of Health’s website, PubMed.gov, published a Journal of Medical Virology article titled “Vitamin D Deficiency Is Associated With COVID-19 Positivity and Severity of the Disease.”6 Many other scientific articles have also linked vitamin D deficiency with a higher risk of COVID infection, more severe outcomes and increased rates of death.
Indeed, a recent systematic review7 of the literature, posted on the U.S. National Library of Medicine, which is another National Institutes of Health website, concluded that “blood vitamin D status can determine the risk of being infected with COVID-19, seriousness of COVID-19, and mortality from COVID-19.
Therefore, maintaining appropriate levels of Vitamin D through supplementation or natural methods … is recommended for the public to be able to cope with the pandemic.” As noted in our complaint:
“Thus while Warren professes to champion true COVID information to save lives, she is purveying false information that could lead to COVID deaths. Warren is telling people that vitamin D levels don’t matter for COVID, when in fact — as readers would learn from The Truth About COVID-19 — correcting vitamin D deficiencies could save their lives.
By her own logic and according to her own demands, every major social media platform should have banned Warren’s letter as ‘COVID misinformation.’ But officials like Warren only denounce ‘COVID misinformation,’ demand its censorship, and threaten legal repercussions when the statements in question challenge the COVID narrative they support — not when they themselves are misrepresenting the truth about COVID-19.
Warren’s letter further accuses The Truth About COVID-19 of disseminating ‘false and misleading information about vaccines,’ including by (in Warren’s words) ‘contend[ing] that vaccines cannot be trusted.’
The book’s stated thesis about the COVID vaccines is that their effectiveness ‘has been wildly exaggerated and major safety questions have gone unanswered.’ This statement is accurate and well within the bounds of constitutionally protected opinion …
Warren’s letter further cites a June, 2021, review of The Truth About COVID-19 that purports to list examples of the book’s ‘misinformation,’ the first of which is the following: ‘the authors argue that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.’ It is true that The Truth About COVID-19 argues that that ‘the preponderance of evidence’ supports the lab-leak theory of the origins of the COVID virus.
But the claim that this position is ‘misinformation’ is, once again, itself misinformation. The lab-leak theory — long denounced as a ‘conspiracy theory’ by federal actors and suppressed on social media — is in fact supported by substantial and growing evidence. See, e.g., Wall St. Journal, ‘Science Closes In on Covid’s Origins: Four studies — including two from WHO — provide powerful evidence favoring the lab-leak theory,’ Oct. 5, 2021.8
The review’s next example of the supposed ‘misinformation’ in the The Truth About COVID-19 is this: the book ‘insists multiple times that the public health measures and restrictions will be permanent. Not true.
The CDC announced that fully vaccinated Americans could resume activities without wearing masks or physically distancing, resume domestic travel, and refrain from quarantine even when following a known exposure to the virus if they remain symptom-free.’
This CDC announcement obviously proved to be false, while the prediction made in The Truth About COVID-19 that health restrictions would continue after vaccination has proved more accurate.
Moreover, it is not the case that the Truth About COVID-19 ‘insists’ that these restrictions will be permanent — it says that certain restrictions on our liberty, beginning in the pandemic, will ‘probably’ be permanent, reflecting a humility about the certainty of one’s assertions that Warren might have profited from.”
This Is Only the Beginning
As noted in a press release by Cummins, this lawsuit is just the beginning. OCA and I are launching a campaign to fight back against the censorship that is taking root. This includes unraveling the threads that lead back to the fake fact checkers and disinformation agents in the media, but all of this will take time, so be patient.
As explained by Cummins:
“OCA’s federal lawsuit, filed jointly with Dr. Mercola, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Chelsea Green books is not just directed against Elizabeth Warren, but is intended to establish a legal precedent against the increasing censorship, slander, and intimidation coming from a wide variety of government, corporate, and media sources.
This Big Pharma/Big Media/Big Government Inquisition is fueled by disinformation and dark money coming from powerful international public relations firms such as the Publicis Groupe and front groups such as the so-called Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
We are under attack, not because we are purveyors of dangerous disinformation and hate, as Warren and her Establishment cohorts allege, but rather because, in the midst of an international health, economic, and political crisis, we are trying to expose the truth about the lab origins of this catastrophe, and explain how preventive and natural medicine and health, healthy organic food, natural supplements, low-cost generic drugs, strong immune systems, and a healthy environment are our best defenses against chronic disease and engineered pathogens.
We are not anti-vaccine, but rather pro-vaccine safety. We are not purveyors of disinformation, but rather firm defenders of free speech, unobstructed scientific inquiry, and freedom of choice …
We are castigated as ‘conspiracy theorists’ for publicizing the behind-the- scenes machinations of billionaires like Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum, and their ‘Hall of Shame’ collaborators9 in the military-industrial complex.
We are under siege for exposing the existential risks of genetic engineering and lab manipulation, a mad science not only contaminating our food, seeds and animals, but essentially weaponizing pathogenic viruses, bacteria, and insects, part of a catastrophic biological and medical arms race that threatens us all.
We are saddened and alarmed by the now routine attacks on free speech, free association, and medical freedom of choice. We are troubled by the extreme polarization and anger poisoning the body politic, and the debilitating impact of fear-mongering and shaming on our children and the public at large.
We are alarmed by the collateral damage to our health, our psyches, and the entire social fabric by government authoritarianism, virologists and gene engineers playing God, and Big Pharma greed …
America, and the once-hoped-for community of nations, are accelerating toward self-destruction. The body politic is sick, frightened, angry, and divided. People have apparently forgotten how to talk to one another when we disagree on politics, COVID responses, vaccine safety, and a range of other polarizing government dictates.
Former friends and co-workers have become enemies. Meanwhile the forests are burning. Water resources are diminishing … Our children and the most vulnerable are forced to struggle harder than ever, just to survive and preserve their sanity, making it harder and harder maintain a positive outlook, enjoy every day life, much less achieve true happiness.
If COVID-19, the product of mad science and insatiable greed, has taught us anything, it’s that we must transform our food and farming systems and take control of our health.
We must acknowledge, prevent, and resolve the dietary, environmental, and public health-related comorbidities of our ailing population, strengthen our immune systems to fight off chronic disease and pathogens, and provide special protection for the most vulnerable.
We must bring profit-at-any-cost corporations, captured media and regulatory agencies, indentured politicians, Silicon Valley surveillance capitalists, out-of-control genetic engineers, virologists, and bioweapons profiteers to heel.”
Stop the Madness
To this end, OCA has launched a Stop the Mad Science campaign. This global grassroots campaign aims to ban the engineering of viruses, bacteria and all potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs). Mounting evidence suggests COVID-19 was indeed the result of gain-of-function (GOF) research, paid for in part by U.S. taxpayers and carried out by U.S. and Chinese researchers.
Unless we put an end to this kind of dangerous research (and it goes on worldwide, not just in the U.S. and China), COVID won’t be the last manmade pandemic we’ll have to face. More than 65,000 people have already signed the petition in support of this effort. Please add your signature here if you haven’t done so already. As noted by Cummins:
“Current ongoing experiments, routinely funded with our tax dollars, that need to be stopped immediately include genetically engineering SARS-CoV-2 so that it can overcome or bypass natural immunity; combining the SARS-CoV-2 virus with deadly anthrax bacteria; engineering the bird flu and Ebola to be more transmissible; and other criminally insane experiments — hiding behind the excuse that lab and genetic engineering of pathogens are necessary for ‘biodefense’ and ‘biomedicine.’
Over the next six months we will begin to organize protests and picket lines outside the GoF labs and institutions where these dangerous experiments are being carried out. These street protests will be amplified by public education, petition gathering, litigation, and grassroots lobbying.”
Sources and References
- 1, 5 Warren’s letter to Andy Jassy September 7, 2021
- 2 National Interest September 12, 2021
- 3 The Guardian September 13, 2021
- 4 New York Times September 8, 2021
- 6 Journal of Medical Virology May 2021; 93(5):2992-2999
- 7 Risk Management Healthcare Policy 2021; 14: 31-38
- 8 Wall Street Journal October 5, 2021
- 9 OCA Gain of Function Hall of Shame
Iconic singer Van Morrison sued over Covid-19 comments
NO MORE LOCKDOWN, NO MORE FASCIST POLICE, NO MORE TAKING OF OUR FREEDOM AND OUR GOD GIVEN RIGHTS
AS I WALKED OUT
BORN TO BE FREE OF THE COVID SCAM
https://www.bitchute.com/video/4OPLfKgq9i3h/
RT | November 8, 2021
Northern Ireland’s health minister, Robin Swann, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Van Morrison after the rock and R&B legend labeled him “very dangerous” over Covid-19 restrictions during the pandemic.
Swan’s legal team believes Morrison’s repeated public statements harmed the minister’s reputation by implying he was unfit for his position during the health crisis. The statement of claim against the 76-year-old singer-songwriter was filed in September.
“Proceedings have been issued and are ongoing against Van Morrison. We are aiming for a trial in February,” Swann’s lawyer, Paul Tweed, told local media on Sunday.
Swann’s choice of legal representation signals his strong desire to win the case, as Tweed is known as a high-profile libel lawyer, who has previously represented the likes of Harrison Ford, Justin Timberlake, and Jennifer Lopez.
The fallout between the minister and musician occurred in June after Morrison’s gig in Belfast was canceled at the last moment due to coronavirus restrictions.
The singer still got on stage and told the audience: “Robin Swann has all the power. So I say Robin Swann is very dangerous.” He also tried to persuade the crowd to chant: “Robin Swann is very dangerous.” […]
Last year, Swann criticized Morrison over his songs about the coronavirus restrictions, including ‘Born to Be Free’, ‘As I Walked Out’, and ‘No More Lockdown’. … Full article
How Sweden swerved Covid disaster
By Johan Anderberg | UnHerd | November 8, 2021
A hundred years ago, in New York City, 20,000 people marched down Fifth Avenue in protest against one of the greatest public health policy experiments in history. One of them was wearing a sign featuring an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” beside the slogan, “Wine was served.” There were posters of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Another read: “Tyranny in the name of righteousness is the worst of all tyrannies.”
For a year, beer, wine and spirits had been illegal throughout the United States. From a public health perspective, it seemed a reasonable enough measure. That alcohol was a dangerous substance was clear: disease, violence, poverty and crime were intimately bound up with it. Even now, despite its failure, it is known as the “noble experiment”. But was it right to prevent people from making drinks they not only enjoyed, but that also served important cultural and religious purposes? Not for the first time, Americans found themselves torn in a balance between freedom and security — nor for the last.
Until recently, prohibition remained the largest experiment in social engineering a democracy had ever undertaken. And then, in early 2020, a new virus began to spread from China. Faced with this threat, the world’s governments responded by closing schools, banning people from meeting, forcing entrepreneurs to shut their businesses and making ordinary people wear face masks. Like prohibition, this experiment provoked a debate. In all the democracies of the world, freedom was weighed against what was perceived as security; individual rights versus what was considered best for public health.
Few now remember that for most of 2020, the word “experiment” had negative connotations. That was what Swedes were accused of conducting when we — unlike the rest of the world — maintained some semblance of normality. The citizens of this country generally didn’t have to wear face masks; young children continued going to school; leisure activities were largely allowed to continue unhindered.
This experiment was judged early on as “a disaster” (Time magazine), a “the world’s cautionary tale” (New York Times), “deadly folly” (the Guardian). In Germany, Focus magazine described the policy as “sloppiness”; Italy’s La Repubblica concluded that the “Nordic model country” had made a dangerous mistake. But these countries — all countries — were also conducting an experiment, in that they were testing unprecedented measures to prevent the spread of a virus. Sweden simply chose one path, the rest of Europe another.
The hypothesis of the outside world was that Sweden’s freedom would be costly. The absence of restrictions, open schools, reliance on recommendations instead of mandates and police enforcement would result in higher deaths than other countries. Meanwhile, the lack of freedom endured by the citizens of other countries would “save lives.”
Many Swedes were persuaded by this hypothesis. “Shut down Sweden to protect the country,” wrote Peter Wolodarski, perhaps the country’s most powerful journalist. Renowned infectious diseases experts, microbiologists and epidemiologists from all over the country warned of the consequences of the government’s policy. Researchers from Uppsala University, the Karolinska Institute and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm produced a model powered by supercomputers that predicted 96,000 Swedes would die before the summer of 2020.
At this stage, it was not unreasonable to conclude that Sweden would pay a high price for its freedom. Throughout the spring of 2020, Sweden’s death toll per capita was higher than most other countries.
But the experiment didn’t end there. During the year that followed, the virus continued to ravage the world and, one by one, the death tolls in countries that had locked down began to surpass Sweden’s. Britain, the US, France, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, Argentina, Belgium — countries that had variously shut down playgrounds, forced their children to wear facemasks, closed schools, fined citizens for hanging out on the beach and guarded parks with drones — have all been hit worse than Sweden. At the time of writing, more than 50 countries have a higher death rate. If you measure excess mortality for the whole of 2020, Sweden (according to Eurostat) will end up in 21st place out of 31 European countries. If Sweden was a part of the US, its death rate would rank number 43 of the 50 states.
This fact is shockingly underreported. Consider the sheer number of articles and TV segments devoted to Sweden’s foolishly liberal attitude to the pandemic last year — and the daily reference to figures that are forgotten today. Suddenly, it is as if Sweden doesn’t exist. When the Wall Street Journal recently published a report from Portugal, it described how the country “offered a glimpse” of what it would be like to live with the virus. This new normal involved, among other things, vaccine passports and face masks at large events like football matches. Nowhere in the report was it mentioned that in Sweden you can go to football matches without wearing a facemask, or that Sweden — with a smaller proportion of Covid deaths over the course of the pandemic — had ended virtually all restrictions. Sweden has been living with the virus for some time.
The WSJ is far from alone in its selective reporting. The New York Times, Guardian, BBC, The Times, all cheerleaders for lockdowns, can’t fathom casting doubt on their efficacy.
And those who’ve followed Sweden’s example have also come in for a lot of criticism. When the state of Florida — more than a year ago and strongly inspired by Sweden — removed most of its restrictions and allowed schools, restaurant and leisure parks to reopen, the judgement from the American media was swift. The state’s Republican governor was predicted to “lead his state to the morgue” (The New Republic). The media was outraged by images of Floridians swimming and sunbathing at the beach.
DeSantis’s counterpart in New York, the embattled Democrat Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, was offered a book deal for his “Leadership lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic”. A few months ago, he was forced to resign after harassing a dozen women. But the result of his “leadership lesson” lives on: 0.29% of his state’s residents died of Covid-19. The equivalent figure for Florida — the state that not only allowed the most freedom, but also has the second highest proportion of pensioners in the country — is 0.27%.
Once again, an underreported fact.
From a human perspective, it is easy to understand the reluctance to face these numbers. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that millions of people have been deprived of their freedom, and millions of children have had their education gravely damaged, for little demonstrable gain. Who wants to admit that they were complicit in this? But what one American judge called the “laboratories of democracy” have conducted their experiment — and the result is increasingly clear.
Exactly why it turned out this way is harder to explain, but perhaps the “noble experiment” of the 1920s in the US can offer some clues. Prohibition didn’t end because the freedom argument prevailed. Nor was it because the substance itself had become any less harmful to people’s health. The reason for the eventual demise of the alcohol ban was that it simply didn’t work. No matter what the law said, Americans didn’t stop drinking alcohol. It simply moved from bars to “speakeasies”. People learned to brew their own spirits or smuggle it in from Canada. And the American mafia had a field day.
The mistake the American authorities made was to underestimate the complexity of society. Just because they banned alcohol did not mean that alcohol disappeared. People’s drives, desires and behaviours were impossible to predict or fit into a plan. A hundred years later, a new set of authorities made the same mistake. Closing schools didn’t stop children meeting in other settings; when life was extinguished in cities, many fled them, spreading the infection to new places; the authorities urged their citizens to buy food online, without thinking about who would transport the goods from home to home.
If the politicians had been honest with themselves, they might have foreseen what would happen. For just as American politicians were constantly caught drinking alcohol during the prohibition, their successors were caught 100 years later breaking precisely the restrictions they had imposed on everyone else. The mayors of New York and Chicago, the British government’s top advisor, the Dutch Minister of Justice, the EU Trade Commissioner, the Governor of California all broke their own rules.
It isn’t easy to control other people’s lives. It isn’t easy to dictate desirable behaviours in a population via centralised command. These are lessons that many dictators have learned. During the Covid pandemic, many democracies have learned it too. The lesson has perhaps not yet sunk in, but hopefully it will eventually. Then perhaps it will be another 100 years before we make the same mistake again.
Johan Anderberg is a journalist and author of Flocken, a bestselling history of the Swedish experience during Covid-19.
This is an edited translation of an article that first appeared in Sydsvenskan.
Wanted US Capitol insurrectionist asks Belarus for asylum
RT | November 8, 2021
An American man wanted in the US on charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds after taking part in the infamous January 6 riot in Washington is now in Belarus, and has asked Minsk to grant him asylum.
In an interview with Belarusian state media, Evan Neumann claimed that the accusations against him are “unfounded.”
Neumann is also charged with “assaulting, redirecting, or impeding” law enforcement officers and “knowingly entering or remaining in” a restricted building.
The American says he moved in March from California to Ukraine, where he stayed for four months. He claims that, after just two weeks, he saw Ukrainian Security Service officers following him, which eventually led to his decision to move to Belarus and seek asylum.
On his journey to Belarus, he trekked across swamps of northern Ukraine before reaching the border near Pinsk.
According to the FBI, Neumann was a part of the mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump that stormed the United States Capitol in Washington on January 6 this year. The attack, known commonly as ‘the insurrection’, sought to disrupt and delay the Electoral College vote count that would confirm Joe Biden’s election as the 46th US president. The rioting led directly to five deaths and has since been blamed for four police officers committing suicide.
Speaking to Belarusian TV, Neumann claimed that he was innocent.
“I’m charged, I believe, with six cases. And I think all of them are felonies. A felony is a very serious charge. It means you hurt somebody or something,” he explained. “I don’t think I committed any crime. One of the charges was very serious. The allegation is that I hit a police officer. It is completely unfounded.”
Neumann doesn’t deny that he was at the riot.
In the words of TV channel Belarus 1, Neumann “sought justice” and “asked uncomfortable questions,” and is now “being persecuted by the US government.”
According to Belarus’ Ministry of Internal Affairs, three US citizens have applied for refugee status, protection, or asylum in Belarus in 2021.
Neumann’s trek through Ukraine’s swampy forests wasn’t his first trip to the country. According to the FBI, he took part in the Western-backed Orange Revolution in 2004 and 2005, which led to a pro-NATO/anti-Russian government in Kiev.
The EU is proposing blatant mass surveillance of email and chat messages
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 8, 2021
A German member of the European Parliament is warning against EU plans to adopt new, wide-ranging mass surveillance rules that he says would seriously jeopardize citizens’ right to privacy by forcing tech companies to give access to encrypted messages to the authorities.
And that is what the laws now in the works in Brussels – that are supposed to replace temporary rules adopted in July – are designed to do, by ordering messaging and video chat providers like WhatsApp and Skype to put tech in place that would provide access to people’s private communications and, thanks to an automated system, monitor chats in real time and report suspicious content.
In a statement, MEP Patrick Breyer said that the EU commission must understand that it cannot give itself the right to intrusive surveillance of digital communication of every citizen, and do it without “specific suspicion.” He also believes EU’s policy on this issue is not only illegal and irresponsible – but also [in]effective.
As is often the case, the new intrusive regulation is being sold to the public as a way to combat sexual abuse of children, but the ramifications are much broader, while the idea of suspecting everyone in advance – making citizens “guilty until proven innocent” – doesn’t sit at all well with privacy advocates like Breyer.
Dutch MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld shed light on how dissenters on this issue are treated, revealing that they are made to feel like they are not committed to combating child abuse because they have questions critical of the proposed laws.
A number of other MEPs are opposed to the idea and speak about that openly, with some comparing the EU’s model of mass online surveillance to what is happening in China.
On his website, Breyer explained that what he refers to as “chatcontrol” is allowing the EU to have access to chats, messages and emails the providers scan in a way that is “general and indiscriminate.” He also said that building on the July regulation, the EU planned to already have expanded rules in place this fall, but that the date had to be postponed because of pushback from citizens and stakeholders.
Media outlets campaign to get Facebook to censor climate “misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 6, 2021
A series of articles have been appearing lately in Big Media, piling pressure on Facebook to step up censorship of what’s considered to be “climate misinformation” on the giant platform.
These reports published by the BBC, The Guardian, and The Verge – all citing and giving a lot of space to a study into climate-related content on Facebook produced by several fairly obscure advocacy groups – came shortly after Big Tech declared “climate misinformation” and “climate denial” to be its next censorship target.
One of these groups, “The Real Facebook Oversight Board,” announced on Twitter that it is publishing a quarterly report that documents “Facebook’s harms on climate change.”
The outfit, which states to be a part of the the-citizens.com site (that for now has a landing page and is funded, among others, by Luminate – an offshoot of billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s organization), said it was working with “Stop Funding Heat” and “Sum of Us” to produce the report.
The Verge bases its article on the “study” published on the Stop Funding Heat website, which accuses Facebook of “fact-checking” less than 4 percent of posts for climate misinformation, that is said to have increased by as much as 77% since January, to garner between about 800,000 and 1.3 million views.
“Facebook has been told over and over, through public reports and in private meetings, that its platform is a breeding ground for climate misinformation. Either they don’t care or they don’t know how to fix it,” Stop Funding Heat’s Sean Buchan is cited as stating.
“The Real Facebook Oversight Board” crops up again in a Guardian article dedicated to the same issue, which reveals that a majority of the 195 Facebook pages the activist groups analyzed mostly share memes ridiculing some politicians’ focus on climate change as a policy issue.
Facebook is singled out as being “among the world’s biggest purveyors of climate disinformation,” while the giant’s perceived inaction in censoring content skeptical of climate change is seen as harmful to the “the battle” led by the elites who gathered in Glasgow for UN’s COP26 summit.
The BBC also covered the topic of the allegedly rampant climate misinformation on Facebook, choosing to cite a study which said only 8% of the 7,000 posts they consider misleading were labeled as misinformation.
OSHA to Cover Up Vaccine Injuries by Preventing Workers’ Compensation Claims
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | November 3, 2021
As reported by Kim Iversen above, around the world people are gathering for massive protests against COVID shot mandates. In mid-September 2021, Italy became the first European country to announce the implementation of mandatory COVID-19 health passes (so-called “Green Pass”) for all workers, both public and private.
The Italian mandate took effect October 15, 2021. Residents have been protesting in the streets for months on end and there’s no sign of them letting up. Demonstrations are also taking place in The Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, Australia and France.
Even in Israel, mass protests are now taking place as it was announced Israeli’s will lose their health pass privileges unless they get a third booster shot six months after their second dose. New York City has also seen large protests in the wake of its vaccine requirement for restaurants and other public venues.
Leaders Turn a Blind Eye
Yet, despite massive protests, the push for vaccine mandates and vaccine passports that will create a two-tier society continue unabated. With few exceptions, world leaders are simply turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the fact that their residents want nothing to do with their new world order.
At the same time, government agencies charged with keeping us safe are doing the complete opposite. That includes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which President Biden has placed in charge of enforcing his unconstitutional edict that private companies with 100 employees or more must make COVID “vaccination” a requirement for employment or face fines of as much as $700,000 per incidence.1
OSHA will issue the mandate for employers as an emergency temporary standard (ETS), but as of this writing, no official mandate has actually been issued.
According to an October 18, 2021, report by PJ Media,2 OSHA has sent a draft to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. Since it’s being issued as an ETS, there will be no public comment period.
Once the OMB review is finalized, the vaccination rule will be published. Only then will the mandate actually go into effect. That said, OSHA has already amended an already existing rule in a way that will hide the true extent of the damage that this mandate will have on the American workforce.
OSHA Rule Change Covers Up Vaccine Injuries
According to OSHA rules (29 CFR 19043), employers must record and report work-related illnesses, injuries and fatalities, whether the employer was at fault or not. As reported on May 26, 2021, by employment law firm Ogletree Deakins,4 this recording requirement initially also applied to adverse reactions suffered by employees who had to get the COVID shot as a requirement for employment.
The original guidance stated that employers were required to record an employee’s adverse reaction to the COVID jab if the shot was a) work-related, 2) a new case under 29 C.F.R. 1904.6 and 3) met one or more OSHA general recording criteria set out in 29 C.F.R. 1904.7. OSHA specified that an adverse reaction to the jab would be considered “work-related” if the shot was required for employment.
Then, in late May 2021, OSHA suddenly revoked this guidance, saying it will not enforce the recording requirement if the injury or fatality involves the COVID jab, even if required for employment. The nonenforcement will remain in place through May 2022, at which time the agency will reevaluate its position.
Why would they remove the requirement to record and report vaccine injuries incurred as a result of a vaccine mandate? According to OSHA, the agency is “working diligently to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations,” “does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers’ vaccination efforts.”5,6 As reported by Ogletree Deakins:7
“There is no doubt that OSHA’s guidance created a disincentive for employers to mandate that their employees get vaccinated. With a mandatory vaccination policy, the guidance ensured that employees’ adverse reactions (with arguably little correlation to actual work-related injuries) could end up on a company’s OSHA recordkeeping logs — which could, in turn, negatively affect its insurance rates and, in some industries, its ability to bid for work.”
What Ogletree fails to address is that by not enforcing this recording requirement for COVID jab injuries, OSHA is intentionally covering up the ramifications these vaccine mandates might have on employees’ health. Meanwhile, employers are still required to record and report COVID-19 infections and COVID-19 deaths among their employees.
Federal Employees Get Special Treatment
In related news, federal employees must be fully “vaccinated” by November 22, 2021, or face the unemployment line. While coercion of this nature is abhorrent under any circumstance, federal employees at least get special treatment if they’re injured by the required jab. As reported by Stacey Lennox for PJ Media:8
“… October 1, 2021, the Federal Employee’s Compensation Act (FECA) issued a bulletin regarding coverage for vaccine injuries.9 FECA did not traditionally cover preventative measures and any resulting illness or injury. As of September 9, 2021, when President Biden announced the federal mandate, adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccination are covered.”
As indicated in FECA Bulletin No. 22-01, dated October 1, 2021:10
“… this executive order now makes COVID-19 vaccination a requirement of most Federal employment. As such, employees impacted by this mandate who receive required COVID-19 vaccinations on or after the date of the executive order may be afforded coverage under the FECA for any adverse reactions to the vaccine itself, and for any injuries sustained while obtaining the vaccination.”
“This bulletin is an interesting turn of events given previous OSHA guidance to private employers,” Lennox writes.11 Indeed, while OSHA is selectively choosing to hide the vaccine injuries of private employees, federal employees will have access to financial compensation for their vaccine injuries, over and above the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Act (CICP).12
Who Will Pay for Private Employees Injured by the Jabs?
On the whole, it’s clear that private employees will be at a distinct disadvantage in terms of compensation. If their employer requires them to get the jab to keep their job, and they get injured by it, the only recourse they have is to file a CICP claim, which is near-impossible to get. By not requiring companies to record vaccine injuries, it effectively shuts down the path for an employee to seek worker’s compensation if they’re injured by a mandated COVID jab.
“While OSHA recordability does not govern worker’s compensation, after managing both for several employers, I have never seen a compensable injury that is not OSHA recordable,” Lennox writes.13
As for CICP, in its 15-year history, it has paid out fewer than 1 in 10 claims.14,15,16 It also offers rather limited help, as you first have to exhaust your personal insurance before it kicks in to pay the difference.
Even if they can get it, CICP awards are likely to be a drop in the bucket for most people. The average award is $200,000, and compensation for fatalities are capped at $370,376.17 Meanwhile, you can easily rack up a $1 million hospital bill if you suffer a serious thrombotic event.18
Perhaps most egregious of all, it’s your responsibility to prove your injury was the “direct result of the countermeasure’s administration based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence beyond mere temporal association.”
In other words, you basically have to prove what the vaccine developer itself has yet to ascertain, seeing how you are part of their still-ongoing study. You must also pay for your own legal help and any professional witnesses you may need to support your claim.
The fact that federal workers who are injured by the mandated COVID jabs will be covered by FICA now gives unionized employees a new bargaining chip though. As noted by Lennox:19
“Without the OSHA ETS, unions would have bargained about having a vaccine mandate as a term or condition of employment at all. Now, unions should still have an opportunity for effects bargaining to ensure their members are covered if they sustain a vaccine injury.”
Recordability Guidance Must Be Changed Back
As mentioned earlier, the OSHA requirement to record vaccine injuries was scrapped because it disincentivized employers to mandate the shot. Having large numbers of injury reports can raise a company’s insurance costs. However, if OSHA is now going to require all employers with 100 or more employees to implement vaccine mandates, then most companies will be in the same boat.
Since no employer will be at a particular disadvantage, OSHA really needs to change its recordability guidance back, Lennox says, adding:20
“Private sector employees deserve the same protection as federal employees in the face of mandatory vaccines. The mandates will put a severe risk between them and their ability to earn a living for some people.
If they [employers] cave, they should be liable just as every taxpayer is now liable for a vaccine injury to a federal employee. If employers don’t want the liability, they should fight the mandate.”
Sources and References
- 1 Reuters September 13, 2021
- 2, 8, 11, 13, 19, 20 PJ Media October 18, 2021
- 3 OSHA 29 CFR 1904
- 4, 7 Ogletree.com May 26, 2021
- 5 OSHA FAQ Vaccine Related Questions
- 6 OSHA Protecting Workers, COVID-19
- 9 FECA Bulletin 2020-2024 (Archived)
- 10 FECA Bulletin No. 22-01 October 1, 2021
- 12 Congressional Research Service Legal Sidebar CICP March 22, 2021 (PDF)
- 14 Life Site News June 15, 2021
- 15 Insurance Journal August 14, 2020
- 16, 17 Insurance Journal December 29, 2020
- 18 The Defender June 2, 2021
White House Expands Vaccine Mandate To Cover 80 Million Workers
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | November 4, 2021
The White House has just released new policies requiring all companies – big and small – to coerce their workers into accepting the vaccine, or face termination, as the Biden Administration continues to up the pressure on all working Americans to get vaccinated before Jan. 4.
According to Axios, President Biden is planning to announce Thursday that employers with more than 100 workers on their payroll must guarantee that their workers are fully vaccinated, or tested weekly, by Jan. 4, 2022. If not, they could face federal fines starting at tens of thousands of dollars per offense.
What’s more, health-care workers will face even tougher restrictions which will effectively require every health-care worker in the country to be vaccinated, or lose their job, despite the fact that millions of health-care workers have already been infected with the virus by natural means.
To be sure, managing weekly testing programs for a minority of corporate employees will be extremely costly, and the ramifications of this new policy will essentially force employees for the biggest companies in the US to accept the vaccine.
Per Axios, the new rules – formally known as the COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard – will be enforced by OSHA. They will affect roughly two-thirds of America’s workforce, or roughly 80MM people. Many businesses and hospitals have already started to enforce vaccine mandates, and while Axios reports that they have seen “minimal” noncompliance, that doesn’t exactly square with the fact that less than 60% of the American population is fully vaccinated.
While corporations might be able to absorb some of these costs, small businesses will likely be left with some difficult decisions to make. However, there’s one important catch: OSHA will mostly rely on “complaints” to enforce the rule, meaning it will be up to American workers whether or not they want to hold their fellow workers accountable for defying the policy. This incentive to snitch out co-workers and neighbors has already elicited criticism from some, including Conservative Radio host Dan Bongino, who has pushed back against vaccine mandates in favor of bodily autonomy.
The strict mandate for health-care workers is already creating some problems because, while 40% of health-care businesses have purportedly already enforced the policy, the supposedly “minimal” level of noncompliance is reportedly exacerbating worker shortages at hospitals and other critical service providers.
In another indication of how companies are struggling with the mandate, some federal contractors had been expected to enforce the Biden Admin’s vaccine mandate by Dec. 8, but those expectations have now been pushed back to Jan. 4. When asked whether the pushback was due to worker shortages, or the timing of the holiday season, they refused to comment, saying only that the delay is meant to “align” with health-care facilities and US employers.
Perhaps President Biden (and VP/President-in-waiting Kamala Harris) have already forgotten the lessons of Tuesday’s “off-year” election?
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From the Archives
Sanctions, War and the Policy of Dual Containment
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | March 17, 2008
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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