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Twitter forced Dave Rubin to delete a tweet criticizing federal vaccine mandates

By Tom Parker | Reclaim the Net | July 30, 2021

Twitter locked talkshow host and author Dave Rubin out of his account and forced him to delete a tweet where he called out federal vaccine mandates and noted that people with the vaccine are getting and transmitting COVID.

“They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines that are clearly not working as promised just a few weeks ago,” Rubin said in the now-deleted tweet. “People are getting and transmitting COVID despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in a sane society.”

Twitter flagged the tweet for allegedly “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19” and ordered him to delete the tweet to regain access to his account.

But Rubin fired back by noting that the so-called misleading and potentially harmful information in the tweet echoed recent statements from President Joe Biden and the mainstream media.

“Everything I said in this tweet is true,” Rubin said. “Biden mentioned federal mandate today, the vax obviously isn’t working as intended, and Pfizer is talking booster shots.”

Rubin pointed to several mainstream media articles that agree with the points he made in the tweet including a USA Today article describing Biden’s Thursday announcement of some vaccine mandates, a Washington Post article that describes how the director of Emory Vaccine Center was Walter A. Orenstein, associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center “struck by data showing that vaccinated people who became infected with delta shed just as much virus as those who were not vaccinated,” and a CNN article about Pfizer releasing new data that supports a third booster shot.

In an interview with Fox News, Rubin described how Big Tech’s misinformation rules are only applied to certain perspectives while others get a pass.

“If they’re going to delete people for misinformation, you’d have to delete basically every single Democrat on Twitter because they all claimed that there was Russian collusion, that Trump was an agent of Russia for four years, they claimed that Brett Kavanaugh was a serial rapist, they claimed that the Covington kids were all racist, they claimed that Jussie Smollett was almost lynched, Hillary Clinton tweeted that Donald Trump was an illegitimate president, there are all endless lies from these people,” Rubin said. “Who decides what COVID misinformation is? If you’re banned for COVID misinformation, Fauci should be banned from the internet in perpetuity.”

This is the latest of many examples of independent creators being censored for posts about the coronavirus while those deemed to be “authoritative sources” by Big Tech get a pass.

Last year, numerous mainstream media outlets that are often boosted by Big Tech for supposedly being authoritative sources downplayed the coronavirus by suggesting that it’s no more dangerous than the flu and advised against wearing masks. These outlets weren’t censored by Big Tech, even after rules were introduced that expressly prohibit claims that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu or claims that wearing a face mask does not help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, independent creators or members of the public that simply debate or question these same issues are swiftly censored by the tech giants.

July 30, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

A Tale of Two Murders: George Floyd and Ashli Babbit

By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | July 24, 2021

Here’s a tale of two cops and two murders, Derek Chauvin and George Floyd, and John Doe* and Ashli Babbitt. Two cops, two unarmed citizens killed. One you care about, one you don’t. Even murder is politicized these days.

It is hard to imagine anyone needs much of a recap on Chauvin-Floyd. George Floyd, a black man, tried to pass off a counterfeit $20 bill while messed up on drugs. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and other cops responded, and in the process of restraining Floyd, killed him. Everyone has seen the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck, and as if it was a civic duty, judged for themselves whether it was appropriate, necessary, and the cause of Floyd’s death.

A jury judged those things, too, and the result was a 22.5 year sentence for Chauvin (in handing down the sentence the judge said it was justified in part because Chauvin “committed his crime in the presence of children,” who of course had gathered to help jeer at the cops.) The woman who shot the snuff video won a Pulitzer prize.

Floyd’s death set off an angry summer of violence under the rubric Black Lives Matter, as progressives shut down opposing voices and several downtowns to insist Chauvin’s actions were part of something called systemic racism reaching back as far as 1619 in unbroken lineage. Celebrities, politicians, and academics jostled each other for camera time to demand the police be defunded. You might have seen something about all this on the teevee?

There’s video of Ashli Babbitt being killed by law enforcement but it has been played by the MSM maybe 1/10,000 as often as the Floyd murder porn. Babbitt, wearing a Trump flag like a cape, was one of the rioters who were smashing the glass on the door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby of the Capitol. A plain clothes Capitol Police officer without warning fired a shot and Babbitt fell into the crowd and died. It was the only shot fired in the riot. A SWAT team just behind Babbitt saw the situation differently and never fired on her or those with her.

Like Floyd, Babbitt was unarmed. Like Floyd resisting, Babbitt was committing a crime when she was killed by a cop. Unlike Floyd, there is no question of whether she was resisting arrest because the cop never got that far. He just shot her.

In Floyd’s case, we know everything about Derek Chauvin, and saw him convicted in open court. Not so with Babbitt’s killer. Almost all police departments nationwide are required to release an officer’s name after a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which answers only to Congress. Even as Congress demands nationwide police reforms (ironically, the new, lower standards of proof proposed by H.R.1280 — George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 — would condemn the Capitol cop) they have steadfastly refused to release the name of Babbitt’s killer. In February, the Capitol Police stated they would “share additional information once an investigation is complete.” Investigators closed the case in April, cleared the unnamed officer of wrongdoing in Babbitt’s death without addressing the fact that the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, and left it at that. Stuff happens, ya know?

No trial, no public accounting, not even a name for the Babbitt family to use in filing a wrongful death suit. Because Congress exempts the Capitol Police from Freedom of Information Act requests, the family is forced to sue “for documents that identify the officer who shot Babbitt… as well as notes and summaries of what the officer said regarding the shooting and the reasons he discharged his weapon.”

They’d like more information on Babbitt’s death than the “investigation” provided. The Department of Justice simply wrote there was “insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution.” DOJ did not hide its legal fudge, which had its investigators look narrowly on a Constitutional question, not the homicide.

Without shame DOJ said it focused on 18 U.S.C. § 242, a federal criminal civil rights statute. This requires prosecutors prove the officer acted willfully to deprive Babbitt of a right protected by the Constitution, here the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizure. Prosecutors would have to prove not only that the officer used force that was constitutionally unreasonable, but that the officer did so “willfully” to deprive Babbitt of her 4A rights. That meant evidence an officer acted out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or even poor judgment cannot establish the high level of intent required. In lay terms, that’s called a set-up enroute to a cover-up.

Contrast that with the Chauvin prosecution, where prosecutors charged manslaughter, second-degree murder, and third-degree murder in the one death of George Floyd, leaving the civil rights question which saved the Capitol cop as a separate matter. That allowed prosecutors to instruct the jury (there of course was no jury in Babbitt’s case) to decide on emotion, saying “Use your common sense. Believe your eyes. What you saw, you saw.” Imagine a jury in Babbitt’s case, exposed to a looping video of her killing, acting on the same instructions. But that never happened.

No one had much to say during the Babbitt investigation. In Floyd’s case, Joe Biden said he was praying the jury would reach the “right verdict,” calling the evidence “overwhelming in my view.” Maxine Waters demanded protesters become “more confrontational” if Chauvin was acquitted. That was so blatantly inflammatory it was almost grounds for a mistrial.

The president cheers on one prosecution, remaining silent while another murder is made to go away. Cities erect monuments to George Floyd while the NYT runs gossipy articles on Babbitt’s marriage problems. Asking for justice in Floyd’s case is a duty, even if it means burning down stores. Those who want the same justice for Babbitt are mocked as QAnon cultists. Did she not also bleed?

Oh, there’s more. Floyd was only on drugs passing fake money because of racism whereas Babbitt was a seditionist, a vandal, who asked for it as certain as if she wore a mini skirt down a dark alley to taunt her rapist. Floyd’s death created a movement for change. Candidate Trump’s embrace of Ashli Babbitt as a martyr anointed “January 6 a heroic uprising” for white supremacists seeking to overthrow democracy. Absolutely no one would write of Floyd, as one MSM outlet did of Babbitt, “her death, while tragic, occurred for a very good reason. The Air Force veteran, who had been fully converted into the most dangerous and fantastical pro-Trump conspiracy theories, had joined the aggressive vanguard of the January 6 insurrection.” Bitch deserved it. The article went on to compare Babbitt’s martyrdom to “Horst Wessel, a German storm trooper killed by communists in 1930, who inspired the eponymous Nazi anthem.

Others claim Trump is liable for the death, that the answer to Who Killed Ashli Babbitt? is Trump. WaPo wrote “The death of Ashli Babbitt offers the purest distillation of Donald Trump’s view of justice,” which apparently means to them Trump supported George Floyd’s killing while mourning Babbitt’s. Daily Beast frets “If the base believes they are being prosecuted and even ‘assassinated’ [like Babbitt] they will justify anything to reject Democratic rule and future elections that deprive them of power.” Sears and Kmart apologized and pulled from sale T-shirts reading “Ashli Babbitt American Patriot” after an outcry on social media. Headlines read “Marjorie Taylor Greene provokes outrage by comparing Ashli Babbitt’s death to George Floyd’s” because Babbitt was OK-shot “while actively participating in a violent riot” and Floyd was murdered by racists.

It is difficult in the face of so much hypocrisy to find the air to comment on the state of our country. Some murders are more equal than others. Dead bodies only matter when they can be used for your sides’ political purposes. How many white conservative deaths does it take to equal one black death? Why are some cops murderers and others protected with anonymity and a free-pass investigation?

The absolute craven transparency of the progressive argument is what gives me hope. Hope that at some point enough Americans will set aside their blind Trump rage, look past the 24/7 propaganda directed at them, and come to realize even murder now only matters for the clicks it generates. Our media is happy to justify Babbitt’s death, seeing it almost in biblical terms for supporting Trump. Floyd, always just a victim of an unjust society.

Ashli Babbitt was put down for our political sins, and her killer escaped justice with the government’s help. Now ain’t that the Democratic vision of America?

———

*The Capitol Police and the Congress which controls them refuse to name the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt to death on January 6. RealClearInvestigations, however, has identified the shooter as Lieutenant Michael Byrd, a black man. Since then, CNN and others have “voluntarily” removed Byrd’s name from hearing transcripts, and his social media has been scrubbed.

July 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

New FBI Initiative Will Put “Hate Crime” Quotas On Local Law Enforcement

By Eric Striker | National Justice | July 29, 2021

The Department of Justice and the FBI have a message for local police departments: start charging more white people with hate crimes or invite an investigation.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta told an assembly of FBI agents yesterday that they are now tasked with hounding police departments in their district if they do not register any “hate crimes.”

Gupta and FBI Deputy Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division Jay Greenberg have declared “hate crimes” by “racially motivated violent extremists” (a euphemism generally reserved for right-wing white men) to be a national threat priority — a rare designation.

According to Greenberg, the FBI will be increasingly specialized in pursuing “hate crimes” through increased training in the matter, an aggressive media campaign designed to recruit victims in “underrepresented and targeted populations,” and putting federal pressure on local law enforcement to charge and report hate crimes when they otherwise wouldn’t.

Hate crimes laws are political and racially motivated. Blacks and Jews are heavily overrepresented as supposed victims in the FBI’s “hate crime” database, while whites are charged at higher rates than general crime rates. For example, last month a black man who shot five white men in a multi-state shooting spree told police his sole motive was that he hated white people, yet neither local prosecutors or the FBI have charged him with a hate crime.

According to the FBI’s 2019 hate crime report, blacks are 49% of victims of racial bias while Jews are 60% of crimes motivated by religious animosity. Most of the blacks in the data were victims of “intimidation,” an often Constitutionally dubious charge. A large number of reported hate crimes targeting both blacks and Jews are hoaxes, as seen in famous cases like the Jussie Smollett incident and the thousands of bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers that were the work of a Jew in Israeli.

Just yesterday, a white man was charged with “ethnic intimidation” for putting up stickers that say “I Love Being White.” The FBI wants more police departments to exploit the legal gray area and lack of First Amendment advocacy groups for white dissidents to juke crime statistics and distort the reality of crime. Blacks commit roughly 90% of violent interracial felonies, a statistic the Critical Race Theorists at the FBI find inconvenient.

The mad rush for white racists at the FBI is bound to cause more embarrassments for the increasingly discredited agency. Last year, the theater put on by the FBI over NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s “noose,” which turned out to be a hoax, served to reveal the hyper-politicization and lack of seriousness at the Bureau.

July 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook bans English Historian YouTuber Tom Rowsell

By Christina Maas | Reclaim the Net | July 28, 2021

A British historian, filmmaker, and writer announced he and his wife have been permanently banned from Facebook without explanation or warning. The historian speculated that he was banned for what the social media platform suspects him of thinking.

“My wife and I both just had our facebook pages deleted without warning, or reason given nor is there an option to appeal,” Tom Rowsell posted on his Patreon account. “There was nothing on there that went against community standards. The page had no strikes at all. They have given up all pretence of reason, and are just unpersoning people without reason.”

Rowsell, born 1985, is a writer, filmmaker, and historian known for his 2014 film From Runes to Ruins and his YouTube channel “Survive the Jive,” that focuses on history.

The channel has over 139,000 subscribers, and he describes it as an initiative whose focus is the “religions of ancient Europe’.” and to examine the “linguistics, genetics, anthropology and other disciplines in order to gain insights into ancient peoples.”

Speaking to MRC Free Speech America, Rowsell said the ban would have a negative impact on his business and the social life of him and his wife.

“The page was very helpful for me to raise awareness of my video content and was therefore part of my business. It had no community strikes or objectionable content on it,” Rowsell said.

He further explained: “This will inevitably negatively impact my earnings but also my social life and that of my wife who uses that platform to stay in touch with her family in Sweden.”

Speculating why he was banned, Rowsell said: “I think this has social implications since I am only posting about historical subjects and not the controversial topics of immigration and vaccines that normally get people banned. I may be the first person banned not for what [I] have said, but for what they suspect me to think. Obviously this isn’t as big a deal as when they banned the President, but can be seen as a next step in their steady decline into totalitarian censorship.”

July 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The real pandemic is everyone doing as they are told

By Michael Driver | The Conservative Woman | July 29, 2021

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

– Henry David Thoreau

WE LIVE in the age of the oxymoron. Diversity means everyone thinks the same. Tolerance means the vicious exclusion of anyone who doesn’t. Levelling up is literally exacerbating inequality to medieval levels. Freedom passports means you require papers to watch football. Vaccines don’t prevent the infection or transmission of disease. Democracy is the imposition of new laws and policies no one voted for. Journalism is propaganda. Modern Monetary Theory means effect before cause, the ‘wet pavements cause rain’ branch of economics. Education is the process of removing information rather than importing it. That you don’t think but repeat is more important than that you learn and grow. Asymptomatic transmission means the healthy can infect the immunised. Sociopaths are philanthropists. Virtue signalling is camouflage for a collapse in morality. The green new deal is neither green, new or a deal. Environmentalists means a collection of the world’s most polluting corporations. Climate change policies are any act which preserves the most extreme forms of exploitation. War is peace, freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Owning nothing is happiness, as Orwell might have added if he were around today. Probably on social media (another oxymoron, they’re hard to escape).

A parlour game for this age of absurdity is to see how many of these logical inversions you can think of. Now I want to head in a different direction and consider two questions: What is the effect of collective cognitive dissonance? Where will it lead us?

I believe the effect of collective cognitive dissonance is the mass abdication of responsibility to authority. When something becomes impossible to understand or reconcile, the natural human instinct is to rely on authority figures – to herd. When people feel intense insecurity they abdicate freedom for perceived safety.

According to psychologist Erich Fromm (1900-1980): ‘Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking – and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority.’

Fromm described the concept of automaton conformity as ‘changing one’s ideal self to conform to a perception of society’s preferred type of personality, losing one’s true self in the process’. Fromm described the desire to subsume the self into the herd.

The human species now sounds like a herd of animals with the relentless repetition of alliterative phraseology: for build back better I hear moo moo moo, new normal baa baaa etc. A cacophony of mindless agreement is expressed as poetic assonance: ‘double jabbed’, we yabber at each other like a flock of jabbering birds. Another parlour game for the next lockdown is to list all the new terms and phrases which sound like advertising slogans or neuro-linguistic programming. Why the repetition? Why the repetition?

The real pandemic is everyone thinking the same, a culture so mono it feels as if ISIS won. So why is this conformity reckless?

The width of the edge is what really matters in society. Too wide and we have anarchism, too narrow totalitarianism. Mass conformity is the mechanism of totalitarianism, it is the most reckless act. Progress is always ground up, never top down. All the good stuff happens at the edge. Great art is never produced by corporations. Scientific discoveries take place in patent offices, medical breakthroughs in dirty Petri dishes, great music is made by the unemployed, entrepreneurs succeed via repeated failure. Mandela didn’t change the world from Davos. The moment the pressure on de Klerk forced him to widen the edge, the idea of freedom nursed by Mandela blossomed like a giant protea. The campaigners for women’s suffrage were on the edge of society. Nothing changes from the middle. A third game might be to look around you and list everything born of the maverick. Start with the device you’re most likely reading this article on and work your way out.

Returning to the Thoreau quote at the top of this piece: mavericks need space to dance to a different tune. The edge needs to be just wide enough. ‘And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music,’ as Nietzsche might have said. Reckless conformists hear only one note, mavericks the whole range. Think of us as the control group.

July 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Vive la Vaccination Revolution!

By Richard Ings | The Conservative Woman | July 29, 2021

IN THE early hours of Monday, and with fewer than half of MPs present in the Chamber of Deputies, France’s parliament voted into law some of the most draconian legislation since the Second World War Vichy régime, which will shortly see unvaccinated citizens run out of restaurants, chased out of cafés and barred from bars. They will no longer be allowed on long-distance public transport and, as I reported two weeks ago, (Farewell, Liberté | The Conservative Woman ) will not be permitted to enter hospitals either as visitors or patients (an exemption was eventually made for ‘emergency admissions’). Health workers have until mid-September to get the vaccine or face dismissal.

The list of venues in France where a ‘health pass’ will be demanded is already extensive, broadly covering all leisure from sports centres to cinemas, and even weddings on public property (all must take place in the town hall to be legally recognised). Amendments from MPs to  limit the scope of the pass – including one to rule out extending it to polling stations – were rejected, meaning that any ‘public place’ could, as deemed necessary, become subject to restrictions (and if it’s already going to happen in hospitals then who knows what will be next?)

Encouragingly, popular resistance to the new measures is growing. Anecdotally, many bars and restaurants are refusing to check health passes. A railworkers’ union has told its members not to check passengers’ health passes and has promised to strike if any of its members are sacked for not having one themselves. A Lyons hospital is going on indefinite strike from Thursday to protest against the pass, and the compulsory-vaccination-in-all-but-name of its staff.

An official estimate (on the low side) put demonstrator numbers on Saturday July 24 at 161,000 nationwide, about 50 per cent more than the previous Saturday, and marches are being planned for this Saturday and in the interim. Despite the measures being introduced when traditionally at least half of the country is on holiday (in other words, a good time to bring in a bad law), more than a third of French people polled said they supported last weekend’s protests.

The government is clearly feeling the pressure. Olivier Véran, the Health Minister, unfeelingly dismissed a social media video of a nurse in tears because she would have to leave her job if forced to take a vaccination as ‘unrepresentative of the profession’. President Macron, visiting French Polynesia at the weekend, waded into the debate, flanked by dozens of masked hospital workers, and gruffly asserted that there was ‘no such thing as freedom without duty’. ‘If you infect me, I’m the victim of your freedom,’ he claimed, while dismissing protesters as ‘selfish’ and ‘irrational’.

Worryingly, if not untypically, the main opposition is trying to take the government in an equally authoritarian direction. The president of the Paris region and potential presidential candidate, Valerie Pécresse, is one of many arguing that the way around a divisive health pass is to make the vaccination obligatory for everyone. That she cannot see that this is the de facto goal of the health pass, and the outcome of her own proposal would also be social division, simply reflects the poverty of mainstream political leadership in the country.

Thankfully, France has a vigorous tradition of popular protest which now and again turns insurrectionary. Macron’s state troopers had to deal with months and months of Yellow Vest protests throughout 2019, which it used military-grade weaponry to put down, ultimately exhausting the movement physically. But though that patriotic, democratic rebellion has been through the wringer, it’s not quite ready to be hung out to dry, and popped up to co-ordinate marches on Saturday in Paris and in dozens of towns up and down the country. Meanwhile, Frexiteer Florian Philippot (who advocates France leaving the EU) had his own, substantial Paris rally, and the Left-wing, selective defender of civil rights, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has lent support to the anti-vaccine passport cause from within and without Parliament, meaning the government is getting hit from all sides.

Unity between these diverse groups may be a pipe dream, but the shared determination to stand up for individual freedom could end up a powerful motivating force towards overcoming division, as it was during the years of the French Resistance. For now, may each dissenter find the protest that suits him best and aux armes, citoyens!

July 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden Denounces Crack While Hunter Smokes Pipe For Breakfast

Where’s the media coverage?

By Steve Watson | Summit News | July 28, 2021

A split screen video of Joe Biden speaking in favour of harsh punishments for possessing crack cocaine while his son Hunter Biden smokes a pipe for breakfast has gone viral. Meanwhile there is zero media coverage of the latest embarrassing footage to emerge.

The footage of Joe Biden dates from 1991, but has been placed alongside a newly unearthed video of Hunter Biden smoking crack after having an argument with his dead brother’s wife, who he was also reportedly having an affair with.

Here’s the side by side video:

Here’s the original Hunter Biden footage:

https://twitter.com/Saintjock2/status/1419074699473035268?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1419074699473035268%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsummit.news%2F2021%2F07%2F28%2Fviral-video-joe-biden-denounces-crack-while-hunter-smokes-pipe-for-breakfast%2F

Many have pointed out that this footage should really be newsworthy, but there hasn’t been a peep from the establishment gatekeepers.

July 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Nigeria cleric Zakzaky, wife acquitted of all charges, freed from jail

Press TV – July 28, 2021

A court in Nigeria’s central state of Kaduna has acquitted Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, and his wife of all the charges levelled against the duo.

The trial at the Kaduna State High Court started on May 15, 2018 and dragged on for over three years. The high court issued its final verdict on Wednesday, Ishaq Adam Ishaq, their lawyer, said in a statement.

They were released from detention following the ruling, he added.

“At last, we defeated them. we won,” hailed the legal representative, adding, “They have gained their freedom. They are now freed and with us.”

Zakzaky and his wife, Mallimah Zeenat, were standing trial in the court on an eight-count charge of alleged culpable homicide, disruption of public peace and unlawful assembly among others levelled against them by the Kaduna state government.

They had pleaded not guitly.

In December 2015, Nigeria’s military launched a crackdown as part of a deadly state-ordered escalation targeting the movement that Abuja has branded as illegal.

The campaign saw the troops attacking Zakzaky’s residence in the town of Zaria in Kaduna, afflicting him and his wife with serious injuries that reportedly caused the cleric to lose his left eye.

During the crackdown, the military also attacked the movement’s members as they were holding religious processions, with the government alleging that the Muslims had blocked a convoy of the country’s defense minister.

The movement has categorically rejected the allegation, and said the convoy had intentionally crossed paths with the IMN’s members to whip up an excuse to attack them.

The violence led to the death of three of Zakzaky’s sons and more than 300 of his followers.

The couple were kept in custody despite a 2016 ruling by Nigeria’s federal high court that ordered their release from prison.

Amid the long-drawn-out jail term, the couple were allowed to leave for India for medical purposes. Their stay was, however, reportedly plagued by the state’s interference aimed at preventing them from receiving proper medical treatment.

The couple’s freedom came following tireless activism on the part of Nigeria’s Shia faithful and repeated damning reports about their situation by international human rights bodies.

July 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

What’s Decent About Torture, Assassination, and Secret Surveillance?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 28, 2021

In a Los Angeles Times editorial predictably hyping up the extreme danger to “national security” arising from the January 6 Capitol protests, the Times quotes Capitol police officer Harry Dunn as saying, “We represent the good side of America, the people who believe in decency.”

Really?

So tell us, Officer Dunn, what is decent about the following actions of the U.S. government:

1. The torture center and prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
2. The indefinite detention of people at Guantanamo Bay without charges or trial.
3. The denial of trial by jury in terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay.
4. The use of evidence acquired by torture at Guantanamo Bay.
5. The use of confessions acquired by torture at Guantanamo Bay.
6. The use of hearsay to secure convictions in terrorism “trials” at Guantanamo Bay.
7. The secret monitoring of communications between attorney and detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
8. The torture of people at the hands of U.S. officials in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the world.
9. The intentional destruction of videotapes depicting the torture of people at the hands of U.S. officials.
10. The invasion, occupation, and war of aggression against Iraq, a country that had never invaded or attacked the United States.
11. The invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting 20-year destruction of life and property.
12. The secret mass surveillance of the American people.
13. The secret illegal surveillance partnerships with American telecoms.
14. The sanctions against the people of Iraq, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
15. U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions, while difficult, were “worth it.”
16. The decades-old embargo against Cuba, which has been a major factor in the suffering of the Cuban people.
17. The sanctions against Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, and other countries, with the aim of causing death and suffering among the citizenry to achieve regime change.
18. Trade wars against China and other nations.
19. MKULTRA.
20. The invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
21. Coups and invasions for the purpose of regime change, including against democratically elected foreign presidents and prime ministers.
22. State-sponsored assassinations and executions, including of American citizens, along with cover-ups of such assassinations.
23. Official lies, including under oath.
24. The secret hiring of Nazis to secretly serve the U.S. government.
25. COINTELPRO.
26. The “war on terrorism.”
27. Secret illegal surveillance of American officials and American citizens for the purpose of blackmailing them.
28. The racist war on drugs, along with civil asset forfeiture, mandatory minimum sentences, and deadly no-knock raids.
29. The war on immigrants, which has brought untold death and suffering to countless people.
30. The immigration Berlin Wall along America’s southern border.
31. The immigration police state along America’s southern border, including domestic highway checkpoints, warrantless searches of farms and ranches, boarding of Greyhound buses to check people’s papers, and violent raids on American businesses.
32. The unexplained killing of Ashli Babbit during the January 6 Capitol protests.
33. Soaring federal spending and debt.
34. Waco and Ruby Ridge.
35. The undeclared Vietnam War.
36. The undeclared Korean War.
37. Inciting crises and new official enemies to justify ever-increasing budgets for the national-security establishment and its army of “defense” contractors.
38. The Federal Reserve and decades of monetary debauchery and debasement.
39. The IRS.
40. The persecution and prosecution of people who disclose the evil and sordid dark-side secrets of the U.S. government.

Pray tell, Officer Dunn: Is all this the official “decency” to which you refer?

July 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

New York Times reporter deletes tweets calling Trump supporters ‘enemies of the state’

By Graham Dockery | RT | July 28, 2021

New York Times reporter Katie Benner has deleted a series of tweets calling Trump supporters “enemies of the state.” Benner called the tweets “wrongly worded,” but her sentiment is largely shared by the state itself.

As a Democrat-run committee investigating the pro-Trump riot on Capitol Hill in January got underway on Tuesday, viewers were treated to garish tales of violence and tears from lawmakers who lamented the “dark day” they experienced in January. Portrayed by Republican leadership as a “sham” that “no-one will believe,” the hearing evidently worked as intended on New York Times journalist Katie Benner.

Midway through the proceedings, Benner angrily called for the US’ national security apparatus to target supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“Today’s #January6thSelectCommittee underscores America’s current, essential natsec dilemma: Work to combat legitimate national security threats now entails calling a politician’s supporters enemies of the state,” she tweeted.

“As Americans, we believe that state power should not be used to work against a political figure or a political party. But what happens if a politician seems to threaten the state? If the politician continues to do so out of office and his entire party supports that threat?” she continued.

Benner apparently viewed Trump and his supporters as a “threat” long before January 6, as she pointed out that two impeachments and the ‘Russiagate’ investigation had left this “dilemma… unresolved.”

Benner’s tweets triggered an avalanche of criticism from the right, and she later deleted them, claiming that they had been “unclearly worded.”

Benner’s sentiment is shared by the Biden administration and its security apparatus, though they speak of “extremists” rather than “Trump supporters.” The Democratic Party and its spokespeople have painted January 6 as an “insurrection,” a “coup,” and “domestic terrorism” for the last six months, and these words have been translated into policy. The White House’s new domestic terrorism strategy, for example, focuses heavily on the supposed threat posed by the right, and lists the “attack” on the US Capitol alongside mass shootings in Pittsburgh and El Paso. The strategy promises increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and states that the federal government will work closer with the tech industry to combat “extremist content” and “disinformation and misinformation.”

Meanwhile, right-wingers deemed extremists are being purged from military and law enforcement ranks, participants in the January 6 riot are being detained in allegedly brutal conditions with court dates at least six months off, and the FBI is encouraging Americans to turn in family members for “homegrown violent extremism.” Concurrently, the Capitol Police – a force immune from Freedom of Information Act requests – is expanding its operations beyond Washington and purchasing military-grade surveillance equipment for use on Americans.

Benner is not the only journalist to openly call on the state to target Trump’s supporters. ABC News has called for “cleansing the movement” Trump created, a lawyer for PBS suggested that the former president’s “stupid” supporters be sent to “re-education camps,” and former FBI assistant director turned MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi has called for the arrest of pro-Trump Republicans in Congress “in order to really tackle terrorism.”

It is unclear whether Benner deleted her tweets at the direction of the Times or of her own accord. However, back in 2018 the newspaper denounced Trump for referring to journalists as “enemies of the people,” saying that such terminology could “lead to violence” against the media. At time of writing, the Times has not condemned Benner’s tweets, or warned that they could lead to violence against Trump supporters.

July 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Google sues Germany over “hate speech” laws

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim the Net | July 28, 2021

Google has announced legal action against new provisions in Germany’s hate speech law, which the tech giant claims violates its users’ privacy rights. The law mandates online platforms to provide law enforcement with the personal details of the person(s) behind accounts accused of posting or sharing hateful content.

Google announced the legal action through YouTube’s blog. The company is taking issue with new provisions in Germany’s Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), which took effect in April this year.

The NetzDG was introduced in early 2018 to protect Germans from so-called online “hate speech.” The law requires social media platforms to be responsible for monitoring “hateful” content, and share regular updates of their compliance.

Earlier this year, Germany’s parliament expanded the law to introduce new provisions. Now, online platforms are required to reveal the details of individuals accused of sharing hateful content with federal law enforcement.

The law has not only been criticized by social media companies, but also opposition political parties and the European Commission.

“In our opinion, this massive interference with the rights of our users is not only in conflict with data protection, but also with the German constitution and European law,” Sabine Frank, YouTube’s regional head of public policy, wrote in the blog post.

Per the blog post, Google feels that sharing the personal data of its users with the police “is only possible after a detailed examination by a court and a judicial confirmation.”

Frank added: “For us, the protection of our users’ data is a central concern. We have therefore decided to have the relevant obligations of the legislative package examined by the Cologne Administrative Court as part of a declaratory action.”

Elsewhere in the European region, UK’s media regulator Ofcom announced on Tuesday the appointment of Anna-Sophie Harling for the position of online safety principal. She would be responsible for tackling misinformation and harmful content on online platforms.

Harling holds the position of Europe region’s managing director at NewsGuard Technologies, a company that specializes in auditing the accuracy of online news publishers. Her appointment comes in anticipation of the approval of the Online Safety Bill, which will give Ofcom authority to police content on online platforms.

July 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment