Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Life Will Be Very Different For The Have Jabs & The Have Nots

By Richie Allen | July 10, 2021

The Times newspaper is claiming this morning, that vaccine passports or covid certificates will be a condition of entry to pubs nightclubs and restaurants this Autumn. The paper reports:

Entertainment venues in England would be forced to make customers use so-called vaccination passports from autumn, to prove that they had either had both doses or a negative test the day before.

Recent figures have shown a reduction in the take-up of vaccines with first doses halving in two weeks. Fewer than 100,000 a day are being given out on average for the first time since April.

The government will justify the draconian measure by claiming that it is necessary to prevent a fourth wave of coronavirus overwhelming the NHS this Winter.

Government ministers have told The Times that by mid-September all over-18’s will have had the chance to be double jabbed. According to The Times :

Another government figure added: “If we can show real benefits of getting vaccinated in terms of everyday life then it could be quite a useful tool.”

I did call this early last year, before anyone had ever heard of a vaccine passport. I said that in the very near future people would need to prove that they were safe in order to travel or to socialise.

When vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said that the UK wasn’t “the sort of country to introduce such measures,” I said he was lying. It’s open tyranny now. Yet there will be very little outrage and lots of compliance.

This isn’t a dystopian novel. It’s life now. Your government is telling you that unless you submit yourself for regular injections and constant testing, you cannot leave the country and are forbidden to socialise.

Life will be very different for the have jabs and the have nots. If I thought that they would leave the have nots alone, I could live with it. But they won’t. The coercion will continue. They will not accept that we won’t surrender to the jab.

The question is, how far will they go?

July 10, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish FBI Agent Infiltrates Bible Study Group; Then Tries to Entrap Its Members

By Eric Striker | National Justice | July 7, 2021

The family of 27-year-old Fi Duong thought they escaped government oppression when they left Vietnam. They were wrong.

According to an FBI criminal complaint, Duong has been closely surveilled by the FBI for the past six months, including while he engaged in religious activity.

In conversations with undercover FBI agents, Duong held that he entered the Capitol on January 6th to film the events in a journalistic capacity. The man was a member of a Virginia-based Bible study group that Jewish Joint Terrorism Task Force special agent Jason Jankovitz decided to open up a domestic terror probe into.

Agents repeatedly tried and failed to snare Duong into a Molotov cocktail plot because he owned multiple empty glass bottles. They were not able to charge him for any explosives related crimes, but the New York Times and various other outlets are reporting him as a terrorist anyway.

Feds At Bible Study

According to Jankovitz, Duong popped up on the FBI’s radar after an undercover Metropolitan police officer made contact with him outside the Capitol on January 6th.

A week later, the MPD officer introduced Duong to an undercover FBI agent, who he invited to a Bible study group he attended in Alexandria, Virginia. The suspect expressed anguish over the fact that his family fled persecution in Vietnam in hopes of obtaining freedom in the United States, only to now be subjected to similar oppression in America for his patriotic beliefs.

At the house, the FBI agents participated in discussions about the Bible and the group of friends also shot firearms together. The criminal complaint also describes plans to improve their driving skills and train together in martial arts.

Outside of telling group members that he had entered the Capitol to film as a journalist, description of an instance where he had infiltrated an Antifa event, and discussions of Virginia peacefully seceding from the United States, there was nothing in the group that justified federal agents spying on them.

Failed Attempts At Entrapment

Multiple agents began isolating members and trying to talk them into behavior that could be construed as a domestic terror plot.

Judging from the affidavit, Duong was meticulously law abiding. He discussed plans to obtain a suppressor for his rifle but only after filing the proper paper work with the ATF, for example. The complaint against Duong focuses heavily on his political criticisms of Antifa, Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Party, but does not describe any activity that could be prosecuted as criminal.

After noticing a box of empty glass bottles in the suspect’s home, agents began pressuring him to make Molotov Cocktails.

While creating the contraption — a glass bottle filled with gasoline and ignited with a rag to make a small fire — for entertainment value does not strike most people as a serious crime, federal prosecutors on a political mission have in the past charged making Molotov cocktails as the same thing as building an actual bomb.

Last June, two FBI agents pressured Duong into trying to build Molotov cocktails to test them out in West Virginia. The suspect then changed his mind last minute. He told the two undercover agents that he wanted to obtain permission from the ATF to construct the explosive device before actually doing it.

The agents soon peer pressured him into another attempt, this time at an abandoned prison in Fairfax County, which the FBI could use to dump serious charges on the man.

He was picked up in an undercover FBI vehicle and the men engaged in “reconnaissance.” At the site, Duong was recorded telling the agents that he liked the idea, but would seek to get formal permission from the state before testing the devices near the facility.

Ultimately, the undercover agents got frustrated and decided to charge him for trespassing at the Capitol. In spite of this, the FBI complaint features the phrase “Molotov cocktail” over 24 times, which is an attempt to paint the suspect as a dangerous criminal when he appears before a judge.

It should be noted that an FBI criminal complaint is merely a narrative constructed by the agent authoring it, and should thus be taken with a grain of salt.

Even as the only information available to the public at the moment, there are already serious civil rights and freedom of religion questions, including in respects to bias and hate when it comes to a federal agent of Jewish ancestry deciding to target men of the Christian faith for surveillance while they engage in fellowship and worship.

July 9, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

In Germany, burning the Israeli flag is a problem, but killing Palestinians isn’t

By Motasem A Dalloul | MEMO | July 6, 2021

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll met with the German Ambassador, Susanne Wasum-Rainer, on Monday along with visiting German parliamentarians. Roll thanked the German guests for their country’s strong support for Israel during its major military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza from 10-21 May.

Germany’s unlimited support and cooperation make it a special friend of Israel. Among EU members it is the second-biggest supplier of weapons to the occupation state. Between 2009 and 2020, 24 per cent of Israel’s arms imports came from Germany.

When Israel treats international law, human rights, democratic principles, and liberal beliefs with contempt, Germany automatically takes its side, even when the result is the killing of innocent children and women. During the latest Israeli offensive, Germany supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” although it was killing civilians and destroying civilian buildings and infrastructure. The fact that an occupying state has no right to claim “self-defence” against the people under occupation was ignored by the Germans.

On 12 May, a German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, refused to condemn Israel’s killing of 14 Palestinian children. He referred to the legitimate Palestinian resistance as “terrorist attacks” and that the resistance groups had to stop their action against Israel so that “people do not die”.

Seibert ignored the Israeli warplanes pounding the besieged Gaza Strip. He ignored the Israeli tanks firing indiscriminately towards densely-populated areas across Gaza. He ignored weeks of Israeli harassment and attacks on Palestinians worshipping in Al-Aqsa Mosque throughout Ramadan, and the residents of Jerusalem facing attacks by illegal settlers, which prompted the resistance groups to act. He ignored all of that.

On the same day, the deputy spokesman of the German Foreign Ministry, Christofer Burger, angered journalists when he said that the Palestinians had no right to self-defence. His claim that this right is only guaranteed by international law to sovereign states and Palestinians are not a state was palpable nonsense. All people living under occupation, collectively and individually, have the right to defend themselves and resist military occupation. Israel’s occupation of Palestine is a military occupation.

On day ten of the Israeli offensive, when the occupation state had killed 66 children, 40 women, and 16 elderly people out of 266 Palestinians killed in total, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insisted that, “Germany stands with Israel and its right to defend itself.” He even visited Israel to prove that his country’s support was not limited to words. “I came to Israel to show solidarity and support Israel. Israel’s security and that of the Jewish residents here are not negotiable.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin, Germany on June 23, 2021 [Abdulhamid Hoşbaş/Anadolu Agency]

German FM Heiko Maas, June 23, 2021 [Abdulhamid Hoşbaş/Anadolu Agency]

Two days earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and “sharply condemned the continued rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and assured the prime minister of the German government’s solidarity.” She showed great interest in Israel’s security and safety of its people and condemned only the legitimate Palestinian resistance.

Germany’s verbal support for Israeli brutality and aggression against the Palestinians was backed up by officials who claimed that peaceful protests during which Palestinian flags were flown and anti-Israel slogans were chanted were “anti-Semitic”. Calls for Israel to be held accountable for its breaches of international law were described as “hate speech”.

According to Seibert, “Anyone who uses such protests to shout out their hatred of Jews is abusing the right to protest [in Germany].” He described the pro-Palestine protests which raised awareness about the ongoing Israeli crimes as “anti-Semitic rallies”, and stressed that they “will not be tolerated by our democracy.”

During a debate in the German parliament during the Israeli offensive on Gaza, Maas condemned the pro-Palestine demonstrations and called for a violent crackdown on them. “There shouldn’t be one centimetre of space for anti-Semitism on our streets. Never again.”

Germany has since banned the Hamas flag in the country in response to pro-Palestine demonstrations. “We do not want the flags of terrorist organisations to be waved on German soil,” Thorsten Frei, a lawmaker for Merkel’s CDU, told Die Welt. A ban, he added, would send “a clear signal to our Jewish citizens.”

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Israeli daily Haaretz that Germany believes that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories because of the “absence of the Palestinian state”. Germany is not only unconcerned about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, but also does not even want those crimes to be investigated. Palestine was, of course, granted the status of a “non-member observer state” by the UN in November 2012, a move described as “de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine”.

Writing in Open Democracy, activist and sociologist Inna Michaeli said that Germans are against the entirely peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which seeks to end the Israeli occupation. Moreover, apparently, they do not like to hear anyone accusing Israel of killing children, despite this being “a description of horrendous reality — one in three Palestinians that Israel kills in Gaza are children.”

She asked rhetorically: “What should people chant when Israel is killing children? How can the victims express their rage and sorrow, how can they mourn their children who are killed again and again by Israel?”

Even the German mainstream media ignores Israeli brutality against the Palestinians. “Much of the mainstream media coverage of Nakba Day demonstrations did not even mention nor explain to the readers what the Nakba is, and its continuation in the form of ethnic cleansing and denial of Palestinians’ right to return,” Michaeli pointed out. “Berlin, with the largest Palestinian population in Europe, is home to people whose family members have been murdered by Israel in recent days. These protests are often framed as ‘anti’ Israel, but the fact that they are primarily ‘for’ Palestinian life is omitted.”

Omri Boehm is an Israeli philosophy lecturer in New York. “Whenever one attempts to raise this subject, one is immediately accused of anti-Semitism,” he noted. “It is impossible to simply state the facts. For example, that within Israel’s borders, three million Palestinians live under brutal military law without being recognised as Israeli citizens. The Germans do not want to see this.”

When pro-Palestine protesters burned an Israeli flag in Germany, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer described the act as “anti-Semitic” and said that Germany would crack down hard on anyone found to be spreading “anti-Semitic hatred” because “We will not tolerate Israeli flags burning on German soil.”

Commenting on this, Michaeli said: “Israeli flags matter, Palestinian lives do not. When people, politicians, and the media, care more about the burning of national flags than the burning of homes and neighbourhoods and the killing of entire families, they should really have a hard look at themselves.”

German support for Israel goes back to the early 1950s when reparations were paid to the state as the “heir” to the Holocaust victims who had no known surviving family. Billions of German marks and euros have been handed over in the intervening decades, helping to build Israel as a state. The fact that this is largely to the detriment of the people of occupied Palestine has, shamefully, been lost on successive German governments. Those parliamentarians who met Israeli officials earlier this week need to be educated about international laws and conventions, and the reality of Israel’s brutal military occupation which they and their colleagues in Berlin endorse so willingly.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

A Country That Has Lost Its Way: U.S. Government and Corporations Combine to Strip Citizens of Their Rights

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 8, 2021

The American people have increasingly become aware that government surveillance and corporate censorship have combined to keep people ignorant and controlled. What is taking place has generated some dark humor. A friend of mine, also a former CIA officer, wrote to me recently and said tongue-in-cheek that he retains a lot of respect for the Agency because it is the only major government national security entity that does not read our mail and emails. Those jobs are the responsibility of the NSA and FBI. I responded that I would imagine that CIA does in fact read quite a lot of mail where it operates overseas but it is probably done the old-fashioned way by recruiting an underpaid mail clerk as an agent.

The whole issue of the government spying illegally on its own citizens has again made the news with the claims by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that NSA has been spying on him, presumably because he has connections that the government regards either as subversive or, in the new reckoning, as “extremists” who are potential “domestic terrorists.” Given the reasonable assumption that anyone who voted for Donald Trump might well fall under those categories, that means that something like half the U.S. population could be under suspicion.

Mass electronic surveillance of literally trillions of phone calls and messages worldwide without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment restrictions on searches without probable cause or a proper warrant issued by a judge has been the regular NSA authorized procedure at least since 9/11 and there is no reason to assume that it is no longer the practice. It basically is initiated by the agency involved (normally NSA or FBI) going to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court or to some other appropriate judge to get a warrant on an individual where there is some probable cause. Probable cause can consist of “someone searching the web for suspicious stuff.” The Court then gives its approval, which it does in the case of FISA 99% of the time. When that individual is then surveilled, the names of his or her contacts are also added to the investigation. And it goes on from there, expanding and growing until it includes thousands of phone numbers and email addresses, individuals who are overwhelmingly innocent of any wrongdoing.

So, it is safe to assume that many of us are right at this moment eligible for being monitored electronically by the federal government. If one combines that with the Biden Administration’s June 1st announcement of a war on “domestic terrorism,” which it clearly considers to be a function of “white supremacists,” it is easy to see where all that is going. Biden pulled no punches, describing the threat from “white supremacy” as the “most lethal threat to the homeland today,” so that would mean that the government is doing all in its power to stamp it out, whatever it takes and whatever that means.

Surveilling ordinary Americans for what they might be thinking, which is what this comes down to, would be a George Orwellian 1984 tale for our times, updated from when Winston Smith was doing mandatory daily exercises in front of his television set. He slacked off a bit and the TV instantly admonished him. He then wondered whether it was possible that he and all the other residents of Airstrip One (once called Britain) are surveilled all the time. He concluded that they were.

So, if your television set suddenly speaks to you in the next few months, it might not be Alexa. The other development that has surfaced in the past couple of weeks is the increased corporate cooperation with what the government is saying and doing. Mainstream media has certainly done its share of obfuscation, including the current near total suppression of the story that a key witness who provided false testimony against journalist Julian Assange languishing in a British prison has turned out to be a pedophile, diagnosed sociopath and serial liar. But the major player is inevitably social media, which has enormous power in the United States and also elsewhere to shape opinions and propagate false information that serves the government agenda. The media has banned numerous groups, individuals, and links to sites from its pages, a barrier to free speech and freedom of expression. And it has, for example, enthusiastically cooperated fully with the essentially fraudulent government claims of Russian interference in the two most recent U.S. elections. It is censoring or denigrating material that is at variance with official policies, including, for example, Facebook’s pop-ups that appear whenever there is any article that contests the approved version of the response to the COVID virus.

Back in June, the Biden administration said it would also be working with some of the large high-technology and social media companies to “increase information sharing” to assist in combatting radicalization. Biden announced that his Justice Department would create ways for Americans to report radicalized friends and family to the government. One senior official put it this way: “We will work to improve public awareness of federal resources to address concerning or threatening behavior before violence occurs… If you see something, say something. This involves creating contexts in which those who are family members or friends or co-workers know that there are pathways and avenues to raise concerns and seek help for those who they have perceived to be radicalizing and potentially radicalizing towards violence.”

In other words, in plain English, the Biden Administration is calling on Americans to spy on friends, neighbors and family and reporting any “extremist” views to the authorities. Well, Facebook is now fully on board with more of the same, engaged in the “hot” war against the “white supremacists/extremists/domestic terrorists.” It has blocked or shut down many former contributors and also begun posting at least two versions of warnings to users. One targets individuals who might have personally been visiting an “extremist” site while the other encourages users to snitch on friends or family who might be enticed by such material. The personalized pop-up reads as follows: “[Name of Recipient], you many have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently – Violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment. You can take action now to protect yourself and others.-Get support from experts-Spot the signs, understand the dangers of extremism and hear from people who escaped violent groups.”

The snitch on friends version reads: “Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?-We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support. How you can help. Hear stories and get advice from people who escaped violent extremist groups-Get support.”

To be sure, one has to ask how Facebook knows that one has visited an “extremist” site since they have blocked such material. Are they somehow hacking into the personal accounts of their own users? The situation is dire, no doubt about it, but it has provoked a backlash, including this post: “Become the extremist Facebook warned you about!” One also has to wonder how Facebook will deal with individuals who complain about some other groups with a demonstrated history of promoting violence, including black lives matter, that are not white supremacist related. It will almost certainly do nothing, just like the federal government’s demonstrated “racially sensitive” supine response to a year of riot, burning, looting and homicide. In truth Americans are standing at the edge of a precipice with just one more “crisis” possibly coming that will tip everyone over the edge so we wind up with a totalitarian government which works hard to keep everyone safe by doing the opposite. We are almost there, and if you doubt it just go take a look at Facebook.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

French City Fair Drops Covid Measures In Victory For People Power!

By Richie Allen | July 7, 2021

On Friday last, the historic city of Tours in France opened its annual fair. It’s normally a very big deal. This year is even more special as the fair celebrates its centenary. However, organisers and traders were shocked on Friday, when hardly anyone turned up.

Attendees and staff were told that they would need a “sanitary pass” to attend. To get a pass, a visitor or worker needed to show proof of vaccination or take a PCR test at the entrance. Throughout Friday, the fair was a ghost town and only 4 per cent of the staff had shown up.

Panic ensued. Traders, having spent thousands of euros for their pitches started screaming bloody murder. Others started buying and selling products among themselves. It was grim. Punters were walking away in their thousands. No-one wanted anything to do with the PCR tests piled high at the entrances.

At the 11th hour, the city backed down and all restrictions were lifted. The traders had been bombarding the local authority all day with texts and emails, threatening retribution if the sanitary pass wasn’t kicked to the kerb.

The city blinked and the fair was mobbed over the rest of the weekend. The PCR tests are still rotting at the entrances. The people of Tours stood up.

Vive La France! That’s the way it’s done. That’s people power. The French never let you down. Let it be a lesson to the businesses of the UK and Ireland.

We are sick to the back teeth of this scamdemic. We want our lives back. We want to frequent shops, theaters, cafés, cinemas, bars and restaurants again. We’ll fill your tills.

Just remember, whether we have been jabbed or not is none of your business. Same goes for face muzzles. The ball is now firmly in your court. I can’t wait to see you again.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Global Vaccine Passports Have Arrived Courtesy of Google, EU

Image Credits: Google
Privacy To Go | July 8, 2021

On June 30th, 2021, the Google Developers blog announced the launch of vaccine passports in Android through its Passes API.

Less than 24 hours later, the European Union, long mired in a sea of national standards for digital jab records, rolled out its EU-wide vaccine passport.

Two completely different vaccine passport schemes unveiled on the same day, encompassing the whole of the Western world? What are the odds!

Exceedingly low, of course. This level of coordination belies yet another blitz in the ongoing rollout of a global, technofeudal control grid. The EU has arguably been at the forefront of this rollout – its standardized digital jab certificate is little more than an aggregator for the draconian technology now operating at the Nation-State level.

Adoption of this unified standard is already approaching 100% of EU Member States. Doublethink rhetoric of restoring the Schengen Area’s “freedom of movement” abounds, even as additional barriers to travel are erected.

In this sense, Google and the US are playing catch-up. While de facto vaccine passports have been implemented sparingly in places like New York, California, and Hawaii, an ever-expanding number of States have banned the notion outright.

Yet herein lies the insidiousness of the public-private partnership model: Technocrats can use governments where it suits them, corporations where it does not, and an increasingly bizarre fusion of the two where necessary. Even the propaganda rollout surrounding jab passports is bifurcated by this model, with the EU using official government bulletins while Google syndicates the news via trendy tech blogs.

And though many States in the US have passed legislation or executive action to curb the implementation of vaccine passports, Google could care less.

Google Passes: Vaccine passports for all, regulation be damned

Like the contact tracing API before it, political resistance alone is proving ineffective against the technological implements of the Great Reset. Even the staunchest State level opponents to this agenda have done nothing to halt the hyperactive Bluetooth surveillance grid running on Android and iOS devices – on the contrary, many have used taxpayer money to help finance its data harvesting operations.

Similar political action against digital vaccine passports will not halt Google’s rollout via the Passes API, either.

In fact, Google’s selection of the Passes API to implement vaccine records is telling in its own right, given the information it already stores: Boarding passes for airlines. Travel tickets. Event tickets.

While legislative action in States like Florida may allow you to attend a Miami Dolphins game with your biological privacy intact, the same may not be said for travel. The battle over Federalization of airline travel was lost on November 19th, 2001 with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, whose influence has been expanding ever since – the latest privacy affront being the REAL ID Act, which mandates highly insecure RFID technology for interstate air travel.

Even more dangerous are biometric companies with government contracts, like CLEAR, whose terminals are already widely used at TSA PreCheck terminals and event centers.

Google Passes and other digitized jab certificates are simply a competing product. One that is already in the pocket of 85% of Americans alone, with similar adoption levels in Europe.

Products marketed for “convenience” like TSA PreCheck biometrics will, over time, become mandatory – the REAL ID Act itself is a perfect example of this Fabian creep. Passed all the way back in 2005, its full implementation has been pushed back multiple times due to individual State holdouts, most recently until 2023.

But these delays are immaterial – the framework’s existence is all that matters, as despite not being enforced, privacy-violating RFID technologies are now the norm for US driver’s licenses. Jab certificates like Google Passes will be no different. Once in place, they will be utilized – if not immediately, then in the future.

Not only can the Passes API integrate with third-party pharmaceutical companies to track jab history, it is also capable of storing results from dubious PCR tests. This level of biodigital convergence sets an unsettling precedent, as Silicon Valley’s expectation is that your medical history will now be in your pocket at all times, integrated with their servers, and subject to whatever authority may ask for it.

Passes is not an isolated product, either – it’s a development suite within the broader Google Pay SDK.

There are technical reasons why Google may have chosen to use the Pay SDK as opposed to a health-focused API like Google Fit – QR code generation, limited use passes, and encrypted keyrings are already present in the Passes API. However, despite Google Pay’s scant consumer use at present, the long-term intent is crystal clear: Access to financial services and medical records will be intertwined.

In Closing

The post-2020 era has pushed humanity to the precipice of a longstanding dream of our would-be comptrollers. Whether it is Newt Gingrich’s Age of Transitions or the late Zbignew Brzezinski’s Between Two Ages, the kind of biodigital convergence represented by digitized medical passports has been at the forefront of the Technocratic agenda for decades.

As Silicon Valley attempts to bridge the “last mile” of mandated biometric surveillance, resistance to these aims on an individual level remain multivariate – ditch your smartphone, or at least utilize a privacy-respecting alternative that is incompatible with Google or iOS services. Starve the business of travel and entertainment industries that would see us become serfs in exchange for bread and circuses.

If you’re in the EU, use paper records instead of digital equivalents, or better yet, refuse to comply at all.

Educate well-meaning policymakers to the threats represented by the pseudo-private sector and impress upon them that the dangers of State surveillance are rapidly being outpaced by Terms and Conditions mandated by smartphone companies.

Neofeudal Technocracy is desperately trying to extract humanity’s consent to these draconian efforts before the next phase of the so-called Great Reset.

Don’t let them.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Stringency Index Is Not Associated With COVID-19 Death Rate Across US States, but IS Associated With Higher Unemployment

By Noah Carl  • Lockdown Sceptics • July 5, 2021

Some people oppose lockdown on principle, arguing that the government should never infringe on fundamental liberties like the freedom to leave our home or open our business, regardless of the impact this may have on disease transmission.

It’s a reasonable position, but I’m more drawn to the consequentialist case against lockdowns. This can be summed up as “benefits small, costs large”. In other words, even if lockdowns do reduce mortality from COVID-19 (under some circumstances), they don’t do so by anywhere near enough to justify their costs.

As I noted recently, several cost-benefit analyses of the UK’s lockdowns have been published, and each one concluded that the costs almost certainly outweighed the benefits. (Which may explain why the Government has thus far refrained from publishing any estimates itself.)

A rather elegant demonstration of the consequentialist case against lockdown was provided back in May, in the form of a Twitter thread by the data scientist Youyang Gu.

Comparing the 50 US states, Gu obtained data on the COVID-19 death rate, the change in unemployment rate, and the average Government Stringency Index. The latter is a measure of the number and severity of restrictions imposed during the course of the pandemic (school closures, stay-at-home orders, etc.). Gu’s two main charts are shown below:

He found that the Stringency Index was not associated with the COVID-19 death rate (left-hand chart), but was strongly associated with an increase in unemployment (right-hand chart). In other words, US states with longer and more stringent lockdowns haven’t had fewer COVID-19 deaths, but they have seen higher unemployment.

In the replies to Gu’s thread, some critics argued that restrictions were often imposed in response to large outbreaks, so you can’t assume that causation only goes from restrictions to deaths and unemployment. However, Gu points out that the relative ordering of restriction levels is fairly constant over time, so this is unlikely to be a major issue.

His analysis adds to a large body of evidence indicating that – for the vast majority of Western states – the benefits of lockdown were small, but the costs were very large. Gu’s thread is worth reading in full.

July 5, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Congressman Ken Buck challenges Zuckerberg on COVID censorship and more

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim the Net | July 4, 2021

In a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, GOP Rep. Ken Buck, from Colorado, criticized Facebook’s content moderation policies. Buck pointed out, among other things, how Facebook’s content moderation practices are biased against some opinions.

“During the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook removed more than 7 million posts that purportedly spread misinformation about the virus, and your company placed contextual notes on more than 98 million posts it deemed as potentially misleading,” Buck wrote. “Monitoring posts across Facebook and Instagram for misinformation about COVID has been an undoubtedly herculean task, but Facebook has vigorously taken on this challenge.”

Buck said that the platform censored content on the origins of the pandemic and the Hunter Biden story for “the supposed interest of public informational safety.”

“Your company is only able to selectively moderate content based on the political agenda of your company and its employees because Facebook possesses monopoly power over the market,” Buck wrote. He warned that “stifling ideas can backfire if it leads people to believe there’s a ‘real story’ that is being suppressed.’”

In both cases (the Hunter Biden story and the origins of the pandemic), “Facebook has had the embarrassing position of having to defend its censorship of legitimate content.” In recent months, more evidence has emerged that supports the lab leak theory. Additionally, “the unconditional erasure of reports that were damaging to the-candidate Joe Biden regarding his son, Hunter Biden, has since proved to be unfounded.”

Buck continued to point out that Facebook has been keen on censoring legal content, but has failed to remove “illegal and sexually abusive content.”

“The company appears to have an astonishing lack of concern about illegal and sexually abusive content that is rampantly permitted on your company’s platforms,” Buck wrote to Zuckerberg.

“Facebook has established a rigorous system for policing speech that is Constitutionally protected, yet your company’s failure to effectively screen illegal and exploitative content represents a misalignment of values that is deeply disconcerting.”

Buck’s letter also highlights Zuckerberg’s recent testimony in Congress about reforms to Section 230, expressing disapproval of Zuckerberg’s recommendation of what the Congressman described as “counterproductive actions.”

“Recently, you testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. In this hearing, you advocated for vaguely defined Section 230 reforms, saying that the law should ‘condition immunity for the larger platforms on having a generally effective system in place to moderate clearly illegal types of content,’” Buck wrote.

“Simply because a company has established a system to review potentially illegal content does not create any standard for ensuring such content is systematically removed from the platform,” he explained. “I agree with you that no system is perfect, but if Congress were to adopt your recommendation, it would codify the status quo and fail to address the issues that are pervasive across Facebook.”

The letter concluded with a plea to Zuckerberg: “I urge you to take necessary steps to ensure your platform is an open platform for the free and open exchange of ideas and an unwelcoming place for illegal and exploitative content.”

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

What I am seeing happening in the world of Covid now

By Meryl Nass, MD | July 4, 2021

1. A case was adjudicated in Weimar, Germany regarding the necessity of pandemic measures (and the actual occurrence of a dangerous pandemic) for children several months ago. The plaintiffs won, and the Weimar government was ordered to dismantle its lockdown and school-based measures.

Next, the judge was attacked, had electronics seized, was searched and possibly jailed. This was a couple of months ago.

This week, 14 locations related to 8 people (the judge, another judge who was a friend of the first judge, the expert witnesses, the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s partner were all searched and electronics were seized. The best guess is that the German government is on a fishing expedition to build a case against the judge, witnesses etc. for some illicit behavior. This is unprecedented lawlessness against the judicial system itself, in an attempt to over turn the first successful legal challenge to the pandemic response. Very important case. Consider supporting the defense of those who were attacked.

2. The paper I wrote about earlier, published last week in the Vaccines journal was retracted, with no methodologic criticism, no inaccuracy alleged, simply because it found that for every 3 lives saved by vaccination, 2 are lost due to adverse reactions to the vaccine.

3. The CDC’s ACIP meeting made clear that CDC intends to begin booster shots in the fall, even without supportive evidence that they are needed or even beneficial.

4. The Army Times and Navy Times have written that vaccinations for servicemembers will become mandatory in September, after the vaccines are fully licensed. One article claims only 15% of Army soldiers have taken the vaccine.

5. CDC and FDA have dug their heels in to cover up the adverse reactions and hide the databases they use to determine actual adverse event rates.

6. It is said that 500 colleges are requiring vaccinations of students and usually of staff as well. Legal proceedings against these mandates have been threatened at U California, U Connecticut, U Indiana and Rutgers–interestingly, all state universities.

7. People in Sydney, Australia went out to the parks and open areas yesterday despite instructions to stay home, enjoying the unseasonable warmth without masks. Will Australia’s impossible “zero covid” policy remain standing?

8. Governments appear to be testing the waters regarding what the population will tolerate vis a vis lockdown measures.

9. The NEW BUSINESS ITEM #33 at the National Education Association’s (NEA) virtual assembly, which called for forced covid testing and vaccination of all students and staff to reopen schools in September, was overwhelmingly defeated. One post on twitter said 81% of the delegates voted no.  It seems the crowd is realizing there is almost no Covid in the US.

10. Fourteen states offered lotteries up to 1 million dollars to encourage vaccinations. The NYT reports there was a short burst in vaccinations then it ended, and at least 2 states have given up the lottery plan as it failed to continue to produce the desired increase in vaccinations.

11. 47% of the total US population has been vaccinated. 8% more had just one dose, and most of them stopped after one. 67% of those over 18 have had at least one dose of vaccine; 58% have had both doses. It looks like this is where the numbers will stay. I think 40% of US adults are going to remained unvaccinated, or have decided to stop after one dose. How the government tries to corral this group into taking these dangerous vaccines will be interesting.

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Facebook blocks #Revolution hashtag on July 4th weekend

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim the Net | July 4, 2021

Facebook users are blocked from the hashtag #Revolution. The timing of the censorship is rather suspect considering this the 4th of July Weekend, a commemoration of the declaration of independence, which was brought about by the revolutionary wars.

If you search #Revolution on Facebook, you get the following message:

“Posts with #Revolution are temporarily hidden here. Some content in those posts goes against our Community Standards.”

Clicking the “Learn more” link on the warning redirects you to Facebook’s long page of Community Standards, not an explanation on why #Revolution is censored.

Even more confusing is that the platform allows you to include #Revolution in your post. What is the point of being allowed to type something you cannot see/search?

“Welcome to the re-education of America on Independence Day weekend…” Congressman Thomas Massie commented, showing the censorship.

I

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

YouTube suspends Right Side Broadcasting network prior to Trump rally

By Christina Maas | Reclaim the Net | July 3, 2021

Right Side Broadcasting Network has been announced that it has been banned from broadcasting on YouTube for seven days, just hours before a Trump rally that it planned to cover.

Also, many of the channel’s videos of President Donald Trump’s events and rallies have been deleted from its popular channel.

YouTube deleted videos that had several million views.

Footage of Trump at the first “Save America” rally in Ohio last week was deleted, as well as footage of his speech at the North Carolina GOP Convention.

YouTube says the videos violate its “Community Guidelines” of “spam, deceptive practices and scams,” an increasingly given reason when videos are deleted on the platform these days.

RSBN will be using its own app and Rumble to broadcast the July 3rd rally.

RSBN was founded in 2015 by Joe Seales. The conservative media company rose in popularity for live streaming Trump’s rallies on YouTube. The over 3,000 videos on RSBN’s YouTube channel have millions of views.

July 3, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »